Cindy, I appreciate the time you took to lay out your argument here. You have clarified your thoughts for me so that I understand better what you are saying. I have two kids in college and one soon to be. Believe me, I know all about tuition costs at US universities, and what students and their families have to do to pay for higher education these days. The bottom line though, is a student is motivated or not. A student who doesn't attend lectures because s/he can't get up in the morning is not likely to take advantage of a podcast to make up missing the lecture. Lets leave them out of the discussion! So, is the question, should money be spent in different ways - not to enhance technology for those who already have it, but to provide it to those who don't. Would you say that summarizes your questions? Or is that too simple?
Siobhan -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Cindy Lemcke-Hoong Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 6:00 AM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: RE: [DDN] podcast me a lecture Hello Siobhan, Claude >I sometimes work from home - not because I'm too lazy to go to the office, just the opposite. I >get a lot more done if i can stay home and work without interruption. And, yes, my employer >makes it easy for me to do this by providing me with tools like SameTime, VRVS, skype, >Yahoo chat, and more so that i can stay in touch with colleagues while i'm not in the office. I >attend virtual meetings, edit documents and have my documents edited by people who live in >other states, and more. I find this exciting. With respect to busy life which I once had with international travels, supporting Asian Markets from the US which meant time difference etc. Therefore I have no problem to understand what busy life is about. I used to work fulltime and study parttime, therefore I am not alien to try to squeeze 48 hours into 24 either. In fact for a period of at least a year I used to sleep only 3 hours. YET I attended almost every single lectures. BUT, being a student, I think we have to have some respect to our instructors/lecturers? I was both student and teacher in my life. Presently a student and soon to be a teacher again I hope. I have a hard time to understand all these fancy gadgets to aid students to study. It is true there is a few students that have both jobs and studies to deal with, but how many? And if a student is serious enough, don't you think this same student would do anything to be in the class unless of course this same person is thousands of miles away ... then we are talking about online learning, not PodCast for classroom learning. Furthermore what is learning? Do we learn just from the lecturing of the professor, or do we also learn how to socialize? ... this is going to go off to a different topic so I would stop here. Don't you agree sometime we are just so good in giving execuses for why we are not doing something or why we should have something? Furthermore we perhaps should start thinking about why tuition fees in average UK universities is going up, up and up? And what does that mean to average income parents who hope to send their kids to universities? All these additional cost add to operations cost just for a few students that NEED this kind of service, don't you think we MIGHT just deprive many more others? Even in the US, would sensible spending create more possibilities for other less fortunate students such as providing more student aids, on-campus jobs etc.? The way I see SOME universities is, they have to be in the forefront to attrack students, or perhaps to show they are abreast with high tech, forgetting the issue of EDUCATION. I have no problem to all these new gadgets that ease the life of many people, my arguement is: Is the applicaiton sensible? Are universities being lured into spending from the market? OR are we seriously needing all these gadgets to educate and learn? I have been a reader of this forum for many months now. Reading all these arguments on this forum, my inner voice is telling me as long as we do not LEARN how to appropriate funds, there will always be divide. Looking at the people who participate in this forum, GUESSING the larkers who read this forum, these are the questions I have for myself which I am going to harp AGAIN: I am here because I have some of the luxuries such as a PC, a DSL connection, a relatively active brain, a decent command of English, plus some education and work experience. BUT where are those people we are suppose to find a solution for? Why are they not here to speak for themselves? If they could would they be writing the same thoughts as I am? Would they be saying OH YES ... PodCast me a lecture or let's Skype tomorrow about the lectures, or whatever that we THINK is so useful to aid us in our busy life ? If we seriously want to bridge DD, perhaps we should go without all the convenience in our prosession for a month or two? Or perhaps spend more time staring at the beautiful colour TV screen that stare back at us from the refuge camps anywhere in the world? I know this email touches on many raw nerves, but I strongly believe we 'do not see' the problems precisely because we are surrounded by so many nice things to have. And we never stop thinking as the haves. When we FEEL like to not-haves, perhaps DD will have a chance. Cindy _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
