Latest Economic Scapegoat: The Euro

The European continent's poor economic performance is being blamed on the Euro say's Floyd Norris in his article "Latest Economic Scapegoat: The Euro".

Italian cabinent ministers are suggesting a referendum to be held with regards to withdrawing from the European common currency. French and Dutch voters opposing the European constitution has brought many to think that euro will stop being the legal currency of much of Europe.

An interesting read for people to keep in touch with the political situation in Europe which will no doubt have a major affect on world economies and businesses worldwide. To read the article please click here.

See a Bubble?

It's a good time to be a financial-disaster writer say's the author Roger Lowenstein of the article "See a Bubble?".

Over the past half-century the number of bubbles and consequent meltdowns are enough to fill a proper business school syllabus. However not every bubble leads to a meltdown...

A must read article for all. To read the article you can click here.

Just a Thought

Over the past few days i have been thinking about the effects of informatin technology (IT) and the emergence of internet on students. As i was unable to get the full picture on how students have been affected, the idea of posting an article that might initiate in a public debate on this blog came about.

Well we can all agree that IT and the internet has provided us with lots of information for free of costs and therefore has enabled us to write great pieces of work, may they be homework, essays, dissertations or course works! They have also enabled us to learn agreat deal through alternative means.

However due to these technological breakthroughs the education systems have been on a decline. Once students used to do complicated calculations ( and still do in some parts of the world) single handedly! Now with the introduction of calculators and students have allowed themselves to rely on it so much that even simple calculations cannot be done without the use of calculators! Schools, Colleges and even Universities averages have been on a constant decline leading to grading criteria to be lowered over the years. Where once to achieve an 'A' grade used to be 90%, students are able to achieve this by getting 70% thesedays.

Above was just an example and im sure in some parts of the world my statement may not apply to. However, don't you agree that technology a powerful learning tool it may be, has also affected our minds to such an extent that it has lowered in some sence our education quantity as well as to some extent the quality levels?

Tomorrow's Education

Technology has become a very important part of our lives. Therefore it is time that we adopt technology in order to promote education as well as use technological means such as blogs as an educational tool and part of the curriculum.

Getting adapted to technology seems to be the hardest part for us, however, this could be overcome by awareness and understanding.

What about adoption? What does it do?

- media literacy
- course information management
- make those lessons extend - getting people involved on other levels (great for shy people and could help them to open up)
- summarise readings so they can participate more in class
- give project info
- group blogging
- user-centred learning

What can you do to get your students to blog:

- use only one publishing tool
- subscribe to their blogs
- comment on their posts at least once a week
- minimum post size
- require comments - make them interact with each other
- have guided questions
- determine grading on quantity or quality

What does this all mean for education?

- technology transformation
- blended classrooms
- distributed learning is possible
- need increased focus on interdisciplinary work - tech not just for geeks, soft skills not just for humanities students

SMS for Businesses?

As an organisation, the use of SMS may seem too innovative or unprofessional. So why are "forward-thinking" organisations throughout the world are welcoming SMS open-heartedly? What's so good about SMS? www.zyb.com has developed some reasons to use SMS in businesses.

The list they've come up with includes:

1. SMS is popular and well established
2. SMS' unique ability to reach anyone, anytime, anywhere
3. SMS is a great friendship-marketing tool
4. SMS is reliable
5. SMS is one of the most cost-effective methods of communication out there

The blog has also interestingly blamed neophobia for the reasons why businesses haven't started using sms.

For detailed information please visit their blog here.