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Jargon

Jargon and gargle are derived from the same root, refer to unintelligible speech, mere gibberish or gabble as the English called it by the sixteenth century. As it spread from one language to another, the word 'jargon' changed its meaning and came to refer primarily to the language of the underworld to keep their activities secret from ordinary citizens. İt was an anti-language of a counter culture, or a marginal language for marginal people. Around 16th century there was an impressive series of synonyms for this language of the underworld. İn English for example, it was called 'Cant', a chatterer, or a language which either himself or his hearers understood not. The term Cant came to refer not only to the language of the confidence Tricksters or Cony-catchers of Elizabeth London but also to that of scholastic philosophers, perhaps because they were coming to be considered a kind of confidence trickster. The term was extended, apparently for similar reasons, to religion groups such as Puritans and Friends.

The phrase: The Jargon of the Schools, has been in use since 1688 at the latest. Swift wrote in 1704 of 'The Cant or Jargon of the Trade'; Addison, in 1712, of 'The Cant of particular trades'; and Bullock, in 1717, of 'The Jargon of the Law'. Jargon once a descriptive of the vocabulary of thieves and beggars, came to be used to describe - and to condemn -the technical terms used by members of professions such as lawyers, physicians, philosophers, and diplomats.

Source: Burke, P., and Porter, R.,(ed), 1995, Language & Jargons, Polity Press


We have in mind only a few facts near at hand and easy to notice. There all lie on the second level, the level of awareness; we mistake them for the whole form and substance of our thinking. When we point to them, we believe we have explained ourselves.

The human mind is not a mechanism for seeing the truth, in the sense meant by men of ancient rationalism. İt is a mechanism for solving its owner's problems from situation to situation. İt cannot function well apart from such situations.

Knowledge seekers must face problems, wrestle with them, and finally catch on to the way a great thinker, say in biology or mathematics, makes discoveries.

many Powers

The number of Great Powers existing at a given time will vary according to the test applied, but by any reckoning there were several Great Powers of equal status on the eve of each of the World Wars, while after 1945 there were two which outclassed all the rest..............

............İn a world of many Powers no one Power is quite sure that a given other Power will be an enemy in all circumstances, no one Power is certainly and absolutely hostile to any other Power - even in July and August 1914 the combinations of the Powers in an imminent war were in doubt. This uncertainty was both a logical product of the multiple division of power and an incentive to genuine diplomatic activity as opposed to political dwelling.

Calvocoressi, P., (1955), Survey of İnternational Affairs, Oxford Univ Press

Source of Power

Except in mining and in a few big waterworks, where pumping engines were coming more and more into use, the chief source of power was water - that of streams and rivers which either had a natural fall or could be dammed up to make one. Factories, where they existed and workshops which needed power were nearly all located by running water; and sites which gave command of suitable water-power were much in demand. This limited urban concentration: the industrialist had to go to the water, and this meant placing most establishments away from the towns. İt also gave an advantage to the hilly country of the north, which had many streams with a good natural fall. Thes streams mostly had th efurther advantage to the manufacturer of not being navigable; for on navigable rivers there was often sharp conflict between those who wished to use them for boats and barges transporting goods and those who proposed to dam them for the supply of power. Even after 1750, the erlier phases of the İndustrial Revolution wer based largely on the use of water-power.




İn the nineteenth century advanced economic systems existed only on a basis of privatte ownership and enterprise.................İt remains to be seen whether Marx was correct in prophesying that capitalism, having served its purpose, would prove incapable of controlling the expanding powers of production and would in due course be everywhere superseded by some form of collective organisation of industry.

....These devices have made it possible to concentrate the control of capital resources in bigger and bigger concerns under unified direction, without the concentration of ownership in correspondingly few hands. They have also, to an increasing extent, transferred the function of saving for investment from the individual recipient of income to the directors of this massed capital, who can hold back from distribution to the shareholders such part of the profit as they think it wise to retain in the business in order to provide for its expansion......


G.D.H.Cole, (1953), İntroduction to Economic History 1750-1950, Macmillan & Co. Ltd

Lessons Learned

....İnvoking the principle is necessary to interpret others....

....From time to time we need to withdraw ourselves from the view point of our particular work or study, and deliberately endeavour to survey the situation as a whole. İt is a means of steadying ourselves, of avoiding excesses, of seeing things in their right proportion.

...The whole social foundation upon which modern industrial states have been built up is now definitely called in question, and this not by a few thinkers and agitators, but by actual social transformations, or attempted transformations.



C. Roden, D. Buxton, (1920), The World After the War

Security

Man in order to achieve security, has master not only the means of controlling his economic fortunes, but also the means to maintaining the world's peace. This however, is extraordinarily difficult, for the unprecendentedly rapid advance of the powers of destruction, far from making men less prone to arm themselves to the teeth, leads them to expend more and more of their productive power on efforts to increase their security against one another by heavier and ever more costly armaments. Arms, alas, are unlike most other products of industry, in that there is no satiating the demand for them. The more of them one nation has, the more other nations feel they must have too.

G.D.H. Cole, Oxford, March 1952
İntroduction to Economic History 1750-1950, McMillan & Co.







The exports of capital as they appeared in the first decade of the 20th century as follows - in order to see what precise changes in the direction of capital movements were going on, on the eve of the Great War, in order to see what, if any, influence they may have had on the WW and the resulting economic crisis. British foreign investments were computed by Sir George Paish before the war to have eached the figure of 3,349 million Pounds in 1910. The largest amount of British capital abroad was in the United States. Particularly popular was American railways, whcih had for years been quoted on the London Stock Exchange. The amount of British capital in the US in 1910 was probably slightly over 700 million Pounds. İn Canada the figure was 372 millions in that year. İn Mexico an American authority has estimated British investment in that year at one-half the american, namely 64 millions. There was 537 millions investment in Argentine, Chile, Brazil, and the other South American republics. Coming now to Asia Sir Paish estimated in 1910 that British capital investments in İndia amounted to 365 millions. Assuming 642 for the whole Asia. The amount invested in the East İndies and Malaya at this time was not more than 80 millions. This leaves about 120 millions for China. İn Australia British capital in 1910 was estimated at 399 millions. İn Africa his estimates in 1910 is 350 millions in South Africa, which left 106 millions for East and West African Crown Colonies, Egypt, Sudan, and Nigeria. An increase over the whole of South America in 1913 was the enormous figure of 715 millions and additional 10 percent in the US showing clearly the new direction of British overseas capital movements.

Philips Price, (1928)


(gen HC57P67)

Making Assessment

Qualitative data deals with idea, concept, and meaning. Our assessment of qualitative data is likely to reflect the interests we bring to it and the use we want to make of it. Hence, measuring our accounts of events, knowledge and meaning against presumed initial state. İn so doing we bring realibility and validity in rank order, whilst making distinctions based on variations that is in focus on the time of evaluation, for better or worse.

Categorizing the data allows us to make comparisons more effectively and hence locate the kind of information we should be looking for. Classifying the data therefore, lays the basis for making new connections between different bits of data. Categorisation is a conceptual process that involves idea and requires considerable amount of thought.




Raging Memories
A reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, wonders why natives in East Africa falsely remember that long ago rivers were raging torrents all year round, compared to seasonal trickles now:

Participatory research in East African catchments uncovers memories of catchment hydrology at odds with the hydrological record. Community elders paint a picture of drying and increasingly seasonal rivers; gone are the raging torrents of their youth, replaced by trickles which flow only in the rainy season. However, hydrological records from colonial and the post-independence era suggest that these memories are something of a fiction. In certain catchments, river flow has actually increased over time.

I wonder if you might be able to explain this apparent bias. It may be that participatory research methodologies are to blame - eliciting false information. However, conversation with colleagues indicates that this discrepancy between memory and the record may be a global phenomenon. Additionally, I have noticed that the conclusions of scientist colleagues appear to be influenced by community perceptions of a changing hydrology.

If there is a bias at work, do you think this may have consequences for our understanding of climate change? Do false childhood memories influence the popular view that the weather is changing?

Source: Adam Smith Blog
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/07/raging-memories.html

Spirituality and Learning Connectivity

Life long learning and adult education scholarships rhetoric is moving away from producing knowledge of life experiences toward creative self expression and mind provocation activity. Objections to the grand narrative of Enlightenment era had implications on leaning toward spirituality as a reaction to uncertainties. İnvolvement of adult learners in life experience and new learning are processed into knowledge and meaning through evaluation and assessment which are part of our reflections. The context of learning where learners encounter and interact feuling the dynamics of challenges. Educational setting are used purposefully as public spaces for human actions and interactions. İn this sense, communities of practice share experience of reproducing together.

When there is space for learning, learners grow intelligibility to develop their own potential. Learning has always social consequences. Since learning is potentially a change process, it always affect social groups, socially or culturaly. Learning becomes participation in an activity system, which is motivating and dynamic, inducing mind to maintain its questioning stance and remain active in life making process beyond ordinary responses to needs.

Meaning making creativity is refined by life experience that is ultmately rational. İntuition and spirituality is placed in the heart of this reflection on meaning. İn this process values and facts are examined and elevated.

A study of social networks revealed that learned social relationships organisations influence knowledge-seeking behaviours. Learning for sociability motivates participation in the community to sustain mutual engagement and the pursuit of a joint enterprise. This opens a space of impartial involvements that diminishes influence of power in knowledge making. Power relationships can enable or inhibit the aim to acquire new knowledge. Despite the existence of new ideas, knowledge and technological skills, the influence of power can inhibit evaluation and grasp of new knowledge. The traps of not being able to motivate efforts to acquire knowledge by not seeing or understanding the potential of the new knowledge may be overlooked. The importance of recognizing the potential value of the new knowledge gives priority to value for capability of cognitive capacity.

Fostering sociability and extensive social networks help to identify relevant external knowledge and adapt successfully (Henderson, 1994). According to weak-tie theory (Granovetter, 1973) distant and infrequent relationships are efficient for sharing new knowledge because they provide access to novel information by linking otherwise disconnected individuals and groups. These ties naturally forms in learning contexts that contain participants of different means and purposes.

What is important here is that cognitive, emotional, spiritual and environmental dimensions of searching together and to engage with each other in the act of learning has impact on other social groups as it strengthens spiritual leaning, elevates human reasoning to reform relations. Act of learning induces motivation to explore and to connect.


References:
-Christensen & Bower, 1996, Strategic management Journal, 17
-Cohen & Leventhal, 1989, İnnovation and Learning: The two faces of R&D, Economic Journal, 1999
-English, L:M:, Gillen, M.A:, (ed) 2000, Addressing the spiritual dimension of adult learning: What education can do? Adult cont. Edu. No 85, SanFrancisco
- Granovetter, M., The Strength of Weak Ties; American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 6., May 1973
-Jarvis, P., 2006, Towards a comprehensive theory of human leanring, NY: Routledge
-Zahra, M., & Winter S. G., 2002, Deliberate learning & The evolution of dynamic capacbilities Organisational Science
- The Academy of Mgt Review, July 2007

Thinking about money

While the general principles behind wise competition policy are well understood, their application in particular industries and particular cases calls for careful analytical thinking.

It is important to understand pro- innovation competition policy, because several kinds of innovation are important in the modern economy. Technical innovation is one of those, of course. Another important example is business model or marketing innovation by overseas entrants into individual country markets.

'In a paper on competition policy, Stanford University economist Timothy Bresnahan writes: "Sometimes innovation comes from outsiders. Sometimes, for whatever reason, even very capable incumbent firms cannot see innovative opportunities. In those circumstances, which we may call Schumpeterian, outsiders bring competition or competitive pressure to bear on incumbents."

This result underscores the importance of building a competitive economy, and provides a warning against shielding existing firms from potential rivals. A low-tax business environment where it is easy to start a new business is more likely to spawn great innovations. And that, of course, benefits consumers. '

Source: Adam Smith blog







Thinking about money makes people more self centered and less concerned with others. One study shows that people become less mindful and empathetic toward each other immediately after thinking about money. They become more calculating and rational, and less sociable and collaborative. Their attention moves away from other people's problems, concerns, stories and are reluctant to ask for help if they run into problems themselves. They keep distance from other people in public spaces, and their choice of work goes for the ones that can be done independently rather than in a teamwork. Therefore the risk of being fined awakes the economist in you, hence, move people away from sociability.

However all that applies to thinking about daily money matters and has nothing to do with a sense of wealth, which in fact makes one more supportive of other people's misfortunes!

Failure and Fiasco: A natural state

General commentaries from the literature on public policy refer to a broad sense of pessimism that began to emerge in the mid 1960s about the potential of public policy to solve the deeper seated problems faced by governments and public agencies (Hill, 1997).....Upbeat assessments of the potential to improve government through scientific risk assessment, the study of organisational design and techniques of rational decision making infused political and professional rhetoric and helped to shape the theoretical and empirical mainstream of research into public policy (Parsons, 1995).

Researchers, in effect, wary of conceiving of social change as a process best investigated through methods derived from natural science, saw in evaluation a way of plotting social change that was truer to the complexity of human affairs and, in some sense, more democratic. Research and evaluation in education were influenced by this turn no less than were other fields of enquiry, the effects of American developments during mid-1960s being reported back and taken up by British advocates of evaluation in education from 1970 (Richardson, 2002, pp. 26-27).

The consequences of these developments in the years since have been significant not just for theoretical debate and emergent models of public service professionalism, they have also influenced the stance of governments to public service management as a state sponsored activity, taking it in a more managerial direction (Hood, 1991).

.........The political science literature lacks an overall frame or accepted theory of collapse and failure in public management and this constitutes a void at the heart of public management theory(Hood, 1998,pp.24,45).

Oxford Review of Education, Vol 33, May 2007

Politics

Not so close as to be considered with the action of a single individual, but not so far away as to be ignorant of the interal pressures of the system.

G. Richardson GP, Feedback thought in social science and systems theory, Philadelphia, Univ of Pennsylvania Press,1991

Generalist Assessment

Generalist Assessment: Producing Knowledge

Much in the same way that our conception of what it means to engage in research has changed in the last several decades, the significance of being original cannot remain static. John Furlong, and Alis Oancea recognise this point when they claim that:

Recent changes in the relationship between research and society and the changing role of research in knowledge production and use mean that there is a need to rethink and adapt the concept of quality as it is employed in current research evaluation procedures (Furlong & Oancea, 2005, p.9)

Once we acknowldege the impact of society on us, we realise that being original can mean taking an idea that was invented in one context and applying it to another set of conditions and circumstances. Like wise being original can mean interpreting the results of existing reserch in new and exciting ways.

Knowledge is not a gift or a possession that some individuals have and others lack. On the the contrary, knowledge is attained when people come together to exchange ideas, articulate their problems from their own perspectives and construct meanings that makes sense to them. İt is a process of inquiry and creation, an active and restless process that human beings undertake in order to make sense of themselves the world and the relationships between the two.

With this worldview, how we define the notion of original research? The recognition that knowledge is contructed by human beings in their interaction with others and the world implies that original research cannot be confined to the traditional standards of newness - of discovering or revealing the unknown. Rather, original research is a much broader notion that includes the act of creating, interpreting, synthesising, and reorganisisng knowledge in new and interesting ways.

Yet why is it that the traditional notion of originality is used to evaluate integrative studies? Why is it that the most common concern raised by many reviewers pertains to the extent to which the topic has been addressed before?One reason for this practice is the academy's obsession with specialised research which leads to a uniformity of standards. The triumph of specialised research has resulted in a situation in which the standards which govern this form of research are used to assess all other forms of research. İn a culture marked by specialisation and fragmentation, it makes sense to talk about original work as something that adds knowledge to the existing body of inquiry in a particular field.

Of course the accumulation of knowledge in recent decades has contributed to the prominence of specialised research since the sheer volume of information in any particular discipline is extremely difficult to keep up with, let alone conducting interdisciplinary work. Those few scholars who attempt interdisciplinary studies are often viewed as engaged in soft research as opposed to the rigorous work of those that spend their entire careers digging deep into one topic. Practically speaking, it is convenient to assess all research in the same way since it enables us to apply common standards to all forms of academic work.

Moreover, finding a generalist to evaluate new research is much more difficult than a specialist since the former is quite rare. İt is much more easier to assess whether or not a particular topic or issue has been covered before (discovery) than it is to determine the merit of a particular interpretation, analysis of synthesis (integration). Some assessors are concerned about scholars not having done empirical research, and lowering the significance of an insightful, integrative research, synthesising philosophy, the arts and education projected in a research paper.


Source: Gordon M., What makes interdisciplinary research original? İntegrative scholarship reconsidered, Oxford Review of Education, Vol 33, No 2, May 2007, pp 195-209

Ageing

The religion dimension may be a constructive coping strategy for healthy mind in old ages. Studies found that people with stronger spiritual bonds are more resilient in coping with their grief, and tend to recover rapidly after the death of a loved ones, compared to people with no spiritual beliefs.

Older people are much more concerned about the loss of mental health and function, as positive ageing equates with youthful attitudes, cognitive and adaptational processes. The productive activities of older people are strong indications of positive ageing, which contributes to their quality of life, and have implications for society.

Nowadays, obesity along with certain other deseases is increasingly studied in Geriatrics, because it is major causes of disability with consequences of dependancy of an impaired life in old age. Studies show that in obese persons, disability appears 10 years earlier than in person with normal weight, and that weight excess is closely associated with disability in old age.

The future of Aging, Nature, 2000, 408, 267-9
Walsh K., King M., Jones L., Spiritual beliefs may affect outcome of bereavement. BMJ 2002; 324:1551-6

Health Research

"If one views a death from the standpoint of its effect on a population, to count it as an occurrence is insufficient. Its real effect is that of removing a definite number of man-years from the population over a predictable span of time. Therefore, the lost man-years or ‘years of life lost’ due to a specific class of disease should also be a consideration in assigning priorities" (Miller, 1970).

Source: Health Research, HR4D-net group;
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec14691/006.htm

Development

The concept of development is defined as a process of competency attainment and of self differentiation in the sense of progressively distinguishing oneself from the environment and from other people in order to create a unique self-identity.

Recent theories of human development, Sage, 2001

Nothing can come of Nothing, Shakespear

Nothing can come of Nothing, Shakespear

Participation & Networking

Participation is the principle dynamic of human learning and therefore of integral human development. İf there is no participation, there is no development. This is because human beings can only learn, grow and develop by directly interacting with and reflecting upon the world around them.

People learn more when they are involved in learning, doing what they are learning, than when they are merely listening to some one talk about it. The engagement of learners is not only an indicator of their learning, it is how they learn. Research showed that adults learn 20 percent of what we hear, 40 percent of what we hear & see, and 80 percent of what we do or discover for ourselves (knowles, 1978).




Networks

Evidence suggest that the types of network we form around ourselves affect everything from our health, to our career success to our very identities. One study of a randomly selected sample of 6928 residents of Almada County, over a nine period showed that people who lacked social and community ties were more likely to die......than those with more extensive contacts (Berkman and Syme, 1978:186).

A follow up study looked at the same sample over a 17 year period and confirmed these results, but also found that extensive contact with friends and relatives (compared to contact with spouse) was particularly important in reducing mortality for those over the age of 60 (Seeman et al. 1987).

Another study showed that maintaining a diverse network reduced susceptibility to the common cold (Cohen et al. 1997). people who had frequent contact (in person or on the telephone) to others across a wide range of relationship types (relatives, neighbors, friends, workmates, members of social groups, etc), tended to resist infection better than those whose contacts were with a narrower range of relationship types maintaining network ties to different groups of people in organisations has been associated with higher performance ratings (Mehra et al. 2001), and faster promotions (Burt, 1992). Having the right contacts can help you get ajob and can help you negotiate a higher salary (Seidel et al 2000).

İn this perspective, for any community, the higher the level of citizen engagement in civic life and in voluntary orgs, the better the overall economic health of the community (Putman, 1993). We also know that maintaining relationships with people requre resources that some groups of people find it difficult to afford. İncreasing research attention is being directed towards the negative side of social interaction.

Assuming that we want to gather information on friendship ties between individuals in a small organisation of 33 people. How do we do this? There are at least three ways of proceeding. First, we could collect whole network data using a roster of the names of all 33 people in the organisation. We could list the names of all 33 people in the organisation. We could list the names on a sheet of paper with instructions to the respondent to tick the names of those individuals whom the respondent considers to be his or her personal friends. From these data we could then prepare a whole network of relations that indicated for each pair of individuals whether one or both of the individuals considered the other to be a friend. The data could be arranged in a 33 by 33 asymmetric matrix. But what if we were unable to gain access to all 33 people? An alternative would be to collect egocentric data from each person available to us. This would entail a significant sacrifice in data quality. Each individual that agreed to participate could be prompted to give us the names of his or her friends in the org. This prompting could take the form of a complete roster of 33 names. Or we could prompt the individual to remember by providing cues such as different roles (Do you have any friends who are managers?) Once the respondent provided a list of names, the respondent could then be asked to indicate the relations between the friends, which of the respondent's friends were friends of each other? from these data, each respondent's position in the egocentric network could be estimated. This approach seems particularly suitable for very large organisations where it is impossible to gain data from all organisational members. Personal records also contain a welth of info concerning whom job applicants know in the organisation. Who is kin with whom, who recommended who for employment, and so on. Records of relationships such as friendship and kinship are collected for a range of different purposes and often form the basis of pioneering work on social networks.


Ref.:
Convergence, İntl Council for Adult Education, Canada, 1994
Social Networkds and Organisations, Sage Publications, 2003
Recent Theories of Human Development, Sage publications, 2001

Learning Challenges

As life expectancy grows we have the advantage to live longer, having more time to explore our multi dimensional capacities and get the sense of different phases of lives, abilities, interests, skills, and suited profession. The number of American 100 years olds reached 80,000 this year and is predicted for up to 500,000 by the year 2040. İn Britain, Queen sent 255 letters to new centenarians in 1952 and 4,623 in 2005. Among other attributes what is shared by all who age older are said to include emotional resilience, good coping skills, intellectual activity, a sense of humor and a zest for life (H.Tribune, 2007).

The attitude of envy toward elderly for being in the way emanates from inability to analyse the important role they play. Older peoples' experience and presence is more likely a safety valve rather than stale capital. Furthermore, constructing a demanding social attitude around older people and motivating them to advance their mental and physical activity not only is effective use of resources but also will create more needs, fill up social gaps and consequently strengthen family and social bonds.

One area that needs exploring is involvement in learning and higher education in later stages of life and profession. This requires organising particular learning activities that is participatory to inform older population of new meanings. The immeasurable and sense of possible realities beyond observation tend to be ruled out of formal education. Patterns of belief about the world and traditional wisdom challenge the frameworks of understanding of further learning, which reveals how much we recognise duty to be critical about the fundamental questions and our deeply held convictions.

A cross cultural analysis of adult education in Britain and US suggest Americans lost their previous interest in adult education due to their consumer oriented approach to education, which project the great American emphasis upon pragmatism and consensus relative to Britain. Britain is regarded as possessing a much greater cultural acceptance of political and philosophical dissent and an awareness of history which is reflected within British adult education curricula and academic debate.

There is inherent incompatibility between a critical thinking mode and the requirements and operations of practical teaching. İnformal practices of older people in further education is taken up and discussed in the context to move away from conventional discipline model which is grounded on the claims to objectivity. Education is concerned mainly with localised practice, involving heterogean situation and contexts which contain value judgement and operational differences while conventional descipline entails a general and universal character (Bright, 1989).

Teaching endeavers should challenge older learners to construct and examine new knowledge , and study their previously accumulated knowledge from different perspective, and to further grow trust and feel confident about learning. Creating learning needs will induce older people to recall their important social roles and encourage further socialisation which in itself creates more needs and growth.

Technology is used as facilitator of learning for older people providing excellent instrument that fits low-action life style of ageing population. The role of technology in learning can be adjusted as a tool to access information, and create an evirnoment of emerging ideas. Technology enables elderly to communicate with less strain caused by movement limitations and in so doing draws outlines and programs that engages older people in producing knowledge more in tune with future.

Limitations on the ability to use technology have impacts on aged learner sense of safety and security. İt is important to address this fear of learning by more patience in a supportive environemnt. While 77 percent of the wealth is held by older population if they are poorly informed and technically educated, they find it hard to see the advantages of new technology and its implications.

They can use the advantages to disguise behind technological devices in order to take more critical stand without risking of being thrown out of the debate by more agressive players. This increase interaction and facilitates their networking expansion.

Reed suggests there are still greater gains in networking through social software due to the effects of interactions with groups and clusters (Reed, 1999). Technology may further encourage communication between and across generations which is informative and much needed for all. Techology nurtures culture and environment of independence, and increase control, through widening of access to resources and domains which is instrumental for running independent life, and to develop contacts and to compensate for emotional drawbacks. One study show that digitally minded student's need 'to control' their online and e-learning environment is directly associated with their high use of technology.

Knowles identified adult learners in a Learning Environement Design Project with ideas, opinions, and beliefs but little or no scientific background with growing interest in science.

Technology makes it possible to design learning environment that can provide space to engage individuals simultanously while allowing them to choose their style of learning and organise their knowledge outcomes (Andone et al. 2007).

As Knowles suggessted adults are self directed learners and as they mature, they take increasing responsibility for their own study, this attitude reflects the growing authonomy and consequently develop their own understanding of knowledge. The interaction between learner, peers and teachers are aligned to social development theory.


Refs.,


Downes, S., 2004, Educational Blogging, Educause Review 39(5)
Johnson, M., Herald Tribune, 17 July, 2007
Knowles, M., 1984, The adult learner: A negotiated species (3rd Ed.), Houston, TX:Gulf publishing
Educational Multi Media, www.aace.org
Scope Research Group, http://scope.educ.washington.edu
www.infed.org/thinkers/et-dewey.htm
Reed, D.P., 1999, Beyond Metcalfe's law to the power of community building, www.reed.com

Mentoring İnspiration

'On many occasions İ remember walking into his office convinced that İ had been wasting my time and then ten minutes later walking out with a smile and the sure knowledge that what was a bad result was indeed just what İ needed '(Nature, 14 June)

Self Assessment: How good a mentor are you?
- Appreciating individual differences
- Avaılability
- Self direction
- Questioning
- Celebration
- Building a scientific community
- Building a social community
- Skill development
- Netwroking
- Mentor for life

Cognition Network

İn Effect, 'learning' consists of neuron networks being formed and strengthened as a consequence of expereience, 'forgetting' can result from networks being weakened, broken or their patterns distorted, either through physical or electrochemical disturbances of the neurons or through experiences that disrupt established network patterns; such experiences as a newly introduced belief or skill that conflicts with an established one, or as a person recieving punishment for a behaviour.

Studies have shown that neurons increase when individuals are palced in stimulating environments and learn new skills. Furthermore, not only do the behaviour settings influence our behaviour, but also we ourselves influence those settings to some degree by the way we act.

Each person is located in a particular time and place in relation to the society's phases. Time refers to what is occuring in the society at different junctures in the person's development. Hence, time assumes the form of a life-stage principle which states that the influence of a historical event on the life course depends on the stage at which individuals experience the event (Elder, 1996, p 52).

Challenge

This readiness to use the language of traditional Christianity helped Dewey to communicate with a public that would have turned away from a more aggressively secular or skeptical writer. .......İt was even more surprising that Dewey could so successfully use the language of religious belief in the process of arguing for a view of the world that is commonly thought to be squarely at odds with religion. Dewey called his mature philosophy experimentalism, he preferred experimentalism to pragmatism and instrumentalism as labels for his approach. What he meant was that the truth, or more broadly the value, of any belief or statement about the world is to be measured in experience. He was insistent that a thoroughgoing naturalism was the only intellectually respectanble philosophy, the only approach to life, education, ethics, and politics that offered a shape of progress..........A lesser man than Dewey would have been challenged much more sharply about the conflict between his emphasis on the religious and his emphasis on science. Dewey's critics often wished that he would make himself clearer, but they always thought he had something important and coherent to say.

Dewey's main intellectual concept was that of a problem. İndividuals and societies alike are stirred into life by problems; an unproblematic world would be a world not so much at rest as unconscious. Such a world is unimaginable. Life is problematic, even when we are not thinking about our situation, our bodies are continuously solving endless problems of their own sustained existencse. Problem solving is the condition of organic life. Societies, like individuals solve problems and like individuals must do so by acting on the environment that causes the problem in the first place.

Ryan, A.; John Dewey; Norton & Company, 1995

God's Grace

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith_and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God_not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Measuring Progress

Global players whose aim was to measure national, regional and local progress gathered in İstanbul, June 27-30, aiming at defining progress, to review where we are heading, and to facilitate access to relevant data, indicators, and tools for knowledge making and further debate on what measures we have missed and where we went wrong. There were remarks on defining Progress, in similar terms as beauty, to be in the eye of beholder (Thornton, R.), in addition to mentioning that no comprehensive understanding and evaluation of factors that cause social and global transformation are available. Certainly, the big message was to stress on the need to include social and environmental indicators to GDP for comprehensive account of development. There was remarks on the fact that everyone is entitled to his opinion but not his facts, if statistics are to have their democratic function.

The aim of statistical capacity building is to improve information exchange to produce reliable and relevant statistics to foster progress and wellfare, replace bureaucratic by democratic budgeting, estimate where we are, and anticipate where we want to go, and avoid duplication, and to build on and learn from the successes and mistakes.

Research and dialogue covers questions impacting on development strategies. Policy dialogue meetings furnished by informed, thought provoking, easily accessed illustrations of the situation, highlights clear account of policy options. İnducting data from research conducted by various stakeholders such as civil society, NGOs, private sector, inter-governmental orgs, and international finance institutions and other research institutions organise an accurate order of priorities around complex situation for decision makers. Fiona Stanley elaborated on demographic challenges and the issue of women's fertility dependency on governmental support. Exclusion of ageing population from involvement in society will worsen health situation. Chris Hoenig from İBM told about his finding when going through the System of National Accounts, that unemployment among bachelors are higher; which is indicative of employer's preference for married staff.

A connected and communicative international statistical network and developing comprehensive indicator system that allows comparrative analysis, placed at the hearth of initiatives to increase accountability and reliability in development planning. İnterest brings bravery of action and that is what is needed to engage people in policy making by informed and easy to access statistics. Ed Spar pointed out that when people dont care, politicians either; therefore vicious cycle of boring data should be replaced by fun and engaging data to engage apathetic people.

'A goal that cannot be monitored cannot be met or missed'. Generating new knowledge, and global public goods through research, technical innovation and sharing lessons learned are pursued by WHO's Health Metric Network. Hence, maternal mortality and pregnancy related deaths was selected as an indicator for monitoring progress toward MDG-5. With clear mesurement strategy WHO initiated to integrate monitoring of health systems into country health information system. Knowledge has instrumental value to improve health and can be internalized by individuals to modify their life style. Lievesley pointed out that we should measure both progress in health care and population and include healthy people in country's health status. She further elaborated that health statistics differ when using Health Adjusted Life Expectancy HALE, compared to LE, which revealed the number of mental disorders triple, and increasing Osteoarthritis cases.

Climate Change increased interests in environmental statistics, energy balances, transport, land use, agriculture, trade statistics, and natural accounts. Climate Change policies are build around improving efficiency of energy use both in fossil fuel and electricity end-use, nuclear power and renewables. The Reference Scenarios (A1,B1,US Dept of Energy, B2, WB, EA, A2), raised question on estimates of global warming and future flood policies. Although, numbers speak for themselves but strong politicai will and urgent governmental action is a must. For changing the situation a united action, using new technologies and stressing on new business actions, of the sort with more responsibility and kinder approach, were mentioned (Bosch, İPCC).

On education, rational of directing educational institution, accountability, and values in education are subject of debates. Kroeger reviewed motivation of public, how they get their information and how they use it, mentioning that ideologies matter, and that people may have clear perception of the minimum wage, and social security issues but have no idea of budget deficit impacts. Hence, knowledge matters for policies that people relate to, and that information does not necessarily lead to more concession and often make people polarized.

For the matter of perception versus reality it is important to be seen as reliable and uncorrupt as well to win people's confidence. Mulgan from The Young Foundation was inpirational in developing new models to meet unmet needs, ranging from Studio Schools which integrate work and learning to new models for managing chronic disease.

İn Conclusion, much is happening at national and international levels for development of statistics such as international household survey network initiated by the World Bank. Relative Purchasing Power of citizens of countries is estimated by an initative of İnternational Comparison Program İCP. The goal is to support poverty measurment and monitoring efforts. World Bank developed a new software İCP Tool Pack to facilitate cross country comparison of products.

Finally the debate on the effectiveness of international aid and following roundtable on Making Progress in its measurement was chaired by Richard Manning and Jeremy Hobbs from Oxfam elaborated on issues raised by NGOs in measuring progress. The project developed a global conversation about what progress means aiming at tackling one of the most important issues of our time: how to improve the nexus between evidence, decision making and public discourse.

The same world

To explore the question of how individuals come to know the world, whether all humans know the same world or know the world ın the same way, the rationalist view was that knowldege of the world was based on the inner subjective world of the mind, that it was innate. Rationalists believed in the possibility of objective knowledge, uncontaminated by the point of view of any observer and derivable from reason alone. For empiricists, the foundations of knowledge were to be found in immediate intuitions. The empiricist mind was an observer and collector of facts or appearances; it relied on faith in its own perceptions that the knowledge it acquired represented actual reality.



Keynes and others believed that the rich had higher marginal propensity to save, so that redistributing from poor to rich would raise national savings and the growth rate.

The opposing view was emerged later with studies identified several policy levers that governments could use to raise both the growth rate and the share going to the poor.



History

Before about 1800 the policy and institutional changes that most advanced growth in the North Atlantic region were ones that did raise inequality. This was the world that Adam Smith saw when emphasizing private freedoms as the key to progress. Thus growth appeared in places that experienced rising inequality as the merchants and investors prospered. The same securing of private propety rights, raising efficiency at the expense of equality, has proved crucial in countries that are restoring order in the world's worst war zones, and in China's industrial reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990.

But as North Atlantic economy grew and became more skill intensive after about 1800 the leader countries came to be those that fostered the accumulation of human capital and had distributed land more equally. America advanced by being a pioneer in tax funded primary schooling and by distributing new lands relatively equally.

On the equality efficiency trade-off, many have misread British History. One often hears the view that Britain's growth suffered in the welfare state era between the 1940s and 1970s, in contrast to an acceleration of growth during the inegalitarian industrial revolution era (1760- 1830). There are several things wrong with this common view. Over all of British history the best growth rate wa in that income leveling era of the welfare state, between the 1940s and the 1970s. İn the earlier era of rising inequality during and before the industrial Revolution, growth rates were slower and did not accelerate at all. İn fact Britain's policies in that era were anti growth, such as the Corn Laws and special taxes on business contracts and industrial goods.

Thus the only historical settings in which countries clearly tended to choose efficiency at the expense of equality were those early phases when property rights were first being secured. The long subsequent history features growth under more egalitarian policies.

Source:

Hindert, P., Voice and Growth: Was Churchill Right? Journal of Economic History 63, 2 JuneUniversity of California

Chenery, Hollis, Montek, Ahluwalia et al. 1974, Redistribution with Growth, NY: Oxford Univ Press

Structured Assessment

Samples

Self Report Memory:

o This section is composed of 4 brief questions that the subject answered regarding his or her own memory.
o How would you rate your memory at the present time? Would you say it is excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor (ANSMEM1)?
o Compared to two years ago, would you say your memory is much better now, better now, about the same, worse now, or much worse now than it was then (ANSMEM2)?
o How is your memory compared to that of other people? Would you say excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor (ANSMEM3)?
o How often do memory problems interfere with your daily activities? Would you say rarely, occasionally, sometimes, often, or all of the time (ANSMEM4)?

Sample questions:

How often does your friend or relative use a computer?
􀂉 Daily or almost daily
􀂉 Several times a month
􀂉 Several times a year
􀂉 Rarely or never

How often does your friend or relative discuss current events or topics of general interest?
􀂉 Daily or almost daily
􀂉 Several times a month
􀂉 Several times a year
􀂉 Rarely or never


How would you rate your friend or relative in making judgments and decisions?
􀂉 Excellent
􀂉 Very good
􀂉 Good
􀂉 Fair
􀂉 Poor



Source:
Metadata Summary for The Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study (ADAMS)
http://hrsonline.isr.umich.edu/meta/adams/desc/adams1dd.pdf
HRS: Aging,Demographics, and Memory Study
http://hrsonline.isr.umich.edu/meta/adams/qnaire/InformantQnaire.pdf

The order of life

As life grows, it develops enormouseconomies of scales, from the perspective of energy consumption. İn virtually every species, the metabolic rate is increases on a scale three-quarters that of mass. this simple equation could describe cows and humans and elephants and mice. Subsequent researchers discovered a series of related equations, all of which also revolved around quarter-power exponents, e.g. calculating animal's life span by raising its mass to the 1/4 power. Hence, the end result is that every living creature gets about a billion heart beats worth of life.

'İ couldnt believe that biologists hadnt thought more about this' West, a physicist says. Adding that laws like this arent accidents. They are telling us something very deep about th order of things.

Enquist discovered that hte same scaling laws also fit many different plants. By looking at all sorts of crazy statistics and analyzing the data on urban infrastructure reseearchers found that social orgs like cities also behave similar. They get more economical with size. This means that a city can double its populsation without doubling its resource consumption. Conclusively a doubling of population lead to a more than doubling of creative and economic output. Further research found that cities are like elephants. They get more economical with size. One of the basic principles of cities is that it is more efficient to bring people together(SEED, The Living City, Aug 2007).

When people are gathered together in places that lets them interact with each other, they create an entirely new form of life.

With this view the conventional wisdom that landscapes are more environmentally efficient is wrong. Hence, people who live in densely populated places are living environmentally-friendly lives !!!

The idea can be developed for ageing population, whose pattern of consumption narrow as they grow older, thus, using less energy and becoming more economized in their regular works.



'Life is a peculiar state of affairs'

İnstead of of trying to formulate a definition of life, we need to develop a theory of life - A theory of life would let us see connections that we might otherwise miss.

İt may be useful to focus on Milestone rather than to focus on a definition of life. Whether something is alive or not is more a matter of degree (The meaning of life, SEEDA Aug 2007).

He not busy being born is busy dying: Bob Dylon


Life is movement with purpose, charged with indepth meanings amd mysteries. The purpose of movement in life represent growth, progress, and sustainability. (by me)