Poster Abstracts

This poster reflects on the cross-cultural communicative experiences of professors from South Africa and students from Sudan, during a two-year Internet-supported Masters’ course in Computer-Assisted Education. Four of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions were considered as categories of interpretation. The purpose of the research was to determine the extent to which Hofstede’s quantitative, functionalist research can be used as a basis for an essentially qualitative, radical humanist enquiry. While Hofstede’s work focuses on cultural differences, this article tries to uncover what commonalities were constructed in the process. It was found that dimensions such as power-distance and uncertainty avoidance tended to amplify one another, while together they resulted in a movement away from individualism towards collectivism. The dimensions of masculinity and femininity were not useful in explaining differences as the two meeting cultures were very close together, and both plotted in the middle of the dimension. It is suggested that more research be conducted to uncover the elements that are common to cultures, as emphasizing commonality seems more useful than trying to overcome differences.

Almost every upper secondary school in Norway has a number of local secondary schools where they recruit their students. In the project we use this local group of schools to involve students at both levels in a science project. We focus especially on new renewable energy. The partners are official institutions like Norwegian Centre for Science Education, Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, The Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB), The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) and Statkraft (the third largest producer of electric hydropower in the Nordic region).

The main idea in the project is to create enthusiasm among the students through:

• Teaching physics themselves
  Students from upper secondary school will be teachers for the students in secondary school, for example that students organize an energy day with many activities (see http://www.naturfagsenteret.no/energi/Steinkjer.pdf )
• The use of modern weather stations
  The upper secondary schools form a network of weather stations throughout Norway. The data from these stations can be used in different subjects like science, physics, mathematics and geography. Look at http://home.no.net/lotveita/metramme.htm

The weather station network is pictured on the right.

The first project period will last from autumn 2005 to spring 2010. At the moment there are 40 schools and about 90 teachers involved.

Home page: http://www.naturfagsenteret.no/energi.html

Finnfjordbotn upper secondary school is planning to start a two years demanding pre-university course of study for highly motivated students aged 16-19. The programme has earned a reputation for rigorous assessment, giving IB diploma holders access to the world’s leading university. The teaching language is English, and the criteria for access are good marks from first year, general studies in upper secondary school. We plan to start from August 2007.

The IB studies include a higher level of languages, mathematics, experimental sciences and social science than in the national system. Voluntary social work is part of the curriculum. The IB goal is to educate the whole person and fostering a more compassionate and active citizen. About 1233 schools in 116 countries teach the programme.

Finnfjordbotn will be the first school in the Northern Norway teaching this programme, and being a boarding school we can have students from the whole Barents region.

Our industry asks for this programme. We need better competence in foreign languages, mathematics, natural sciences and intercultural learning for the future of the petroleum industry, the marine sector and tourism.

We prepare the programme in cooperation with the industry and we will get into partnership with companies. The students will get the possibility to do a study inside a company, and the industry will get in contact with hardworking and competent students for later recruiting. We think the IB will be useful for developing the level of competence in the north.

The SeisSchool Norway project, and its recent planned extensions to NW Russia and Balkan countries, aims to create interest in geoscience and seismology among high school students. Similar projects have been initiated in several other countries under the general umbrella EduSeis. Few of them appear to have been very successful and reasons appear to be a) lack of professional seismic equipment installed on school premises and b) data access and analysis tools remain clumsy. We try to incorporate such constructive features in our own designed 3-component school seismograph the Cossack Ranger II consisting of three parts: seismometers, A/D converter and data logger. The seismometer is an inexpensive geophone (GS-11D of 4.5 Hz), and an advanced (own design) geophone-preamplifier-A/D-converter system with approximately flat acceleration response in the o.45 – 45 Hz range. Preference is for installations in schools with permanent Internet access – we use the Internet clock for an universal timing accuracy of +/- 0.01 sec. The cost of a Cossack Ranger II seismograph is only around 2000 Euro and hence affordable for many schools. Equally important is that their earthquake recordings are suitable for basic seismological research ventures. Currently the school stations operate in a trigger mode and detected earthquake records are stored in an organized manner using a database management system. Every school could extract their own recordings and also that of other schools in near real time via Internet and non-copyrighted software. We use an OCTAVE –type software package for display and processing of the school recordings albeit most of our application schemes are not as yet fully developed.

Naturally, students need a more comprehensive seismological/geoscience background than that stemming from either from our Web pages and their textbooks and lectures so we are creating a number of so-called electronic learning modules with many animations for providing such knowledge. The first and very successful one is The Dynamic Earth (themes: continental drift & plate tectonics) and another one Seismic Record Analysis (themes: seismic waves, propagation and their processing). We also encourage students in ‘our’ schools to participate in Young Scientists competition in Norway; so far 2 of our teams was among the very best ones with poster presentations in Oslo. In another case, our student team had a whole page presentation in the local newspaper.

Factors contributing to the success of our SeisSchool project is i) instrumentation is professional, ii) easy access and processing feasible and iii) earthquake occurrences and catastrophes are fascinating phenomenon catching the attention of even bored high school students. In our planned extension to Balkan countries, a new challenge emerge namely as a mean for mitigating earthquake hazards and informing the public at large on proper preventive steps to be taken if disasters strike.

Using Internet for data transfer operational costs of SeisSchool networks are cheap and affordable. However, software developments and archives of various kinds should be organized internationally and is now in under considerations. Teachers would play a key role as team visits to other schools and countries would clearly attract even more students to SeisSchool activities.

A vast number of IST projects have already praised the visibility and attention they received after being published by IST results. “The article is excellent. It has already been cited by several Web reporters dealing with medical innovations,” Andy Wolff from Saliwell said.

For 3 years IST results has been covering stories on successful achievements of IST projects, displaying their technological outcomes within the context of a potential market uptake. The service was set up by the European Commission to facilitate access and visibility to emerging products. The EU has already invested more than 7 billion euros in ICT research, allowing the development of many thousands innovations. It is a free service for society and industry, offering in-depth feature articles, contextual news and project events. Since its start, it attracts an ever-increasing number of technology users, investors and media from all market sectors. Articles have been republished in prominent publications like Financial Times, New Scientist, Wired and ZDNet, providing valuable publicity for the featured projects.

With a broad audience consulting the service daily in order to identify best practices, new project partners or commercialisation and investment opportunities, IST Results is demonstrating that communicating science can enhance awareness on ICT progress and offer business opportunities for research and industry.

This poster presents the content and the services offered by the Xplora portal, the new European gateway for science education, launched in 2005, within the European Science Education Initiative". The portal, aimed at teachers and pupils, intends to propose an innovative use of ICT in science education balancing information services with communication, networking and exploration activities.

The crisis in following scientific careers and the lack of scientists in the European context is quite recognized. In this context, the use of ICT could ensure some improvements, offering to pupils and teachers tools for more active learning science while giving them networking and cooperation potential to communicate with peers and scientists.

The services offered on the Xplora portal can be categorized in:

• information content: news, information about events and seminars, lessons and laboratory activities, presentation about open source software;
• communication services: “online discussions with experts” on several science topics;
• exploration services: registered users, may participate to the “community” activities of the portal. Teachers and students can also take part to web experiments, database and collaborative projects.

The experience of the Xplora portal indicates that an interactive approach in using ICT in science education may facilitate pupils and teachers involvment in the learning process.

Austria ia a Eu member-state since 1994 and has a high participation rate in the EU-scientific programmes. Austria has a wide range of research institutions for scientists to work and to fullfill the demands of the EU–research norms, including the code of conduct of researchers. Austria is a small nation in the World-Wide-Web and has all kind of possibilities for work in the net. The addresses in the speech are the most available ones for the demands of Norwegian people in Austria. Austria holds a bilateral relationship to Norway in the field of Oil and ICE research and in the field of tourism to the Poles. The Norwegian science is famous in Austria, as many feminist researchers, mean women novels and natural scienes are read from Norway. In the field of communication only the electronic communication is used. Austria is a communicative partner in the field of communication and holds a wide net overr TV and radio stations to distribute results of sciences. Austria participates in all programmes in the EU, including the calls for third countries, and competes in all programmes for third countries. Due to the neutral tradition of Austria bilateral programmes are run with Switzerland, Norway and Russia. Austria offers also the stable tradition of culture an music to Norwegians and is a silent place to stay. Austria has formulated also the 7 the framework of research and will participate in the field of health, consumer protection, nanotechnologies and social sciences like the last 10 years.