ICT and the challenge of multicultural society

Some experts in Internet and communication studies argue that a positive interaction among the different groups in a plural society can be facilitated through ICT.

The assumption is based on the ability of the Internet to eliminate ethnic stereotupes and other primordial sentiments when the interaction first started.

Development and the Usage of ICT and Internet in Indonesia

Internet usage in Indonesia today has developed very rapidly. boosted by some inventions in hardware and information technology.

Internet service providers began to stare at the magic of mobile phones, notebooks and tablets to market their internet service. they offer a low price to get more customers, The Indonesian Association of Internet Kiosk declared that there was a 19% decrease in people accessing Internet from their kiosks.

Although stereotypes are not always true in reality, they are continuously reproduced by people. Defining multiculturalism as a pursuit for equality and tolerance, stereotypes are subject in social interaction

ICT in the service of multiculturalism

There is a Contact Hypothesis that search the conditions for successful contact between two or more groups with different cultures.

1. Equal-group status within the situation
2. Common goals
3. Intergroup cooperation
4. Institutional goals

Pettigrew and Tropp stipulated that one of the basic requirements for successful contact between cultures is cooperation and collaboration

 

Problems applying the contact hypothesis

1. Logistic of group meetings
2. The need to  meet with another group from a nearby or easily accessible geographical area
3. Growing transportation cost

OICH 

The Online Inter-Group Contact Hypothesis is based on an extension of the contact hypothesis trying to adapt the original contact with the new technologies.

In order to this model to work is needed certain conditions:

• Be fully supported 
• Involve collaboration
• Deal with general subjects and not with conflicts
• Be be based on a need for participant collaboration rather than competition 
• Ensure participants have equal status
• Progress gradually

The role of computer skills in the formation of modern translator's professional competence

 

Translation tools:

• Machine translation (MT). 

• Computer assisted translation (CAT) is a form of language translation in which a human translator uses softwares to facilitate the translation process, it is called machine assisted and must not be confused with the machine translator.

• Terminology management systems (TMS) allow translators to create and maintain a database of terminology (termbase).

Benefits of using ICT:

• They enhance and encourage terminological consistency and it they also improve quality of translation texts.
• Prevent translators from undertaking the same terminological searches.
• Translation process is accelerated due to reuse of previously translated terminology.

Localization software involves making the product linguistically and culturally appropriate for a target country. It stands for combination of language and technology in order to produce a product that can cross both cultural and linguistic barriers.

Barriers to teaching computer skills to future translators

Professional translation need humanistic and technological profile. Students are deficient in ICT skills and their chances to prosper decrease considerably.

ICT education transformation, and economic development: an analysis of the US nations educational technologiy plan

NETO calls for an education transformation in the US making reccomendations for the use of technology so teacher and students could have access  and broadband connectivity.

This transformation is an urgent need in order to change the education if they want to keep continue to be competitive in the global economy.

5 sorts of research are reviewed:
1. Macroeconomic research
2. Microeconomic research
3. Labor market and workforce studies
4. Studies showing patterns of the everyday ICT use in America life
5. Studies that show that American school are not using ICT in a significant way

• Macroeconomic
• Studies show that US economy has undergone profound changes over the past several decades. Many of these changes have been fostered by the dramatic growth in ICT.

56% domestic products
57% :32% manufacturing ans construction and 35% production of information products

• Microeconomic trends: changes in business organization and practices.

Three sets of industries in the US
1. ICT producing industries  acceleration of 3.7 percentage point
2. ICT using industries  increase - 2.0 percentage point
3. other industries average - 4.0 percentage points

Black & Lynch made a connection between ICT use and productivity. The found that productivity increases by using ICT.

• Labor market trend: need for a different skill set

A need of increased education and skill on labor force

As ICT was taken up by firms in the 1970s computers substituted  workers
confirminming the impact that ict have on the nature of work in new technology

• Social trend everyday ICT practices

The use of ICT across the country as ha a significant social impact on America. American youth had become experienced and highly skilled technology users.

• Educational trends

Given the massive changes in the economy ans society, the significant technological resources available in American homes the preparation for the youth in information economy has become better in the twenty/first century.

Translation and technologie

Translation services has increased in the last few years and new technological devices can be applied in this field.

Translation tools they are relatively good at finding concordances but they need to begin to accommodate specific needs of a particular language.

Adoption of information and communication technologies

1. Documents production activities (presentations software and publishing software)
2. Information search and retrieval activities (dictionaries and glossaries, terminology data banks)
3. Translation creation activities (computer-aid translation)
4. Communicative activities (electronic mail, most of translation use it)
5. Marketing and work procurement activities used on-line translation marketplaces of marketing and or for work procurement
business management activities spreadsheet packages database packages

Attitude towards ICT

• Largely positive
• Brought time saving benefits helped them provide higher quality services to their clients improve their effectiveness
• Invest technology that would help improve their efficiency and productivity as translators embark on a freelance career.

Services whit everything: The ICT enabled digital transformation of services

Nowadays, traditional boundaries are breaking down between products and services all around the world. Here are some information about

An example of this is the algorithmic revolution. A services can be transformed into formalizable, codificable, computable process like banks ATM.

Firms see services as the solution to create defensible position in markets. Firms' hardware offerings are increasingly by iCT-enabled services offering

Products themselves can be transformed into services or portal of services when delivered via ICT networks.

The services spectrum

• Irreducible service: relay on humans to deliver services.
• Hybrid service: relays on a combination of human and electronic tools.
• Automated service: are fully automated bu electronic devices.

As ICT tools has become more sophisticated producing goods and services is one the most important expression of technology.The primary drivers of development computing storage are software and networking but even companies that produce this are big and powerful, they have to learn how to maintain advantage, creating new functionality of the service or software.

Globalization in not just worldwide converge, is innovation.

UNESCO ICT competency framework for teachers

 

The use of ICT depends on the subject, the learning objective and the nature of the students.

The UNESCO and the CISCO worked together and identified the  competences teachers should develop:

• Support the professional development of children, young people and adults.
• Encourage cross/cultural understanding.
• Promote democracy and increase participation.
• Support economic development

 

Factors of economic growth

• Capital depending: workforce
• Higher quality labor: more knowledgeable workforce
• Technology innovation: create, distribute and share.

Approaches of framework

• Technology literacy
• Knowledge deepending
• Knowledge creation:

There are six aspects of a teacher's work

1. Understanding ICT in education

2. Curriculum ans assessment

3. Pedagogy

4. ICT

5. Organisation and administration

6. Teacher professional learning

Education reforms

The use of new technologies implies new teachers roles, new pedagogies and approaches. Teachers have to develop the ability to structure the learning environment.

An effective use of ICT for education and learning by drawing on worldwide knowledge reasearch and experience

The use of ICT cause an effect in teaching and learning and this process could be separated into:

• Education

• Reading

• Writing

• Numeracy

The use of ICT has the potential to motivate people, innovate the planning of activities, increases the flexibility of access to education and can change the view of information from different perspectives.

Processes, performance drivers ans ICT tools in human resources management

There are 6 keys of quality of an HR (human resource) manager

• Problem solving 
• Organization 
• Ethics 
• Leadership
• Communication 
• Expertise

The tasks they have to do are various:

• Planning
• Interviewing and recruiting the personal  
• Developed programs 
• Motivate 
• Evaluation of tasks
• Establishing tools
• Administrative processes.

The concept of performance drivers has been discussed by many authors like Kaplan, Groundy and Brown. They mark activities or actions that increase potential to achieve higher level of corporate performance.
They help a company in the use of ICT and tell them which are better.

The new ICT and translation competence

There are two more devices to improve your translations: the machine translation wich analyzes  a source of text and translate it, and the other is the computer-assisted translation (CAT) that helps a human translator create a target text.

First of all, lets check what  competence-translation are. The competence-translation concept was named like this because of the similarities it has with the Chomsky's linguistic competence and performance concepts.

The technology can be applied in every field you can think about, and translation is one of those fields.  Nowadays to be a good translator it is necessary to use the new technological devices.

Some of the ICT to translate are the Internet, the corpus linguistic and the concordance generator programs.

With the Internet we search for data, the latest publications and we can even communicate with other experts. There are two types of corpora linguistics, the monolingual corpora and the bilingual corpora. And the concordance generators programs help us find how many times a concept appears in a text.

All these ICT  makes the job easier in any of the translations phases.

• The reception phase: fully understanding of the text.
• The transfer phase: a deep cross-cultural undesrtanding.
• The formulation phase: resolve challenges regarding the production of the target language text.

The role of ICT sector in expanding economic opportunity

In the 80's the PTTS (post, telephone and telegraph services) were the most important and expensive devices. In the past 20  years the new innovations had appeared and they are advancing rapidly. 

The use of ICT in modern economic reduce transactions and improve productivity.

There are also some economic opportunity obstacles:

• Geographic isolation 

• Lack of competition and high prices for consumer 

• Lack of competition ans low prices for producers

• Political voice

They make  companies  help people to increase its opportunities, productivity, information and access to services.
An example of this are the low-income households and small and médium- sized enterprises.

For this to happen it is very important the innovations.

Business strategies for the ICT sector in expanding economic opportunity

ICT companies can expand economic by getting those technologies out and make new content applications and services.
There are two strategies for this:

• Horizontal deepending : adding new constumers
• Vertical deepending: grow markets by technology services that increase productivity

ICT for translation and interpretation

    

 

The Paris declaration in 2010 anticipate a shortage  of qualified linguists in european institutions in the next ten years. 

 What is the solutions to this? An education that embrace theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge.

 Experience is vital in the learning process not only the theoretical part.  It is important to learn in context and the experience has to be authentic, otherwise it would not be a truly learning.

There are some professionals that developed a method to this kind of learning like John Dewey, Graham Gibbs and David A. Kolb.
Professional experience enables lecturers to include specific difficulties in class exercises.
 

 

 

There are different ICT that can be applied to this field like the wiki tools.
The wiki tools  can support a collaborative constructions of knowledge groups wich can be created in the VLE (virtual learning environment)and  this could be also use for educational purposes.
It can help enabling a reflexive and critical learning experience and to make learners play roles ans consider different perspectives.

Valentine's Day

       The rise of Internet popularity at the turn of the millennium is creating new traditions. Millions of people use, every year, digital means of creating and sending Valentine's Day greeting messages such as e-cards, love cupons or printable greeting cards. An estimated 15 million e-valentines were sent in 2010.

       Is an annual holiday celebrated on February 14. It is named like that bcause of the saint  Valentinus who married couples of christian soldiers that was forbidden in that time, he was persecuted and during his imprisonment healed the daughter of his jailer and before his execution, he wrote her a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell.

        In 18th-century England, it evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionary and sending greeting cards.

        Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shape outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid.

       Here in Mexico people celebrate Valentine's Day giving present, cards, goint to restaurants, hotels, to the movies and the theater.

Factors affecting teachers use of information and communication technology

The use of ICT tools in a classroom, makes things easy and can solve problems that appear in the class. It can be useful not only for teachers but also for the students.

         In the last twenty years, investigations had been made in order to see how much of the population has access to computers, like the research by Albrini in 2006 or the one by Bauer and Kenton in 2005 to study about technology integration in schools.

             The main problem appears to be that teachers does not want to use ICT, yet not for lack of interest but for a lack of technical support like NCATE reported in 1997, study that showed teachers did not used them because they did not know how or where to get help  when somenting went wrong.


            Teacher's training programs often focu more on basic literacy skills ans less on the integrated use of ICT. It is time to complement with effective training programs and motivate teachers to upgrade and update their skills, abilities and knowledge.

             In  1996 Kirby Mckenzie developed a model for integrating technology into teachers training programs, it consist into three stages:

• Planning
• Implementation phase
• Evaluation

This plan also identified what should be taught, how and which technology.

              Fortunately, nowadays there are more teachers and students using ICT and let's just hope they take advantage of them.

Information and communications technology

The are 4 C's of ICT:

• Computing
• Connectivity
• Content
• Capacity

      The ICT involve a lot of fields we can think about and it has some goals for the future. For example in education, ICT can increase the quality of educational materials and better trained teachers; in a more social aspect, it can help eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and promote gender equality with programs to educate the population. It can help reduce child mortality, improve maternal health by increasing access to reproductive health information and combat diseases.

   There are certain objectives society should reach related to ICT like connect villages, universities, libraries, health centers, adapt primary and secondary schools, ensure population have access and encourage development of content. Unfortunately there are some challenges that this technologies face:

• Awareness
• Availability
• Accessibility
• Afford-ability

       "Digital divides are not just the result of economic differences in access to technologies but also in cultural capacity and political will to apply these technologies for development impact". It is a problem the lack of resources in some countries to apply these technologies in schools or other places, but it does not mean that those who can afford it are using them in a right way or in all its potential.

          We need to transform complex technologies into user-friendly systems that is why the Internet of the future must be: trustworthy, reliable, globally inclusive, easy to use, affordable, able to change rapidly, innovative and capable of significant expansion transparently and well managed.

Electronic Age (1946-1957)

Characterized by electronic devices and advent of solid state devices. It is divided into three periods:

• Transistors period: in 1947 the first full transistor computer foundation of every electronic device is lightweight and faster.
• Integrated circuits period: it revolutionized the use of computers and electronic devices faster operating speed by Jack Kilby.
• Computers processor period: fast-paced development and innovation in personal computing productivity entertainment communication world wide web by Pier Giorgo and Don Estridge.

Questions:

In what year was the transistor invented? In the year of 1947
Which was the first "complete turing" computer? Who created it? Mark 1was the first created by IBM.
Which are the main events of the electronic era?  The transistor, integrated circuits and the computer processor.
In what era we are now? Microelectronic era

Electromechanical Age (1840-1940)

This era starts when man discovers a way in which the information can be converted to electrical impulses and how to control and use the electricity.

     The first electronic calculating device was the Colossus machine  used by the british and and germans.

       Then we have the beginnings of telecommunications like:

Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, the first source of stores electricity in the 8th century.

The telegraph made by Samuel F. J. Morse in 1832.

The radiotelegraph created by Marchese Guglielmo Marconi

The telephone and radio, on 1876 the first successful bi-directional transmission of clear speech took place.

And finally between the years of 1939-1944 the United States financed the first "complete turing" computer called Mark 1.

Mechanical Age (1450-1840)

In this period a lot of inventions came out, even that these are not capable of do multiple tasks as the ones we use today. Here are some of those inventions:

Gutenberg made the movable metal-type printing process

Jhon Napier invented the slide rule

Blase pascal invented a mechanical calculation machine called the pascaline and a german mathematician the stepped reckoner.

A man called Charles Babbage created the designed of the  first modern computer.

History of information technology

 

Information technology has become a part of our daily life, so is important to know the process it required in order to this technology become what it is today.

Pre mechanical Age (3000B.C-1450A.D)

   The man started communicate and managed information through petroglyphs, pictographs and ideographs. Then the sumerians invented the cuneiform script. 

Finally the phoenicians developed a writing system that used symbols to represent sounds.

After man developed writing it started to form libraries and books.

He also create the first numeric systems and the first information processor is the abacus created by the chinese.

El uso inteligente de las TIC

Las TIC y la brecha digital: su impacto en la sociedad de México

El mundo ha ido desarrollándose, y una expresión de esto son las tecnologías de información y comunicación (TIC) que son una herramienta maravillosa que nos ayuda en la creación, almacenamiento, intercambio y procesamiento de información. Las TIC son útiles en áreas de la economía, la salud, la política, la administración pública, la educación, investigación, así como en la cultura, la sociedad e incluso el ámbito religioso.

Sin embargo, este desarrollo no se da uniformemente en el planeta, habiendo dos obstáculos que menciona el texto. En primer lugar se crea una brecha digital, lo que significa que mientras unos tienen la posibilidad de acceso a las TIC, otros carecen de ella, provocando una división semejante a la de ricos y pobres con la información y por lo tanto el conocimiento. Existen tres tipos de brecha digital: la de acceso, la de uso y la de calidad.

El texto menciona también una brecha cognitiva, en la cual, si bien se tiene acceso a la tecnología, no se llega a utilizar de forma adecuada y eficiente la información que ésta proporciona. El enfrentamiento de estos dos problemas es fundamental, ya que al ser estas herramientas parte de un gran avance en el desarrollo de las sociedades, aquellas que no tengan el alcance o no sepan aprovecharlas se irán rezagando a comparación de las que sí tengan acceso.

El caso de México no es de los mejores. De acuerdo a las estadísticas que maneja el texto, menos de la mitad de la población tiene acceso a algún tipo de TIC. Para tratar de resolver esto se han elaborado iniciativas que promuevan el uso eficiente tanto de las TIC como la información que de ellas se rescata ya que como dice el texto: “el acceso a la información es un paso adelante; no obstante, el paso más importante es transformar la información, en conocimiento”

En la clase se comentaron varios puntos del texto, comenzando por la utilidad de las TIC. Después de un pequeño debate se concluyó que sin lugar a dudas son una herramienta que ha venido a revolucionar el mundo en cada aspecto de la vida cotidiana, aunque si no le damos el uso correcto de nada sirve tener los mejores y más nuevos equipos.

Para esto, es necesario una capacitación sobre el uso de los dispositivos y además para romper con la brecha cognitiva. Esto debe de suceder desde pequeños creando buenos hábitos, ya que es muy fácil desperdiciar todo el potencial que estas herramientas nos ofrecen ya sea en el ámbito académico, laboral o personal.