Fortnightly Mailing

New data about Internet uptake in "Measuring the Information Society"

Via Clayton Wright, here are two excerpts from Measuring the Information Society [254 page PDF], produced by the International Telecommunication Union.

1. From the Forward by Brahima Sanou, Director, Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union:

"Over 250 million people came online over the last year, and almost 40 per cent of the world’s population will be using the Internet by end 2013. Mobile technology and services continue to be the key driver of the information society, and the number of mobilebroadband subscriptions is close to 2 billion. Mobile-broadband networks are allowing more people to connect to highspeed networks and benefit from a growing number of applications and services.

Clayton Wright's Educational Technology Conference Listing, January to June 2014

Clayton Wright - source

The 30th Educational Technology & Education Conferences Listing [28 kB DOC] has been published by Clayton Wright.

Here is Clayton's covering note to the list.

The 30^th edition of the conference list covers selected events that primarily focus on the use of technology in educational settings and on teaching, learning, and educational administration. Only listings until June 2014 are complete as dates, locations, or Internet addresses (URLs) were not available for a number of events held from July onward. In order to protect the privacy of individuals, only URLs are used in the listing as this enables readers of the list to obtain event information without submitting their e-mail addresses to anyone. A significant challenge during the assembly of this list is incomplete or conflicting information on websites and the lack of a link between conference websites from one year to the next.  

An explanation for the content and format of the list can be found at http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/2011/08/why-distribute-documents-in-ms-word-or-openoffice-for-an-international-audience/. A Word 2003 or an OpenOffice format is used to enable people who do not have access to Word 2007 (or higher version) and those with limited or high-cost Internet access to find a conference that is congruent with their interests or obtain conference abstracts or proceedings. 

Bizarre and unhelpful BBC blocking policy

Here are two views of how the URL http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131029-we-can-build-the-perfect-teacher looks from inside and outside the UK. With thanks to Jan Velterop for providing the second image, and Audrey Watters for tweeting the BBC piece (which she could see from the US).