Our chapter "Using social software to support digital learning communities in higher education" will be published in February 2009 in The Handbook of Research on Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies. This book examines the impact of new technologies and explores how social software and developing community ontologies are challenging the way we operate in a connected, distributed, and increasingly performative space.

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We are getting quite a bit of interest in our sms work in Cambodia using FrontlineSMS. Ken Banks has written about it in Cambodian farmers turn to their phone, MobileActive.org in Frontline SMS Review and Internet & Democracy Project at Harvard University in Frontline SMS Launches New Version, Continues to Foster Change.

In late November 2008 we presented our ideas to the Northwest Agricutural Marketing Association (Battambang, Cambodia) for the development of a sms-based field communications and information system (full presentation).

Following on from the success of the 6th International Conference on Imagination and Education, held in Canberra, Australia, 29-31 January 2008, we are hereby inviting conference participants and other scholars to contribute to an edited book on imaginative education. The book, which will be published by esteemed publisher, Peter Lang, will be a manifestation of insights gained from the conference and a significant contribution to an expanding international literature on the role of imagination in educational theory and practice. We invite theoretical and empirical work that will follow the main conference tracks of:

• Evaluating imaginative learning


• Imagination in science and/or mathematics teaching


• Imagination in arts and/or humanities


• Imagination across the curriculum


• Research and theory in imaginative education


• Unexplored territories and new frontiers

Within these tracks authors might consider:

• Implications for changes in the curriculum, teaching practices, and the institution of the school.


• Explication of innovative educational theories such as IE and its relationship to detailed practical methods


• A consideration of how teaching and research are changed by IE; for example, on research methodology and curriculum studies


• Understanding how IE can help address ecological sustainability, and cultural and social diversity


• How social and educational theory might strengthen the decision-making capacity of organizations and communities and increase the range of conceivable alternatives to present systems.


• Exploring the interplay of language, imagination, community, and schooling


• How aspects of IE philosophies can be used to powerfully inspire students to make a difference in their world.

Submission

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit, on or before 20 December 2008, a 2 to 3 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by 28 February 2009 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by 1 June 2009. All submitted chapters will be reviewed by at least two reviewers on a blind review basis.

Important Dates

Manuscript proposal for book chapter (2-3 pages) - 20 December 2008 Notification to authors of submitted chapters - 28 February 2009 Chapters for Review - 1 May, 2009 Reviews back to authors - 30 June, 2009 Revised Chapters back from authors - 29 August, 2009 Final notification to the authors - 1 October, 2009 Final camera-ready chapters from authors - 1 November, 2009 Proposals

Please email manuscript proposals to: Thomas.Nielsen@canberra.edu.au

More information

A detailed plan of the book and the larger context for its significance can be viewed at https://irnie.pbwiki.com/Book-Proposal

In the last few months we have had chapters published in the following new Information Science Reference books from IGI Global.

From the Imaginative Education Research Group

"You are now leaving Flatland. Why we need imagination in education" is a short article written by IERG Australian Associates, Drs. Robert Fitzgerald and Thomas Nielsen and their PhD student, Bronwen Haralambous.

The article is an introduction to the importance of imagination and emotional engagement in Education. Referencing a variety of sources such as Ken Wilber, brain reseachers Antonio Damasio and Joseph LeDoux, as well as Rudolf Steiner and Patti Lather, this article touches on the sound reasoning behind re-visioning education with imagination and emotional engagement as cornerstones of the educational enterprise.

This article was first published in Professional Educator, Australia's national quarterly education magazine for educators across all state, Catholic and independent schools. Reproduced with kind permission. Subscribe by visiting http://www.acer.edu.au/profed/order.html. To view the table of contents for this issue (vol 6, no. 4 October 2007), go to: http://www.acer.edu.au/profed

It also introduces readers to the 6th International Conference on Imagination and Education which will be taking place in Canberra Australia thanks to the hard work of authors Robert Fitzgerald, Thomas Nielsen and our coordinator, Teresa Martin. 

Wiki chapter

We are finalising submissions for the 6th International Conference on Imagination and Education to be held 29-31 January in Canberra next year. To date we have over 110 submissions and the program promises to be varied and stimulating. Once we are through the review process submissions will be available via our online conference system. This system has been developed by the folk at UBC & SFU as part of the Public Knowledge Project which...

"is a federally funded research initiative at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University on the west coast of Canada. It seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality of academic research through the development of innovative online environments. PKP has developed free, open source software for the management, publishing, and indexing of journals and conferences. Open Journal Systems and Open Conference Systems increase access to knowledge, improve management, and reduce publishing costs. See Software & Services for demos, downloads, and information about these systems."

Writing in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Professor Robert Jensen from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, reports on a project in Southern India where fishermen and wholesalers are using mobile phones to address limitations in the market information system. From his economic analysis of data collected over a five year period he concludes that the use of mobile phones worked to reduce price dispersion and increase fisherman's profits. In his paper he reinforces the idea that access to timely information is vital to the effective operation of markets and the benefits can be seen for both producers and traders. The abstract of "The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector" follows:



"When information is limited or costly, agents are unable to engage in optimal arbitrage. Excess price dispersion across markets can arise, and goods may not be allocated efficiently. In this setting, information technologies may improve market performance and increase welfare. Between 1997 and 2001, mobile phone service was introduced throughout Kerala, a state in India with a large fishing industry. Using microlevel survey data, we show that the adoption of mobile phones by fishermen and wholesalers was associated with a dramatic reduction in price dispersion, the complete elimination of waste, and near-perfect adherence to the Law of One Price. Both consumer and producer welfare increased."

James Steele is doing some really interesting stuff getting Google Maps to his GPS using MacGPS Pro. Check out his recent posting Google Maps to your GPS via MacGPS Pro. Google offers examples of ways to personalise their maps. James is also working with us on the Carrick Project.

Jen Millea from education.au recently picked up Yoni Ryan's paper, Do you Youtube? Wanna come to MySpace? Yoni is on our Carrick Project team and presented this keynote at the FYHE Conference, QUT Brisbane, 4-6 July. In this paper Yoni says:

The explosion of subscriptions to social networking sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook leads us as educators to some fundamental questions abou the purpose and nature of university education, issues which have been ignored in the last decade as Western governments, along with vice-chancellors, have trumpeted the economic, utilitarian and vocational benefits of a university education. Such sites may be designated 'social' in nature, and in one sense they are. But they also direct attention to the individual, as the centre of a virtual 'exclusive' group. What does it mean to an education system notionally geared to the 'class' as a group, to inclusivity as a goal of education, and to the notion of tolerance of difference as a result of exposure to the class? Should we be encouraging the display of self that social networks allow as a healthy way of forging identity in a world characterised by increasingly undifferentiated and global 'selves'?