e-Society 2006: Keynote Speakers

Settling disputes is an indispensable governmental activity. Courts are basically a mechanism for resolving disagreement. The legal system is both complex and expense for many disputes. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) has been developed to leave the power to decide the outcome of issues in the hands of the parties rather than in the courts. It relies on the notion that, when possible, a consensual approach to dispute resolution will be quicker, simpler, less expensive and more accepted by all parties. Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) extends ADR to an online or network-assisted environment. It opens the possibility of further simplifying face-to-face ADR by making same-place, same-time interaction unnecessary. There are many barriers to ODR acceptance, including mistrust of the technology, perceived need for face-to-face interaction, and security of information. This talk will survey world-wide effort to realize ODR in governments. It will cover in detail an effort in the United States to base an ODR system on the theory of Interest-Based Bargaining and efforts to overcome acceptance barriers by basing the development on Process Technology and Participatory Design.

BIOS

Norman K. Sondheimer is co-Director of the Electronic Enterprise Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Senior Research Fellow in the University’s Computer Science Department. Beginning in 2000, he has partnered with Professors Leon Osterweil and Ethan Katsh in a series of efforts to improve the adoption rate of e-government systems. They have seen this as an effort to build trust among the stakeholders in the systems. To encourage this they have been integrating powerful process definition and analysis approaches into participatory computer systems design methods. Most recently they have been studying the adoption of Online Dispute Resolution at the U.S. Government’s National Mediation Board in partnership with Daniel Rainey.

Sondheimer was Director of the Computer and Information Science Departments at both General Electric’s and the United Technology Corporation’s Corporate Research Laboratories. He has published and presented dozens of papers on a variety of computer science topics in leading venues worldwide. Sondheimer has consulted for and supported such organizations as the United States Department of Commerce, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Information Technology Division and Bell Laboratories. His proudest professional achievements have been contributing to technical innovations that have been transferred to the marketplace ranging from e-commerce Jet Engine Parts Marketplaces to remote diagnosis of electro-mechanical equipment to embedded controls for Green kitchen appliances. Sondheimer received his B.S. from Carnegie-Mellon University in Mathematics and English, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, both in Computer Sciences.

Daniel Rainey is the Director of the Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution Services for the National Mediation Board. He joined the NMB's staff in April, 2001. As Director, ADRS, he is responsible for a range of projects and program areas, involving cooperation with and support for Mediation, Arbitration, and Representation.

He directs the NMB’s core alternative dispute resolution (ADR) program, including: the Board’s Facilitated Problem Solving training and facilitation for contract negotiations and joint problem solving; Grievance Mediation training and facilitation; specialized training and facilitation (team building, etc.); and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR). The ODR program includes the use of technology for contract negations, grievance mediation, arbitration hearings, and arbitration adoption conferences. He is one of the lead researchers working under a National Science Foundation research grant designed to develop information about process modeling and the impact of ODR tools in mediation.

He also has administrative responsibility for the NMB's research program, public information/public affairs program, and documents and records management program.

In addition, he is responsible for supervision and direction of the Board’s information technology (IT) contractors and the programs they manage and implement.

Immediately prior to coming to the NMB, he was the owner/president of a consulting firm specializing in conflict management and conflict intervention. From 1978 through 1990 he was a faculty member at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

He is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) and the Virginia Association for Conflict Resolution (VACR), and the Association of Labor Relations Agencies (ALRA). For ACR, he is the co-Chair of the ODR Section, and he is co-Chair of the ALRA Technology Committee.

Educational Informatics: A Force for Convergence or Creativity?

by Professor Nigel Ford, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Email: N.Ford at sheffield.ac.uk

Abstract

Educational informatics represents the convergence of key aspects of information science, computing and education. Educational computing systems have for long provided relatively highly “pedagogically mediated” access to information and levels of adaptivity to learner individual differences – but until recently, typically to a relatively small set of information sources not readily available for sharing or re-use. Conversely, the information retrieval systems developed within information science have typically provided access to very large diverse, remotely distributed shared sets of information sources, but have offered no pedagogical mediation. Relatively recent developments in the area of Web standards and adaptive systems mean that information systems are decreasingly restricted by the need for such a trade-off between diversity, openness and shareability of information content and the level of pedagogical mediation provided by the system. However, questions remain as to how we might best facilitate autonomous Web-based learning by exploiting Web-based techniques and standards. These questions relate to some fundamental issues concerning tensions between, for example: cognitive ergonomics versus cognitive isometrics; dependence versus autonomy; and ultimately convergence and creativity.

BIO

Nigel Ford is Professor of Information Science at the University of Sheffield’s Department of Information Studies. He has researched and published extensively in the fields of human individual differences (with particular emphasis on cognitive and learning styles), information seeking and educational informatics. He has directed funded research projects into areas including the dynamics of Web-based information seeking, the development of Web-based information literacy in schools, and the development of cognitive models to support adaptive teaching/learning systems. He is currently directing a project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council to develop understanding of Web searching by the general public via data mining of search engine logs and the use of graph similarity analytical techniques. He has published extensively in international refereed journals in education and information science, and has written 4 books on aspects of artificial intelligence.

Technologies that Motivate Children to Learn

by Professor Cathie Norris, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

and

Professor Elliot Soloway, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Abstract

While we can dicker about the details, at its core, school is about helping children to be successful, and helping children to learn and to achieve. In order to learn, children need to be motivated and engaged. For the “kids these days,” what deeply engages them is being continuously connected – to each other, to their music, to their games, to digital things that they create. Outside of school, such connections are facilitated by technology – cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, etc., which they use for text messaging, for remixing songs to create their own personal ringtones, and for expressing themselves through multiple media. If we think that the kids these days are going to find paper-and-pencil assignments motivating, we are fooling ourselves. Fortunately, there are powerful, but low-cost, handheld, mobile, multimedia computers that schools can provide for children to use on a continuous basis that children do find motivating. Most importantly, teachers can use their existing instructional strategies with these devices; with experience, we find teachers adapting their strategies to better leverage the affordances of these task-appropriate, non-overwhelming devices. In our presentation we will describe classrooms – urban, suburban, rural – all around America where children and teachers are using these truly personal, palm-sized computers to pursue state-mandated curricula to learn and achieve.

BIO

Professor Cathie Norris

In leading the development of handheld technologies for teaching and learning in K-12 at GoKnow, Cathie Norries continues to pursue her dream of making schools a better place for children to learn, to grow, to thrive. Cathie’s central design philosophy is that the key to being successful in K-12 with technology is to win over the classroom teachers by providing software that is truly easy to learn, easy to use, and incorporates just the right amount of educationally-appropriate functionality. While a tall order, GoKnow’s award-winning handheld software, e.g., FreeWrite, Sketchy, Cooties, Fling-It, PAAM, etc. does have precisely those characteristics.

For 10 years, Cathie was a high school mathematics and computer science teacher before moving to the University of North Texas where she is a professor in the Department of Technology and Cognition. In the fall of 2003, Cathie published a seminal paper on her Snapshot Surveys on the state of computer and Internet access in K-12 classrooms in schools and districts nationwide. That research establishes the fact that the lack of impact of computer technology on student achievement is not due to issues of teaching or teachers, but is solely due to lack of access to the technology. Indeed, given the economic situation in the U.S., handheld computers are the only way that each and every child will have access to their own personal computer.

Cathie is a Past President of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), the leading international organization for technology-minded educators. From 1991 to 2001, she was the President of the National Educational Computing Association (NECA) that organized the premier conference on technology in K-12. As she brings both a classroom teacher’s perspective, a scientist’s perspective, and most recently, a business perspective to the use of technology in education, Cathie is a much sought after speaker both nationally and internationally. And, Cathie is a co-founder and the Chief Education Officer of GoKnow, Inc., an educational software company in Ann Arbor, MI devoted to making sublaptop computers the computer of choice for K-12.

Professor Elliot Soloway

For the past 25 years, Elliot has worked to improve K-12 education through the use of computing technologies. His latest venture, GoKnow, Inc., is demonstrating how handheld computers can transform K-12 classrooms by enabling, finally, 1:1 computing for each and every child. GoKnow provides administrators, teachers, students and their parents/guardians with a complete, handheld-centric solution. GoKnow’s award-winning handheld software, e.g., FreeWrite, Sketchy, Cooties, Fling-It, PAAM, etc. are based on 15 years of classroom-based research at the University of Michigan.

Starting out as an Assistant Professor at Yale University, Elliot worked in the New Haven Schools, bringing in the first personal computers to middle school classrooms. For the past 15 years, he has worked in the Center for Highly-Interactive Computing in Education, at the University of Michigan, developing learner-centered software and curriculum for personal computer technology, Internet technology and most recently, handheld technology. For the past 6 years, Elliot and his colleagues in HI-CE have worked in 28 middle schools in Detroit, with over 10,000 students. Most impressively, when using HI-CE’s technology-enriched science curriculum, 15% more middle school students pass the state-mandated tests when compared to other reform programs, while the scores of those students who pass the MEAP tests score 10% higher than their peers in other programs.

Elliot has published over 200 articles in books, journals, and magazines, and has received numerous national awards. In particular, in 2001, the undergraduates at the University of Michigan selected him to receive the “Golden Apple Award” as the Outstanding Teacher of the Year at UM. In 2004, the EECS College of Engineering HKN Honor Society awarded Elliot the “Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award.” And, Elliot is a co-founder and the CEO of GoKnow, Inc., an educational software company in Ann Arbor, MI devoted to making sublaptop computers the computer of choice for K-12.