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Articles 1 - 20 of 20
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Web 2.0 Spaces For Activism: Critiquing Its Novelty Through A Historical Lens Of Public Political Space, Payal Arora
Web 2.0 Spaces For Activism: Critiquing Its Novelty Through A Historical Lens Of Public Political Space, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
This paper draws parallels between the use of public leisure spaces in the city such as parks and squares, and the use of certain forms of digital networks. Similarities between these two sorts of social contexts are worth considering, particularly their political dimension. This effortsituates the current conversation about social media as sites of political mobilization into dialogue with the historical analysis of public parks as spaces that, in a similar fashion, were designed for leisure and consumption but was appropriated as sites of resistance. It brings together the literature on urban parks as centers of democracy and the literature …
Global Cities: Global Parks: Conceptualizing The Globalizing Of Digital Leisure Networks, Payal Arora
Global Cities: Global Parks: Conceptualizing The Globalizing Of Digital Leisure Networks, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
No abstract provided.
Typology Of Web 2.0 Spheres: Understanding The Cultural Dimensions Of Social Media Spaces, Payal Arora
Typology Of Web 2.0 Spheres: Understanding The Cultural Dimensions Of Social Media Spaces, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
It has taken the past decade to commonly acknowledge that online space is tethered to real place. From euphoric conceptualizations of social media spaces as a novel, unprecedented and revolutionary entity, the dust has settled, allowing for talk of boundaries and ties to real-world settings. Metaphors have been instrumental in this pursuit, shaping perceptions and affecting actions within this extended structural realm. Specifically, they have been harnessed to architect Web 2.0 spaces, be it chatrooms, electronic frontiers, homepages, or information highways for policy and practice. While metaphors are pervasive in addressing and normalizing new media spaces, there is less effort …
Your Kool-Aid Is Not My Kool-Aid: Ideologies On Microfinance Within An Ingo Culture, Payal Arora
Your Kool-Aid Is Not My Kool-Aid: Ideologies On Microfinance Within An Ingo Culture, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
Development investigations focus on synergies of institutional cultures for policy and practice. International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) currently enjoy a privileged position as harbingers of world culture unity. While there is contestation on INGOs as monolithic entities, few studies delve into the voices of actors within INGOs to provide for a more pluralistic perspective. This paper separates the actors from their institution by examining their different socio-cultural takes that drive them. This emphasises that as projects and visions come and go, institutional actors draw on their own philosophy that does not necessarily mirror their institution's stance. Here, the focus is on …
The Folksong Jukebox: Singing Along For Social Change In Rural India, Payal Arora
The Folksong Jukebox: Singing Along For Social Change In Rural India, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
In designing digital literacy content for marginalized demographics, we need to garner local resources to structure engaging and meaningful media experiences. This paper examines the socio-cognitive implications of a novel edutainment product in rural India on learning, stemming from an e-development initiative funded by Hewlett-Packard. This product encapsulates a multiplicity of media forms: text, audio and visual, with social-awareness folk themes endemic to the locality. It uses the karaoke ‘same language subtitling’ feature that won the World Bank Development Marketplace Award in 2002 due to its simple yet innovative application that has proven to have an impact on reading skills. …
Busyness In Cybercafes: An Indian Context, Payal Arora
Busyness In Cybercafes: An Indian Context, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
No abstract provided.
The Rise Of The New Experts: Decision-Making In The Art World In The Digital Age, Payal Arora, Filip Vermeylen
The Rise Of The New Experts: Decision-Making In The Art World In The Digital Age, Payal Arora, Filip Vermeylen
Payal Arora
In this digital age, declarations surface on the death of the expert. Crowd wisdom is instead seen as the new guide to constructing and evaluating knowledge. In the context of the art world, this tension between the amateurs and the experts becomes particularly pronounced as popular meets high culture. Questions arise such as what is the role of the amateur in the evaluation of art in current times? Does social media level the playing field here and can we assume that equity in participation results in better judgments? Does online participation on art valuation impact its actual market pricing? Who …
Online Social Sites As Virtual Parks: An Investigation Into Leisure Online And Offline, Payal Arora
Online Social Sites As Virtual Parks: An Investigation Into Leisure Online And Offline, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
Currently, there is much excitement about Web 2.0 as a novel platform for experiencing, producing, and consuming leisure, particularly through social network sites. Conversely, there are skeptics who sound the alarm on these spaces, viewing them as diluting of human relations. The perspective that guides this article is invested in neither a utopian nor a dystopian posture, but sees historical continuity, pointing out that performing leisure is a basic human impulse that has found expression over the centuries. With regard to the online sites used for leisure, it makes the case that the history of the development of the public …
Hope-In-The-Wall? A Promise Of Free Learning, Payal Arora
Hope-In-The-Wall? A Promise Of Free Learning, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
Hole-in-the-Wall as a concept has attracted worldwide attention. It involves providing unconditional access to computer-equipped kiosks in playgrounds and out-of-school settings, children taking ownership of their learning and learning driven by the children's natural curiosity. It is posited that this approach, which is being used in India, Cambodia and several countries in Africa, can pave the way for a new education paradigm and be the key to providing literacy and basic education and bridging the digital divide in remote and disadvantaged regions. This paper seeks to establish why two such open access, self-directed and collaborative learning systems failed to take …
Digital Gods: The Making Of A Medical Fact For Rural Diagnostic Software, Payal Arora
Digital Gods: The Making Of A Medical Fact For Rural Diagnostic Software, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
The chronic shortage of doctors in rural India seriously impacts the quality of health care available to villagers. In recent years, there has been considerable excitement in digital diagnostics as a possible answer to this situation by allowing non-doctors to diagnose and treat patients. In this article, the author focuses on one such diagnostic tool that has gained serious traction among transnational health foundations and state governments alike. The focus is on the customization and localization of this software through a pilot study in central Himalayas. A baseline survey and extensive interviews are conducted for categorization and population of health …
Copycats Of The Central Himalayas. Learning In The Age Of Information, Payal Arora
Copycats Of The Central Himalayas. Learning In The Age Of Information, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
This case study highlights practices of a rarely documented group of neo-users of the Internet or newbies from Central Himalayas, serving as a catalyst for delving deeply into the act of ‘plagiarism’ in online learning By looking at such ‘learning’ practices away from schools, namely at cybercafés in Almora, a ‘rur-town’ in the Himalayas, much is revealed of its educational system and learning in the broadest sense. There is an urgent need in educational environments to move beyond the punitive approach to ‘plagiarism’ through computer usage and instead pay attention to the actual learning and teaching that goes on through …
Global Education Greenhouse: Constructing And Organizing Online Global Knowledge, Karen Kaun, Payal Arora
Global Education Greenhouse: Constructing And Organizing Online Global Knowledge, Karen Kaun, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
Knowledge iTrust (KIT), a non-profit organization, through the cooperation of educational institutions, NGOs, and the private sector launched the Peace Diaries following September 11, 2001 to establish a forum where educators, students and their families of diverse cultural backgrounds and discourse groups could gather and submit multi-modal literary works (e.g. text, artwork, audio recordings, etc.) that address issues of personal, local and global significance. While this project was a successful demonstration model of what is possible in the way of global learning in collaboration with many stakeholders and actors, there is enormous potential to extend and transform this initiative into …
Dot Com Mantra: Social Computing In The Central Himalayas., Payal Arora
Dot Com Mantra: Social Computing In The Central Himalayas., Payal Arora
Payal Arora
Billions of dollars are being spent nationally and globally on providing computing access to digitally disadvantaged groups and cultures with an expectation that computers and the Internet can lead to higher socio-economic mobility. This ethnographic study of social computing in the Central Himalayas, India, investigates alternative social practices with new technologies and media amongst a population that is for the most part undocumented. In doing so, this book offers fresh and critical perspectives in areas of contemporary debate: informal learning with computers, cyberleisure, gender access and empowerment, digital intermediaries, and glocalization of information and media.
Evaluating Online Dialogue On 'Security', Payal Arora
Evaluating Online Dialogue On 'Security', Payal Arora
Payal Arora
This paper explores evaluation strategies to gauge the impact of a novel instructional design on international community participation online. This is done by conceptualizing and devising indicators for measuring “engagement” online amongst marginalized adult communities worldwide. In doing so, a review of online evaluation literature is conducted. In comparing dialogue sessions based on an ongoing traditional model to the new instructional approach, various challenges are faced in “measuring” asynchronous discussion. While the initial findings of marginal increase in engagement with the adapted instructional approach is not sufficient to prove that the new model works, this paper demonstrates various strategies/ challenges …
Instant Messaging Shiva, Flying Taxis, Bil Klinton And More: Children’S Narratives From Rural India, Payal Arora
Instant Messaging Shiva, Flying Taxis, Bil Klinton And More: Children’S Narratives From Rural India, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
In this article, story (re)productions by children in rural India are seen as a potential tool for addressing current `participatory' issues facing development practitioners. A project was implemented to involve children from a rural village in South India in e-literary storybook productions. The intention was to foster online representations of the rural voice through the lens of the child. Drawing on the material of children's stories, multiple subjectivities are revealed that compel us to reconsider relations of the 'rural' with technology and current social contexts. An analysis of these narratives highlights children's appropriation capabilities as they weave the 'urbanness' and …
Perspectives Of Schooling Through Karaoke: A Metaphorical Analysis, Payal Arora
Perspectives Of Schooling Through Karaoke: A Metaphorical Analysis, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
This paper plays with education through the analogy of karaoke to tease out the instructions of a situated educational practice. Here, Cremin's conceptualization of education as a deliberate, systematic and sustained effort is employed as a starting point to enable an understanding of educational practice between members elicited by karaoke. Using Garfinkel's ethnomethodological framework, the paper investigates modes of education through karaoke practice as part of the ‘live’ narrative, that of instructing and being instructed with the ‘curriculum’ of the event at hand.
E-Karaoke For Gender Empowerment, Payal Arora
E-Karaoke For Gender Empowerment, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
A folksongs karaoke product has been created to increase usage of subtitled media to enhance literacy and technology use, particularly among girls in rural India. This entails generating and proliferating popular local folksongs with social and cultural themes of interest to girls, accompanied by the award-winning Same Language Subtitling (SLS) feature. In this paper, the prime goal is to discuss possible implications of this novel technology content on girls’ socialization, education, and activism. Based on initial findings from a pilot test of this product in schools, private and public in rural India, I propose that this product has the potential …
Karaoke For Social And Cultural Change, Payal Arora
Karaoke For Social And Cultural Change, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
This account demonstrates the key challenges faced in producing engaging educational content for information and communication technologies (ICT) deployed in rural India. The ‘Stills in Sync’ (SIS) project aims to enhance literacy through the revival and proliferation of popular regional folksongs with social awareness themes in rural India. This product entails the use of the Same Language Subtitling (SLS) karaoke feature that won the Worldbank Development Marketplace award in 2002 and the ‘Tech Laureate’ honor from the Technology Museum of Innovation in 2003. This case study highlights the struggles faced in the production process as we sought to negotiate localism …
The Poor Don’T Need Another Prophet: A People-Centered Approach To Microfinance & Education In Bolivia, Payal Arora
The Poor Don’T Need Another Prophet: A People-Centered Approach To Microfinance & Education In Bolivia, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
No abstract provided.
Profiting From Empowerment? Critique On Dissemination Avenues Of Educational Technology Content Within An Emerging Market, Payal Arora
Payal Arora
The Stills in Sync (SIS) project is a joint initiative of the non-profit organization PlanetRead and the global information and communication technology (ICT) company Hewlett Packard (HP). The SIS project entails creating a multi-media product designed to enhance literacy in rural India through the revival of regional folksongs on relevant social issues. This product utilizes the Same Language Subtitling (SLS) feature that won the World Bank Development Marketplace Award in 2002 and the Tech Laureate in education honor from the Technology Museum of Innovation (San Jose) in 2003. This paper explores the dissemination avenues of the SLS folksongs product and …