Planning, Policy and Design 139: Water Resource Policy Water is the economic, social, and physical lifeblood of humanity, providing the bases for agriculture, industry, transportation, energy production, and life itself. Despite its importance, alarming signs suggest that there are looming threats to this vital resource. The World Resources Institute contends that the world's thirst for water is likely to become one of the most pressing issues this century due to population growth, drought, and climate change. The World Bank reports that many dev
Executive Compensation: More Regulation, or Just More Transparency?
The question of whether CEOs of America's major companies are overpaid has been a subject of interest for many years. Are the compensation practices for these elite men and women fair and appropriate? Do they provide proper incentives, or do they reward excessive caution or risk taking? Wharton accounting professors John Core and Wayne Guay have just completed a study on this topic. Guay, along with colleague Chris Armstrong, sat down with Knowledge@Wharton to discuss executive compensation and
Communicate effectively in the security industry - Communicate with clients and colleagues
This task deals with ways to improve interpersonal communication,
and the passing of accurate and relevant information along the correct
channels.
Using and Enhancing a Normalized IMS-LD Description to Support Learners in their Appropriation of a
The general context of our work is the support that can be proposed to a distance learning student in order to appropriate a curriculum to him. In this paper we explore how the IMS learning design (LD) norm can be used to address this issue. An LD model of a curriculum permits the construction of tools that allow a student to visualize different points of view on the curriculum items, annotate his progression in the activities or build individual projects. We present what can be done with an LD
Raising Children with Roots, Rights, & Responsibilities: Celebrating the Convention on the Rights of
This curriculum grew out of the Circle For The Child Project which was started by the authors in 1995 as a grass roots effort to promote the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child through education and political action. This Minnesota-based project joins a worldwide effort seeking to ensure human rights for all. Raising Children With Roots, Rights & Responsibilities is designed for two-hour sessions. The curriculum can be adapted to any setting where families gather to learn. Such
From MASK Knowledge Management Methodology to Learning Activities Described with IMS – LD
In this paper we present how the way knowledge capitalized using the Knowledge Management Mask methodology can be used to design E-learning activities by matching Mask models and the concepts proposed by the IMS-Learning Design modelling language. Our study consists in highlighting the e-learning aspects encapsulated in these MASK models carried out around a domain of activity, via a writing these elements in the description language IMS - Learning Design; in a preoccupation of reusability and r
Learning History by Playing a Mobile City Game
Digital games seem to be excellent tools for facilitating and supporting situated learning. This unbinding of knowledge from a specific context fosters its transfer to new problems and new domains. Additionally, childrenÂ’s attitude towards computer games is the very attitude we would like all our learners to have. Therefore, it makes sense to try to merge the content of learning and the motivation of games. The objectives of this paper are to generate insights into the practicalities and the ef
A Personal Account of Efforts to End School Segregation in a Southern School System
The Brown Decision, whose 50th Anniversary was observed in 2004, was a landmark case that ended the doctrine of separate but equal. During the observation of the anniversary, many pundits reflected on the political, social, and historical significance of Brown. This article takes a different approach in reflecting on the importance of Brown. A historical context is provided that reveals the conditions that existed in the south prior to and after the Brown Decision. The author tells the poignant
"Almost Broken Spirits": Farmers in the New South
In the decades following the Confederacy's 1865 defeat and the abolition of racial slavery, white southern landowners, entrepreneurs, and newspaper editors heralded the coming of a "New South" economic order. Freed from the plantation system, the South would enter the modern age, building factories to turn its cotton into cloth, its tobacco crop into finished cigars and cigarettes, and its growing coal and iron ore output into steel. But not all southerners benefited from a prosperous and indust
"Achieving an Atmosphere of Mutual Trust and Confidence": Henry A. Wallace Offers an Alternative to
Allies during World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union disagreed over a number of issues after the war. These included control of Eastern Europe, division of Germany, atomic energy, international loans, and the Middle East. On February 9, 1946, Soviet premier Josef Stalin asserted that the continued existence of capitalism in the West would inevitably lead to war. Foreign Service senior diplomat George Kennan sent President Harry Truman, still forming a Soviet policy, a lengthy telegram advoc
A Word of Warning: A Former Slave Urges Constitutional Caution
The South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1895 completed the process of disenfranchising African-Americans (and many poor whites). The state's restrictive policies began with the election law of 1882 that used an intricate system of eight ballot boxes to discourage illiterate white and black residents from voting. The 1895 convention added a poll tax and literacy test, thereby ensuring that a coalition of remaining black voters and disaffected whites could not unite to challenge Democratic
A Voice of Moderation: Roosevelt on the Armory Show
In 1913, an "International Exhibition of Modern Art," eventually seen by a half million people, rocked the American art world. First mounted at New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, it became known as the Armory Show, and its self-consciously "modern" approach challenged the dominance of conservative, staid styles of European art. Two-thirds of the 1,600 works were by Americans, and the Europeans whose works were exhibited--Picasso, Matisse, Seurat, Van Gogh, Gaughin, and Duchamp among them--wer
"A Traitor to the Movement"?: A Former SDS and Women's Liberation Activist Testifies before Congress
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was founded in 1962 to change the world by fostering participatory democracy and personal authenticity. Heavily influenced by civil rights organizations, SDS initially operated in inner cities and college campuses to combat racism and discrimination. By the mid-1960s, many activists focused on antiwar activities as American troop involvement in Vietnam escalated. Frustrated with male domination in SDS, leftist women formed feminist splinter groups that eve
A Thorn in the Side: A Socialist Takes Aim at Gompers
During the 1890s, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was faced with both the rising popularity of the People's Party in rural areas and attempts by the Populist movement to create a farmer-labor alliance. At the same time, socialist trade unionists lobbied for greater political involvement and adoption of several key socialist positions by the AFL. One of those socialist trade unionists was J. Mahlon Barnes, a Philadelphia cigar maker, member of the Cigarmakers' International Union, and memb
A Show of Support: Farmers Feed Homestead Strikers
In 1892 the possibility of a Labor-Populist alliance circulated. Populist orators like Mary Lease sought to build ties between the Farmer's Alliance and the labor movement by mobilizing farmers to send wheat and corn to striking workers at Carnegie's Homestead steel mill outside Pittsburgh. Despite the support for such an alliance among many in the labor movement, American Federation of Labor leader Samuel Gompers opposed such political action. Gompers insured that the A.F.L maintained, in his w
"A Modern School": Abraham Flexner Outlines Progressive Education
In the early 20th century, an impressive array of intellectuals, social critics, and grassroots activists came together to launch a progressive education movement that sought broad-based change in American educational practice. At the heart of the progressive program lay a pedagogy that emphasized flexibility and critical thinking. This was coupled with the belief that schools should establish organic relationships with their communities, that curricula should confront broad social issues, and t
"A Little Standing Army in Himself": N. A. Jennings Tells of the Texas Rangers, 1875
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 brought an enormous chunk of Mexico to the United States. This added to the territory obtained by the annexation of Texas in 1845, but more than just territory was added. More than 75,000 Spanish-speaking residents became U.S. citizens, but the struggle to achieve that citizenship was long and often unsuccessful. Mexican-Americans lost political power and civil liberties quickly in Texas. Justice was hard to secure and the ranching country of South Texas b
A Letter Home From Massachusetts Bay in 1631
Over 20,000 migrants from England crossed the Atlantic to the new colony of Massachusetts Bay in the decade of the 1630s. This sudden influx of settlers became known to historians as the "Great Migration." Once in New England, they quickly dispersed to various towns. About forty families followed Sir Richard Saltonstall and the Reverend George Phillips four miles up the Charles River to found the community of Watertown in July 1630. Many had relocated from the East Anglian region of England, whe
"A Foreigner in My Own Land": Juan Nepomuceno Seguin Flees Texas, 1842
Few Anglos lived in San Antonio after the Texas Revolution of 1835-36 and Tejanos (Texas-Mexicans) continued their rule. Juan Nepomuceno Seguin was born into a prominent tejano family and had close ties with Stephen Austin, leader of the first American settlers in Texas. He became mayor or alcade at an early age and fought on the Anglo side with the coming of Texas' revolt against Mexico. However, his political situation increasingly became fragile because of the changing balance of power and An
17.100J Political Economy I: Theories of the State and the Economy (MIT)
Political Economy I explores the major social science paradigms for analyzing relations among state, economy, and society. Through readings, lectures and discussion of original texts in political liberalism and individualism, neo-classical economics, Marxism, sociological and cultural theories, and neo-institutionalism, the seminar examines the fundamental assumptions on which our understanding of the social world and our research are based. All participants in the seminar are required to do the
