A Systematic Review of Effective Youth Prevention Education: Implications for Internet Safety Education.

ABSTRACT: Over the past two decades, a wide array of internet safety education materials and programs have developed to increase positive youth behavior and safety online. Although it is a new area of prevention, programs should incorporate practices that prior prevention evaluation studies tell us work best. To inform internet safety education, 31 youth prevention education meta-analyses across a wide range of youth prevention (substance abuse, risky sex behavior, delinquency, etc.) were coded to identify prevention program characteristics shown by research to be most effective. The review identified that active, skill-based lessons, focused on research based causal and risk factors, and provided with adequate dosage were key. Such strategies must be included as a starting place when developing prevention in new areas of youth risk concerns. Implications of the finding suggest some need for reevaluating how internet safety education is delivered in the future

Surfing or drowning? Student nurses’ Internet skills

The ability to use the Internet is an essential skill for nursing students, both to support their studies, especially as nursing students spend a lot of their time in placements away from the university campus, and to support their development of skills in using what is becoming an increasingly essential tool for professionals. A study at Bournemouth University, England, found that new student nurses had poor Internet skills and were not frequent users prior to starting the course. No link was found between the students’ ages and their Internet use or skills. A clear link was however found between ability and frequency of use, except in relationship to the students’ ability to conduct an effective search. Almost half of the respondents said that they find far too much irrelevant information when searching for information on the Internet. Given the importance of Information and Technology skills to nurses, both as lifelong learners and as competent practitioners and to nursing students throughout their pre-registration education, the inclusion of a programme to ensure that they develop these skills during their pre-registration education is essential

Surfing or drowning? Student nurses’ Internet skills

The ability to use the Internet is an essential skill for nursing students, both to support their studies, especially as nursing students spend a lot of their time in placements away from the university campus, and to support their development of skills in using what is becoming an increasingly essential tool for professionals. A study at Bournemouth University, England, found that new student nurses had poor Internet skills and were not frequent users prior to starting the course. No link was found between the students’ ages and their Internet use or skills. A clear link was however found between ability and frequency of use, except in relationship to the students’ ability to conduct an effective search. Almost half of the respondents said that they find far too much irrelevant information when searching for information on the Internet. Given the importance of Information and Technology skills to nurses, both as lifelong learners and as competent practitioners and to nursing students throughout their pre-registration education, the inclusion of a programme to ensure that they develop these skills during their pre-registration education is essential

The Contribution of Internet Cafes in Promoting Tertiary Education in Ghana: A Case of Wa Township in the Wa Municipality of Ghana

The study sought to examine the role internet cafes play in assisting tertiary education in Ghana with Wa Township as a case study. Questionnaires/interviews were randomly administered on 450 respondents in all the 15 internet cafes in Wa Municipality. 78.4% of the respondents were tertiary students. It was found that tertiary students use the internet for academic purposes. They spend more hours in studying at the internet cafés than the library as a result of inadequate internet facilities are their campuses. The study recommended effective collaboration between lecturers and the library staffs to aid effective knowledge sharing. Keywords: Internet Cafe, Education, Ghana, Library, Tertiary education

Possible versus desirable in instructional systems: Who's driving?

This paper takes a pragmatic stance that the key to successful application of technology in education is good teaching: using technology only when it is a cost‐effective servant of pedagogy. The paper discusses some fundamental issues in the production of computer‐based materials, and considers them in the context of an on‐going evaluation of an Internet courseware project

Training them to catch fish? Farmer education and training programmes in Uganda’s organic agricultural subsector

This policy brief explores the nature of training and education activities of civil society organisations and tertiary institutions in Uganda. An internet search of the training and education activities in organic agriculture in Uganda shows overwhelming indications of the hard work that is being put into educating and training Ugandans. Critical questions therefore arise: ‘What is driving these training and education programmes?’ ‘Who is running these programmes and what are their focus areas?’ and, ‘Qualitatively speaking, how effective are these programmes?’ Using the analogy of ‘train them to catch fish’, the policy brief grapples with answering these complex questions. Recommendations are made to both civil society and the Ugandan government on strategies to carry forward the process of growing the sector

Distance, multimedia and web delivery in surveying and GIS courses at the University Of Southern Queensland

[Abstract]: The University of Southern Queensland has been involved with the distance education of surveying courses for over 25 years. In recent times, staff of the Surveying and Land Information Discipline, and the University as a whole, have embarked on multimedia enhancement and web delivery of curricula. This paper examines some of the initiatives undertaken to enhance the delivery of educational materials and discusses some of the issues involved in the effective delivery of distance education materials. The significant experience in the delivery of traditional educational materials has proven to be an advantage in the repackaging and enhancement of teaching materials. Delivery of education to off-campus students requires a significant support infrastructure which is often not recognised by new entrants into the flexible delivery arena. Traditional support mechanisms such as phone, fax and standard media (eg. videos, audio tapes etc) are being replaced by email, ‘electronic’ discussion groups, CDs and internet resources. These enhancements, when developed professionally, require a significant commitment of resources and expertise and often require a team approach to their design and development. Access by off-campus students to internet services and affordable software packages also require careful consideration in the design and offering of distance education materials

Real-time multimedia-based education through the Internet

The rapid advances in computer and communications technologies are challenging the American education systems to provide increased educational opportunities beyond the traditional geographic boundaries at a reasonable cost. Many educational institutions are answering this challenge by developing distance education programs. Distance education provides effective learning environment. An important requirement for effective distance education is the availability of continuous interactivity and immediate feedback. Over the Internet, synchronous sharing of multimedia content introduces unacceptable delays as network bandwidth is limited. In this thesis, the issue of Internet bandwidth is minimized and a novel system is developed for distance education using multimedia course material over the Internet. The data rich multimedia materials reside at remote computers and are only remotely activated utilizing low bandwidth signals over the Internet. As a result, the large download times associated with multimedia files are eliminated creating an almost real time link between the remote locations

An Exploratory Investigation of Internet Usage and Its Impacts in University Education

What impact does Internet usage have on university education? How effective is this impact? What are important antecedents for Internet usage in university education? Answers to these questions can help justify heavy investment from many universities in Internet infrastructures, as well as increase benefits of Internet usage in university education. Because Internet usage in university education is still at its early stage, many important questions such as those mentioned above have remained unanswered. This study intends to explore these issues by conducting a survey among university students. A research framework is proposed based on theories of TRA and TAM. The research findings provide some useful insights for university educators and Internet service providers (ISPs)