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Category Archives: Technology

e-Learning Jamaica Technology in Education Conference Slated for … – Government of Jamaica, Jamaica Information Service

Posted: May 20, 2023 at 10:41 am

INTRODUCTION

Initial Officer Training Programme (IOTP) provides basic military officer training to Officer Cadets (OCdts) and their equivalents from law enforcement and uniformed services. The programme falls within the tactical level of the Professional Military Education (PME) framework of armed forces and is modelled from the Royal Military Academy Sandhursts (RMAS) Commissioning Course. It was designed with the direct support and guidance of RMAS Instructing and Support Staff.

Rationale

Traditionally, the Jamaica Defence Forces (JDF) longstanding partnerships with militaries across the world has seen its OCdts being trained in academies in the following countries: United States, England, Canada, China and India. Upon the return of OCdts to the JDF, there is a requirement for doctrine and operating procedure standardization due to the varying concepts and differing contents of the training they had undergone. This is normally done at the Unit level and later, through a Young Officers Course. The advent of COVID-19 added a new level of complexity to travel, thus negatively affecting the process of sending OCdts overseas. Additionally, the ongoing expansion and restructuring of the Force to cauterize the ballooning threats to national security has caused an increased demand for newly commissioned Second Lieutenants.

Due to the carefully adapted military and academic curricula, IOTP serves as the course to treat with the aforementioned considerations. The methodology used addresses each issue directly and the course, through the delivery of a bespoke training syllabus, is fit for the JDF and is also relevant to the militaries and organizations within the Caribbean region and in other parts of the world.

Concept

Having the RMAS approach to training at its core, IOTP is designed with a syllabus that sees male and female integration throughout training. The course focusses on developing military skills and command with a leadership golden thread. The course structure allows the Instructing Staff to educate, build, develop and scrutinize an OCdts ability to decide and communicate accurately and ethically while under pressure and or stress. The expectation is that on commissioning, an OCdt will be fully cognizant of the responsibilities and personal conditions that being an Officer imposes upon them. The product of the IOTP will be an ethical and robust Officer who has the knowledge, skills, attitudes and intellectual agility to adapt their decision-making process and approach to any environment.

Location

The home of IOTP is the Caribbean Military Academy (CMA) Newcastle, which is located at the Newcastle Hill Station, St Andrew, Jamaica.

Nestled in the cool hills of upper St Andrew and amidst beautiful trees, ferns, ground orchids, delicate wild flowers and a profusion of ginger lilies, is the Newcastle

Training Depot founded in 1841 by Major General Sir William Maynard Gomm (later Field Marshall). Gomm, a veteran of the wars against revolutionary France and Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica from 1840 to 1841, relentlessly badgered the War Office in London to establish a mountain station for British soldiers in Jamaica soon after taking up his post.

The idea of the hill station was first raised by Gomm in a letter dated April 7, 1840 to Governor Sir Charles Metcalfe. Gomm pointed out that while Up Park Camp was an ideal location for a barracks, it was subject to the ravages of yellow fever. In Jamaica the

British garrison was stationed on the plain at Up Park Camp, Stony Hill, Fort Augusta and Port Royal. Here, on the average, 1 soldier died every 2 days. According to Russell, the year 1838 was considered a good year: only 91 men died. In 1839, 110 men perished and in the following year 121. Initially, the British government was conservative in approving a hill station for the troops in Jamaica. They were concerned about the expense of the venture.

In May 1841, London finally sanctioned Gomms efforts to build what is thought to be the first permanent mountain station in the British West Indies at Newcastle. The site selected was a coffee plantation protruding from the southern face of the grand ridge of the Blue Mountains. The British government paid 4,230 for the Newcastle site.

At the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), life at Newcastle changed a little. The British regiment was replaced by Canadian regiments which remained at Newcastle for the duration of the war. With hostilities over in 1945, the Canadians left and once again a British battalion was stationed there.

In 1958, the West Indies Federation was founded and the infantry regiments of the various Caribbean islands were disbanded and reorganized into the West India Regiment. Newcastle became a training depot, training recruits from all over the West Indies as part of the

newly formed West Indies Federation. In 1962 when Federation was disbanded, the West India Regiment was also disbanded. Jamaica simultaneously sought her independence, which was achieved on August 6, 1962. With independence, Newcastle was given to the Jamaican government as part of a general settlement of all military lands in Jamaica.

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Andrew Maynard | What’s a Luddite? From Industrial Revolution to … – TribDem.com

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The term Luddite emerged in early 1800s England. At the time, there was a thriving textile industry that depended on manual knitting frames and a skilled workforce to create cloth and garments out of cotton and wool.

But as the Industrial Revolution gathered momentum, steam-powered mills threatened the livelihood of thousands of artisanal textile workers.

Faced with an industrialized future that threatened their jobs and their professional identities, a growing number of textile workers turned to direct action. Galvanized by their leader, Ned Ludd, they began to smash the machines that they saw as robbing them of their source of income.

Its not clear whether Ned Ludd was a real person or simply a figment of folklore invented during a period of upheaval, but his name became synonymous with rejecting disruptive new technologies an association that lasts to this day.

Questioning doesnt mean rejecting tech

Contrary to popular belief, the original Luddites were not anti-technology, nor were they technologically incompetent. Rather, they were skilled adopters and users of the artisanal textile technologies of the time. Their argument was not with technology, per se, but with the ways that wealthy industrialists were robbing them of their way of life.

Today, this distinction is sometimes lost.

Being called a Luddite often indicates technological incompetence as in, I cant figure out how to send emojis. Im such a Luddite. Or it describes an ignorant rejection of technology: Hes such a Luddite for refusing to use Venmo.

In December 2015, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates were jointly nominated for a Luddite Award. Their sin? Raising concerns over the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

The irony of three prominent scientists and entrepreneurs being labeled as Luddites underlines the disconnect between the terms original meaning and its more modern use as an epithet for anyone who doesnt wholeheartedly and unquestioningly embrace technological progress.

Yet technologists such as Musk and Gates arent rejecting technology or innovation.

Instead, theyre rejecting a worldview that all technological advances are ultimately good for society.

This worldview optimistically assumes that the faster humans innovate, the better the future will be.

This move fast and break things approach toward technological innovation has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years especially with growing awareness that unfettered innovation can lead to deeply harmful consequences that a degree of responsibility and forethought could help avoid.

Why Luddism matters

In an age of ChatGPT, gene editing and other transformative technologies, perhaps we all need to channel the spirit of Ned Ludd as we grapple with how to ensure that future technologies do more good than harm.

In fact, Neo-Luddites or New Luddites is a term that emerged at the end of the 20th century.

In 1990, the psychologist Chellis Glendinning published an essay titled Notes toward a Neo-Luddite Manifesto.

In it, she recognized the nature of the early Luddite movement and related it to a growing disconnect between societal values and technological innovation in the late 20th century.

As Glendinning writes, Like the early Luddites, we, too, are a desperate people seeking to protect the livelihoods, communities and families we love, which lie on the verge of destruction.

On one hand, entrepreneurs and others who advocate for a more measured approach to technology innovation, lest we stumble into avoidable and potentially catastrophic risks, are frequently labeled Neo-Luddites.

These people represent experts who believe in the power of technology to positively change the future, but are also aware of the societal, environmental and economic dangers of blinkered innovation.

Then there are the Neo- Luddites who actively reject modern technologies, fearing that they are damaging to society. New York Citys Luddite Club falls into this camp.

Formed by a group of tech-disillusioned Gen-Zers, the club advocates the use of flip phones, crafting, hanging out in parks and reading hardcover or paperback books.

Screens are anathema to the group, which sees them as a drain on mental health.

Im not sure how many of todays Neo-Luddites whether theyre thoughtful technologists, technology-rejecting teens or simply people who are uneasy about technological disruption have read Glendinnings manifesto. And to be sure, parts of it are rather contentious.

Yet there is a common thread here the idea that technology can lead to personal and societal harm if it is not developed responsibly.

And maybe that approach isnt such a bad thing.

Andrew Maynard is a scientist, author, and professor of advanced technology transitions at Arizona State University. He studies the future and how our actions influence it.

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At Yale, Kaloyan Kolev used technology to create and to make … – Yale News

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It is folly, perhaps, to attempt to categorize or encapsulate the creative force that is Kaloyan Kolev.

Kolev, a graduating senior at Pauli Murray majoring in computer science, is a coder, a composer, a graphic designer, an essayist, and a video editor. He is an afficionado of forgotten disco songs, synthesizers, plunderphonics, Internet culture, and the Eurasian golden oriole. Above all, he is a proud Bulgarian.

I like to use technology to make things, to make art, that makes people think, Kolev said.

Although hed never set foot in the United States before coming to Yale for his first semester in August 2019, some online research gave him a sense that Yale was a place where he could follow each of his intellectual passions equally. And that proved to be the case, he said.

Kolev is co-president of the undergraduate design studio Design at Yale. He works on strategy and content design at Mental Canvas, a drawing software platform founded by Yale computer science professor Julie Dorsey. He is a team leader at the Student Technology Collaborative, leading a subgroup (called STC Studios) that creates visual identities for Yale clubs, academic departments, and startups.

I found academic freedom here, Kolev said. My friends and I started Design at Yale during my first year. Our idea was to do fun design interventions around campus, and I think weve had some real impact. That has been a very meaningful experience for me.

Another experience that meant a great deal to me was a computer science course I took, called Creative Embedded Systems. Every week, you made a machine out of components you were given. I feel like now I can make anything, he said.

This summer, Kolev will return to Sofia, Bulgaria, to see his family, write songs for a pop singer he knows, and compose music for a play. He also has an art exhibition going up. Then hell return to the U.S. to take a fulltime job at Mental Canvas, which is based in New York.

I tell first-year students, theres a way to do Yale where you can still get eight hours of sleep every night, take classes you enjoy, and make it a blissful four years of your life thats centered around intellectual curiosity, making things for the sake of making them, and getting to know yourself, he said.

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At Yale, Kaloyan Kolev used technology to create and to make ... - Yale News