COOPERATION FOR TEACHERS AND EDUCATION IN THE PACIFIC
The Institute of Education (IOE) at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji has recently completed a desk study on “Teachers and Education in the Pacific” (TEP). The first of a multi-phase study, which is co-funded by ADB and AusAID, involves a desk study which concluded in a regional workshop that was hosted by IOE in December 2007. A total of 13 country reports were disseminated and discussed during the workshop. This article reviews the main findings of the desk study and outlines the issues discussed in the TEP workshop that are either common around the region or unique to each country, with particular focus here on possible areas for international cooperation.
Shifting tides: Reflecting on regional aspects of our roles as comparative and international educators
In this paper, we critically interrogate the way in which comparative and international education coursework at two large institutions in Australia and New Zealand embody or challenge teleological, colonial, and Western/Northern-centric perspectives on education and development.  Embedded within a broader and introspective examination of our roles as comparative and international educators in these universities, we deconstruct the intent behind our course objectives, readings, lecture content and assessment tasks, and place them into conversation with our own pedagogical self-reflections, observations of practice and student feedback.  In doing so, we highlight ways in which we believe we are beginning to prepare a new generation of more critically conscious, and regionally-minded set of teachers, development practitioners and researchers.  Specifically, by ’making the familiar strange,’ and encouraging our students to co-construct knowledge, we argue we can begin to create actionable spaces which encourage an alternative reading of the world; something colleagues from across Oceania and further afield have long argued for as part of the decolonizing process.  We also highlight how this process has led us to better recognize our own positionalities and epistemologies as CIE educators, in hopes that it can lead to an ongoing space for dialogue between educators and researchers within and beyond the region.
Portable Computing in Psychiatry
Personal digital assistants (PDAs) or handheld computers have become more popular in the practice of medicine. These devices have implications for psychiatric practice, and this paper reviews various published articles describing their use. The literature demonstrates their use in document editing, patient tracking, accessing medical information and drug reference guides, prescription writing, and medical education. Security on these devices is covered, and the value and increasing implementation of PDAs in psychiatry is discussed.