ICT for Social Change and Sustainable Development

Here are a couple of free resources that I recently discovered, one on ICT for social change and one on ICT in education for sustainable development:

Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use

By Sheila Kinkade (ShareIdeas.org) and Katrin Verclas (MobileActive.org).
Commissioned by the United Nations Foundation-Vodafone Group Foundation Technology Partnership.
Published: 2008

Mobile technology is transforming the way advocacy, development and relief organizations accomplish their institutional missions. This is nothing new to readers of MobileActive. This recent report Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use, released by the United Nations Foundation and The Vodafone Group Foundation, brings this point home.

The report examines emerging trends in “mobile activism” by looking at 11 case studies of groups active in the areas of public health, humanitarian assistance and environmental conservation.

Among the programs highlighted are two conflict prevention projects, both active in Kenya. Oxfam-Great Britain and the Kenyan umbrella group PeaceNet created a text messaging ‘nerve center’ that collected alerts about violent outbreaks during the recent civil unrest and mobilized local ‘peace committees.’ The project served as a vital tool for conflict management and prevention by providing a hub for real-time information about actual and planned attacks between rival ethnic and political groups.

The GSM Association, together with a handful of non-profit and private sector groups in Kenya, developed another conflict prevention project that allows farmers to preserve their crops while protecting wildlife. The program monitors instances when elephants approach farmed land, and provides an early warning system via mobile that is reducing the incidence of human-elephant conflict in an area where as many as five humans and 10 elephants are killed each year.

The report, the second in the Access to Communications Publication Series, produces studies that give governments, NGOs and the private sector research and recommendations on how to use technology and telecom tools to effectively address some of the world’s toughest challenges.

Please download the entire report here. For individual chapters and more information, please also visit the UN Foundation/Vodafone Group Foundation site.

Full survey results are available here: Executive Summary and Memo and Presentation with highlights.

Courtesy of KatrinVerclas's blog.



How Information and Communications Technologies Can Support Education for Sustainable Development: Current uses and trends

By Leslie Paas and Heather Creech
Published: IISD Publications Centre, 2008. Paper, 38 pages.

As part of IISD's involvement with Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth and the UNESCO Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, this paper presents a brief history, and identifies current uses and trends for deploying ICTs, primarily in the formal Kindergarten to Grade 12 education system, with a focus on the online environment. It considers three main questions:

1. Why do ICTs need to be considered as a critical tool in education for sustainable development (ESD)?;
2. What ICTs are currently being used by educators and learners?; and
3. What can we expect to see in the near future?

Details and download at: http://www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?id=956

Free and open access journal on development

The International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT) - http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/ - is an e-journal that provides free and open access to all of its content.

IJEDICT aims to strengthen links between research and practice in ICT in education and development in hitherto less developed parts of the world, e.g., developing countries (especially small states), and rural and remote regions of developed countries.

The emphasis is on providing a space for researchers, practitioners and theoreticians to jointly explore ideas using an eclectic mix of research methods and disciplines. It brings together research, action research and case studies in order to assist in the transfer of best practice, the development of policy and the creation of theory. Thus, IJEDICT is of interest to a wide-ranging audience of researchers, policy-makers, practitioners, government officers and other professionals involved in education or development in communities throughout the world.

Vol. 4, No. 1 (2008) of International Journal of Education and Development using ICT has been published online at http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewissue.php?id=15

The contents are as follows:

Editorial

Editorial: Using ICT in education for development
Stewart Marshall, The University of the West Indies, Barbados, West Indies
Wal Taylor, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=485


Refereed Articles

Teaching using information and communication technology: Do trainee teachers have the confidence?
Ab. Rahim Bakar and Shamsiah Mohamed, Universiti Putra Malaysia
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=374

School-based Technology Coordinators and Other Human Factors in the Implementation of ICT in Primary Schools: A Comparative Study
Kit-pui Wong, Lingnan University, Hong Kong SAR, China
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=368

The Use of Intranet by Omani Organizations in Knowledge Management
Khamis Nasser Al-Gharbi, Sultan Qaboos University
Syed Jafar Naqvi, Sultan Qaboos University
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=351

The use of interactive wireless keypads for interprofessional learning experiences by undergraduate emergency health students
Brett Williams and Malcolm Boyle, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=405

The Internet in developing countries: A medium of economic, cultural and political domination
Abdulkafi Albirini, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=360

Drivers For and Obstacles To the Development of Interactive Multimodal Technology-Mediated Distance Higher Education Courses
Dawn Birch and Michael D Sankey, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=375

eLearning for international agriculture development: Dealing with challenges
Buenafe R. Abdon, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Robert T. Raab, UNICEF
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=415

A survey on the application of computer network technologies and services over heterogeneous environment in higher educational institutes
Mohd Nazri Ismail and Mohd Zin Abdullah, Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=410


From the Field

Enhancing quality in e-Learning by knowledge-based IT support
Priti Srinivas Sajja, Sardar Patel University
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=435


Notes from the Field

Prospects and challenges of an online teacher training project in Oman
Gregory C Sales, Seward Incorporated
Thuwayba Al-Barwani, Sultan Qaboos University
Shirley Miske, Miske Witt & Associates, Inc.
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=408

Call for Papers: Open Educational Resources

It seems like I am constantly writing about Open Educational Resources (OER) these days. But they are so important for the future of education, especially in developing countries, that I think they warrant lots of publicity.

Remember, OER are learning and teaching materials that are offered freely to anyone under licenses that allow to use, modify and distribute the items. But that's not all. Through the world-wide movement of OER, magnified with user-generated content and underlying Web 2.0 technologies, the advantages and opportunities are numerous for teachers, authors, eLearning practitioners, developers and content providers, researchers and decision-makers, and last but not least: the learners.

Different models to develop, use and make OER content available have evolved. Examples vary from leading educational institutions that have made their content available for users who otherwise would be deprived of it, to communities of educators who collaboratively create content and share it. Moreover, new effective technical architectures are now in place to enable better discovery of Open Educational Resources across learning repositories on the international level, which allows users to access larger and more varied collections. Also, easy-to-use ways to acquire re-mix and mash-up user-generated content are around, examples of which are seen in the educational context too.

Against this background, the eLearning Papers invites contributions in the area of Open Educational Resources.

With this issue, we want to support the establishment of a new kind of ecology of Technology Enhanced Learning that focuses on Open Educational Resources as a chance to make a real difference in education and lifelong learning. We want to give a possibility to share OER-related practices and experiences that support people in acquiring the competences, knowledge and skills they need as individuals in the political, economic, social and cultural life of a modern society.

The papers should focus on one or more of the following themes:

• Lessons learned and best practices of OER projects, tools and initiatives
• New findings, facts and figures of OER development and usage
• Discussion and position papers on how the OER movement can be supported
• Pedagogical innovations and OER, does OER make any difference?
• Transferability and usability of OER
• OER as a way to create and support sustainable development
• Business models around OER

Please consult the eLearning Papers website for writer guidelines:
http://www.elearningpapers.eu/index.php?page=collab_guide

The deadline for article submissions is June 30, 2008
Authors will be notified by July 27
The provisional data of publishing is September 30, 2008.

For further information and to submit your article, please contact: editorial@elearningeuropa.info

Invited Editors:
Sandra Schaffert
Riina Vuorikari

OpenLearn: New OERs

OpenLearn - the UK Open University's portal for its own open educational resources - has released some new resources for May.

One that I found particularly useful is Creating open educational resources - which is a unit that looks at the pedagogical issues involved in the creation and selection of self-study educational resources for a set of intended learning outcomes.

The other units released are:

• Creating musical sounds
• Revolutions in sound recording
• Voice-leading analysis of music 1: the foreground
• Voice-leading analysis of music 2: the middleground
• Ratio, proportion and percentages
• Working life and learning
• BSE and vCJD: their biology and management
• The MMR vaccine: public health, private fears
• Composition and improvisation in cross-cultural perspective
• Structural materials in cells
• Numbers, units and arithmetic
• Rounding and estimation
• Vectors and Conics
• An Introduction to Information Security
• Scattering and Tunnelling
• Am I Ready to Study in English?
• Exploring the English Language
• Personal and Career Development
• Operations, technology and stakeholder value
• Complex numbers
• Number systems
• The big bang
• Introduction to active galaxies
• Jupiter and its moons

Given that I will going to Ghana in a couple of weeks, I found the previously published unit Textiles in Ghana to be very interesting.

As always, I recommend a visit to the OpenLearn portal.

Making Free & Open Education a Reality

Open Educational Resourses (OERs) are digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research.

Open World Learning Institute

The Open World Learning Institute (OWL) helps individuals, families, and communities find, create and use open educational resources. OWL collects, organizes, creates and distributes OERs to make it easy for anyone to use them effectively and meaningfully. OWL does this by resolving the key issues of time, skills and access.




OWL:

• Supports the community in the use and development of open education;
• Establishes self-sustaining, community-based open education centers;
• Provides digital literacy programming and community outreach;
• Researches best practices in open education;
• Performs scientifically-based research of learning technologies, products and services;
• Develops open source educational tools;
• Produces standards-compliant open education courses;
• Conducts research and advocacy in the area of digital and educational law and regulation.

Codswallop

Here's a useful snippet: Chris Garrett and Yoav Ezer posted an article "50+ Open Source/Free Alternatives to Adobe Acrobat & PDF" on their blog "Codswallop".

UNESCO Free & Open Source Software Portal

It really is good to see so many international NGOs and intergovermental organisations creating open educational resources and/or promoting open access. UNESCO has created a gateway to resources related to Free Software and Open Source Technology movement.




The UNESCO Free Software Portal gives access to documents and websites which are references for the Free Software/Open Source Technology movement. It is also a gateway to resources related to Free Software. With the Free Software Portal, UNESCO provides a single interactive access point to pertinent information for users who wish to acquire an understanding of the Free Software movement, to learn why it is important and to apply the concept. Visitors to the UNESCO Free Software Portal can browse through pre-established categories or search for specific words. They can add a new link or modify an already existing link.

The world as a village

The Village - suppose the world was a village of just one hundred people - what would it look like? This video gives us a sobering way to look at the world's statistics about the distribution of wealth.




It is an old video (2006) but I think it deserves playing again.

More Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student, or self-learner. OER Commons is an open learning social network portal where teachers and professors (from pre-K to graduate school) can access their colleagues’ course materials, share their own, and collaborate on affecting today’s classrooms.



The OERs uploaded to this site may be either Course-Related Materials or Libraries and Collections items. Course-Related Materials include both Full Courses and Learning Modules. Components include syllabi, lectures, lesson plans, homework assignments, quizzes, lab activities, pedagogical materials, games, and simulations. Libraries and Collections items are resources from digital media collections or libraries of digitized primary sources.

Click here to go to the teaching materials.

International Institute for Communication and Development

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) - a non-profit foundation that specialises in information and communication technologies (ICT) as a tool for development.

The following video - "Presenting IICD" - gives an introduction to the work of IICD.




IICD creates practical and sustainable solutions using both modern media and traditional media to connect people and enable them to benefit from ICT, thereby contributing to the Millenium Development Goals. Currently, IICD is active in Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Ghana, Jamaica, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia in the sectors education, environment, governance, health and livelihoods (agriculture).

The following video - produced by ICT Bolivia and supported by IICD - explains how the monitoring and evaluation process has helped them to understand and improve on their ICT projects.



More information on TIC Bolivia: www.ticbolivia.net.

Wireless Networking

Today I'm returning to the issue of access and connectivity, because I came across some websites and articles with useful information and ingenious solutions.

Wireless Networking in the Developing World

The goal of the wndw website is to help you get the resources you need to build a wireless network that solves your communication problems.



One of the major resources provided is a free book - Wireless Networking in the Developing World - about designing, implementing, and maintaining low-cost wireless networks. In it you will find information about:

• How to design a wireless network that extends the reach of an existing Internet connection
• Understanding radio waves, antennas, and transmission lines
• Choosing and configuring wireless networking hardware
• Designing a solar energy system to provide power to network devices in remote places
• Securing, monitoring, and maintaining your network
• Implementing an economic model that will sustain your project

Wireless Wok

A few years ago, a university lecturer in New Zealand developed what he called the Wireless Wok approach. It is very DIY and low cost, but needs a fair bit of technical support





Drive-byWi-fi

United Villages provides villagers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America with a digital identity and access to locally-relevant products and services using a low-cost, store-and-forward "drive-by WiFi" technology. Mobile Access Points (MAPs) are installed on existing vehicles (e.g. buses and motorcycles) and automatically provide access for WiFi-enabled Kiosks along the roads. Whenever a MAP is within range of a real-time wireless Internet connection, it transfers the data from and for those Kiosks. United Villages sells prepaid cards to village Kiosk Operators and local sales agents who resell the cards to users at a profit and provide a human interface for our products and services, which include:

• Sending and receiving voicemails, text messages, emails, and faxes;
• Purchasing locally-unavailable products such as medicines, books, and seeds, which are delivered to Kiosks on the MAP-mounted vehicles;
• Accessing value-added services such as job searches, travel bookings, and matrimonials;
• Browsing locally-relevant websites and information caches.

Other Resources

There is a useful summary of resources at the webpage "Resources for low cost wireless networking".

The materials developed as part of the "Capacity building for community wireless connectivity in Africa" initiative which is funded by IDRC and coordinated by APC are available for trainers at: Wireless networking.

The South African CSIR Meraka Institute's Wireless Africa program is dedicated to making low cost networking accessible across the African continent: Wireless Africa.

A DIY Mesh Guide prepared by the Wireless Africa group at the Meraka Institute: Building a Rural Wireless Mesh Network.