As a part of
GII outreach from work on the National Information Infrastructure
Advisory Council, I have often been invited to work internationally sharing the
ideas of the use of technology , and to explore and demonstrate global ideas. It is great to share the
exploration, excitement, evaluation, and engagement of ideas in the use of
technology using many different methodologies. I call it connecting the dots. I
have a lot of technology friends with whom I connect in this work.
In some countries, radio and television are at this
time the most important systems of delivery. But with convergence, it is
important to keep eyes on all part of the use of technology, even if just for
understanding the possibilities. Even in nations where technology is mostly
developed by television, the Internet is a database for knowledge. In nations
where radio is the means of delivery, there are ways of using the Internet to
boost the radio delivery. Often, the most important thing one can do was to help frame the ideas , and then
listen.
Often as I worked internationally, I was challenged as to why there should be
the use of technology at all. Sometimes where there was acceptance of the
ideas, we used the documents we crafted in the US and other resources as
blueprints for thinking about the national initiatives. On the other hand we were sometimes confronted with the discussion of
age old problems of poverty, lack of reading skills and health care, gender
ideas, environmental issues , and the
issue of costs of building the infrastructure . The voices were sometimes loud.
The understanding was lacking. Depending on where I was working, I have had
some interesting discussions and dialogue about the need for the use of
technology anywhere in some developing countries and for a time, I was
sometimes challenged. Words often hit like small sharp stones with many
delivered at one time. It was prudent to be quiet most of the time when this
happened. Sometimes I was Information Highway Roadkill because of this anger
and misunderstanding.
Politicians, Pioneers, and Pundits..
To be able to work in countries, I gathered
resources from people in developing countries.
It is
important to know the politics of the
situation no matter how subtle .It is also important to know what
infrastructure exists, and as the pioneer
Gabriel Accarina, states, 40 ways to create technology acceptance.
I had to learn more about community use of
telecenters in developing nations. Steve Cisler has been mentoring some of us
in this kind of learning for some time . These people and pioneers such as Nii
Quaynor are important to know about when you go to share and learn in another country, there are
experts in many countries. But often the technology experts and the educators
travel a different path. I am sure that it is the same problem we often have in
the US. Some people are talking about the box and the wires, and some people
are talking about the transformation of education. It is not always the same
discussion. Sometimes listservs help us to understand ideas and all of the new
information. Sometimes there is nothing you can do but realize that you are a
pioneer and wait for acceptance. I will share a remarkable resource with you
that demonstrates the possibilities. But here are resources for understanding
community and telecenter development.
SUSTAINABLE INTERNET TRAINING CENTERS
A New Initiative from the Internet Society
http://www.isoc.org/education/index.shtml
http://www.isoc.org/education/sitcs.shtml
The Community Technology Centers' Network (CTCNet)
http://www2.ctcnet.org/ctc.asp
Virtual Villages and the Developing World
U.N.'s on the Internet in the developing world
http://www.cnn.com/chat/transcripts/2000/6/20/afifi/index.html
ADDRESS BY MARK MALLOCH BROWN
UNDP ADMINISTRATOR
EXPO 2000: GLOBAL DIALOGUE ON FIGHTING POVERTY
http://www.undp.org/dpa/statements/administ/2000/july/25july00.html
Report of the meeting of the high-level panel of
experts on information and communication technology
http://www.undp.org/info21/new/n-ecosoc.html#1
The gross
disparity in the spread of the Internet and thus the economic and social
benefits derived from it is a matter of profound concern. There are more hosts
in New York than in continental Africa; more hosts in Finland than in Latin
America and the Caribbean; and notwithstanding the remarkable progress in the
application of ICT in India, many of its villages still lack a working
telephone.
The formidable and urgent challenge before national
governments and the development community is to bridge this divide and connect
the remainder of the world’s population whose livelihoods can be enhanced
through ICT. As each day passes, the task becomes much more difficult. To give
just one example, exploding e-commerce ties individuals, firms and countries
closer and closer together, while those who do not try to catch the
"Internet Express" run the risk of being further and further
marginalized. Developing countries have great potential to compete successfully
in the new global market, but unless they promptly and actively embrace the ICT
revolution they will face new barriers and the risk of not just being
marginalized but completely bypassed.
Web Teacher a self paced web tutorial
http://www.webteacher.org/winexp/indextc.html
Here is why we use different ways of teaching about technology.
GLOBAL VILLAGE
If we think of the World as a Global Village, we can
have this perspective.
57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 people from the Western
Hemisphere (north and south), and 8 Africans
52 females and 48 males
70 non-whites and 30 whites
70 non-Christians and 30 Christians
6 people would possess 59% of the wealth
80 people would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer some effect of malnutrition
Only 1 would be college educated
Only 1 would own a computer
Source: United Nations NGO Reporter, December 1999
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
ON TECHNOLOGY( From Global
Leaders)
Kofi Annan (United Nations)
"People lack many things: jobs, shelter, food,
health care and drinkable water. Today, being cut off from basic
telecommunications services is a hardship almost as acute as these other
deprivations, and may indeed reduce the chances of finding remedies to
them," he said. This is the
perspective that the UN and developing nations are giving to the use of technology.
A task force of experts from developing nations
delivered a document to the UN. Here is their premise.
There are no excuses for lack of action.·
Technology is no longer a major barrier for putting
ICT in the service of development, since technological solutions exist for
almost any need or situation. The costs of equipment and materials, currently
at one fifth of the levels five years ago, are projected to decrease to only
one fifth of today's prices within five years.
At the same time, panelists were emphatic that no
State should use this anticipated decrease in installation costs as an excuse
to delay action since aggregate costs of delay will far out-weight savings on
the cost of equipment.
· Inadequacy
of infrastructure (e.g., for assuring connectivity or access for remote areas)
can be overcome by determined government policies aimed at building demand for
ICT, which in turn leads to expansion of the infrastructure.
· Emerging
e-commerce is rapidly becoming a new and very significant trade barrier for
those who are not connected.
· While costs of ICT projects are, of
course, a matter of concern for governments, the panelists' experience proved
that relatively modest investments in key sectors, such as health services,
relying perhaps not on the most modern technology, brought quick and
substantial results. It became important to be connected to the ideas that were
being shared both in the countries of high technology, and in countries where
the ideas of technology have taken hold.
The formidable and urgent challenge before national governments
and the development community is to bridge this divide and connect the
remainder of the world's population whose livelihoods can be enhanced through
ICT. As each day passes, the task becomes much more difficult. To give just one
example, exploding e-commerce ties individuals, firms and countries closer and
closer together, while those who do not try to catch the "Internet
Express" run the risk of being further and further marginalized.
Developing countries have great potential to compete successfully in the new
global market, but unless they promptly and actively embrace the ICT revolution
they will face new barriers and the risk of not just being marginalized but
completely bypassed.
A Global View?
According to an August 1999 United Nations report,
even though geographic barriers may have fallen for communications, the World
Wide Web or Internet has emerged as an invisible barrier embracing the
connected and silently excluding the rest.
With the World
As a Classroom, Connecting the Dots
Using Technology Is An Awesome
Task
Beginning Steps
The first trips were fairly easy, as they were in
Canada. But immediately, even in Canada, I learned there were different
challenges and problems to think about.
I learned often as much as I shared. Multilingual delivery is an
important factor for international universal delivery of information.
In the United States, we have learned from EPals about using multilingualism, and the dialogue has begun. I had no strategies for infrastructure for the Yukon, or for the use of technology in schools and educational communities in other places in the world, where there was no electricity or unusual or a variety of delivery systems were required. The business community assisted in different ways as stakeholders for the development of the use of technology.
GOING DOWN UNDER( KIWIS)
In New Zealand, an advocate for technology was Wendy
Pye, we met on line, and she invited me
to New Zealand, introduced me to TUANZ, their tech corps, and involved me in
ways that allowed me to dialogue with national stakeholders. In traveling the
country, I shared ideas in collaboration with teachers , the minister of
education and vendors who wanted to share in a series of conferences ,
exploring the possibilities. There was involvement of the Maori in all of the
discussion. As well, outreach for students who were being homeschooled. We often stopped into the universities and
dialogued with the educational community about the ideas of the use of
technology as well as
demonstrating some ideas. It was
important to lay the ground work, show examples, and then, let the ideas begin.
New Zealand has some developed ideas for K-3 in a niche which others have often
overlooked.
ATHENS AND THE AGORA
Working In Greece- The European Children's
Television Centre
The European Union, Unesco and the European
Children's Television Center are creating a Third World Summit for Children,
which will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece March 23-26, 2001. The purpose of
this project is to create a demonstration project for media professional
from all over the world to show the uses of media, to also involve children of
diversity in the use of the media, and to encourage collaborations in media,
education and the uses of technology in converging ways.
As international collaborators, we became involved in the delivery of some
convergence projects, but particularly in the strand of the conference that
shares the use of technology from low tech to high tech in ways. Because of the
involvement in the project, I had license to learn in many ways, and to integrate international
practice under the umbrella of technology for the conference.
Instead of meeting people just on the Internet, we
had several framing meetings for the conference and we developed strands of
knowledge for the conference presentation.
For real deployment and development of the use of technology
,collaborations took place between countries,
government , education and the private sector.
There are many stakeholders in a nation.These vary
from place to place. The meetings were an education, often, for all
involved.The United Nations also has various initiatives, The UNDP Report, and various UNESCO projects
which are demonstration and seed projects. I learned about these projects while
being involved in the development of the summit at Agora.
Third World Summit for Children.
In the countries where transformational practice has
begun, there are other ideas to think about and to share. The I Grid and
Internet 2, and resources for examination, and evaluation are of interest.
Knowledge of the government, and the way in which
the nation delivers education was also important. Ministers of Education and
their proposals and ideas are often the first point of contact. I often had a
lot of homework to do.I was offering demonstrations of the use of technology.
But other
voices of people from developing nations were combined in a document that has
helped to shape the vision of the United Nations.
So lets take
the steps to understanding.
The world is undergoing a revolution in information
and communication technologies (ICT) that has momentous implications for the current
and future social and economic situation of all countries of the world.
The Digital Divide
We first
must understand education in a
global sense. There are variables of
time, educational practice and philosophy, delivery, and resources, as well as
the usual teacher training. From AED, from I*Earn, from WorLD Links, and the
various projects working internationally, we learn collaboration. There are
collaborative studies that are international such as TIMMS. We learn the
ideational scaffolding, or ladders to learning that are believed and
educational practice as it exists in the country in which we are working.
Interestingly, even the delivery of the conference content was
different. One other variable was the use of languages , multiple languages
being taken as a given. Also, in many
countries there is not the division
between administrators and teachers. In some countries, you cannot be an
administrator in the school system, unless you have served as a teacher.
The culture of education varies a lot from country to country.
Cultural Differences
There are also cultural differences. Culture in the
sense of sustaining and sharing the culture of the country , region; location;
place; as compared to using the technology to create. evolve, support,
encourage new kinds of culture in the country which evolves from the
SuperInformation Highway.
In the
United States, we have a country that is relatively new in the sense of history
, when we work in Rome, Greece, India, or
Mexico we see the differences that happen and the results of rich cultural
heritage which must be inculcated into the
technology if the use of technology is to be considered.
While a popular ad says that the Acropolis can not
yet be put in a downloadable file,
there are projects that give students more than a cursory view of cultures, and
countries that are not places they may ever go.
in such a
way to make a difference, there are incredible resources that are available to
us online, from other cultural heritages that are not written from the
perspective of or interest of people writing from abroad.
The Greeks Crucible of Civilization is one example
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/popup/index.html
The Nature and Wisdom of the Ancient Greeks
http://www.magna.com.au/~prfbrown/ancients.html
The Perseus Project
In
considering the use of technology, the preservation of the culture using the
technology is important.
For many some of the concerns are preserving a
particular culture and technology is the tool that is being used
In working with indigenous populations, the Maya in
Chiapas, the Maori in New Zealand, the people of Native American descent, or the
people of Tibet..
It is one thing to demonstrate technology, but still another to understand the infrastructure of the place in which one is working. Making a speech and sharing ideas is easy, but engaging in dialogue that makes a difference requires understanding the place where you are working. From the United States, we have a different perspective, educationally, culturally, and of course an attitudinal difference about the use of technology.
RESOURCES
There are some ideas that are accepted and used as
resources on an international basis.
In education, these are some of the resources we
share.
Perspectives on the Use of Technology
http://www.ncrel.org/tandl/homepg.htm
This site has a learning through technology homepage
that provides a broad perspective about educational change and learning about
technology , a planning and implementation guide.
Teachers should also use the ISTE technology
standards for implementation. www.iste.org
The European Schoolnet,
EUN - is a network-of-networks in Europe promoting
the use of Information and Communication Technologies for schools. On the Web:
The World Links for Development (WorLD) program
provides Internet connectivity and training for teachers, teacher trainers and
students in developing countries in the use of technology in education.
http://www.worldbank.org/worldlinks/english/index.html
WorLD then links students and teachers in secondary
schools in developing countries with schools in industrialized countries for
collaborative learning via the Internet.
WorLD Training Materials
http://www.worldbank.org/worldlinks/english/html/training.html
Topics include:
• Collaborative Project-Based Learning
• Building a Collaborative Web Project
• Reference Library
• A guide to conducting research on the Internet
WorLD training materials are also available in
French and Spanish.