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Introduction Paper to First Week
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Mar 24th, 2003 - 12:15:24 |
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From: Katia Berdichevsky
Subject: Introduction to First Week
Sent: March 17, 2003 (at) 1:18 PMEST
Background Paper WSIS
Education, Livelihoods and Community Development
The information society has become the new learning reality for young
people. It is the younger generations who feel more comfortable using
Information and Communication technologies to further expand their
knowledge. The reasoning behind this new method is the idea that young
people can and will take charge of the their learning processes, meaning
that they will seek to learn in the ways that best suit their individual
styles, needs and interests. This new wave of ICT savy young people is
leveraging different technologies, both separately and in conjunction with
one another, to harness their own skills and enhance their learning by
teaching themselves. The information society has provided young people with
the tools to explore worlds otherwise unknown to them for personal, academic
and vocational purposes.
In a brief interview with 3 high school youth about ICT, one poignantly
said, "using information technology is great; everything is just a click
away". The sense of proximity and wholeness that is granted to people who
can use information technology effectively is wondrous. For the purposes of
education, never before has the world been so accessible. Students with ICT
access have the ability to see, hear, read and virtually live in classrooms
around the globe. The experience of seeing, hearing, reading what actually
occurs in places far away can be truly remarkable and may in fact feed
students curiosity to investigate further into a region, country, and
culture or politic.
Firstly, it is important to analyse how the information society is changing
young people's education and employment prospects and how they are using the
tools of the information society to become active partners in education,
livelihood creation and community development. With respect to education,
young people are taking charge of their learning processes by introducing
ICT in their educational pursuits. Due to the fact the young people are
using various methods of ICT they are learning on many levels. For example,
word processing and email promote communication skills, database, spread
sheets, power point presentation and web page design promote organizational
skills, math and science skills. In addition to learning by using ICT young
people are in fact teaching ICT to their teachers in order to encourage
these to incorporate ICT into the classroom. A Canadian born initiative,
ePals.com founded in 1996, provides an innovative way of learners and
teachers to connect globally by using the internet. The idea was to create a
way in which teachers and students could connect to other classrooms
worldwide and began by connecting 4 schools in the same city emailing to and
fro. Today ePals has grown to become the largest online community with over
4.4 million learners. Not only does the site provide web mail and
translation services for email, it also provides discussion forums, project
ideas for classroom usage, chat rooms, and international projects. This
particular project has been utilized by many teachers and students across
Canada and globally to enrich the learner's experience y broadening their
understanding of the classroom and taking their own learning experience to a
global level.
Another example of how technology is being used effectively is the case of
the Generation www.Y which is a project that pairs young technologically
adept people with their teachers to instruct them on how to use ICT in their
classrooms. Dennis Harper, former Olympia School District technology
coordinator in Washington State and creator of Gen www.Y, says that the
program has not necessarily worked to require that teachers take the time to
learn ICT skills themselves such as HTML, power point, and the like. It has
however been effective in encouraging students "to follow their natural
interest in technology and then to bring them together with teachers whose
subject matter provides content for projects involving [the use of]
technology" ( Armstrong, Sara http://www.iste.org/geny.ttstt.cfm).
Therefore, although teachers may in fact be enlightened to use and discover
these technologies for their own purposes it is just as rewarding to
acknowledge that students may in fact be gaining valuable lessons from
teaching their teachers how to use technology which to them is quite natural
and facilitates their learning. The overwhelming sense of independence and
ownership over their education that is gained by this experience is
insurmountable.
Another scenario where ICT has been effective and encouraging of the
learning process is in Rosemary Shaw's classroom. This teacher was asked by
her students to start a community service project involving the creation of
a website as part of their school requirements. The class chose to create a
web page and host a contest to collect socks for the Watershed Action
Volunteer group. In addition, they created online survey and quiz and online
activities that other classes could use to learn more about watersheds,
water management and water conservation. Lesson plans were included on the
web page to facilitate actual ICT use in the classroom for teachers. This
particular project won a Teach Net Award for Innovation, as well as other
nominations that have proven the efficacy and value attached to this type of
endeavour.
According to Theodore Frick, Department of Instructional Systems Technology
of the School of Education Indiana University, technology is a means not an
end in education and it is best used in education for teaching and learning
activities that are not possible without it (Frick, 1996, Keynote Address to
the International Symposium in New Technologies of Instruction, Taipei,
Taiwan). The students I interviewed in Toronto concurred that they see ICT
as being a tool that only enriches their lessons and expands the horizons of
what is available to them in their traditional classroom settings This is
ery much on par with the mission of iEARN.org. This Canadian organization
created a website that also empowers teachers and students to work online
suing ICT's to uild global classrooms. There are over 120 projects in their
data base of which the students and teachers may choose one or more to use
as their classroom project. Based on the project selected they can then
engage with other classrooms worldwide that are also working on the same
project. This type of global collaboration initiative stimulates learners
and enhances their research and critical thinking skills as well as exposing
them to new cultures, ways of doing things and new technologies.
Another interesting prospect created by ICT usage is that of employment
opportunities. Not only does ICT provide a wide spectrum of employment
opportunities but also it allows for young people to explore non traditional
avenues of employment. Examples of these opportunities include such diverse
activities as selling telephone based services, internet facilitating the
use of community based radio in indigenous languages, e-commerce
opportunities and website designs. Young people around the world are
empowering themselves by creating lucrative opportunities such as the
aforementioned to further their suitability in the changing ICT led economy.
Young people use the internet to research potential employers, check job
boards, post their resumes online, investigate opportunities abroad and
search for technical and vocational training and career resource centres.
There are countless examples of young people taking the initiative to change
their futures by using ICT everywhere. One of the most creative examples is
the case of Ecosandals.com. This project had begun as a sandal company in a
poor area outside Nairobi, Kenya in 1995. It was not until 2001 that
Ecosandals took its project online the orders received online doubled the
orders they had received in the previous 6 months! (Curtain, 2002.
Generating youth employment through information and communication
technologies: best practice examples and strategies. Youth Employment
Summit).The project has grown exponentially employing more young people and
creating a community development project that uses ICT and traditional
methods to develop goods and distribute them globally in an area where
violence and destitution are rampant.
According to a recent survey conducted by TakingITGlobal.org to their
members, Canadian members seemed to agree that they felt empowered by their
ability and access to technology and that it enabled them to view their
roles as being more significant and impacting on society. This was not
however the case for some of the developing nations whose access is far less
evident and for whom ICT's are still out of reach due to finances and
infrastructure. TakingITGlobal's objective for this survey was to discover
the way their members use ICT's and how their usage affects their lives and
the way they participate in their communities and globally.
Online volunteering is also a new phenomenon that has driven young people to
hone their strengths and abilities by participating in online communities
which work for causes ranging from the extermination of world hunger to the
building of micro-credit lending institutions in rural areas. This creation
of opportunities for young people has made the generation of emerging youth
more powerful and dynamic as they see their skills as being limitless and
ever-changing with new emerging technologies.
On behalf of TakingITGlobal and WSIS I would like to take this opportunity
to invite all young people to discuss these very important issues and let
their voices and opinions be heard. These opinions will serve to further our
understanding of how the information society is changing the reality of
young people nationally and internationally and how this reality is in fact
providing promising alternatives in education, livelihood and community
development and employment opportunities.
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