Uruguay has completed their plan of equipping every student in the country's public primary schools with an XO Laptop computer. The final count of the computers was 396,727 laptop computers. The project is not completed because not all of the schools have connectivity yet and teacher training is still ongoing.
With this achievement Uruguay pulls far ahead of other countries, including the most developed, in equipping its schools to make effective use of information and communication in technology.
One of the remarkable things about Uruguay's achievement is that the total cost, including the laptops, maintenance, connectivity and teacher training amounts to only 5% of country's education budget.
Finland recently became the first country in the world make access to highspeed Internet a legal right. International institutions like the UN hafa promoted access to communications technology as a human right at least since UNESCO's MacBride Report (Many Voices One World) was published in 1980. Several countries have indeed defined access to communications technology as a human right, such as France and Estonia, but Finland is the first to legally mandate access and to go as far as requiring broadband access, as opposed to just any old technology. Hooray for Finland!
Social networking researcher danah boyd (yes, she likes to have it without caps) has shared some questions that she has gotten from people on US teenagers and their use of social networking sites and her responses. Her very short and concise answers are surprisingly informative and thought provoking.
For people that may have missed this despite all of the recent buzz, the Wolfram|Alpha "computational knowledge engine" is supposed to be launched sometime this month (May, 2009). Wolfram|Alpha is a search engine that will take various types of input and, drawing on data available on the Internet, will present, contextualize and perform computations on that data. This will be an incredibly valuable tool for researchers. Here is an introduction to Wolfram|Alpha that illustrates some of the things that it will do.
Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) seems to have decided that the general public might just be a useful resource for gathering the knowledge of the world. Several years ago they were none too happy with Nature's evidence-based claim that Wikipedia was no less reliable than their expert authored and peer reviewed encyclopedia. At the time they outright rejected Nature's claims and demanded a retraction of the article on Nature's study.
EB's approach will be very different than Wikipedia's. Hardly surprising since EB is not Wikipedia and does not want to be Wikipedia - and rightly so. It will certainly be interesting to see what sort of effect this has on EB.
Meanwhile, more and more educators are finding ways to use Wikipedia. Here's an interesting article on one educator's experience. A lot of the experiments of this type that I've been coming across involve higher education students. I see no reason why this couldn't be done with others, including elementary, upper-secondary students, and especially students (at all levels) in developing regions. This is an exceptional and very real way to develop an understanding of the social aspects of information and knowledge development.
The MacArthur Foundation has published a report on the "Digital Youth Project". This is a fascinating report on the findings of a research project that looked at young people's informal use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and what they learn from it. This project is a significant contribution to the growing literature on the way ICT contributes to learning outside of formal educational settings. The major finding, that young people use ICTs to establish and communicatively participate in networks to develop and share knowledge, on their own initiative, suggests that educators have to start thinking very differently about the ways that they integrate ICTs in education. I think the general tendency is to look for ways to use ICTs to support what goes on in the classroom, but these findings suggest that it would make more sense to look for ways to use classroom practices to support communication and networking activities that young people already engage in. This is something that I have suggested in the past, but without the concrete evidence that this research provides. The authors of the report suggest the same,
"New role for education? Youths’ participation in this networked world suggests new ways of thinking about the role of education. What would it mean to really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available through online resources and networks? Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally? Finally, what would it mean to enlist help in this endeavor from engaged and diverse publics that are broader than what we traditionally think of as educational and civic institutions? "
The implications of these research findings are fairly obvious for those parts of the world where we can pretty much assume that young people are able to access ICTs in one way or another, but what of the developing regions where this is not as much of a given? I think there are obvious implications for them as well, because I believe that these findings should be taken as not relating specifically to education for the ICT savvy, but as an orientation for education in an increasingly globally connected world in general. In the case of developing regions, however, we probably need to dig a bit deeper to uncover appropriate educational practices than in the case of developed regions.
The BBC News site ran an article yesterday about the spread of the mobile web. Nothing surprising about that, it is the big buzz these days. I guess what is noteworthy now is that the "big" corporations (in this case Intel) are finally starting to take this seriously. The shift to mobile web is very interesting because it can both be seen as a reaction to the changing role of the web in people's daily lives while it also would seem to herald a new direction for the web. The overall result is that the amount of information that goes on the web and the interaction between people is exponentially greater than before. This changes a lot for the web as a "knowledge repository" since the nature of the communication facilitated by the web changes significantly. I think all this has some pretty serious implications for education and development that need to be taken into consideration sooner than later.
A large part of what is driving the spread of the mobile web is the increase in social web services, ex. blogs, twitter.com, digg.com, etc. In the early years the web was something that you sat down with and worked on, whether you were looking for information, making a web page or just cruising. Now, the web is a place where people share their daily experiences, not with summaries of a few days or so or pulling together a number of experiences into a coherent narrative, but with instantly communicated little tidbits. These are posted as they happen so it has become important for people to be able to access the web wherever and whenever people feel the need to communicate something.
This has some obvious consequences for the web as a knowledge repository because much of what is posted is presented in a limited context and/or is very subjective. Before these services became available, effective searches for specific topics were very likely to yield entire websites full of relevant information and references to supporting information. The type of communication that we see increasing on the web today with mobile services yield a very different set of resources - often simple "this is what I saw..." or "something I picked up somewhere" communication with little if any reference to supporting information to back up any conclusions drawn or suggested. With the spread of the mobile web this is very likely to increase. Things start to look a little more like a rumor mill than a knowledge repository.
I'm not suggesting that real valuable objective information is going to disappear off the web. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to suspect that it may become somewhat separated from the information that web users will increasingly interact with on a regular basis. There are probably several ways to address this. I think the semantic web could make a big difference if it makes it possible to evaluate and tag information contextually. But, most important is educating users about the impact that their actions are likely to have when they interact using information through a public medium like the web. I think one of the most important elements in this is that web users be aware that information always travels in a chain, i.e. source and context are as important, if not more, than the information being conveyed. To illustrate:
I think that, in general, we consider our assumptions to be strengthened if we can point out sources to back them up, i.e. "I know that ... because of ..." This needs to be turned on its head such that our assumptions are first shown to be directly derived from sources, i.e. "[Source] says that ... therefore ..." This is a very simple and almost too obvious distinction, but makes all the difference in how we communicate information. Consider this, if in both of these cases you neglect the latter part of the equation, the first (I know that ...) really says nothing other than conveying a personal opinion that we may have no reason to believe while the second ([Source] says that ...) conveys a truthful and useful statement.
The spread of the mobile web is a good thing. But, it does have the potential to considerably change the nature of the web-user experience and there there is a mix of potential good and potential bad. Attitudes toward the mobile web seem to be very positive and very little attention has been given to potential downsides. There's more of a "It's coming, it's coming!!!" anticipatory excitement but now is the time to start thinking very seriously about what this really means.
I have received several requests to post references referred to in my so-called "Millennium Declaration Analysis Series" which I link to in the left margin of the main page of this blog. These lengthy articles are drafts that I produced for my MA thesis in Comparative Education. In most cases I did not include full references nor did I even include citations everywhere that they should be. These should not be taken as complete scholarly works but more as a snapshot of my thinking as I worked my way through my research and thesis process. Nevertheless, these are the most popular content on this blog. Therefore, I have decided to post here the complete list of references from my completed thesis. This should include almost all, if not all, references referred to in the draft chapters posted on this blog.
References
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At the Internet Governance Forum held Brazil, the issue of an "Internet Bill of Rights" has once again been brought up, as it was at last year's forum. I said then that I thought it was a waste of time and my view has not changed. It's a misinformed proposal based on a misconception of what the Internet is. Robin Gross of IPJustice, one of the primary initiators of the proposal, underlines this in a statement quoted on the BBC News web, where she claims that "rights issues on the net were 'transnational'."
Interesting... except that they are not transnational. At best, we could say that there is a net-layer that aspires to transcend nationality - but that is not the reality. Territoriality is very much alive and nations do impose their conceptions of "rights" within their domains. The issue of rights is therefore not an Internet issue, it is a general issue that should be, and is, addressed at a territorial level.
The European Commission (DG Enterprise and Industry, I suppose) has made available a comprehensive report on the significance of free/libre and open source (FLOSS) applications for economic and innovation development. The report is titled "Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU" and the principle author is Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, founder of the online journal, FirstMonday, and a prolific researcher on FLOSS.
The report is HUGE, nearly 300 pages, and, as I mentioned, quite comprehensive. I actually wonder whether it would have made sense to divvy it up but a case can also be made for presenting it in one piece.
What's most interesting to me is Ghosh's focus on FLOSS communities as learning communities and their significance for development. He's done a lot of work in this area in the past. See especially pg. 171, in the conclusions to chapter 8.5, Modeling the economic impact of FLOSS on innovation and growth. There the authors say (take a deep breath, looong sentence),
"Our results are suggestive of the overriding importance of human capital formation in this set-up, and especially the way in which FLOSS can directly and positively influence the speed at which contributors to FLOSS communities can pick-up new knowledge and put that to good learning use, for themselves but also for the more down to earth users of FLOSS software, certainly if the latter would be geared at the design of free access ICT-based learning environments."
Same thing I was trying to get across here, where I do indeed refer to Ghosh's past work. Not as sophisticated as in this new report, but we're thinking along the same lines.
Apple finally announced its long awaited "iPhone" today. To tell the truth it's a pretty snazzy gadget. Although many have attempted to accomplish similar technological convergence, Apple, as so often before, seem to have anticipated users' needs and wishes to create something that is new, usable and desirable, and in so doing they may be once again leading a pardigm shift in how we use technology. This last point is what I think is most significant about the iPhone. It reminds us that we have not, nor should we assume to have, come up with the ultimate design for technology and the way we use it. Yet, there's always a persistent group that considers divergence from current computing paradigms, such as Microsoft's Office suite, a valid criticism against new technology. As delivery of the OLPC's (One Laptop Per Child) "$100 laptop" nears, the project has received a lot of criticism on exactly this point, ex. "It doesn't look like anything that's being used in the business or computing world today, therefore it's misleading, and at worst, useless." I have a few responses to such criticisms and Apple's bold new venture proves my point(s) in so many ways:
1. Given that the OLPC laptop is intended for young children, how do these critics know what computer use in computing and business is going to look like when the laptop users enter these fields? I've been using computers for over 25 years and have not witnessed the kind of consistency that these critics seem to expect from computers in the future.
2. The OLPC laptop is to be delivered to young people in many areas where computing is relatively new. Is it unreasonable that these new users, coming from a very different background, will be able to point out to more complacent longtime computer users different and better ways to accomplish tasks? Remember, it was Heddy Lamarr (actress) and George Antheil (musician) who came up with the idea of "frequency hopping", on which modern mobile telephone technology is based. They didn't hook up with experienced engineers until they started going through the patenting process.
3. Why do these critics think that OLPC laptop users will want to use the technology to do what they themselves have done with it for the past half century? Computers are not collections of software, even though that's how most of us use them today. Computers are essentially workbenches for creating tools to do whatever a creative mind can come up with and young people tend to have very creative minds.
People over at the UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP) have caught on to the brilliance of Wikis. They've released a bunch of their "e-Primers" under a GFDL license onto Wikibooks. What this means is that they are free to be edited by YOU, me and everyone else.
Somewhere I read that 1 ICT year is roughly equal to 3 real years. So, if an e-Primer was published 3 years ago, that means it's at least 9 years outdated! But, now we can all go and update them to our hearts' content with examples of good/bad practice, new developments, etc., and, of course, I expect us all to do exactly that. Obviously, you'll most likely find me hangin' out around the ICTs in Education primer, although I'm sure I can find some other topics of interest in the vast amount of material available.
It would be great to see some other organisations do this.
There seem to be so many things going on these days. Maybe it's just that time of year or maybe I'm finally awaking from semi-hiatus. Either way, I'm probably going to cover a lot of news in this post.
Two of the more promintent items "du jour" are, of course, the China-Africa Summit and the Internet Governance Forum. Intriguing happenings on both fronts. Both of these, along with other not-as-visible things, underline the types of changes we are seeing, and will continue to see in the near future.
The China-Africa Summit is one more embodiment of what has been talked about for some time now, i.e. the changing relations in the global sphere being brought about by the rise of "new" economic powers, especially China and India. This summit makes it quite clear that China is looking to build economic ties with African countries to strengthen their position (although not only - I was recently at a meeting here in Iceland with a delegation of 30-35 people from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education that were on a world tour stretching right around the globe to build educational and business ties. Talk about thinking big!). Hopefully this is good news for Africa, but there is a justified measure of scepticism concerning the reputation of the benefactor. For instance, it would be great of the budding relationship between Africa and China would result in better telecommunications connections for Africa, but hopefully their use would not be managed the same way China manages its own communications infrastructure.
The Internet Governance Forum is in my opinion very confused. Governance involves the the exercise of authority to manage a consistent societal structure. I don't see this as being applicable to the Internet as such. The issues that are increasingly being raised under the auspices of "Internet governance", eg. access,
diversity and basic rights, are not exclusive to the Internet. These are issues that need to be addressed outside of cyberspace. We are not nearly "virtual" yet. Therefore there is no sense in trying to govern a space that is not inhabited, per se. For the time being, Internet governance should focus on the things that we can hope to govern, i.e. technical issues such as interoperability and domain management.
Several different points of view on the Internet Governance Forum's inaugural meeting.
Another interesting thing worth mentioning:
Potential car of the future?
This is so cool! The sad thing is that it seems that each time one of these breakthrough ideas that will radically change energy consumption emerges, it seems to quietly disappear and things go on as before... (I remember reading about a revolutionary alternative to washing machines many years ago that was said to be on its way to the market shortly - never happened.) They can't all be bad ideas, can they?
An "Internet Bill of Rights" has been proposed at the inaugural meeting of the Internet Governance Forum. While I can see the rationality behind wanting to ensure some basic rights for Internet users, I just don't see what sort of impact a bill of rights is expected to have. And furthermore, introducing this under the auspices of "Internet governance" underlines how weird (in my opinion) the whole "Internet governance" thing has become.
If my memory serves me right, "Internet governance" became a prominent issue (i.e. if it was around before, not many people were aware of it) around the debate concerning the ICANN's management of top-level domains and a handful of other fairly obscure technical issues. Most of these issues remain unresolved. Meanwhile, the notion of "Internet governance" seems to have taken on the elasticity of a well chewed wad of bubble gum. All of a sudden "governance" is taken to refer to everything from freedom of speech to basic issues concerning access and multilingualism.
These certainly are real issues worthy of attention, but grouping them with the technical issues that "Internet governance" used to refer to is confusing. At least there are real forseeable ways to resolve the old "Internet governance" issues, i.e. management of top-level domains etc., but these new issues seem to require something of the Internet that just isn't there.
For example, let's say that we do draft an Internet Bill of Rights. It's not difficult to imagine what would be in it, basically the same stuff that's in the universal declaration of human rights. Maybe in slightly more techy language, or what? Then, who is going to monitor and/or enforce the protection of those rights? And how?
The thing is that, as yet, Internet societies (that's another problem, there's not just one) are not separate from terrestrial societies. Yes, individuals may be able to distance themselves to some extent from their terrestrial existence by going on the Internet. But, at the end of the day, they remain tethered to their terrestrial roots and are ultimately subject to the rules and regulations set by the relevant territorial authorities. If those authorities are not willing to acknowledge the political supremacy of an "Internet governance" body, an Internet Bill of Rights is likely to be little more than a noteworthy statement on a piece of paper (or a webpage).
The United Nations University (UNU), a network of specialised research and knowledge sharing programs, has announced that it has joined the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCW Consortium). The OCW Consortium is an initiative which I believe was launched by MIT after they started offering free access to MIT course descriptions, syllabi, reading lists, lecture notes, etc.. Opencourseware is based partly on the notion of open source software, i.e. making courseware freely available for anyone to use for their own learning, as a model for their own courses, etc.. The limitation that MIT has set is that opencourseware does not provide access to MIT teaching staff and can not be used to receive any recognition or qualifications from MIT.
I think it's great that the UNU is doing this. It is certainly in the spirit of the UN and the ideal of an "information society open to all". The UNU's involvement in this initiative may certainly produce an important resource for individuals and organisations the world over. But, I think there is a slight flaw in the current thinking about opencourseware which limits somewhat its potential.
Open source software is based on complex communities that involve themselves in projects for many different reasons. Most importantly, although open source initiatives form around the production of specific artifacts, i.e. the software source code, they are process based, with the primary focus on two processes; knowledge development and making something better (Raymond's "bazaar" analogy). Not everyone agrees to this description of open source communities (some focus more on the concept of "free/libre"), but I think that this description is the one that has the most significance for other communities interested in integrating elements of open source communities. What is important about open source communities in this regard is the way they work and the tools they use. What I feel is missing from the opencourseware initiative, when I look at the matter from this perspective is, the dynamic change in open source and the tools that make it possible to track changes, what prompted them, who made them, how they were made,. etc.. Imagine if one could track the evolution of a single course over years and across circumstances and read about why one text was replace with another over the years, etc.. I think this would be far more informative than the simple static descriptive resources being made available through opencourseware initiatives.
So, while I applaud the OCW Consortium and the UNU for its commitment to the initiative, I think a lot more could be done with the basic idea to make it even more useful. Things to consider:
Standardised means of describing courseware (open metadata model)
Concurrent versioning systems (CVS) for courseware
Promote change and encourage sharing (gpl-type license)
The inaugural meeting of the newly established Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID) starts next week, June 19th. This is certainly an interesting development and I'm anxious to see what comes out of the meeting. I think that the multi-sectoral approach could prove to be very beneficial.
The selection of Intel's Craig Barrett as chairman I think is an excellent choice. Not only is he extremely qualified for the task, but he also seems to be genuinely dedicated to addressing the problems faced by developing countries today in an equitable and meaningful manner.
Things have been slow around here. I'm in the midst of a relocation from the US to my home in Iceland and though Iceland is supposedly a leader in terms of connectivity, it takes 2 weeks (!!!) to get my home Internet connection going (still waiting...).
Anyway, who else thinks it remarkable that the most popular blog according to technorati.com is a a chinese blog? (Haven't a clue what it's about, but I find it remarkable nonetheless. Here's the blog.)
This is just very, very sad: CNN.com - Official: Africans pay $1,800 for 1GB of data - May 18, 2006.
This article on BBC News considers how perceptions of the media are changing in an information age. Interesting read. BBC NEWS | Technology | Media holds its own in trust poll
They managed to sweep the issue under the chair at WSIS, but that doesn't mean it went away: BBC NEWS | Technology | Unease over how the net is run.
This years report has been published:
World Economic Forum - Global Information Technology Report
There's an incredible amount of movement over the years in the Network Readiness Index. It's not entirely clear to me what of these changes are due to actual progress in the area, changes in the way the index is formulated, or both. Nevertheless, there is some very interesting information in this generally optimistic report that specifically highlights the transformative power of ICTs.
Also check out the interactive map that comes with it. Mac users will need to use a browser other than Safari to view it because the Flash compatibility check doesn't catch the relevant info on Safari.
World Information Access Project - 2006 Briefing Booklet - See also the main web site here.
This report is based on existing data from a variety of sources, so don't expect anything too earth shattering. I think some of the assumption might be stretching it a bit. For instance, finding #4 of the five that are mentioned concludes that "developing countries - especially countries in Latin America - are putting more cultural content online than they are pouring into books." As far as I can tell, the internet part of this claim is based entirely on the number of web hosts in each country. Going from there to cultural content seems a bit of a leap to me.
It's Sunday - time for a big post! A few days ago I posted a couple of things about Negroponte's $100 laptop. One of the things that I mentioned was the common criticism, which extends to ICTs for development in general, that there are more pressing problems in developing countries than the lack of ICTs. This got me thinking about how we justify the ICT4D agenda and sent me back to the Millennium Declaration in a quest for answers. What follows is a fairly lengthy analysis of the Millennium Declaration, what it says about ICTs for development and how this relates to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). What it boils down to is that the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs do make it clear that ICTs should be leveraged in whatever way possible to facilitate development efforts. But, to get a complete picture of how they are to do this and what are the intended outcomes, we have to look beyond both the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs. Click below to read on...
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It's fairly widely recognized that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are important for developing countries, although there are always a few who differ in their opinions. One of the primary defining documents for current development efforts is the UN's Millennium Declaration (UNMD) on which the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are based. What I want to do here is to analyze the UNMD to determine what it actually says, or suggests, regarding ICTs and development, and especially, education. As I've mentioned in the past, documents of this nature are sometimes criticized for being rather vague in terms of their descriptive and prescriptive function. This is not entirely a fair criticism because these types of documents need to be regarded as living documents that can continue to serve their function even though the issues that they aim to address change over time. Therefore what is perceived as vagueness or ambiguity, is better described as a necessary openness to allow for different interpretations in a rapidly changing world.
The primary aim of the UNMD, as stated in the document itself, is to acknowledge globalization and promote it in a positive light. It is claimed that the central challenge for development is to ensure that the benefits of globalization are evenly shared and distributed. The implications of these claims are that development efforts must focus on the need to create a shared future and that this requires that policies and measures that affect the global population must correspond to the needs of all, especially developing countries.
So what is the view of globalization that is being promoted here? Well, the UNMD doesn't tell us that, but I think we do have to be clear about it. Obviously, globalization means different things to different people at different times. But, in a general sense, I would say that what we refer to as globalization concerns the increasing interconnectedness of social institutions due to growth in international trade and internationalization of production processes, fueled by the increased speed at which information is transferred across the world. The key words here are "interconnectedness", "international trade and production processes", and "information". Hence, globalization is an economic trend that transcends borders by making use of information technologies. If we accept this definition, I don't see how we can discuss globalization, as it presents itself today, without acknowledging the central importance of ICTs to the concept itself. So, we see, right at the outset, that although ICTs are have not been explicitly mentioned yet, they are of central importance to the primary aims of the UNMD.
ICTs are not mentioned in the UNMD until in section 20, and then only in a very vague context. There it is stated that we need "To ensure that the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communication technologies, in conformity with recommendations contained in the ECOSOC 2000 Ministerial Declaration (ECOSOC2K), are available to all." Hence, ICTs should be available to all, but to find out why, we have to look at the ECOSOC2K. This is important, because, while the UNMD is vague about the purpose of ICTs, the ECOSOC2K is not. It specifically address the relationship between ICTs, the knowledge-based economy and development as is made quite clear in the subtitle of the document, "Development and international cooperation in the twenty-first century: the role of information technology in the context of a knowledge-based global economy." Paragraph 2. clarifies this position, where it states that "... [ICTs] are central to the creation of the emerging global knowledge-based economy and can play an important role in accelerating growth, in promoting sustainable development and eradicating poverty in developing countries as well as countries with economies in transition and in facilitating their effective integration into the global economy."
The ECOSOC2K goes on to make a very good case for ICTs for development in terms of capacity building and providing opportunities for change. Furthermore, it associates goals with economical prospects that are consistent with a global society that values all kinds of knowledge. It places great emphasis on the importance of harnessing the potential of ICTs in education to increase human and institutional capacity to access, utilize and generate knowledge. This is seen as necessary to create a conducive environment for participation in international markets. What is especially interesting about these recommendations, is that these last few points are stated in general terms and may be taken to apply equally to developed and developing countries. Though this is not explicitly stated, we can surmise that it is the authors' belief that the goals being promoted are of equal value to everyone. That is to say, that developed countries will benefit from the inclusion of developing countries in the knowledge-based society, not only the other way around, because we are creating an "emerging global knowledge-based economy" that requires input from diverse sources.
The overall language of ECOSOC2K and how the knowledge-based economy is construed, suggests certain approaches to education. The knowledge-based economy is considered to be based on widespread generation and utilization of knowledge. The goal then for human resource development is to strengthen "... the production, acquisition, absorption and dissemination of knowledge products." Integration in the knowledge-based economy is therefore based on specific processes, with which we can associate certain key skills:
knowledge production: the ability to use and generate knowledge,
knowledge acquisition: the ability to locate and evaluate relevant knowledge,
knowledge absorption: the ability to learn from others' knowledge,
knowledge dissemination: the ability to produce reflections of one's own knowledge, i.e. information, to share with others for their learning benefit (see here for why I say "reflections of knowledge").
It would be absurd to deny the importance of literacy and computer skills, and it is by no means my intention to do so. What I wish to highlight is that this view of the knowledge-based economy suggests additional skills that are central to the need for "capacity building" and a "conducive environment" described in the ECOSOC2K. These are the skills that are not necessarily directly related to the use of ICTs, but are indirectly related, and necessary, as they constitute the key skills related to an ICT driven knowledge-based economy. Hence, the justification for ICTs in development education is clear - these are the tools that define the knowledge-based economy, just as machines were the tools that defined the industrial age. But it is not enough that people are able to use the tools, they have to be able to use them in a way that is consistent with the values of the society that they are meant to serve. In this instance, that means being able to engage in knowledge work and to be able to use ICTs to maximize the outcomes of that work.
It is very clear that this is the thinking behind the ECOSOC2K. Since the UNMD references the ECOSOC2K to clarify the role of ICTs in development efforts, the cultivation of skills related to the knowledge-based economy are encompassed by the MDGs. Since ICTs are only mentioned in target 7 of goal 8, which states, "In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies - especially information and communications technologies", we have to assume that this goal is related to section 20 of the UNMD, and therefore, further defined by the ECOSOC2K. The alternative is to concede that this important section of the UNMD simply didn't make it into the MDGs. In any case, it is clearly stated in the UNMD and therefore a concrete resolution of the UN General Assembly, and I think that WSIS was intended to illustrate the development community's commitment to ICTs for development.
This interpretation raises the question of whether efforts to monitor and measure the impact of initiatives related to the UNMD and the MDGs are measuring what has been outlined above, i.e. the promotion of skills related to the knowledge-based economy. There are some good examples, such as infoDev's "Monitoring and evaluation of ICT in education projects", which includes an excellent chapter on indicators that specifically discusses the "Learning of “21st century� skills". There are also rather dismal examples, like "Core ICT indicators" which was produced by the UN's "Partnership on measuring ICT for development" project. This publication that was presented at last years WSIS Phase II does little more than measure access to ICTs, and a limited number of ICT related activities that focus more on the information consumer aspects of ICT use, rather than knowledge production use. ECOSOC2K repeatedly mentions the need for synergy and coherence in development strategies. There is clearly a gap in that regard as far as knowledge work skills are concerned. Providing accurate and relevant indicators is extremely important because, not only do they provide a picture of what has been done, they also reflect the priorities of the development community, have an impact on what types of projects are funded and they affect policy and decision making.
Another interesting twist that ECOSOC2K puts on ICTs in development work is that, because the goals are specifically related to the knowledge-based economy, pedagogy becomes an inherent overarching concept throughout the ICT for development agenda. The concept of lifelong learning, in the "Delors" sense, i.e. "lifelong, lifewide and lifedeep", is central to the view of the knowledge-based economy that is presented in ECOSOC2K, i.e. an open and democratic environment where knowledge is continuously generated, shared and utilized. Therefore, when considering the impact of ICT for development initiatives, we should also consider their potential to foster learning environments consistent with the concept of lifelong learning. This would include the ability to critically analyze and utilize existing information for personal and institutional benefit, and the ability and self-confidence to generate and share existing and new knowledge.
The nature of ICTs and the way that they allow us to work with information and knowledge can be both revealing and deceiving. On the one hand, we can think of ICTs as tools that augment our natural capacities for processing and generating information and knowledge, and as such highlight the processes involved so that we can gain a better understanding of those processes. But ICTs can also appear to be automation devices, sort of a layover way of thinking from the industrial age, and this can easily deceive us into thinking that ICTs constitute an end in and of themselves. If we focus on the revealing aspects of ICTs and consider how these relate to our increasingly knowledge-centric society, we stand to gain considerably by expanding the knowledge-base to which we have access and which form the building blocks of the emerging knowledge-based society. But, to achieve this, it will not be enough to provide access to, and the basic skills needed for, the technology, or even the existing information and knowledge made available by the technology, for that matter. These will be needed, but they are not enough. We need to think of this in terms of the greater knowledge-based society and the types of activities that individuals will need to perform to benefit from that society.
I posted on the original study, so I figure I have to post on the follow-up: BBC NEWS | Technology | Wikipedia study 'fatally flawed'.
Encyclopaedia Brittanica has posted a rejection of Nature's evaluation of Brittanica and Wikipedia, calling for a retraction of the original article. Nature has rejected Brittanica's rejection and says that they will not retract.
And I ask, but which one is more of a knowledge development tool? (Hint: I think transparency is necessary for the knowledge development process.) Evaluating something like Wikipedia based solely on content sort of misses the point, in my view.
A couple of interesting readings I've been going over that illustrate the "information age" version of dependency theory:
Globalisation, ICTs, and the New Imperialism: Perspectives on Africa in the Global Electronic Village. Yunusa Z. Ya'u.
A continental Association of African Internet Service Provider Associations. Richard Bell.
These two articles discuss the difficulties of implementing ICTs in developing countries, specifically in Africa, due to the policies of international organisations and multinational Telecoms. Bell's article is not exactly new, but relevant nonetheless.
Reading these makes me want to take a better look at the famously doomed MacBride Report. Indeed, some people already are.
Bill Gates recently made fun of MIT's $100 laptop program at a forum with government leaders of the Americas: Bill Gates mocks MIT's $100 laptop project.
Gates has been accused, and indeed found guilty, of some pretty dubious dealings, but this time he has hit an all time low. His snide criticism of the $100 laptop program is not only crass, but entirely wrong. Gates specifically pokes fun at the notion of a "shared computer" and emphasizes the true cost burdens of providing computers; applications, network connectivity, and support.
1. MIT's program is titled "One laptop per child". The computer is not intended to be shared.
2. The laptop will use open source software (n.b. not Microsoft), which is free of cost.
3. The laptops will have built-in mesh networking, allowing users to experience network environments even where Internet is not available, or to share a connection when it is available.
4. The open source software community has established a very effective community based support structure, free of charge (n.b. not requiring prohibitively expensive Microsoft Certification), which still manages to befuddle proprietary companies.
Meanwhile $600-$1000 Origami/Ultra-mobile computers, which no one seems able to figure out what are supposed to accomplish, that will only run on proprietary software (and this from a company that refused to support right-to-left script in its software) are a better idea?
UNESCO is collecting opinions on their action plan for moving towards knowledge societies: WSIS Consultation. This is your opportunity to be heard. Go for it.
I already submitted my comments under Action Line C3: Access to info and knowledge and Action Line C7: E-learning. All pretty much in line with my previous statements on this blog.
Outrageous, if you ask me: CNN.com - Tolls could dot the Internet highway - Feb 27, 2006
These are the types of things I like. An "open source-like" book titled Wireless Networking in the Developing World. The book is authored by known and respected professionals. It is released under a ShareAlike Creative Commons license. The book is available for free electronically or a printed copy can be ordered. It is supported by the website, where the authors have set up a wiki for commenting on the book, making corrections, translating and providing concrete examples of projects. Impressive stuff. Check it out.
Sometimes I feel that I need to refocus and put the things I've posted about into context. This blog is supposed to be about leapfrogging, but it might not always be clear where I'm going with these ponderings of mine. So here's a brief opinion piece to tie some things together. The burning question of the day - given what I've posted here, what is my view of leapfrogging development?
For me, this boils down to at least two questions:
- What are the goals of leapfrogging development?
- What is the role of ICTs in leapfrogging development, given those goals?
My answer to the first question is that the goal of leapfrogging development is the expansion of the information society to be representative of the multitude of ways of knowing throughout the world. This is not a technological development and it is not something that concerns only those who find themselves on the wrong side of the "digital divide". To me, the notion of the information society is global, democratic and inclusive. Being a part of the information society is not only about having access to information, more important is being able to contribute to the information society. The focus for leapfrogging development is then on finding ways to increase the input of marginalised societies and cultures into the global information flow. As long as that input is missing, the information society is deficient. Hence, leapfrogging is intended to "fix" the information society by increasing the diversity of resources available.
The reason that ICTs are important for leapfrogging development has nothing to do with the technological sophisticiation expected of members of the information society. Rather, it just so happens that they are, at the moment, the best means we have for sharing information. If we were to discover tomorrow that we are all able to communicate globally through "extra-sensory perception", a lot of that technology would be immediately rendered obsolete. The technology is not the necessary part of the equation. The necessary part of the equation is being able to translate knowledge into information in a way that it becomes meaningful for others and to have the means for effectively using and communicating that information.
Leapfrogging is to me not a matter of one party helping another. It is a collaborative activity that is intended to benefit everyone involved. What leapfrogging can provide for developing countries is acknowledgement of the relative cultural knowledge base in a global society - empowerment in a world driven by knowledge and information. For developed countries, recognition that there is no supremacy in knowledge - knowledge, wherever it originates, constitutes a valuable contribution to be evaluated on a par with any other knowledge. You never know where the "next big thing" is going to come from. Now, how do we effectively use ICTs to promote and support the activities necessary to form an equitable information society? And, how will we know if it is being achieved?
This is certainly not all I have to say on the matter, but let it suffice for the time being. And now for a couple of relevant links:
India is such an excellent example of what I'm talking about - India Empowered to me is Knowledge taking roots in the village
I think Wikipedia can be leveraged as an important tool in leapfrogging development - Blogs and Wikis: Ushering in an Era of Change
It's funny how things happen to fall into your lap at just the right moment. Here I am pondering the nature of the information society, wondering what are the characteristics of an information society and when can we say that we have, or that someone has joined, an information society, when this story of internet use in China (more here, too) pops up. Basically, what happened is that a journalist in China, that does its best to control and filter Internet access, sent out a message about restrictions about to be imposed on a group of editors just prior to a meeting where these restrictions were to be announced. The message proliferated over the Internet so that, eventually, everyone knew what was about to happen before it was announced. The authorities ended up reversing their decision. The questions that arise in my mind are, can a country that tries to control access to the Internet be considered fully integrated with the information society (i.e. is the information society by necessity a democratic society)? And, can a domestic power ever fully control access to the Internet or are they just delaying the inevitable (i.e. integration into the democratic information society)?
I've been thinking some more about the "information society", something I've thought about in the past. I thank Ajit K. Pyati's paper for re-piquing my interest because I think this is an important issue, since it is something that we seem to be striving for. I decided to put down some of my thoughts. This can be taken as an argument for the need for something more than the "technological determinism" identified by Pyati in the WSIS documents referred to in his paper. Click below to read my thoughts...
The concept "information society" is a conceptual construct and I think it is reasonable to assume that one concept is meant to modify the other. But, I have never come across a clarification of which is meant to modify which. It would be useful to break the concept of "information society" down, but both "information" and "society" are difficult concepts that are understood in many ways. For my purposes, I'm going to rely on the following general definitions:
Information is derived from knowledge and experience and is communicable in a meaningful manner.
A society is a system bounded by beliefs, norms and rules in which individuals interact primarily with other individuals within the system.
Now, we deconstruct the construct:
On the one hand we could say that "information society" refers to a society which is characterised by information, and I think this is how it is usually understood. On the other hand, we might also think of it as referring to information that is somehow characterised by society or a specific society, since we usually refer to the information society, rather than an information society. Lastly, there is probably nothing wrong with thinking of the information society acting in both ways, i.e. societal information and informational society.
The first case is the more familiar and the easier to describe. It implies that there is a society, which is the primary focus of the concept, where information is the defining characteristic. I think this is what is described when, for example, "globalisation" is defined as relying on the rapid exchange of information throughout the world for business and knowledge development purposes. Through the exchange of information a global society is formed which requires certain technologies to facilitate this exchange. What bounds this society is beliefs about the technology and what can be done with it, and the necessary rules and norms to maintain order in such a system. It is a radically different kind of society than what we have been used to because interaction between individuals is not hindered by geographical distance. Therefore, the individuals that make up this society, also inhabit other societies which can be further separated, physically and culturally, than interacting societies have traditionally been.
In the second case, the focus is not on the society, but rather on information. What is significant here is that we refer to an "information society" rather than, for example, an "information network". The conceptual construct, in this sense, would seem to imply that information is characterised by either a specific society or society in general, i.e. there is something social about information. It's not difficult to think about information as being a product of a social context. If information is related to experiences and knowledge in a communicable form, it will reflect the values and norms of the society that produced it. (This is not as obvious as it may seem, but a more in depth discussion about this point is beyond the scope of what I'm trying to accomplish here, so I'll just refer to a past paper of mine that discusses this.) Hence, an "information society" can be taken to refer to information that is, or is able to be made to be, relevant for a certain social context. In this instance, the "information society". To be integrated into the "information society" then not only refers to the availability of the technology necessary to enter this society, but also, or alternatively, the ability to produce information that is relevant to that society.
As I suggested previously, we can either decide to accept one of these understandings of what the conceptual construct "information society" refers to, or we can say that it refers to both. I think that "information society" is most commonly understood in the first way that I've described. But can we understand "information society" in the second way without accepting the first? This is an important question because it addresses the assumption that availability of the technology is enough for integration in the "information society". I would answer the question, yes, but with the caveat that this would not be very meaningful if integration in the first sense is not foreseeable. The practices associated with the production of information in the second understanding of the concept can be promoted without the technical framework required for the first. Therefore, the "information society" should be understood in both ways, but it should be kept in mind that they can be separated and that full integration in the "information society" requires that the conditions suggested by both understandings be met.
(Feb 13, 2006 - fixed the link to Pyati's paper. Feb 19, 2006 - fixed a typo.)
I recently came across a paper written by Ajit K. Pyati titled "WSIS: Whose vision of an information society?". It's not exactly brand spanking new, from the May 2005 edition of First Monday. I was intrigued because several years ago (late 90's), I went looking for a suitable definition of "information society" for a paper I was working on, only to find nothing whatsoever! Ever since, I'll do a quick Google check once in a while, just to see if anything meaningful has cropped up, and at long last, my question was answered. It's a good paper and the author raises several important issues. I hope this signals a much needed debate on the nature of the oft referred to "information society" and what it means for development and education in general. Click on to read my brief critique.
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This is a brief critique of Ajit K. Pyati's paper "WSIS: Whose vision of an information society?", published in First Monday, Volume 10, number 5 (May 2005). In the paper, Pyati is primarily concerned with the World Summit on the Information Society's (WSIS) theoretical framework for its conceptualization of an "information society". The conclusions are based on a content analysis of the WSIS Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action that came out of the first phase of the WSIS in 2003. Pyati concludes that the WSIS's definition of an "information society" is utopian and technologically deterministic. Given that there is no clear consensus on what an information society is, Pyati feels that this definition ignores the complexities of the issues that inclusion in an information society are meant to address.
Pyati does a good job of describing different theoretical frameworks that relate to the notion of an information society. The theoretical frameworks are divided into two categories based on what Pyati refers to as the continuity/discontinuity argument. This distinction is used to describe the relationship between the information society and preceeding societal forms. The discontinuity camp, which includes postmodernism and Castell's informational mode of development, argues that the information society is a fundamentally new societal form. The continuity camp, which includes neo-Marxism and reflexive modernization, argues that the information society is a continuation of relations established in preceeding societal forms. Despite a clear and articulate description of these two categories, Pyati does not position technological determinism, which the rest of the paper focusses on almost exclusively, within this dichotomy. It can also be assumed that the theoretical frameworks mentioned all have their own distinct notions of what a "society" is and how it functions, which Pyati does not discuss, nor does he seem to pick up on the significance of how society is defined in the context of an "information society". Hence, it is questionable whether Pyati achieves one of his stated goals, to describe how the WSIS's conceptualization of the "information society" fits into these theoretical frameworks, because technological determinism is never related to the continuity/discontinuity dichotomy, nor is technological determinism described in terms of social organization that could be related to any of the theoretical frameworks mentioned.
Pyati raises some very good points regarding the WSIS's vagueness about how integration in an information society will be achieved and especially, how success will be measured. Specifically, the relationship between the "information society" and the "knowledge society" is a confusing one. These terms are often used interchangeably and if we are to envision some sort of transition between the two as a goal of development efforts, the distinction needs to be made clear. Pyati also brings up the matter of "levels" of development and questions whether there is an implied goal that ICTs are a tool for bringing developing countries up to a standard defined by developed countries. Is this maybe what is meant by an information vs. knowledge society? Are developed countries already forming knowledge societies and promoting lesser standards for developing countries?
Pyati criticizes the lack of "requirements for the quality of content, the nature of the technologies, or the potential use values" of ICTs. He also questions the use of the term "digital opportunity", which he feels is ill defined and comes across as a cliché. I have no problem with the term "digital opportunity", and in fact, find it quite suitable in this context. It emphasizes the fact that ICTs are enablers and not an end in themselves. Perhaps content and values should be defined more precisely than is done in the documents being analyzed, but here, it may be appropriate to state the outcomes in vague terminology in order to allow for greater flexibility in the creation of ICT applications that takes into consideration the contexts for which they are intended. If we consider the vague terminology in this light, Pyati's conclusions regarding technological determinism may be somewhat unwarranted. He may be confusing goals left open-ended for the sake of propriety with unfounded assumptions about the power of technology to bring about change.
Pyati states that the WSIS's framing of the "information society" gives the false impression that "ICTs, if only implemented properly, will transform the world and bring peace and prosperity." I don't know about "peace and prosperity", but it is clear from experience in developed and developing countries that ICTs do have the potential to have a very dramatic transformative effect. But, the key here is in the words "implemented properly". We cannot make assumptions about how best to implement ICTs in developing countries based on the experiences of others. These matters must be informed by the local contexts for which they are intended. Hence, documents such as those being analyzed, that are meant to pertain to a wide audience cannot be overly prescriptive. Pyati makes this point himself, when he states that "an international summit like WSIS is not intended to have built–in implementation mechanisms." Pyati seems to have some difficulties resolving these conflicting notions of what we should expect from international summits such as the WSIS.
Finally, Pyati questions "what authority the UN and 'world community' have in declaring that we all are living in and want to further build an 'Information Society'." Whether or not we are already in an information society, it is clear that the rapid exchange of information in today's globalized society has an impact on everyone's daily life. I think it borders on the absurd to assume that an information society is not already being built and that it is everyone's concern. The question is not if we want it or not, or if it's happening or not, the relevant question is, what are we going to do about it?
I haven't had time to read through the entire report, but I agree with the basic conclusions as stated in the intro. For now I'm just going to post this link. I may comment more later.
Anita Givens, senior director for instructional materials and educational technology at the Texas Education Agency, is quoted in an article on CNN as saying, "... what is the educational value of accessing a lot of information?" and "Having a lot of information at your fingertips is like going to the library and not reading anything." Givens is primarily referring to the need to promote critical information evaluation skills, which is of course important in our information age (I want schools to teach formal logic before they start on algebra!!!). But let's remember, the Internet is not a library. It is home to a constantly expanding and changing interactive community of users and creators of information. Access to information is one aspect, critical evaluation is another, but the people that gain the most are those who are providing the information. As Heidegger said, "In all teaching the teacher learns the most."