elearning_label_learning_and_society

On 11-12 December 2002, in Rome, a workshop on e-inclusion brought together representatives of organisations working to help reduce the digital divide in the world. The workshop aimed to enhance the so-called Global e-Inclusion Movement (GeM).

In this meeting, the participants identified forteen areas of e-inclusion activity. In this article we summarize the 10 first areas providing concrete examples on initiatives running currently on each one. The whole 14 activity areas, as well as the purpose and strategy for enhancing the Global e-Inclusion Movement, could be consulted through the attached document "Report for Post-Workshop (Rome) Development of the Global eInclusion Movement".

1. ICT recycling

Many people and organizations give away ‘obsolete’ IT equipment. The task for the GeM is to support the scaling up and beneficial impact of this activity to the maximum and for the benefit of as many excluded people as possible. This means collecting, transporting and supporting the effective implementation of the IT equipment in a context of capacity-development (e.g, capacity for adaptation to local conditions, use, maintenance, repair, and training).

Organizations such as Computer Aid Initiative and World Computer Exchange help to collect and transport IT equipment to places where it will again play a useful task.

2. School twinning today

It is common for cities and schools to twin i.e., establish relationships with a spirit of partnership to support and learn from each other through exchange visits and support to specific programmes of action. This concept has huge potential for global scaling up by:
· expanding what is happening already to the maximum potential;
· expanding the concept to other areas of activity such as higher education, health and even business and NGOs.

The Global Teenager Project enhance secondary pupils ICT skills and while increasing their understanding of other cultures by staging lively, global classroom debates in cyberspace. Digital Partners’ Global Classmates is a platform by which classrooms all over the world are working with each other and creating global understanding. NetAid World Schoolhouse connects people and organizations to projects that are putting more of the world's children into school.

3. Business relations for e-inclusion

This action space seeks to scale up and build on actions of importance for e-inclusion already implemented by the private sector. At least two generic lines of action can be distinguished:
· Business knowledge-support and funding by philanthropic entrepreneurs or organizations, focused on supporting business plan and development of e-inclusion grassroot projects. This kind of action is implemented by organizations such as Digital Partners, Development Space or the Global Youth Incubator (GYI) created by the Digital Youth Consortium in partnership with the Glocal Forum.

· Win-Win e-inclusion value networks, focused on exploiting opportunities to contribute gainfully to e-inclusion in the local and international value chains or networks of every type of organization. A example is provided by the company Datamation India, a leading IT services firm that decided to pursue a systematic programme of employment opportunities for poor and needy women trained in ICT. The e-inclusionsite.org uses e-commerce/e-advertising principles to raise funding for projects from poor areas of the world, where the site sponsors are effectively buying web advertising and potential click-throughs from the visitors to the website who click out of their support for the cause of e-Inclusion.

4. Learning environment on e-inclusion innovation and entrepreneurship

This e-inclusion learning space is focused on helping build systematically strategic innovation and entrepreneurship capacities of e-inclusion grassroot projects and, more widely, of all those people in leadership and influential positions in all types of organizations concerned with social responsibility for a better world.

Santa Clara University, for instance, will implement a three-week training course on entrepreneurship for the seven grass-root projects from poor countries selected by the Global Junior Challenge in December 2002. This course aims at increasing the entrepreneurial and business capacity of the projects. In the same vein, Stanford’s Digital Vision runs a fellowship programme that offers “outstanding technologists the opportunity to come to the campus of Stanford University”. This educational work and other conducted in many other parts of the world can act as the foundation for the development of a systematic learning environment focused on innovation and entrepreneurship for e-inclusion. For instance, there are various organizations that collect ICT best-practice stories: OneWorld, IICD, Development Gateway, Bytes for All, Association for Progressive Communications, Global Knowledge Partnership, Benton Foundation, Digital Partners and Youth Creating Digital Opportunities.


5. e-Volunteering for e-inclusion

This e-inclusion volunteer space is focused on joining forces to expand systematically and to the maximum expression the enormous potential of e-volunteering activity. Inside the environment of the global movement, e-volunteering clearly has synergies with, for instance, “university twinning” and “environmental ICT recycling”.

NetAid Online Volunteering, for instance, connects volunteers to poverty-fighting organizations around the world via the Internet It offers opportunities to do volunteer research, writing, programming, networking and other activities without leaving hom. Also, UNVolunteers and NetAid support experienced individuals who desire to help e-inclusion grassroot projects by spending a period of time (six months to a year) attached to some specific project in a developing country. Furthermore, the concept has now evolved towards the promotion of networks of universities that are willing to work together and provide resources to expand the reach of e-volunteering for the benefit of poor areas of the world.

6. e-Government for e-inclusion (e-Citizenship for All)

This e-government for e-inclusion space is focused on joining forces o work and promote the implementation of e-government to strengthen e-democracy and e-citizenship for all, including transparency, accountability and citizens’ participation at all levels of government.

Organizations such as Bytes for All and the Development Gateway have worked extensively on e-government collecting information and best practices as well as stimulating discussions. Cities and Regions Associations such as Telecities and ERIS@ are also working on e-government and e-inclusion with Telecities recently launching an award on “e-Citizenship for All.” In addition, the European Commission has funded various programmes, although the e-inclusion focus has been poor. At the moment a CEC new call for projects proposals on e-government is open.

7. Free/open software for e-inclusion.

This e-inclusion space is focused on joining forces to work and promote the development and implementation of free/open source software (FOSS) for e-inclusion. It is closely linked to e-government in that many governments are implementing, planning or considering adopting FOSS.

For e-inclusion it is clear that FOSS is intrinsically more inclusive than proprietary software and has much larger potential for software capacity development and hence employment in developing countries. Many organizations are working on FOSS and a European project involving three European networks of cities and regions is in the process of creating a FOSS constituency focused on e-government. This constituency will prepare a workprogramme to be presented to the CEC for potential funding in year 2004. Contacts have already been established –or are in the process of being established- with other key organizations such as the Free Software Foundation and emerging processes such as the Free Software Consortium.

8. Awards for e-inclusion (Many challenges, one spirit)

This “awards for e-inclusion space” is focused on the systematic identification of synergies and collaboration between all Challenges and other awards to enhance the impact of the value delivered to projects.

Some examples are the Stockholm Challenge Award, the Global Junior Challenge, and The Tech Museum Awards that were able to provide greater value to winning projects, particularly from poor areas of the world. It is also the case for the Technology Empowerment Network that uses the Challenges to select projects from poor areas of the world and helps mobilize support for them through its extensive network of members.

9. World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) for e-inclusion (up to 2005)

This “WSIS for e-inclusion space” is focused on the exploitation of synergies between the GeM and the WSIS process leading to Geneva, December 2003. The aims are:

· participating and influencing the information-society agendas of governments and other high-level forums on the information society;
· enhancing the opportunities and impact of value delivered to grassroot projects through the promotion of appropriate governance and concrete programme of actions.

For the e-inclusion movement the WSIS provides an important forum to present and promote the process. In fact, at Geneva, the youth are also organizing an Arts Expo to be permanently exhibited at the website of TakingITGlobal. And even prior to Geneva, this Arts Expo will be exhibited in France in August in an event organized by AnimaFac. For the future, the aim is for the Arts Expo to become a permanet hub for young artists and a global platform for regional/local cultural diversities.

10. Fund-raising for e-inclusion

This action space focuses on the identification of sources, preparation of strategies for fund-raising and definition of norms and procedures to ensure transparency, accountability and best value to and from all projects and activities associated to the movement. An important concept of the fund raising is the clicking mechanism that combines elements of e-advertising with awareness raising and donation.

A major role can be played here by national and international organizations that run programmes that may include funding for e-inclusion projects such as CEC, InfoDev, Development Gateway, UNDP, various foundations and others.

It aims to validate the results of the 'Open Sesame' project with the aid of the final users and to ensure optimal accessibility and dissemination thereof among the latter as well as the widest possible reciprocity as regards the transnational recognition of language skills in a professional environment and the integration of the specific features of the certification systems of each of the partner countries.

The project's results and products will include (a) documents describing the validation phase and (b) electronic or on-line tools.

The tools should facilitate access to vocational training in languages and the recognition of professional language skills.

The project beneficiaries will include learners, employees or job seekers who wish to identify and validate their language skills; personnel and training staff who wish to develop profiles of specific language skills; and firms and institutions who need evaluation tools.

The results will be disseminated via presentation of the progress made halfway through the project, a national conference in each of the partner countries and a final international conference in Brussels.

Behind these projects, some pertinent questions about the role of e-learning as a communication facilitator remain open to debate: can cross-cultural communication be enhanced by the ICT? Can ICT provide efficient tools to facilitate the mutual understanding between opposing groups? Is the internet actually useful for bridging the gaps between different cultures and overcoming barriers? Or will the same ‘real world’ barriers be present in cyberspace?

Dealing with Violence in Schools

The VISIONARY project is one of the Minerva supported initiatives (from the Socrates programme) dealing with conflictive situations. VISIONARY aims to provide a transnational platform for teachers, parents, pupils as well as experts dealing with violence in school. This multi-level website provides a collection of links to other webs referring to violence in school, a discussion forum, a mailing list for teachers, pupils, parents and experts as well as an on-line-questionnaire. The link collection is at the core of the project's website. It compiles, structures and comments on links of national and transnational webs referring to "violence in school" (e.g. websites with descriptions of projects, advice for parents, teachers, victims, etc., compilations of materials for school, addresses of experts and social welfare institutions, etc.).

Exploring the roots of conflicts

Living with conflict is another MINERVA supported project devoted to exploring and dealing with conflictive situations. Using examples from Northern Ireland, the Basque region, the former East Germany and urban centres across Europe, a virtual learning environment will illustrate, at the end of its development process, the roots of conflict and the difficulties and negotiating strategies involved in its resolution. The goal of this initiative is to promote the development of personal, social and professional competence and encourage tolerance. The Living with Conflict website describes the causes and problems of conflictive situations and also shows how committed citizens can begin resolving similar conflicts. This initiative will provide a picture of European societies and illustrate the methods of conflict resolution, which can be used in coming to terms with our own identity and that of others.

Another resource for resolving conflict are help lines, such as Internet Notruf, a Internet emergency call in Germany, in which pupils, parents and teachers can post their problems anonymously and get answers by experts.

All of these projects look interesting, but are they actually useful in practice? Could ICT really help establish dialogue between the different sides of the conflict? Thomas Jaeger, coordinator of the VISIONARY Project, and researcher from the Zentrum fuer empirische paedagogische Forschung of Landau (Germany) advances his thoughts on the matter: “yes, ICT can help but the success seems dependent on many different factors like the type of conflict, the target groups, the motivation of this groups, the familiarity with ICT, the software that is worked or the way that the discussion is moderated”. In Jaeger’s opinion, “what seems to be essential to me is the concept. Only providing an Internet platform in most cases won`t be enough, though sometimes it also might work”.

Enhancing tolerance in secondary schools

From another perspective, several projects work to enhance communication by different cultural groups through the Internet, allowing mutual understanding to arise and helping conflict become less probable.

Honoured by an eSchola 2002 Award from Schoolnet, the Israeli initiative ReshetShalom (Peace-Network Project) is devoted to enabling students from different cultures to get acquainted with the other’s culture by using the internet, allowing prejudices, stereotypes and fears to dissolve gradually. The Peace-Network program proceeds in various steps and tries to develop a process within the learner. First, the students who participate in the project send each other letters of introduction. In these letters they write about themselves, their families, hobbies and studies. They learn about the other students culture by making up surveys and questionnaires on holidays, politeness, non-verbal communication, boys and girls etc. Following this initial introduction, they meet face to face, as nothing can replace the human touch. Taking the experience back to the classroom, they learn the same materials together and discuss them in a forum. The learning can take place in an English class, i.e. literary texts with a message of tolerance, or in other subjects and topics. The teachers who work together decide what to teach according to their students’ interests. In the next phase, students discuss topical matters. They learn mediation and negotiation skills and, finally, explore a real conflict and discuss it in a relay chat, find a solution in a creative manner.

Several initiatives are working to twin schools from various geographic areas, so that the knowledge and understanding of other cultures can increase among secondary school pupils. Supported by the City of Rome Council, the Global Junior Challenge facilitates the twinning of schools from Italy and developing countries. The Global Teenager Project also develops a virtual classroom in which secondary students from different cultures work together trough the net. Yet another example is Digital Partners’ Global Classmates, a platform by which classrooms all over the world work with each other to foster greater global understanding. The picture that ilustrate this article was taken from the Global Junior Challenge website

The project is mainly designed to facilitate more general access to mobility initiatives among users (beneficiaries of vocational training and firms) and vocational guidance counsellors.

The main project actions will be the creation of an experimental network of vocational guidance counsellors, the design of a high-quality mobility career; the creation of an IT tool to identify personal mobility pathways; a manual for the management of mobility processes; a mobility guidance centre; and a guidance module for vocational guidance counsellors.

All these tools will be tested during the lifetime of the project.

Beneficiaries will include vocational guidance counsellors, instructors, heads of vocational training agencies, local development agents, disadvantaged groups such as the long term unemployed, young people with inadequate skills, and women.

The project dissemination strategy provides for the creation of an Internet site, publication of the project results, a pilot phase which will include the partners and their catchment areas, and demonstration seminars which will be organised in all participating countries.