Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] What Are the 'Right' Resources to Foster Professional Development?

[Femi Oyesanya]

Besides lacking the basic infrastructure, some of these communities also
lack informal professional development support systems that we now see
on the Internet. For example, I am yet to see any informal collaborative
groups for Open Source Software use or development with roots in Africa.
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There needs to be: 
  
1)  Basic Infrastructure 
2)  Formal Professional Development Support 
3)  Informal Professional Development Support 


On 6/22/2004, Gary Garriott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> In UNDP we have talked about a "development dynamic" in which a
> structured dialogue involving multiple aspects of ICTs takes place
> represented by all sectors of society and that this process, once set in
> motion, can lead to enlightened and sustainable national policies and
> strategies toward the information society .


__
Femi Oyesanya 

"All reification is a forgetting"




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] What Activities Are Offering Online Professional Development for Educators?

[Bonnie Bracey]

On 6/23/2004, "Scott Robinson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> But does anybody care? Why aren't such "local solutions" being clustered
> instead of stove-piped by development agencies and governments so as
> create a "basic supporting infrastructure"?  If they don't do it, who
> will? The private sector?

Even in the United States there are multiple solutions to various
problems. One problem is that technology and academics sometimes have a
different view as to how to achieve a basic supporting infrastructure.
There is a clash often between the machine, and emerging technologists,
and the teacher, curriculum specialist.

The people closest to the children, have even a different perspective.

The George Lucas Educational Foundation is a national outreach project
but we offer some models which can be tailored.

This is the area in which I work. Welcome to The George Lucas
Educational Foundation's Professional Development Modules Home Page

http://glef.org/foundation/courseware.php

These free teaching modules were developed by education faculty and
professional developers. They can be used as extension units in your
existing courses, or can be used independently in workshops and
meetings. You can tailor them to your local situation.

I just finished working in Jordan, Egypt and Greece. The parts that are
American or not local after downloading, take them out.

Each module includes articles, video footage, PowerPoint® presentations,
and class activities. They draw from the wealth of GLEF's archives of
best practices and correlate with ISTE/NCATE NETS standards

They will be adding additional modules over time and welcome your
suggestions for future topics and feedback on these modules. E-mail them
at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

If it is inquiry education, see this...


Bonnie Bracey 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]





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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Kabissa Launches Training-of-Trainers Program in West Africa

[Tobias Eigen]

Dear Rui, Keith & GKD Members, 

Thanks for posting your messages about Kabissa's training of trainers
program on the GKD list. Since we announced it earlier this week, we
received many inquiries from all over the world - I guess one shouldn't
underestimate the reach of the GKD list!

We are aware that as Time to Get Online grows, we need to begin
communicating our plans and approach more broadly -- keep an eye on the
 Web site where we will post more
details and also add functionality to allow people and organizations to
participate in various ways. For the time being, please complete the
feedback form on the Website or write to Kim Lowery at
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> if you want to organize Time to Get Online
workshops for a specific group of organizations or in a specific
country, have suggestions or proposals for getting involved (or
incorporating our program into your existing work) or are simply
interested in being kept informed of our progress.

I apologize for the appearance of a preference towards supporting
organizations working in Anglophone African countries. This doesn't
really reflect our mission, which is to help organizations throughout
Africa to put ICT to use for the benefit of the people they serve. We
wanted to ensure that the first rounds of Time to Get Online are as
successful as possible, so the first workshop took place in Lagos, where
I already had quite a bit of experience working with civil society
organizations. The second workshop took place in nearby Accra. The venue
for the Accra workshop was so good that we decided to hold our first
training-of-trainers workshop there too even though we are inviting
participants from throughout West Africa (including non-Anglophone
countries). The current West Africa focus also reflects the priorities
of our two funders - the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ)
and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).

Once we have our first "graduating class" of Time to Get Online training
partners who have successfully carried out their first workshops in
their own communities, we will be very interested in replicating the
program over and over again throughout the continent, training partner
organizations to carry out Time to Get Online workshops in English,
French, Portuguese and whatever other African languages make sense for
the communities they serve. We are already translating the materials
into French as part of the current phase of the program.

Where we go next depends a lot on where the demand is for more workshops
and more localized versions of the training materials. So to answer your
question, Rui: we would be interested in talking more with you and
others working in Portuguese-language African countries about
translation of our materials into Portuguese and organizing a
Portuguese-language training-of-training program. The idea of working
with organizations in Brazil on developing the Portuguese version is
appealing.

The Time to Get Online materials, which are going through a significant
update leading up to the workshop in August, are designed to be as
universally useful as possible and yet can be localized for a specific
country, language or group of organizations. For example, currently the
case studies and examples are tailored for African advocacy
organizations. The appendices and accompanying CD-ROM are packed with
further learning resources, Websites, and free software and can also be
adapted and localized.

We also believe that our curriculum would be suitable for e-learning,
both through interactive self-learning (i.e. on CD-ROM or via a Web
site) and through scheduled online workshops using Internet conferencing
and collaboration tools (i.e. Isoph ).

Best wishes,

Tobias

-- 
Tobias Eigen
Executive Director

Kabissa - Space for change in Africa
http://www.kabissa.org

* Kabissa, meaning complete in Kiswahili, was founded on the belief that
information and communications technologies (ICTs) can be a
revolutionary force in civil society. *


On June 23, 2004, Keith Birkhold <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> With regards to Rui Correia's request for trainers and assistance in
> putting together a program in Portuguese, there is a very talented
> professor from Brazil, named Lucio Teles, who was a professor in British
> Columbia, Canada until recently. He has set up IT company in Brazil,
> which is a huge Portuguese speaking country. This is his website for the
> new company: . He was part of a 12-member
> panel group which worked with an Ohio school in best practices for a
> virtual school, and is very good at knowing which hardware and software
> to use for a variety of objectives. He may be able to help you and to
> also help you set up a network to continue developing skills. That is
> the beauty of the Internet -- distance is a minor limitation. Hope this
> helps.
> 
> 
> On Tuesday, June 22, 2004, "Rui Correia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > I follow with inter

Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] What Are the 'Right' Resources to Foster Professional Development?

[Edmond Gaible]

Greetings to all,
 
As my friend and colleague, Scott Robinson, suggests, our consideration
of the technical means of professional development begs several
questions. Who benefits from professional development? Or, perhaps of
greater importance, in poor and agrarian economies, Who are the
professionals?

In India, as in Latin America per Scott's example, income polarization
leads to rising economic tides that submerge, rather than lift up, the
poor. The same of course can be said of the United States, and many
other countries. A cursory search for evidence yields many results,
including:

Juan Forero, "Latin America is growing impatient with democracy"

(Graphs income disparity in 8 LAC countries)

Amy Waldman, "Low tech or high tech, jobs are scarce in India's boom"
NY Times, May 6, 2004
(Describes job-scarcity for engineers in high-tech Andhra Pradesh)

If we accept this situation, we might best explore the use of accessible
tools to provide professional development for those 'professionals' most
in need. Areas of exploration would (and currently do) focus on locally
available, low-cost, and in many cases mobile devices rather than on
high-bandwidth solutions.

- Jiva Institute's Teledoc project uses mobile telephones running Java
applications and connected to the Internet  to provide electronic
job-aids to rural health workers. 

- Voxiva Corporation has developed a cross-platform HIV/AIDS Information
Management System that provides tools for health workers to report new
HIV infections, and track drug, equipment and other supply levels;
monitor ARV resistance and the health of people living with HIV/AIDS,
and access lab results.

- The World Bank Institute's ICT for Education division recently
completed a proof-of-concept project using iPAQ handheld computers
(PDAs) for the collection of Education for All data from primary schools
in the Gambia. The project demonstrated the potential of handheld
devices to reduce costs and increase the accuracy of the data-collection
process.

By expanding our models of professional development to include
just-in-time job aids and decision support, we open ourselves to a
welter of higher-impact, lower-cost solutions: Handheld support for
classroom teachers to guide them through new pedagogies OR to guide them
past lacunae in their own skills and knowledge; Telecenter-based
decision-support for clients of micro-banks or MFIs, helping farmers
determine amortization of loans for irrigation equipment; GPS / GIS
support for local- and micro- water-management and irrigation
projects...

And of course, in countries where populations are disproportionately
young, it is critical to support the development of the professionals of
tomorrow. Education systems that stifle high-value, real-world skills,
such as communication, problem-solving, and creativity, and that focus
exclusively on building basic numeracy and literacy, do their students
and their countries a gross disservice. An unnecessary disservice. This
situation must be changed, and it can be changed -- in part  because
schools often provide the greatest access to computer and Internet
access in a given community.

Regards to all,

Ed Gaible

Edmond Gaible, Ph.D.
The Natoma Group | 610 16th Street, ste 506 | Oakland CA 94612
+1.510.444.3800 phone and fax | www.natomagroup.com
  


On 6/23/04, "Scott Robinson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Colegas,
> 
> Responding to Gary Garriott's post re "why isn't anyone responding at
> the local level?":
> 
> 1) the increasing polarization dividing rich and poor in Latin America,
> often the result of a fundamentalist "the market will solve the problem"
> ideology, has obliged the best and the brightest in villages, small
> towns and periurban slums to migrate to some country in the North.
> Their remittances now provide a social safety net at home, while
> regulatory environments protecting legacy players inhibits applying
> emerging digital tools to lower remittance transfer and transnational
> family communication costs.





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Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides
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