Nelson Mandela is a wise man

I came across this thread of information. It comes from the The World Congress on Communication for Development. It was a conference that just concluded on October 27th. It would seem that Nelson Mandela was a participant and he left with a quote used in a summary document from the conference.

It is people that make the difference. Communication is about people. Communication for development is essential to make the difference happen.

Resources need thought

We are in the process of setting up a virtual classroom for high school music. And the question has come up regarding storage and bandwidth. The variables we need to think about are disk space, number of students, frequency of uploading and downloading, number and size of music files created during the course. For example; lets say each student created 40 minutes of music files per week, and lets consider the school year is 44 weeks. Given each minute of music is 1 megabyte (MB) that would mean each student would create 1,760 MB or 1.7 Gigabytes (GB) of music during the school year or approximately 200 MB per month. Now consider we have 50 students, that means we will require 88 GB of disk space by the end of the year. And if all students are expected to be listening to half of the students work we will need 5 GB of monthly bandwidth. Now 5 GB is a low number for monthly bandwidth and we shouldn’t expect extra bandwidth fees for this low level of traffic. But what happens if the site becomes popular and its popularity spreads like wildfire (which happens within the social web 2.0). We get hit with 10,000 visitors (a potentially low number) downloading a full months worth of music, that would be 100,000,000 MB of bandwidth or a 100 Terrabytes. Now our bandwidth fees shoot off the scale. I think we should limit access to just the students…

Homework-casting

As far as I am concerned, Quentin D’Souza has it right. This is iLearn 2.0.

iLearn 2.0

I’ve been put back into a focus upon technology and education. I’ve been so busy blogging about my critical technology that I haven’t had much time to blog on the subject of technology and education. I have been asked to be a reseach associate for a project where we are looking at teaching music (the fiddle to be precise) online. A very interesting project where we have a very active and innovative high school teacher who loves to use technology to teach. He really doesn’t have much choice as his students are spread all around the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I’ll be watching what he does and make suggestions to the lead researchers and they will make the call if they introduce my ideas to him, as they don’t wan’t to disrupt his processes. So here are my thoughts after leaving his talk from Wednesday 25th of November;

• It really is about community building - how do we take a group of students and turn them into a community of learners who support one another in their learning?
• ePortfolios really are under utilized. I look forward to the day where ePortfolios become a significant part of assessment.
• Building something
  together is really a great way to learn. When you play misic it is a collaborative effort, learning should be the same.
• To what extent do we use rich media as a learning tool? is it under utilized?
• Community Learning Centers (CLC) are going to be a way station for learners. Soon the business model for the CLC will be sustainable.
• I’ve heard a lot these days that students
  don’t like to read, particularly males. What I like about what I am hearing is that it isn’t that they should be expected to read. We need to change our methods to not be so dependent on reading. It should be more balanced; reading, video, audio, play, creation, painting, physical, etc, etc, etc…
• What really is participatory video? Is there such a thing as participatory audio?
• Does groove fit here? Groove networks has always been an interesting tool. Though, It’s not Open Source. And this needs to be Open Source. For many reasons, to many for this single post.
• I definately think we need a bliki. We need to build a community wiki and have all the participants blog on how they got the the completed wiki entry.
• It’s time for me to get back into working on the Mac platform. What participatory features does garage band have? Could the students collaborate on a piece of music online?
• I need to revisit the features of drupal. Could you create a mySpaces for a learning community?
• Funny thing is all this leads back to a Community Knowledge Management System (CKMS)

Community Knowledge Management

I've created a concept map for my latest research topic of; Community Knowledge Management Systems for Development (CKMS4D).

ABSTRACT: This article describes the resources and approach required to build a Community Knowledge Management System (CKMS) in rural developing communities. The increased availability of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) through telecentres, cellular telephones, rural wireless networks and community schools have increased the likelihood of partnerships successfully creating community repositories of indigenous knowledge. Through the use of free open source software (FOSS), access to the multimedia of video recorders, audio recorders and digital photography combined with the increasing knowledge of how to use these technologies makes a CKMS within reach for many developing communities. Having the methods to gather, store, retrieve and distribute community knowledge through local partnerships and emerging ICT further reduces the knowledge divide. This article reviews development efforts in India, Uganda and ?? to provide further insight into the creation of a CKMS through community partnerships and the utilization of digital resources.

Muhammad Yunus & Grameen Bank win Nobel prize

This is a great choice for the Nobel Peace Prize of 2006. I like it most because it is giving a very public view into microfinance and how every citizen can help toward the plight of poverty. As we decrease the inequity in the world, I believe, the world we become more peaceful. This is the message this choice for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize is sending.

We need gapminder!

In my previous post I was being critical of the way some of the data was being presented in gapminders' World Income Distribution animation. I was even so bold to email my post to gapminder, and to my pleasant surprise I received a comment back from Hans Rosling. The comment spoke of how the animation used a purchasing power dollar. So, using google scholar, I went in seach of papers or some kind of reference that provided me insight how a purchasing power dollar worked. There is a lot to read, the concept goes back to the 1600's and in my quick read I would say the jury isn't out on the concept of purchasing power parity (PPP). So I didn't get the answer I was looking for but I've learned more about the world and how things are "measured". I found a really good quote from 1988 that sums it all up;

...Because of these sensitivities, one must carefully consider summary statements and policy implications derived from cross-national comparisons of poverty and/or inequality.

I am still struggling with the idea that a dollar in 1970 had the same purchasing power as a dollar in 2003 even if in the long-run the products and services have the same purchase price.
So what does this post have to do with needing gapminder? Being a flash programmer, I wanted to create my own animated graph which included two things; inflation and the dollar a day scale not presented as a logarithmic scale. Then I started to think about where would I get the data to base my animated graph upon and gathering the data would be a huge enormous hill to climb! If not impossible. So, this is why we need gapminder. Gapminder wants to make global data available, to everyone, so they can do their reseach and they can create views of the data in new and solid ways. These new views would add to the dialogue and that would make the world a better place.

Dollar a day ???

A couple of weeks ago I was watching Hans Roslings' TED talk about the gapminder technology. A very interesting talk about global data; the work they are doing is awesome! After thinking about how they presented wealth distribution and poverty I have started to have my doubts. Hans showed an amazing dynamic graphic of financial distribution since 1970. In the graphic they included the dollar a day as a measure of poverty since 1970. As years passed everything in the graphic moved to the right showing a positive progress in the fight against poverty. One thing didn't move, that was the dollar a day line. The way I calculate it (based on Canadian inflation rates) a dollar in 1970 would be five dollars in 2003. Even though the presentation is impressive, I believe it is flawed. After some reading it would also seem the whole dollar a day calculation could be flawed...

How to not measure the poor.
Poor but pedicured.
How not to measure the poor - a reply.

Don't get me wrong, I think all the work in measuring global poverty is great. I'm just being critical of how progress is being claimed and how is is measured.

Royal Holloway ICT4D Reflection

It's been over a week since the ICT4D Symposium and I have had some time to reflect on what I learned. All the learning has added to my understanding of critical technology, these are my thoughts of what I learned; (it will help if you refer to the critical technology as a graphic from a previous post)

PEDAGOGY - is very much a key to successful development initiatives. Learning needs to be built into the initiative and the learning needs to be localized.

DEVELOPMENT - is a very very important global activity ;) Development needs to be grass roots and fair, collaborative at the community level and have ways to be measured.

TECHNOLOGY - is often misunderstood in the rural developing communities. The closer the community is to large city centres or available connectivity the more technology literacy they have. They still don't understand the why of technology, or maybe it is us who don't understand why have technology? Either way, as we go down the ICT4D path it is important to have a strategic introduction of technology aligned with community initiatives (health, agriculture and education). This will encourage understandability.

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY - was confirmed; as a good number of the ICT4D presentations were critical of technology, particularly how it was implemented. A couple of comments made after my presentation got me thinking about Paulo Freire, see these two previous posts;

1. Friere's view of differential diagnosis
2. Millennium Village

It also became very apparent that a tool is required by the critical technologist (and others) to assess the readiness of a communities readiness.

CONSTRUCTIVISM - surprisingly I wasn't the only one talking about constructivist methods, meta-cognition and active learning was mentioned during the conference. It was stressed that active learning methods need to be culturally sensitive regarding learning styles.

ICT4D - ICT requires a community context for it to be successful at the community level (ie. community readiness). ICT is having a lot of success when supporting health information workers.

CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY - I felt the idea was very well received by all in attendance. This was also supported by all the critical content in other presentations. I will continue the development of Critical Technology for I feel it could provide a useful reference for those working in the field.

Transparency and Microfinance

Due to the current UN general assembly there seems to be increased talk about the effectiveness of the UN. As I reflect on all I am reading I began to think about the role of the UN from a very critical perspective. If you consider the UN to have been ineffective in helping developing countries over the last three decades. And if you consider that the UN agenda seems to be "exclusively" directed by the group of eight countries (particularly the US and UK). I begin to wonder if the UN has become a costly intermediary that is no longer required. Now this thinking isn't new.
Currently, there is a huge movement afoot to decentralize and empower the developing world at the community level, and many believe that a decentralized approach would be the most effective. So why do we have such huge amounts of our tax dollars going to support an ineffective global infrastructure?
Think even further about the changes that the internet is bringing. In particular, the concept of disintermediary and the technology tools to bring greater transparency. Why not just allow donors to target thier donations how they see best. Even have an infrastructure that allows everyone to track their donation to the recipient, and see where administrative costs are consumed.
The simple and effective microfinance site of kiva may be leading the way toward people being able to assist as they see best without the added costs of infrastructure.

Millennium Village

Sachs does not only espouse the differential diagnosis at the country level, he also utilizes it at the community level. The Millennium Village project which Sachs is the director is very inclusive of the community in decision making.

Community empowerment through participation and leadership in design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/mvp/about/community_participation.html

Freire's view of differential diagnosis

During the feedback session after presenting my paper at the ICT4D symposium someone made the comment that a Freirian approach to "differential diagnosis" would be a very community based activity. I though about this and have done some reading and I would have to agree. I'll provide two quotes and then provide my rationale.

Sachs (2005) states, A Differentail Diagnosis, which identifies the policies and investments that the country needs to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Freire (1972) states, it is absolutely essential that the oppressed participate in the revolutionary process with an increasingly critical awareness of their role as Subjects of the transformation.

I believe that what Sachs is espousing is a national diagnosis for what "ills" a country. And what Freire is espousing is individual and / or community involvement in the process of finding a remedy for the "ills". Sachs approach is too macro, communities within any given country differ to greatly to have a country level differential diagnosis. A Freirian approach would be a community diagnosis.

Sachs, J. (2005). The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. (The Penguin Press)
Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth : Penguin.

Lenin's famous statement

I'm doing some reading today about a comment made during the ICT4D symposium and I ran across this Lenin quote, "Without a revolutionary theory there cannot be any revolutionary movement". I agree with this; without a theory behind a movement the movement will falter. It is the same spirit why I believe the theory of critical technology is so important for the success of the critical technologist.

Royal Holloway ICT4D

I'm just back from Royal Holloway University of London where I presented my paper on the Critical Technologist. The paper hit the mark from the critical theory perspective as many people who presented brought up the importance of the right technology at the right time in the right place within the right context. To view all the papers visit the following link; http://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/ict4d/sympapers.html

Learner Centered Approach in Ghana

I came across this brief paper on Learning in the Digital World. What stood out for me were the authors experiences in the USA and their applying them to a teaching term in Ghana. In my mind the author is acting as a critical technologist in applying a constructivist learning approach and adjusting to the realities of working in a developing country. The paper also provides a good description of a learner centered approach. In particular the graphic that shows the student at the center of learning...

Critical Technologist planning papers

It would seem that most of my coursework is now focusing on Critical Technology and the role of the Critical Technologist. During my EDU539 (Technology Planning for Educational Environments) course at Cape Breton University I used this focus as the drivers for all three course papers. Here are the three papers;

1. Learning, Curriculum, Infrastructure and Support
2. Professional Development Plan
3. The Critical Technologists role in the Community Learning Center
   

I am in the process of rewriting them for a more general audience and will post them to this blogs academic companion blog when each rewrite is complete.

Critical Technologist as a Concept Map

The role of a Critical Technologist is comprehensive when it comes to working within a developing country. To bring greater understanding to the role I created a concept map of the critical technologists skills and knowledge base. Click the image if you want to see the full graphic.

Critical Technology as a Graphic

Last month I created a graphic of what critical technology is based upon. To date this is the best I have; I do like the way it brings the three sources of pedagogy, development and technology together. Click on the image if you want to see a bigger version.

The first step up the ladder

This video puts it in simple terms. Literacy and education should lead to a better life.

Clinical Economics (pdf)

This article by Jeffrey Sachs brought tears to my eyes. It is providing a positive way forward with the issue of poverty. He includes what he calls the big five development interventions;

Boosting agriculture
Improving basic health
Investing in education
Bringing power
Providing clean water and sanitation

Keep in mind that these interventions could change from place to place. I feel the prescriptive nature of his work is great. He is promoting a new economics, that he calls, "clinical economics";

Development economics needs an overhaul in order to be much more like modern medicine, a profession of rigor, insight and practicality. The sources of poverty are multidimensional. So are the solutions.

The section of Jeffrey Sachs' article that brought tears to my eyes was in regard to the education of children;

Despite disease, orphanhood and hunger, all 33 of last year's eighth-grade class passed the Kenyan national secondary-school exams. On a Sunday last July, we saw why. On their "day off" from school, this year's class of eighth-graders sat at their desks from 6:30 a.m. until 6 p.m.

If there is ever any doubt to the commitment they are making; this sunday display should put an end to such doubt. You may ask, "how does all this fit within critical technology?" I see the idea of being clinical and creating interventions that are directly targeted at the local situation is in alignment with the creation of learning and curriculum that is also "clinical". Every situation is going to be multidimensional; therefore, the learning needs to also be targeted to the situation.