ICTlogy

It happens that I just came to read Lawrence Lessig’s post Berklee’s lessons for everyone: too late to include it on my last post MIT OpenCourse Ware is not (full) cooperation.

I think that some of the comments left there are my own opinion.

In one hand:
“By allowing unlimited public access to these materials, there’s no additional cost to the students”
“Why not provide information that has already been created for another purpose to people who can’t fit in those seats, if there’s no additional cost to the institution?” by Adam Kessel on Nov 10 03 at 4:32 PM

In the other hand:
“If you think that these lessons are somehow even close to the lectures, labs, individual instruction, or in-depth theory that is taught at Berkelee, you’d be mistaken.” by john on Nov 10 03 at 2:21 PM

So, going back to my last post’s conclusions:
1.- Do it: share information. And this is G.R.E.A.T.!
2.- Content is not enough to walk the way from information to knowledge.

Ray Shroeder, in one of his posts for today says that “the OpenCourseWare initiative has been compared to the Open Source movement of software development, where developers volunteer their time to create mostly free software”. I couldn’t agree more, as it is just the point I wanted to hit in my post entitled The four kinds of freedom of free knowledge.

Going back to the source of the post, John Jerney’s article MIT’s OpenCourseWare reaches an important milestone, it looks like all our problems were solved ’cause we’ve got some content uploaded. But this is only part of the problem’s solution.

I guess e-learning, and let me please simplify, has, at least, three main pillars to sustain the whole architecture of the system:

• Contents, i.e. what you want to explain/teach
• Teachers, that will help the student in his path from information to knowledge
• E-learning platform, where all this happens: content access and student-teacher interaction

Thus, we have only 33.33% of the whole thing done, be it through MIT’s OpenCourseWare or anywhere else such as Fathom, the Maricopa Learning Exchange or University of British Columbia’s Careo.

Third point can be solved through open source e-learning platforms or just borrowing for free propietary licenses from other non-profit providers. Let’s believe this is also already solved.

But what about the pedagogical side of the question? I talked about teachers in general in the second point but, actually, it’s about two separate points we’re dealing with here:

• People who will design courses: structure, length, etc.
• People who will teach courses

And, so-far, we’ve got none of these available from any repository ;)

And, now seriously, it’s probable there’s few people available in the whole world: e-learning is about learning but far related with the presential model. There’s a need for a specific training in abilities such as distance learning, multimedia content, learning management systems intensive use, on-line communication, etc., etc., etc.

Thus, once we have content, and once we have our vitual classrooms, our goals must be:

• Have people interested in e-teaching for nothing: e-volunteers for e-learning
• Have these people trained in the requirements of the new environment

And this last point, yes, this last point’s gonna be the roughest one: I look for the day when the MIT will show the world how to use their OpenCourseWare. By the way, until then, I’ll thank them a lot for the great work done.

It’s weird but I’m having real trouble finding somebody in the blogosphere writing on e-volunteering. E-learning and Knowledge Management are largely more popular topics, but just seldom deal with development or cooperation for development. I’ve found really interesting sites on content sharing (open source content) that can easily be treated in a ICT4D environment, and same applies to KM, but I still have to find a site talking these same issues I want to focus.

On the other hand, there’s another the web out there (out of the blogosphere ;) but these topics of mine are also scarcely debated.

I’ve just added a new link to my blog’s bookmarks, UNITES, the United Nations Information Technology Service. I wonder if I should have pointed directly to their Resource Center which is the part I like the most.

Anyway… keep calling out: anybody out there talking about e-volunteering or e-learning for development?

Next 26 of November I will be speaking at the “Social Exclusion and information technologies. Challenges and opportunities ” seminar.

My speech will surely be entitled something like “Social action in a network and in the Net: knowledge management + e-volunteering + e-learning”. I’ll try and write down my speech, but not promised ;)

There goes the complete programme:

10:00-10:45
Opening session by David Ríos Insúa
International Relationships and ICT promotion Vicerector at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

10:45 – 11:45
E-learning for e-inclusion
Jordi Escoín, Centro Municipal Pont del Dragó
Javier Lalueza, La Casa de Shere Rom
Enrique Varela, Fundación Once
Moderated by Peru Erroteta, Fundación Metis

11:45-12:15
Coffee break

12:15-13:15
Digital services to enlarge personal horizons
Rosa Gras, Club Estrella (Fundación La Caixa)
Ismael Peña, Campus for Peace (UOC)
Luís López Aranguren, Fundación Tomillo
Moderated by Raquel Paricio, Callús digital

13:15-13:30
Presentation of the first E-learning and e-inclusion international congress
Juan Pedregosa, ITD

15:30-17:30
Debate: Social exclusion and information technologies. Social challenges and policy perspectives
Moderated by Antonio G. Rubí, eDemocracia
Featuring:
Carlos Campuzano, Deputy for Barcelona (CiU). CiU spokesman at the Social and Employment Policy Commission at the spanish Chamber of Deputys.
Pilar Díaz, Socialist deputy at the Catalan Chamber of Deputys; Member of the Information Society Commission
Pilar Dellunde, ERC‘s National Woman Secretariat
José María Canyelles, Xarxanet.org (associations and volunteers network of Catalonia). Manager of the Catalan Volunteering Institute.

17:30-18:00
Closing session: Digital inclusion is social inclusion
David Casacuberta
Trànsit Projectes. Science philosophy lecturer at the Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona. Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility spanish chapter secretary.

Further info:
Place: Centre cívic Pati Llimona
c/ Regomir, 3 08002 Barcelona (Spain)
Tel. (34) 93 268 47 00
Contact (mail)
Contact (site)

[originally published in catalan in Xarxanet.org, july 2003]
[plain and clear style for non-techies, target of the site of the source post]

Volunteer: stay home!

Internet brings us new ways of interacting with others and, thus, new ways of working together.

When we speak about working and the Internet we usually think of teleworking, i.e. working at home or somewhere different from our usual office, with the help of ICT [here for another point of view on teleworking and telecommuting]

This way of working, or teleworking, can actually have a non-profit side we may find in the world of cooperation for development in the form of the virtual volunteer or e-volunteer, i.e. become volunteers staying at home, with no need to commute and travel to the NGO headquarters or just a far and away country.

Profile of the virtual volunteer

The virtual volunteer usually finds it difficult to meet other people he has to work with, be they other volunteers, professionals at the NGO or the ones the volunteering programme is intended to benefit.

Thus, we’re talking about people that cannot commute to the place to cooperate (be at the same space) or have difficult to match agendas (be at the same time).

Almost always these people have already volunteered elsewhere or have worked in a project or an institution and, little by little, they increasingly have to deal with family and professional responsabilities that shorten their free time and shift it to the weekend or make it impossible to travel abroad for a long time, etc.

The pros using the Internet as a (tele)working tool are simple and based in the abbility to maintain an unbroken link between the volunteer and the organization, bringing the world our experience, our expertise and our knowledge; work with people we could not meet (in time, in space) and, in the end, keep on being “good people” despite an always-full-of-meetings agenda.

So, how does the e-volunteer work

In order to be an e-volunteer the only thing required is a personal computer (desktop, laptop, PDA, etc.) and some other tool you can use to communicate with others. We usually will use a web browser to get the information we need to do our work and e-mail software to talk with the rest of the (virtual) team in the project.

However, more and more often intranets are used to supply a communication environment clearly enhancing e-mail possibilities. These intranets are web-browser accessible (as some web-mail is) and have a restricted access, so the person entering the intranet is identified and can have customized services such as personalized information (sometimes confidential) on the subject he’s working on.

These intranets can also have other tools to ease networking, replacing presenciality but within the same terms of quality, organization and teamworking: meeting rooms and virtual spaces for discussion, information and working documents sharing systems, on-line newsboards, classrooms and training spaces, etc.

What can a virtual volunteer do?

It is very clear that an e-volunteer cannot hold any tasks related to physically handling something or requiring being there. Thus, the virtual volunteer will mainly work with knowledge related aspects, i.e. with everything he knows, so he can apply this knowledge directly, when possible, or just backofficing others and helping them in what to do.

In one hand, then, the e-volunteer can hold plenty of administrative tasks in the field of project management or organization management (accountancy, legal affairs, etc.) that some software and the Internet already allow the user to have it done remotely sitting in front of a desktop. The only thing left to be done is correctly defining these tasks and uploading to the Net all the necessary information to carry on with one’s work.

More knowledge-focused, in the other hand, the volunteer can work spreading the things he knows, as a consultant or an expert that can be asked wherever and whenever by other volunteers or cooperation for development professionals that are working in place. There’s different ways this can be done, such as e-learning in virtual learning environtments or, simply, being accessible and free to be asked any question they can solve with their expertise.

Who’s into e-volunteering?

Here come some (not all) organizations working on e-volunteering, mainly based in Spain:

Netaid. Leaded by the United Nations to foster e-volunteering and create an e-volunteering network, it is promoted by the United Nations Programme for Development and Cisco Systems.

Solucionesong.org. Promoted by Canal Solidario it is a virtual meeting place of experts on different subjects who assess NGO personnel and volunteers in their daily problems.

Cibervoluntarios. Promoted by E3 Futura it has the humanization of the Internet as its mission. Their main goal is making the Internet a more comfortable place so that the ICT become not a problem but a useful tool. Cybervolunteers act as ICT trainers and organize events to foster this friendly use of the Internet. [Actually, they are not virtual, but it was worth having this example here as they are really commited with ICT training]

Hacesfalta.org . Also by Canal Solidario, it is a virtual place where demand and offer in cooperation for development jobs meet. It rules a category on e-volunteering.

Campus for Peace. UOC‘s cooperation for development and solidarity programme, promotes, among other goals, on-line volunteering within the university community and projects linked to e-learning, with all the e-teaching done by e-volunteers. A virtual e-learning platform (or LMS) is also provided to NGOs so on-line working can be undertaken.

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