ICTlogy

The Education for Rural People Tool Kit Web page was launched today by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The tool kit is a valuable resource for all those whose daily work consists in training the rural poor in the fields of food and nutrition, local knowledge systems, agrobiodiversity, food quality and safety, rural finance, marketing, forestry, fisheries, communication and other related issues.

Well, last time I reviewed a site I got hard criticism on the comments I made. But the question is that there are some comments to be made, not as easy criticism, but with the aim to help to improve these sites that are of the greatest value!! So, there go my comments. Please read them as made not with the aim to destroy but to build.

The Took Kit does not seem to be a database but static html. This has, at least, three inconvenients:

• Searching is much more difficult if not impossible. Try with “bookkeeping”, that has a category on its own, and cry over the results. Filtering by categories is simply not available.
• Updating becomes a hell of a work. Adding a new resource means changing, at least, two pages. Changing an existing one, even more difficult.
• Categorization becomes static, non hierarchical, etc.

Some months ago, Yan Simmard asked in one comment whether Google was not a better learning objects “repository” than some other so called LORs. Well, if repositories are just like this Tool Kit, Google surely is still a better one, which is a sad, sad thing.

Thus, what in principle was a very good news – new educational resources for the rural community – then becomes a quite disappointing one :(

Links:

• Education for Rural People Tool Kit
• FAO’s piece of news presenting the ERP Tool Kit

[read at noticias.com]

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