ICTlogy

Nabuur.com is a community of on-line communities to provide assessment to villages in need of help all over the world.

It’s an online volunteering project and, according to their web site, it works thit way:

1. A community has an urgent question

It all starts with a local community in a developing country looking for assistance. After a screening by NABUUR this community gets a ‘Village’ on NABUUR.com. On this Village the representative of the local community describes the question or problem to be solved.

2. Virtual Neighbors look for solutions

NABUUR invites visitors to NABUUR.com and they become ‘Neighbors’ of a Village. These virtual Neighbors then start looking for solutions to the question described by the local representative. They work together and report their findings on the Discussion boards of the Village.

3. Best solutions are selected

After several solutions have been found and the best ones selected, the Neighbors present these solutions to the local representative. The local representative discusses the solutions with his or her people.

4. Solutions are implemented

If the solutions found by the Neighbors fit the local situation they are implemented. The Neighbors get to see the results (photos, stories) on NABUUR.com.

In most cases further assistance of the virtual Neighbors is required. A new question is put to the Neighbors by the local representative and the process starts again.

A UK study held in Cardiff, Bath, Somerset, Blaenau Gwent and the Forest of Dean by the Cardiff University has “found” that “people were more likely to use the internet for hobbies such as music-making and compiling a family tree” instead of taking part in lifelong e-learning programs.

I agree when people at Cardiff say that “background had more bearing than online access on whether people studied” and, specially, that “once the government provides computer access, it is up to educators and IT companies to put forward the content that attracts people”.

Nevertheless, I guess the sample was not representative for the whole planet but for urban zones at industrialized countries, where there’s a real chance to take courses off-line, say, round the corner, at any school, university or plenty-of-places else.

I you take some other place, a rural village in the middle of an underdeveloped country, access to the network is access to education in most cases.

So, let’s think it twice, it’s alright ;)

[via Online Learning Update]

David Wilcox writes about “the technology trap – believing new stuff can fix old problems”.

As he says, “I’m not claiming this offers any great new insight, but it’s always interesting when something developed in one situation fits another… or perhaps something deliberately made simple for unsophisticated users has value more generally”.

I’ve often posted about needs-driven digital divide bridging and this is what the article David is commenting is all about.

My highlights are quite simple (and redundant):

• Commitment to the vision
• Action towards the vision

[source Online Learning Update]
[news Including the excluded thanks to easy e-learning]

The Fellows Project is a European Commission funded project (IST/2000/26/247) to foster lifelong learning for all. Within the framework of The Learning Citizen Cluster, the Fellows Project has developed online distance learning services for disadvantaged users in training institutions within four European countries (Austria, France, Germany and the UK) and set up a blended model where presence and virtuallity learning meet to cover different needs in four European countries.

On their Consultancy section I read you can “benefit from the experiences and expertise of the Fellows Partners” but it is no clear at all whether they provide the on-line platform and whether they provide it for free. Same applies for courses and learning objects.

I still wonder, too, why developing a new platform, and still have no clear idea on how it was developed (Java, yes, but… what more?).

Summarizing: good idea, great aim, unclear public benefit from it all.
And I mean it, if goals are good and funding is public, why still I don’t know I can I benefit from it? :P

Some weeks ago I wrote I would be speaking at Tecnoneet 2004, 3rd Congress of Special Educational Needs and Information Society Technology.

But I won’t.

Due to personal and professional agendas, it’s impossible for me to travel to Murcia (Spain) these days.

:(

I am subscribed to three or four zillion newsletters and/or feeds.
One of them talks to me about what do NGOs need in the field of human resources. Cute: they include an “Online Volunteering” category, this is quite new… and cute! :)

BUT, last issue I got from this newsletter, had 6 online volunteering opportunities. 5 of them were related to subscribing online campaigns, sending e-mail to governments or asking you to help this or that web site be known by your friends. Spread the word, parbleu! ;)

Just one of them was about IT online support.

Previous issue was even poorer.

Yep, subscribing online campaigns might be online volunteering… but… aren’t we running out of imagination? Is this the power of online volunteering? Ever heard of added value?

Gray Monday, indeed…