ICTlogy

We are about to publish the results of a seminar about competences teaching under the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)

My paper is about digital literacy in online learning campuses, but stressing on the fact that digital literacy is not technological literacy, but something more — until it becomes a full functional digital literacy.

The paper is in Spanish and I guess I’ll soon have a translation… into Catalan. Nevertheless, an abstract in English follows.

Peña López, I. (2006). Capacitación digital en la UOC: la alfabetización tecnológica vs. la competencia informacional y funcional. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
https://ictlogy.net/articles/20060316_ismael_pena_capacitacion_digital.pdf

Abstract

If the goal of competences training in the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is adapting to new times, it is evident that a correct digital literacy is an essential basis to work in the informational society. There is, nevertheless, a sort of bias in the definition of the term “digital literacy”, a bias that tends to shift towards the most technological side of the concept. Notwithstanding, beyond the knowledge of technology, there is a new world to discover concerning its use, what it is usually called informational literacy – the efficient and effective use of Information and Communication Technologies – and that, along with technology, requires a functional digital capacitation in the use of ICTs.

At the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) the student has at his arm’s reach a collection of services that will help him out through his way over (a possible) technological illiteracy and, above all, he is taught – implicitly and explicitly – in the use of these technologies through the interaction in the virtual campus, in the following of specific subjects and in exercises and practices solving.

This paper tracks the path of the evolution of the different capacities that form, as a whole, the total development of what we could call functional digital competence, and presents the moments or experiences in which the student acquires these capacities by studying in a virtual campus.

Next May 10th, from 10:00 to 13:30, we’ll have a round table entitled Open Educational Resources (OER), with Susan D’Antoni (remember her, among other things, by the Open content for higher education forum held this winter – and ongoing) as keynote speaker. The event is organized by the UNESCO Chair on e-learning and will take place in our headquarters in Barcelona.

The round table will deal with the following subjects:

• Challenges to OER providers and intellectual property rights
• Challenges to OER users
• OER and University Professors

the latter coordinated by professors Ferran Giménez, César Córcoles and myself — at least, this is what we’ve been told so far ;)

I’m really excited about the idea of meeting face to face Susan D’Antoni: I think the work she’s been doing is terrific. Swear I’ll post my notes here, keep in contact.

Welcome to the wiki of the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning’s Community of Interest on Open Educational Resources: open content for higher education

The Wiki is one of the outputs of the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning Virtual University forum on Open Educational Resources.

There’s yet little content, but there’s even an Individual repository initiatives inside the Repositories section that already includes ICT4D Courses :)))

The organization is making a call for participation to load the wiki with more information and resources.

So, the online magazine UPDATE – Dianova International e-magazine has just published and article of mine entitled e-Learning para el desarrollo [e-Learning for Development].

The article is sort of a remake in Spanish of the Introduction to my paper e-Learning for Development: a model. Thus, there is really nothing new there, but if you can’t read English comfortably, well, you can use it as a good translation.

• e-Learning para el desarrollo (140 Kb)
• e-Learning for Development: a model (2,009 Kb)

ICT4D Courses page updated courtesy of David Crespo, now following his PhD with Tim Unwin.

My colleague Mònica Vilassau points me to the Berkman Online Lecture and Discussion (BOLD) series.

There is a lot of interesting stuff there, mainly about Internet governance and Law vs. the Internet related issues (cybercrime, intellectual property, human rights, etc.).

In the field of ICT4D there’s of special interest the online course entitled Development and the Internet (it appears also under the name Internet for Development). I uploaded it to the ICT4D Courses repository as Development and the Internet, where it can be downloaded as a ZIP file or just browsed as usual.