ICTlogy

The UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning Virtual University forum on Open Educational Resources – Open content for higher education has just ended.

Here a little bit of information:

• Project description
• Session 1 – Background note
• Session 1 – Discussion summary
• Session 2 – Background note
• Session 2 – Draft discussion summary
• Session 3 – Background note
• Session 3 – Draft discussion summary

A couple interesting links appeared (so far) as outcome of the forum:

• UNITAR Courseware Repository, courtesy of Zaid Ali Alsagoff
• Open Education Association, started by John Petroff

Global Scan on Open (Collaborative) Content Projects is a project to learn which open content projects have been implemented or are planned in different regions of the world. The project is coordinated by Openflows and supported by the Open Society Institute’s Information Program.

[via Peter Suber’s Open Access News]

Yesterday I got an e-mail that asked for some help on finding resources about online facilitation and networking for a volunteering course.

Just had 5 minutes for her, but guess the advice I gave her was fair enough to share:

Borges, Federico (2005). «La frustración del estudiante en línea. Causas y acciones preventivas». Digithum UOC. N.º 7.
<http://www.uoc.edu/digithum/7/dt/esp/borges.pdf> [cited 30/05/2005].

Baumgartner, Peter (2005). ‘How to choose a Content Management Tool according to a Learning Model’ In elearningeuropa.info, 17 May 2005. Brussels: European Commission
<http://www.elearningeuropa.info/index.php?page=doc&doc_id=6148&doclng=6&menuzone=0&focus=1&lng=en&go.x=13&go.y=9> [cited 23/05/2005]

Full Circle Associates, Nancy White’s page (www.fullcirc.com)

Online Facilitation distribution list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/onlinefacilitation

Peña López, Ismael (2001). La coordinación y el trabajo en red. Gestión de las ONG, proyectos y formación webcéntricos: el Campus for Peace. Barcelona: UOC
<http://www.uoc.edu/web/esp/art/uoc/pena1201/pena1201.html> [cited 01/05/2005]

Sugrue, Brenda (2004). ‘Five Instructional Design Principles Worth Revisiting’ In The Criterion, Spring Issue 2004. Silver Spring: ISPI-FRC
<http://www.ispi-frc.org/newsletter/docs/Sugrue_Five_ID_Principles_final.pdf> [cited 01/06/2005]

White, Nancy(2004). Online Group Facilitation skills: An Evolving Practice. Draft.

Xarxanet:
http://www.xarxanet.org

eLearning Africa

• Dates: May 24-26, 2006
• Place: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• Paper submission deadline: November 30, 2005
• Site: http://www.elearning-africa.com/

International Conference on ICT4D

• Dates: May 25-26, 2006
• Place: Berkeley, USA
• Paper submission deadline: October 25, 2005
• Site: http://sims.berkeley.edu/ictd2006

So weird they both take place same days!!!

The Fundación Bip-Bip has released the report “Estudio de diagnóstico sobre el nivel de utilización de las TIC en las entidades no lucrativas de acción social, que trabajan en pro de la inserción laboral en España” [Diagnosis Report on the degree of ICT use in social action nonprofits that work to promote job placements in Spain].

The report is 158 pages long and is really worth reading it.

Here comes a very illustrative highlight:

Only 14% of the analyzed organizations [370 in total] perform online training activities, and less than 19% uses teleworking as a possible option for its personnel [being most of them eventual online volunteers and not permanent staff]. Considering the hardware that most of the organizations do have, the deep degree of decentralization that most o them have (with headquarters in different cities and area of activity that only about a 10% just keep within the boundaries of their own city), the kind of work performed by most of their experts (that work directly in the terrain, increasing the mobility and geographic dispersion) and the particular characteristics of the composition of their staff (with a high percent of eventual and part time volunteers), we believe that this kind of organizations should lean on much more in the benefits that ICTs can bring to adopt models with a higher flexibility and adapted to the special needs of each organization.

It is, then, no nonsense what the Spanish National Volunteering Plan suggests about e-learning and online volunteering. For once in our lives, everyone agrees. Here’s to it!

• Report about the use of ICTs in NGOs(full text in Spanish) (2.93 Mb)
• Piece of news at Fundación Bip-Bip (in Spanish)
• Piece of news at OneWordl.net (in Catalan)

The III Spanish National Volunteering Plan, for years 2005 to 2009, is born.

Everybody’s congratulating each other because the plan is the result of a huge consensus among the Administration and NGOs. My sincere kudos :)

But my personal bias focus on two other things (bolds are mine):

From Strategic Line #3 to strengthen volunteering in different communities:

Support and foster new kinds of volunteering in the heart of organizations, such as online volunteering.

From Strategic Line #4 to support technically and financially the organizational and functional modenization of the Third Sector:

Enlargement of online training supply addressed to NGO participants, spreading and normalizing the access to this educational methodology.

Yes, this is really really good news. From strategic plans arise yearly director plans that decide on real policies, budgets, projects :)

• Spanish National Volunteering Plan(full text in Spanish) (135 Kb)
• Piece of news at OneWordl.net (in Catalan)
• Piece of news at Fundación Bip-Bip (in Spanish)