ICTlogy

The problem of writing in several places and doing it in different languages is that, after all, it is quite difficult to establish or draw a consistent thread of your own thinking. If you, indeed, do need this verbalized/explicitly-written summary of your ideas for other purposes, tracking it down is, more than interesting, a must. Here comes, hence, some things I’ve said somewhere else in the past days, just slightly elaborated:

The myth of the digital natives (source)

When talking about the digital natives, it is common to listen to people talk from radical, opposed approaches: the digital native is an axiom vs. the digital native is an absurd nonsense. Just few try and stay in a middle point.

I believe — I really mean it — that it makes no sense talking about digital natives in a generational sense. I’d rather call it a “syndrome”, a syndrome that younger generations (due to their capacity of aprenticeship, because of their major contact with new technologies, etc.) could be more prone to show (and this should be tested, of course) in comparison with older ones but, indeed, not exclusively.

In my opinion, “native” and “immigrant” are just ways of naming things, situations, nor theorems neither faithful descriptions of the reality. It’s just for us to quickly understand each other. Maybe Expert 2.0 does not carry so much determinism in the concept. But again: to me, the concept — ambiguous, equivocal, informal — is useful to describe the symptomatic chart, characterized by the different features drawn by Prensky, Palfrey/Gasser and others.

The “digital native/immigrant” construct should help us as a “proxy” of that difficult to measure variable that is “how much have we changed?”, by bringing a series of explicit characteristics to test.

Thus, we could analyze the way digital capacities and competences are acquired but also what is the final result, how these digital competences have transformed the individual, his habits… In this train of thought, the “how” would be the independent variable and the final result the dependent. For instance: using a mobile phone 24h a day, does it change my life? or, going further, using a mobile phone 24h a day does it give me some (digital) aptitudes that evolve into a (psychological, social, economical) change?

Then, the most interesting part in Prensky’s concept is the debate that it generates, the question thrown to the arena, more than the details — probably most of them arguable.

Should we all be digital natives/settlers?

Maybe not, maybe digital tools are neither the only ones nor the best ones, for all or for everyone. But, on the other hand, we are in a society that more and more gets demonstrated that:

• productivity will depend on the management of information and knowledge
• to keep one’s job will depend on the digital competences in a very broad sense
• business, production and cultural models are changing drastically and very quick
• law, rights, duties, values, identity, socialization… are being subverted from head to toes
• etc.

In front of this, it is in no way trivial or marginal to analyze the technologies that are provoking all these changes — and the adoption that specific social sectors make of them.

As the Industry changed the world since the XVIII^th century, there is pretty much evidence — and growing — that Information and Communication Technologies are reshaping the world, and to the point that we might be living a Third Industrial Revolution. Some even talk about a Digital Revolution, at the same level of the Agricultural Revolution or the Industrial Revolution.

So, digitize yourself or disappear. All society should enter this digital revolution — and the start is skills — to transform itself: not doing it might involve walking the same path developing countries took when the Industrial Revolution took place (for several and very different reasons, of course). Because the digital revolution, as the industrial revolution did, will affect both the ones that can access it and the ones that cannot. You just cannot switch the computer off and forget about the Information Revolution.

Web 2.0 and the role of the user (source)

So, is the Web 2.0 the solution to empowerment, to digital literacy, to democracy and so? Criticism states that surveys show that the concept of the prosumer is a fallacy and that almost everyone is a lurker, a voyeur 2.0.

My opinon is that, besides comparing horizontally (i.e. how many contribute to Web 2.0 sites and how many don’t), we should also compare vertically: how many now and how many before, just when there was no Web 2.0 or, even more, when there was no Internet at all.

The simile of democracy is perfect: better a dictatorship, a non-universal suffrage, or a democracy, even if statistics show that just half of the population actually votes while the rest does not even care standing out of the couch?

I guess that, being the subject so recent, it is no frivolity to speak of the potential and not only facts. Yes, facts are great, and facts — not suppositions — is what gives bread to our tables and pays our mortgages, so we cannot go on talking about the potential benefits of the Web 2.0 eternally and nothing else changes. But, that this potential exists — and let’s hope it sooner or later materializes — is a way good interesting change.

Last Friday 23rd I had the luck to attend the third day (out of three) of the IV Encuentro de e-Inclusión: e-inclusión para la construcción de la ciudadanía, a national meeting of telecentre instructors about e-Inclusion that focused on participation and the Web 2.0, and was organized by the Fundación Esplai.

I had committed to impart the opening speech about the general concepts that the Web 2.0 metaphor usually talks about. You can see my simple presentation here:

And also download it both in Spanish (the original) and translated to English:

• ¿Qué dicen que es la Web Social? (688 Kb)
• What do they say the Social Web is? (686 Kb)

But, as it is usual in this kind of events, the best was yet to come. The audience — around one hundred telecentre educators — was richest, with a deep knowledge of their work, target, resources and possibilities, mainly due to their highest level of compromise that kept them informed and enthusiastic about e-inclusion, digital literacy and so.

About the different input that I had — during and after my speech — I might stress the following concerns about the role of digital literacy in this three subjects:

• Privacy: What happens with my data spread in all those Web 2.0 apps? Should we teach the user what the implications are of using these platforms
• Reputation: how do I filter content? Will the semantic web really work? What’s the role of virtual communities? is the wisdom of crowds reliable?
• Online Participation: e-Participation is participation? What’s an online volunteer? through e-Participation, can I suggest or also decide? (As an answer to these last questions, I dare suggest reading my paper Online Volunteers: Knowledge Managers in Nonprofits

After my speech, the group split in three workshops, two of which I could parcially attend.

e-Knowledge

Lead by Jordi Barreda and David Gateu they defined e-Knowledge as the knowledge built with Web 2.0 technologies and the Web 2.0 as technology that allows interaction: simple, but pretty clear and effective.

They projected Michael Wesch The Machine is Us/ing Us and Lee Lefever at Commoncraft’s Wikis in Plain English and Social Bookmarking in Plain English, explained the importance of XML and the importance of culture in the use of tools: tools ain’t good or bad, is our use that shapes them.

I lacked the rest of the workshop, but I guess it’s worth citing here some of Jordi Barreda’s comments on his own blog:

The three main ingredients for a social web to work are:
– Personal interest
– A common space
– A management system
[…]everything heading towards a common goal.

e-Participation

The second workshop — lead by Marta García Moreta — was equally interesting.

They collectively gave a definition for e-Participation:

The commitment, at different levels, between people and/or institutions that contribute, cooperate, collaborate in the development of a collective objective, whose goal implies social transformation. [by means of Web 2.0]
[…]
The telematic channel should improve and complement the actual mechanisms of participation, including the generation of new ones only possible by means of the Net, and all of them should be taken into account when designing a new integral model of citizen participation. This should, by no means, exclude the existing ways of participation.

And presented some examples of the different types of e-Participation tools, following Alberto Ortiz de Zárate’s typology:

• online synchronous chat
• open forum, not moderated
• online moderated dialogue, with a defined subject
• online survey with a defined subject
• comments function
• political simulation
• online (open) petition/suggestion
• online votation
• online scoring
• direct dialogue through e-mail
• offline channels
• collective editing
• community building
• campaing platform
• signing of petitions

Some of the examples:

• Photodemonstration for women rights, a demonstration that took place on Flickr
• Cuadernos Ciudadanos, a virtual space for the citizens where any citizen can set up a blog, photo repository, etc. Promoted by the city council, free to use by the citizen
• pódcast Cádiz, same as Cuadernos but no need to write: just talk to make any suggestions to your city council
• Madrid Participa, similar to the previous two
• Vivienda Digna, a wiki-based platform to ask for better housing

The Evaluation of e-Inclusion Projects

Last event of the morning — just before conclusions, etc. — was the presentation of the report of the The External Evaluation Model of Red Conecta and Conecta Joven by Rosa Baez, Cristina Pulidoa and Laura López from the research group CREA, University of Barcelona.

They used Critical Communication Methodology to evaluate projects and introduced how Habermas, Chomsky or Beck were authors that tried to unify theories of social action.

Some results of their survey that evaluated the impact of telecentres and the design of their (educational) model:

• Shift from just access to motivation + access + competences / capacity building (based on Paolo Freire)
• Incorporation of learning/apprenticeship in daily life
• Impact on daily life: work, business
• Impact on the community: the telecentre becomes a referral for the community
• Sustainability: economical and social… and of the model itself
• The need to establish an evaluation system, including an interactivity/feedback system with the community
• The evaluation of the network of telecentres has also shown that there’s a sense of network, mainly based on personal affinities or coordination needs (e.g. geographically) but there’s room for further collaboration, specially using the virtual platform to exchange knowledge

Today I imparted a seminar belonging to the Executive Master in e-Governance organized by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and partnered by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

General information

• Details of the presentation (including slides to download)
• Slides on Slideshare
• Recommended Bibliography

I just want to thank the attendants to the course for being such an interesting audience and for making me think because of their witty questions.

Syllabus

Information and Communication Technologies for Development: ICT4D

• Food or computers?
• Efficacy, efficiency
• Leapfrogging Development
• Second Bests
• Endogenous development

The concept of access and the measurement of the Knowledge Society

• The Telecommunications Model: limitations
• The Broadcasting Model: limitations
• Access vs. Ownership: different solutions
• Access vs. use

Digital Divide: a holistic approach

• A five tier model
• Old and new divides

• Hardware
• Software
• The broadband divide
• Informational Literacy
• Content and Intellectual Property
• e-Awareness and the leadership divide

e-Readiness and Web 2.0 for e-Governance in Developing Countries

• e-Participation and e-Democracy
• Censorship circumvention and freedom of speech
• Transparency and accountability
• Law enforcement
• Open Access and access to knowledge

Slides

Recommended Bibliography

When preparing my speech about The Web 2.0 and the role of the University for the UOC UNESCO Chair in Elearning Fourth International Seminar: Web 2.0 and Education, I gathered a good bunch of references to prepare what I wanted to say. You can find all the references I used — and some more, added after — after this words. But as this is an evolving selection, the up-to-date version of this list can always be consulted here: A Reader on Web 2.0 and Education. Feel free to write back to me with proposals for inclusion in the list and/or corrections for found errors.

The collection is far more than just “Education” or “University” or “Web 2.0” but pretends to give a framework comprehensive enough to approach the Education 2.0 phenomenon. I personally think that a good approach to Education 2.0 should include:

• digital capacity building, including the zilliion different digital literacies: technological, informational, media, e-awareness…
• team working
• digital identity, presence on the Net, e-Portfolios
• creation and importance of social networks and connectivism
• the digital natives concept
• long life learning and student-centered learning
• open educational resources
• …

To which I would add Business 2.0:

• creation based on gift economies
• distributed creation and the wisdom of crowds
• entering the conversation with the consumers… and the prosumers
• …

And a longest etcaetera of concepts, hypes, buzzwords and so — easy to see this is just a superficial reflection, not a deep analysis of the concept. Of course, the categories are arbitrary and just a means not to have 47 references one after the other without a break:

Economy

Digital Literacy & Digital Media

Pedagogy

Open Access & Open Educational Resources

What is the Web 2.0

Education 2.0 & e-Learning 2.0

One of the recurring debate topics during the Web2forDev Conference was the increasing broadband divide, i.e. the divide that comes not from “those having and those who have not”, but those who can access the web in optimal conditions and those who do it with poor infrastructures and, above all, with poor connectivity. As it can be easily understood, more and more applications demand good connectivity quality, thus creating a (new) barrier to those that still connect to the Internet with lowband connections such as modem over fixed lines.

Even if most Web 2.0 technologies are really low-power demanding ones, one of the promises for knowledge diffusion to developing countries is still quite high-power demanding: teleconferencing and/or audio and video broadcasting. Yes, we’ve seen interesting attempts in this field, but I honestly think that the EyA (Engage your Audience) Automatic Recordings System, developed by the Science Dissemination Unit of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, is one of the most outstanding and promising ones.

I won’t enter the technical details of the project, but just state that EyA helps deliver audio, video and slidecasting with very low demanding requirements:

• low digital literacy required for the user
• low attention (automatic recording) required for the speaker
• low-band required for broadcasting

Thus, in my opinion, the technology is not only good because its technological features, but also because it does not require a highest level of capabilities on the user’s side, another usual downside that is seldom taken into account, making it just perfect for developing countries (and developed ones too!).

More info

• Automatic Recordings via EyA System site
• “EyA System: Automated Audio-Video-Slide Recordings” (66 Kb) – Proceedings Conference: ICL-Interactive Computer Aided Learning, Villach/Austria, Sept 2007.
• “Webcasting of Traditional Chalkboard Lectures: The EyA System” – EURODL European Journal of Open and Distance Learning, Sept 2007
• EyA Recordings of the ICTP Diploma Programme
• EyA Recordings of the Turbulent Mixing and Beyond Conference
• Book: How To Accelerate Your Internet: A practical guide to Bandwidth Management and Optimization using Open Source Software, book by some of the same authors of this project
• Book: Wireless Networking in the Developing World, book by some of the same authors of this project

Thanks, Marco, for the tip.

Last September 25th, 2007, I had the chance to present my paper The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development (paper, presentation) at the Web2forDev Conference in Rome.

The hardest criticism I got was that my presentation was too theoretical and lacked practical evidence or, at least, a real example to illustrate what it was thought to be a good theory. Ironically — for me at least — I did have some of these examples, being the one I new better in the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development my own case: ICTlogy. Ironical, I said, because I did not pretend to be immodest by presenting my own site as a good practice, so I “shifted to theory”. After a good time talking about the differences between pretentiousness, humbleness and plain idiocy, I promised Wang Zhong (Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences) to seize the opportunity of yesterday being the 4th Anniversary of ICTlogy, be completely unhumble and picture some of the benefits that scholarly blogging has given myself, most of them about facts that scholars in developing countries, junior scholars or scholars working on marginal subjects — i.e. people out of the mainstream — could perfectly use to leverage their own digital and offline presence and reputation. And I might add, following Olivier Berthoud’s suggestions, that they could be useful for practitioners too.

There’s an added reason to write such a practical — but grounded, I’d dare add — article about research and development: the Council of Science Editors has proposed all science editors to publish a Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development for today. And ICTlogy has committed to join this proposal.

ICTlogy began its way in October 21st, 2003, as the blog of both a practitioner and a researcher in the field of ICT4D. Since then, it has evolved into a Personal Research Portal, covering a wide range of disciplines directly or indicrectly related to ICT4D: the Digital Divide, e-Readiness, e-Inclusion, Digital Literacy, Open Access, Nonprofit Technology, ICT Reglulation, the Information Society, e-Learning…

The information gathered here is organized across the following sections:

• ICT4D Blog (, ), with news, links and reflexions.
• ICT4D Events (), a list/calendar of events (congresses, conferences, symposia, etc.).
• ICT4D Wiki (, ), with all “static” data I gather around: people, institutions, resources…
• ICT4D Bibliography (), a good bunch of authors and works.
• ICT4D learning objects repository (), with courseware in the field of nonprofits and development.

In June 2006, retroactively, an edited version of the blog became ICTlogy, review of ICT4D (ISSN 1886-5208), destilling the best blog posts. The reasons to do so were many, but can be summarize as avoiding establishment allergy.

Quantitative data of the whole site are as follows:

• 550 blog articles
• 70 static pages
• 70 events
• 350 wiki articles
• 760 works references
• 625 authors references
• 100 unique visitors per day
• 200 feed subscribers

All this content is accessible (for me and for each and everyone) everywhere and everywhen. Indeed, it is highly searchable and, hence, findable. The first benefit thus in having such a site is knowledge management: from my notes to my finished and polished articles, from my thoughts to my bibliographical references, from some links to expert dataset sites, everything is here and, at least for my needs, neatly organized.

The second benefit is that from time to time I can extract the essence of some ideas going on and on and feed with it an article, my PhD Thesis, a conference. I (almost) never wrote anything for the blog, but the contrary: the blog helped me in writing something. The story of my Master’s Thesis (e-Learning for Development: a model) or the story of my article The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development are perfect examples of this.

The third benefit comes from this good amount of content gathered around my digital persona, shaping a live CV that automatically gets updated as soon as I upload new content, news, etc. Thus, searches by keywords representing recent subjects dealt with here usually make the site appear on the first or second pages.

The interesting output of it all is not having a happier ego, but finding people, networking being a third, highly valuable, benefit: doing reverse engineering and replicating the searches helps me to find people, institutions, projects working in the same fields that I do. It happens every time. And same applies with visits to the site coming from links (not searches). I’ve noticed that this site belongs to the list of recommended resources of several other sites and, indeed, courses about ICT4D. Again, the good thing is not knowing you’re there… but knowing they are: thanks to this, I now know of courses and scholars interested in the field that otherwise I maybe wouldn’t.

Of course, it is great when, at last, you get to know personally some of these “e-people” and kindred souls can end doing things together: most of the editorial committees and board of reviewers I belong to either (a) began as a formal invitation through the site or (b) took the site as my CV/e-portfolio in which to base their resolutions to accept me in. Same applies to the conferences, speeches, seminars that I have been invited to impart.

My calculations are that half the visitors of this site come from .edu or related domains. The other half come mostly from the practitioner field — leaving just a very narrow margin for lost people and occasional voyeurs: the site is pretty focused and I believe people are seldom mislead here. And this gets me back to networking, closing a virtuous circle where the more you share the more you find interesting people and can access things they know and share. I think it’s way more useful knowing that this site is a reference for some ICT4D courses than having a six digit number of daily visits. More is OK only if it adds to my general purpose: LEARN, or reach people from whom to LEARN.

Summing up:

• this site does serve my purposes of keeping all my knowledge under control
• having all content open, it helps interesting people coming by
• having all content open makes me findable not by myself, by thanks to the content gathered around me
• interesting people leave their tracks behind them, tracks I can explore and find them, their institutions, their resources
• those people sometimes send me feedback
• sometimes I get invited to events, where I find more interesting people
• sometimes I get invited to review papers, from whom I learn from firsthand interesting approaches and information
• sometimes I get invited to review papers, from whom I learn how to write good papers (and how to avoid not-so-good practices)
• being a reviewer puts me, directly or indirectly, in contact with interesting people once more
• the more you know, and share it, the more these issues repeat along time… and the more you can reach new people to learn more and more

Want to step inside the virtuous circle or let it pass by?