ICTlogy

The Open University of Catalonia organizes the Conference on the European Higher Education Area, a virtual conference taking place from October 2nd to 20th, 2006.

There is a track entitled “The integration of generic competences into curricula” on which I’m presenting a communication. This communication is, actually, a book chapter I wrote last spring: Digital capacitation at UOC: technological literacy vs. Informational and functional competence. I copy and paste here the abstract so you don’t have to be browsing around:

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.

9th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries

Organized by the International Federation for Information Processing, the conference presents the following Sub-Themes:

• The role of e-government initiatives in education and health, what lessons can be learned?
• What are the experiences of ICT enabled development stimulated by efforts to develop indigenous ICT industries?
• The role of cybercrime and its effects on development initiatives
• What influence has ICT initiatives on rural development?
• What are the consequences of new organisational forms enabled by ICTs for developing countries?
• ICTs and social inclusion: experiences and prospects
• What have been the consequences of implementing open source initiatives in government and in the private sector?
• What are the infrastructure and human resources factors that influence the implementation of e-development initiatives?
• Evaluating the role of international agencies in the implementation of e-development initiatives. What can be learned? What can be improved?

Conference data:

• When: 28-30 May 2007
• Where: São Paulo, Brazil
• Call for papers until: unknown
• Website: http://www.ifipwg94.org.br/

IST-Africa 2007

The goals of the IST-Africa Conference Series are Community Building to facilitate EU-African research cooperation and successful exploitation of research results, to stimulate take-up of RTD results by industry, Small and Medium Sized Businesses and the public sector, to promote knowledge sharing between commercial organizations, government agencies and the research community, to exchange experiences about the current state of eAdoption at a sectoral, national or regional level, and to support International Cooperation and open up the European Research Area (ERA) to Africa.

Core thematic priorities for IST-Africa 2007 are:
– eHealth – Services to Citizens, Technologies
– Technology Enhanced Learning & ICT Skills
– ICT for Networked Business – Future Forms of Organisations, Technology and Applications
– eGovernment & eDemocracy

Conference data:

• When: 9-11 May 2007
• Where: Maputo, Mozambique
• Call for papers until: 30th November 2006
• Website: http://www.ist-africa.org/Conference2007/

On April 6th, 2006, professor César Córcoles and me gave a seminar entitled Web 2.0 and diffusion of research (revisited and improved).

Now, the review of the seminar has been published in IDP review. The abstract in English goes:

Review of the seminar held in April 2006 -within the framework of the UOC’s UNESCO e-Learning Chair- on the so-called “Web 2.0” applications and new ways of working in the field of research, education and diffusion -i.e. a University’s quintessential activity-, based on a participatory and open spirit, on-line applications and a great wealth of data.

The full text is only available in Catalan and Spanish.

• Web 2.0 i difusió de la recerca: ressenya del seminari (109 Kb)
• Web 2.0 y difusión de la investigación: reseña del seminario (111 Kb)

The 2nd International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training will take place at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi, Kenya, from May 28 to 30, 2007.

The “subtitle” of the meeting is Building Infrastructures and Capacities to Reach out to the Whole of Africa, thus the list of themes is a comprehensive effort to cover all subjects around education, capacity building, e-learning, development, ICTs, open access, open source, etc.

Call for papers is open until Friday, December 8, 2006. Besides the usual presentations, other possibilities of collaboration are open too.

UOC UNESCO Chair in e-Learning organizes its Third International Seminar, being this edition focused in open access and open educational resources. While the programme is yet to be closed, most of the speakers will sound familiar to the open access family.

If anybody is attending too, let me know and let’s meet in Barcelona.

Meeting data:

UOC UNESCO Chair in Elearning Third International Seminar.
OER: Institutional Challenges
Barcelona (Spain)
22-24 November 2006
Programme (603 Kb)

The official documentation for the Open Education 2006: Community, Culture, and Content is here:

• Program
• Program (2.5 Mb)
• Final Proceedings (3.4 Mb)