ICTlogy

Second of my three seminars imparted at the he Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.

Main aspects

Seminar fundamentally based on my notes on the Web2forDev Conference and split in two parts:

• Part I: showcase of different Web 2.0 — and related ICT4D — projects in developing countries
• Part II: open debate with the attendants based on random thoughts extracted from the said notes

Live recording of the session

• Part I (begins at aprox past the 2/3 of total running time): view, download ( 94.86 Mb)
• Part II: view, download ( 119.38 Mb)
• See, also, the rest of the workshop presentations

Slides

Click here to download, or watch them on Slideshare:

Next December 3, 4 and 5 I’ll be in Trieste at the Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.

The whole set of names is quite eerie — for a social scientist like me — but once read you realize this is a very interesting workshop on scientific diffusion in developing countries, being ICT4D a deepest commitment of the organizers.

As you can see in the programme, I’ll be teaching three seminars, namely:

• Conferences 2.0: Scientists and Web 2.0, where I’ll speak about the change of paradigm in scholarly communication, mainly inspired by my Conferences 2.0 article in July
• Web 2.0 and the Digital Divide, where I will try to summarize everything I learned and thought about while in the Web2forDev Conference in Rome last September
• The Personal Research Portal, where we’ll try to put into practice — even if just slightly — my reflections published in my article The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development

I have to sincerely thank Marco Zennaro for insisting that the Conferences 2.0: Scientists and Web 2.0 speech became the keynote/opening session speech, which really, really, really honors me so much. As I’ve been asked to provide a summary to publicize the speech, I wonder whether this session will be open to anyone. Hence, here comes the outline:

Conferences 2.0: Scientists and Web 2.0

Information and Communication Technologies, the Internet, and most especially, the so called Web 2.0 have radically changed – at least potentially – the way scholarly diffusion is or can be made.

On one hand, the traditional constrains of space, time, publishing costs, etc. have almost completely disappeared or have entered huge economies of scale. Diffusion is – or, again, could be considered – easier and cheaper than ever.

On the other hand, and partly due to the former aspects, we are beginning to see an increasing demand for more accountability and transparency of research and researchers, resulting in both a claim for a deeper and wider popularization of science and a call for better and denser research networks.

The seminar “Conferences 2.0: Scientists and Web 2.0” will be split into three parts.

First part, Web 2.0, will point out the main characteristics of the Web 2.0 – a part that can be overridden depending on the knowledge on the issue by the attendees.

Second part, What’s a Conference 2.0, will to summarize how things have changed in the field of scholarly diffusion in the last years or, more specifically, since the advent of the Internet, the web browser and Web 2.0 applications.

Las part, the bulk of the seminar, will draw the “perfect” conference – and/or scientific diffusion strategy – by revisiting some good practices and some interesting applications existing around.

Anyhow, the focus and the stress will be put in both the change of paradigm in scholarly communication and the creation of a showcase of real practices and tools that are setting up this new path.

Elisabetta Cigognini asks me whether I could draw a list of 10 adjectives — concepts, capacities, competences — that qualify the skills of an expert knower 2.0 or learner 2.0.

Difficult, because I get consciously or unconsciously “intoxicated” by John Palfrey’s list of characteristics of a digital native. I believe that a digital native and a knower/learner 2.0 are overlapping concepts (especially if you take digital native as a “syndrome”, as I do, and not as a generational fingerprint, which makes poor sense in a digitally divided world) but are not exactly the same thing.

You can browse Elisabetta Cigognini’s publications and speeches pages for a good bunch of readings about what a knower/learner 2.0 stands for. Regarding myself, and summing up, what I have in mind is an adult learner, or an expert knower, that, by definition, has left a long track behind that backs his vast knowledge in one — or more — fields, and is intensively using the Internet — specially Web 2.0 apps — to both increase and enhance the reach of his knowledge. Just to put things clear again about digital natives, I believe that:

Digital native = expert knower 2.0 – experience – maturity – general knowledge (+ deep knowledge in one new field of knowledge)

Or, mutatis mutandis:

Expert Knower 2.0 = Digital Native + experience + maturity + general knowledge (- deep knowledge in one new field of knowledge)

Notice the parentheses: as I said, I understand the digital native concept as a syndrome. Thus, some non-generational natives do behave like (almost) perfect digital natives, hence the fact that “deep knowledge in one new field of knowledge” can or cannot be a difference. Experience, maturity and general knowledge are provided only by lifetime spent, which, by definition, is shorter in (generational) digital natives. To me, the expert knower/learner is very close to the definition of the digital settler by John Palfrey / Urs Gasser / David Weinberger.

Going back to the list, I tried and group its points under three categories. Not that I like doing it, but it makes an easier reading and comprehension than just a 10 bullets list. They are not sorted in any way, thus last item is “last but not least” and so:

Technical skills

• English: necessary to access relevant information. English natives will nod proudly and non-natives will deny in anger. Even if things are changing, the fact that English is the lingua franca these days for both science and business, and the fact that the Internet and the Web where born and developed in English-speaking environments has created a deep lag in the amount of information that is available in English or in other languages… combined.
• Digerati: Informational literate: knows where and how to search, how to evaluate relevant information, etc.; Media literate: can manage any type/support of information: text, hypertext, photo, sound, video…; and Technological literate: has advanced technical skills such as general knowledge of HTML, javascript or PHP, knows how a computer, server or the Internet work, how to set up a web site and a domain, etc.
• Multitasker: can do more than one thing at the same time, specially combining job-training-leisure tasks to create a difficult balance. Can also play havoc on the knower/learner if energies/resources are not properly measured/allocated.

Philosophical approach

• Open: Needs sharing (for many reasons: principles, unselfish etichs, pretentious ego, self-esteem, selfish benefits…). Above all, awareness that what you give is what you get, that your wealth is — you are worth — what you contribute to your network.
• Passion to learn: needs knowing. Learning is both a pleasure and a must. Keeps (or tries to keep) him/herself informed and up-to-date.
• Led by the “procrastination principle“: “[to deal] with problems only as they arose—or [leave] them to [other] users to deal with” (read, for instace, Jonathan Zittrain). In other words: do what you are good at and leave the rest to other contributors of your network… and work/learn while you enjoy doing it. Can also play havoc on the knower/learner, as well as multitasking, if priorities or long-term strategies are not properly defined.

Psychologycal/Social aspects

• Networker: can work with different people/teams for different projects. I see it quite different from the teamworker: one team for everything. Networking means that people and resources are assets that allow infinite (in possibilities) and finite (in time) combinations (Yochai Benkler puts it better than I).
• Ubiquitous and always online: no time/space boundaries. People and information are just a click away; not being able to click them (because of being off-line) is not an option.
• Multidisciplinar: other disciplines (than his/her default one) can bring good solutions/information on our problems. And there are many and new problems that can only be explained by a mix of different points of view and approaches.
• Autonomous: can design, plan and lead his own learning; knows what he does not know / needs to learn, who can train or where the information is; can be self-discipline and draw an strategy and path towards his/her own (training, need for information) goals. Actually, doest not really care for what a “discipline” binds inside of it.

Ambjörn Naeve, Head of Knowledge Management Research Group, KTH/Nada/Media (Sweden)
The Human Semantic Web – Increasing the Global Organizational Performance of Humanity Inc.

From teacher-centric, curricular-oriented “knowledge push” to learner-centric, interest-oriented “knowledge pull”.

The Semantic Web opens the gate towards the globally annotated information age, in opposition to recorded or transmitted information age. We all become librarians.

Being a generalist (knowing less about more things) or a specialist (knowing more about less things). You have to choose, but cannot be both. The question is: how to solve problems when you do need both kind of knowledges?

We need to improve the representation of reality, to make it more and more simple. Reinventing the wheels, beginning from scratch is no more an option, it takes too long… or it is just impossible to catch up with the speed of change.

We cannot use negative motivations — e.g. do your homework or get punished — in education.

Curricular-oriented knowledge push leads to:

• Lack of student interest
• Life long teaching (or tenure based teaching), instead of life long learning.
• lack of motivation to know why (whitehead)
• decreasing interest in the “hard fun”

Technology helps enabling non-traditional communication forms, support global content sharing, the formation of distributed learning communities.

The semantic web information architecture virtually converts the whole web into a huge database, a relational database of content and people.

The information about the information (metadata): From document based (XML), centralized, to graph-based (RDF), distributed.

Integrate people, processes and technology to manage/create knowledge. Knowledge is not about technology, but about people. And it’s becoming more and more important not to know but to know who knows.

We live in a Knowledge Emulation Society, not a Knowledge Society, is the impression of knowledge we work with.

Ever decreasing attention span: from homo sapiens to homo zapping.

From cogito ergo sum to “I am seen, therefore I exist”, the medial mass hysteria.

The power of thinking is to know what to think about.

Nobody can teach you anything: a good teacher can inspire you to learn. Teaching should be left to computers. People, teachers of flesh and blood, are to inspire, to encourage. Your learning motivation is based on the experience of subject excitement and faith in your learning capacity from a live teacher. Your learning is enhanced by taking control of your own learning process. We have to reintroduce school rights, and remove school duties.

Seven different Knowledge Roles:

• Knowledge Cartographer: constructs context-maps
• Knowledge Librarian: fills context-maps with content-components
• Knowledge Composer: combines content-components into learning models
• Knowledge Coach: cultivates questions
• Knowledge Preacher: provides live answers
• Knowledge Plummer: connects questions to relevant preachers
• Knowledge Mentor: supplies motivation and supports self reflection

We’re living in a knowledge emulation society, and forgetting reflection. We will probably be living anyway in emulation, but have to focus on reflection, on putting content before the form and not form before the content.

Fragmented science and technology, Desire for effectiveness and efficacy; and Integrated human development and wisdom, all combined have the following side effects (adapted from Petger Senge)

• Environmental damage
• Loss of community
• Loss of tradition
• Technological divide
• Complexity of social and environmental challenges
• Belief that any technology can solve such problems

More info

• Conzilla, the Concept Browser
• Conzilla map for Humanity Inc.

Call it synchronicity: in the last 10 days three major events have taken place in the field of Open Access:

• Berlin 5 Open Access: From Practice to Impact: Consequences of Knowledge Dissemination
• Open Education 2007: Localizing and Learning
• Web2forDev – Participatory Web for Development

Not surprisingly, people such as Peter Suber or Scott Leslie have already noted that there were some connections between these three conferences, some crossover interests.

After having attended the Web2forDev Conference and being right now preparing my speech for the UOC UNESCO Chair in Elearning Fourth International Seminar: Web 2.0 and Education, I can’t help but think on equal terms: open access is — will be… should be — the main axis of Science, Education and Development.

I think that these three fields — or social spaces — have several things in common, and are converging as time goes by and the Knowledge Society settles and becomes more pervasive in our lives:

• It’s about knowledge creation and knowledge diffusion, be it positive or normative, be it basic or applied.
• It’s all about networks of knowledge creation and distribution: scientists, educators, students, nonprofits, development agencies, communities of beneficiaries, counterparts… (I don’t like some of this jargon, but is the best I could find).
• They’re unbalanced networks that are becoming more balanced in account of the contribution made by individual nodes to the whole network: senior vs. junior scientists, teachers vs. students, nonprofits vs. counterparts, donors vs. receivers…
• They are networks challenged by meritocracy: the challenge on scholar networks is evident; but also educational networks, where knowledge expires very quickly and younger generations are proner to learn some things better than older ones; or development networks, where “localization” of strategies, of content, brings relevance to the end user, a passive agent in former development strategies.
• It’s about adding up: standing on ye shoulders of Giants to see further in science; more (and better) educational resources; synergies and best/good practices with scarce resources to achieve efficiency and efficacy in development projects.
• And it’s about adding to remain, contributing to the network not to be send off the network: not just in terms of relevance (i.e. meritocracy) but of pure belonging (i.e. subsistence). What you give is what you get.

Content — data, information, knowledge — is input, capital and output in a knowledge society, and the essence of science, education and development as it is required to draw strategies, to feed knowledge production, to put findings into practice and transfer them. And because it happens in a networked society you’ll be transferring them on and through a network. And my opinion is that this will be more and more difficult to do with undisclosed procedures. Thus why open access.

Two questions launched to the audience. Gathered on the fly, some might be redundant:

The most inspiring thing that you will take home from the conference

• So much going on
• All about people
• Discovered progress achieved in Africa
• Interdisciplinarity, so many people engaged/interested in these issues
• RSS feeds to unlock the information on websites
• The Web 2.0 allows the dissemination of content
• Some people have already implemented some Web 2.0 applications
• But there’s still a lot of work to be done, and you have to work hard
• Even if there are strong barriers to Web 2.0 implementation, most people in developing countries believe that once you have infrastructures (computers, connectivity) the remaining barriers (literacy, change of mind…) will be easily overcome
• These technologies can bring welfare as they are addressed to people, and once the “wall” of the digital divide falls, there’ll be a revolution
• The real and huge possibilities of blending everything together

How will you take what you have learned and apply what you have learned

• The infrastructure needs to catch up with the applications
• Spread the word of Web 2.0
• Start tagging out of the established taxonomies — and adding web2fordev tag to the list of possible tags to be used on own content
• Rethink all strategies
• Think on how to apply those tools in your day-to-day work
• And more especially how to apply them on the field
• Make information circulate in pervasive ways, give it life, deattach it from the source and let if fly

Five things you need to know to get to the Web 2.0

• Write: Blogs
• Store: Wikis
• Categorize: Tagging, keywords
• Spread: Feeds
• Get it all together: mashups

Main challenges

• People centered
• Access
• Participation, motivation
• Content creation, dissemination
• Evaluate and assess: what’s the impact, the change, the progress

More info

• Some reflections at Zarah’s Minor Contributions, some for Day 1 and some for Day 2 including conclusions on the conference
• ICT Journalist, Brenda Zulu’s blog

Last words

On my own side, I cannot but sincerely thank the organization (and the attendants too!) for such a huge effort and for such a brilliant success. I really enjoyed the conference and learned from everyone to my limits. Thank you! :)