E-learning Platform 2.0
Sep 2, 2008Disquietingly, one of the senior fellows said to Levitt, “I’m having a hard time seeing the unifying theme of your work. Could you explain it?”
Levitt was stymied. He had no idea what his unifying theme was, or if he even had one.
Amartya Sen, the future Nobel-winning economist, jumped in and neatly summarized what he saw as Levitt’s theme.
Yes, Levitt said eagerly, that’s my theme.
Another fellow then offered another theme.
You’re right, said Levitt, that’s my theme.
And so it went, like dogs tugging at a bone, until the philosopher Robert Nozick interrupted. “How old are you, Steve?” he asked.
“Twenty-six.”
Nozick turned to the other fellows: “He’s twenty-six years old. Why does he need to have a unifying theme? Maybe he’s going to be one of those people who’s so talented he doesn’t need one. He’ll take a question and he’ll just answer it, and it’ll be fine.”
—THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, AUGUST 3, 2003
We are only one month old. Why do we need an identity? Maybe we're going to be one of those people who're so innovative we don't need a traditional one. We've spotted an issue, and we'll just tackle it, and it'll be fine.
While we're compiling an e-learning package that we think nobody has done before, we've still stuck to the traditional way of identifying ourselves: become a part of an organization. Ironically, the core technologies of our e-learning package is entirely based online (except for the Edubuntu platform).
What do you think if we call ourselves an E-learning Platform 2.0? Or something similar? I mean, the naming is secondary at this stage, but the idea is we will define ourselves as an online platform delivering E-learning 2.0 packages. To be more specific, we do not exist offline when it comes to what we're doing.
What's the point of doing 2.0 when you're not 2.0 yourself? Ever since the idea was born, I've had a strong feeling that this is gonna change everything, but didn't foresee that this will today change the way we want to identify ourselves.
What matters is what you do, not how we are. But it comes in handy when we want to communicate with our sponsors and other stakeholders, including our partners, effectively.
This is gonna be challenging, but as the philosopher put it: "It'll be fine". Need more time to mull it over. :)
Information and Communications Technology for Development Working Group - Vietnam
Aug 29, 2008It's a long story but I'll cut it short, hopefully. While I was managing the 15 May School mailbox, I kept receiving email digests from local NGO network' Mailing Lists. As my interest in community service increased, I started to join several of these and learnt more about the various activities that NGOs and social organizations were doing here. The VUFO - NGO Resource Center is the one who coordinates the networking and resources sharing between those organizations and it is at this center that information keeps flowing in and out and around. As I was thinking of working for some NGO that promotes technology (ok, it's one of my intentions), I found this particular ICT4DEV Working Group very interesting. This is their goal:
The aim of the working group will be to help NGOs enhance their use of ICT to improve the quality of their development work in Vietnam. Through advising, training, sharing resources and inviting special expert guest speakers, the ICT4DEV WG seeks to maximise productivity and communications in the development community in Vietnam by helping NGOs to fully harness the power of ICT in their development activities. [ICT4DEVWG TOR)
I contacted the people of the working group through their mailing list and "pitched" them my idea. It turned out that they were very supportive and at the same time enthusiastic. This WG is very new but it is catching attention :). There have been a lot of entries in their blog and at the moment they are planning on delivering workshops on Open Source and Web 2.0 technologies to local development organizations, which coincidentally is what my program is all about. But it's a bit different, I'm working directly with the children why they are working directly with NGOs and thus cover a much wider range of beneficiaries.
Knowing from one person who used to be the predecessor of Paul Griffiths, the current chairman of the WG, that technology in the NGO world is 10 years behind that of the corporate world and that working with an NGO to promote our Program would be very difficult as it is certainly not favored by such an organization. While this is a bit discouraging for us, we managed to find other ways to do it right. And this simultaneously encourages me to do my utmost for the Program to raise people's awareness of what technology can do for them, individuals and organizations.
While we are working on our own and there're lots of difficulties so be solved, the WG is already firmly established and can work more easily with local organizations. At the end of the day, I believe we are working on the same mission and all efforts will pay off.
If you are interested in how the WG is doing and in the development of technology in the social development field, you can keep yourself update by subscribing to the mailing list at:
http://mailman.ngocentre.org.vn/mailman/listinfo/ict4devwg
If you happen to work for a local NGO and hasn't heard of it, these are the workshops that you may find useful:
http://www.ngocentre.org.vn/ict4dev/?page_id=115
E-learning 2.0 - asif.asia
Jul 16, 2008
E-learning 2.o - or learning through web 2.0 technologies - has been one of the most fascinating ideas I've ever been exposed to.
I remember the first time I taught computing skills to the children at the 15 May School last summer, I wanted to introduce them to the idea of web 2.0 and all the magic of the new technologies, with a view to bridging the yawning technical gap. However, at that time I didn't have any experience in teaching computing at all and it was more like help them to have fun rather than teaching them real computing skills. They did learn something, though.
Then, as I begin to embark on the new journey, the idea once again appears in my mind. And this time, with careful planning, I believe e-learning 2.0 will be a reality.
As the world is getting increasingly online, companies are shifting their products from an OS-based platform to a web-based one. Along the way, it opens the opportunity for people to get away with MS Windows, which in my opinion is a very evil thing (if you've ever worked with Microsoft, you know this!)
I'm talking about enabling children to blog about almost anything, specifically blogger, which has a Vietnamese interface. It's true that Yahoo 360 and other Vietnamese blogging engines are dominating the market here but blogger is much better than any of these things. I don't know, but maybe we will have a look at some popular Vietnamese blogging sites and choose one that we see fit.
There are also flickr, twitter, moodle, etc. But the difficulty is they are all in English and it is very hard to get the kids to these sites.
Another thing is helping children to learn language on their own in the new way. This is something I'm thinking about.
Anyway, it's more like a planning stage, at least I know e-learning 2.0 is the way to go, but more in-depth research needs to be done as a matter of fact.
Below are two very interesting slideshows that i found on slideshare.net:
E-learning 2.0 in Development
Creative Web 2.0 Learning
The new journey - ISIF.ASIA
Jul 15, 2008So I've decided to take on the new challenge. A US$30,000 grant for a project proposal that brings innovative technological solutions and internet applications to change lives.
Perhaps if it were at another time, I wouldn't even pay attention to the opportunity but it was just so in time when SEALNet Project Vietnam 08 was nearing its end.
As the co-leader of the Computing Component, I felt so excited to work on this new proposal. I've been a fan of technology and i feel that years of reading technology news and books has finally paid off.
Basically, the idea is to build a public computing library that runs on the educational version of Ubuntu, a Linux variant. Linux is an unknown to many but it's truly an OS of choice for developing countries like Vietnam and feel that if it is introduced properly, differences can be made. With a wealth of educational applications already there to serve, there's virtually no cost at all to run the system.
Then, the second focus is on E-learning 2.0, or using web 2.0 technologies to educate the children. Yes, I'm talking about the children, and about innovative technologies. The children should know how to blog, use Google to search for information, iGoogle, online collaborative tools such as Google docs, etc. Basically the idea is to bring power of 2.0 to the classrooms.
Until this point, the cost is $0.
What should be there in the computing lab is of course the computers. I've discovered the thin-client theory. It works in a way that thin clients (computers without harddisks) pull everything from the server computer (even the operating system itself) and display them to the users. As a result, the thin clients can be built from very low-cost components or from old computers, which means these can be obtained from the community or corporations who have computers that they wish to throw away. With approximately $3,000, such system can be set up.
Most of the investment will go to training. This involves empowring teachers and staff with the skills necessary to teach the children new knowledge and to maintain the system as a whole.
Lots of work needs to be done. I need to find a local organization to work with since I myself is not eligible to apply for the grant.
However, I'm very positive.
