[WSIS Edu] urgentissimo: tunis events proposal

[Meigs]

Message in English, the French and Spanish will follow.

Dear members of the taskforce

Please find attached and below the collection of the proposals i received
for Tunis (in English only, the translation committee is working on the
other versions...) 

At this point, given the deadlines, there isn't much time to discuss them
much, but all feedback is welcome until Friday morning. The applications
MUST be sent by Friday evening, Saturday morning at the latest.

For those who made the proposals, the idea is to finalize them, which is why
i have also attached the application form (which requires as an annex the
description of the event).

As much as possible, please do recall our rationales in your argumentation.
For the taskforce, in keeping with  civil society positions, it is essential
to send a clear message that we are not in favor of the privatization of
knowledge and of education, nor in favor of the disengagement of the state
in matters of free public education and research.  We must incite
governments to shift spending and research towards  open alternatives.
Remember that in our priorities (short two page document) we have a number
of recommendations that have to be pushed and Tunis will be our last
opportunity (there is prepcom 3, but more on that later).

So it seems important  to make the taskforce figure as co-organizer with
you, either in the application form and/or in the conference proposal
document in annex. Also we are moving toward an umbrella event, with other
like-minded families and working groups, whose title would be " Toward
shared knowledge societies with open acces"  or something like that, chaired
by Adama Samassekou (who has made us the honour of confirming). In my mind
this is also important to send the message that we have a coherent and
comprehensive view of the ways the "open" paradigm can be declined. So i
would also recommend to have the  umbrella event  mentioned in the
application form and/or the conference proposal in annex.

I remain at your disposal for discussion and finalization of input until
Saturday. Thanks to all for your collaboration.

Divina 

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Proposals parallel event TUNIS

 
A reminder of what is at stake :
The key outcome is implementation mechanisms for the WSIS Action Plan.
Education, Academia and Research/innovation are essential building blocks of
that Plan. So we have to be aware  that our action will determnine the role
of Civil society in the process for the years to come. This is an
opportunity to refine further on Civil society previous positions and to
work in view of setting mechanisms to which we can agree.
 
On format :
There seems to be a consensus on :
-our participation and on our looking for partners and synergies ;
- on doing at least roundtables and workshop ;
-on the possibility to share an exhibit space, to accomodate for demos of
work in parts of the world like India, South Africa, etc. There seems to be
a possibility to have a part of the stand of the Organisation internationale
de la Francophonie (OIF) reserved for universities ;
- on the possibility of going for a large federating event that could be
called  « scaling up towards shared knowledge societies with open access »,
to pick up on our motto. The education family could work in synergy with
another CS family, the Science and Technology family and with a variety of
Working groups : the scientific information working group and the Free
software working group. It could also work with other like-minded partners,
like  the World Federation of Engineering Organisations. It could be
presided by Adama Samassekou  (to be confirmed).
 
Other partnerships are not excluded as we keep on refining this project.
 
On partnerships :
There seems to be a consensus to work with UNESCO, as other OIG
 
More :??
 
On substance :
There seems to be a consensus that we should cross our priorities (teacher
training, open courseware, media and ICT education and Research) with the
means of access for knowledge management and transfer (free software, open
access, other local alternatives). There seems to be a need to evaluate
costs, and economic viability of the solutions proposed (broadband, free
software,Š). There seems to be a consensus on the need to criticize «
multistakeholderism »  language and financial mechanisms : of major concern,
the privatization of education, the  role of the state in maintaining and
fostering free public education, the real consequences of  the increased
involvement of the private sector in education and research. The overall
thrust for the taskforce is to push for our recomendations on open
courseware, on the charter for independent research and other elements
connected with the open cognition paradigm, so as to move spending in the
direction of  free/open source  alternatives, ensuring a continuous open
access backbone
 
Proposals Per Education and Research priorities
PRIORITY #1. Teacher training :
« Education Technologies in developing countries : the challenge and the
emergency » 
in partnership with AUF and Unesco.
Several themes :    the reality and the feasability of education
technologies in developing countries ; sustainable development and basic
training of teachers (collaboration, hybridation of tools and systems Š) ;
Information Society and Formation/training society  (financing mechanisms,
subsidiarity, economy of long distance training,Š..) ; beyond WSIS
(perspectives for reducing digital divide and meeting millenium goals).
 
It would take a whole day, in plenay sessions : 3 hours in the morning, 3
hours in the afternoon, with about 12 speakers.
 
In the same order of ideas, our participation has been sollicited to a
conference that is already submitted by ISO and AUF « Norms as instruments
for success of the Education for All Plan »,  14 et 15 novembre 2005. It
will have 4 themes and 2 workshops : national and transnational mechanisms
for Appropriating Information technologies for education ; norms and
standards as catalysts for co-development and solidarity ; languages and
cultures ; sustainable development and regional networks.
This could find synergy with another proposal « Pro-poor ICT approaches to
education and development. », in partnership with Unesco and possibly the
World Bank.
 
This would tie in with some of our qualms on not confusing the technical
norm with the accreditation normŠ
 
***********************************
PRIORITY #2. Open courseware
«  Sharing Knowledge through the Open Educational Resources Movement »
 
There would be four major themes : Distributed and Distance Learning,
Digital Course Content, Knowledge Sharing, Digital Divide.
It would explore possibillities of OER for sharing of knowledge worldwide to
increase human intellectual capacity and   open sharing of educational
resources, enabled by digital technologies (primarily the World Wide Web),
for use and adaptation by the global community of educators and learners,
for noncommercial, educational purposes. OER supports the growing movement
toward balancing the legitimate interests of intellectual property owners
with societyís need for open information sharing, learning, and debate.
 
Partners : Unesco, MIT, ParisTech,  UNU, Š
 
Outcomes:
The intended outcome is that institutions and organizations involved in the
OER movement will find ways to develop content and standards for sharing
educational resources that enable users to easily find and utilize the
resources published online. The overarching long-term goals of the OER
movement are to:
- Create a body of exemplary educational materials for teaching and
 learning
- Jump-start higher education in less advantaged parts of the world
- Ultimately raise the general standard of global education
 
It could take a whole day, with a variety of speakers and panel discussions
 
***********************************
III. Media education and information literacy
 « creating awareness about old and new media  and how they impact knowledge
»
 
themes : why (rationales for media literacy); what (definitions); where
(curricular and institutional locations); and how (issues of pedagogy and
practice).
 
Partners : Unesco, Mentor, Clemi, U. Laval, IPSI
 
Outcomes : Presentation of a modular curriculum for media and ict literacy ;
agreement of a declaration re-stating and re-defining the case for media and
digital literacy in the ŒDigital Age¹, for circulation to national education
ministries and other relevant bodies ;  publications based in the extensive
MENTOR documentation and research results aimed at teachers and policy
makers ;   introductory practical guides and style books to digital
literacy,  empowering communities through digital literacy pilot projects ;
the development of the multilingual observatory with a website
 
This could be completed with a demo of a course that is being prepared by
Quebec, with an internet site providing teaching tools ; it could also have
a demo of a course on on-linejournalism, in collaboration with Quebec and
IPSI.   
 
***********************************
IV. Research (and Innovation)
This section seems most open with a variety of panel proposals that can lead
to workshops hel in paralle, during one full day.
1.the IAMCR researchers¹ charter : implementing it ;
 
            2.CCK¹s panel proposal on the « impact of broadband networks on
the exchange of technical and scientific content » around working methods,
new uses, multicastŠ ;
 
            3. It could tie in with issues of scientific publication, and
discuss the development of open standards  for document  archiving and
interchange is important. For example, The National Center for Biotechnology
Information (NCBI) <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov>  of the National Library of
Medicine (NLM) <http://www.nlm.nih.gov>  created the Journal Archiving and
Interchange Document Type Definition (DTD) with the intent of providing a
common format in which publishers and archives can exchange journal content.
It could imagine the whole chain of research production, in open source,
with scietific libraries and search engines, for non-commercial use.
 
 Partners would be : unesco, ifla, ica, etc.
 
         4.  The DiploFoundation panel on « Multi-stakeholder approch to ICT
education and research - partnership andsynergism » or simpler «
Multi-stakeholder partnership for ICT education and research ».
In this panel could be involved participants from all sectors: academia,
media, governmental sector and intergovermental organizations, private
sector, NGO's... The idea is to present the advantages and the inconvenients
of such an approach.    It would be an occasion to criticize the lack of
involvment of governments and the risks of privatization of education. It
could be in the shape of a roundtable and of demo of results.
DiploFoundation suggests to show its course  on the Internet Governance, as
example of bestpractice relating ICT education with multi-stakeholder
approach.
There is also the option of having a presentation of  the World Academy of
Young
Scientists, with some social indicators (from young researchers
mainly) from all over the world (with particular emphasis to Africa and
Asia) related to Internet Governance and Information Society in general.
 
5. a panel focusing on the computer science and engineering community and
its roles in the context of meeting WSIS benchmarks.
 
 
Conclusion session of the whole event
Outcomes to be pushed, promoted and followed-up by WSIS process, for
education and research:
-The recommendations
-The charters 
-the creation of online ³observatories² for media education and for  ICT
development 
-the stabilized financial mechanisms  (Universal Service Fund for Education,
etc.)
-an annual conference on progress and evaluation in ICT education and
research  issues.


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