Just this weekend we had the ICT4D.at team meeting – first one since summer 2011. Here’s a picture of the participants:

We talked a lot about past and current projects, what’s good in ICT4D.at and what visions and plans each of us has – personally and with ICT4D.at.

What we found out was, that the main objective we want to put in the center of the NGO is “empowerment”. We like it way more that “development”, which we think is rather blurry and ambiguous and has a kind of imperialist connotation.

Furthermore we noted that rather than focusing our efforts on developing countries, we’d like to focus our work on intercultural exchange. This gives us a wider geographical area to work in projects – including Austria – and expresses our observations that exchange of technological knowledge is not a one way street, but we can learn a lot from how ICTs are used in developing countries.

Finally we agreed that we want to focus in our work on what we like doing rather than keeping the strict focus on ICT4D.

What does this mean?

The shift of focus from “ICTs for development” to “ICTs and whatever we like doing for empowerment” reflects our personal development as well as our critical reflections on what we are actually doing.

“Doing good” is a tricky intention and “empowerment” is the buzz-word which currently reflects best what we mean with it.

Our intention now is to gather our skills and find a concrete short term project for which we will work together as a group – to have one central structure in the core of the NGO which unifies us. We’re open to what this project will be, so even if it will most likely deal with technology and education we might move away from the concept  of ICT4D which we have based our actions on up to now. We might even change our name to express better what we actually want to do.

I see this as the beginning of a process which will re-shape ICT4D.at so it will become more integrated in its members’ daily lives and work again.

Of course we will carry on with our existing projects in Mozambique and Ghana but we will exercise a more critical approach towards what makes sense, what we can do and what we like doing.

All in all I think the results of the meeting were laying a base for the future development of ICT4D.at. We’ll meet again in a month’s time to discuss our personal potentials in more detail and it will be exciting to see what list of skills will be generated there and what ideas for concrete project we will have.

From November 28-29 ICT4D.at was participating at the 2012 EU-Africa Cooperation Forum on ICT in Lisbon, Portugal and successfully presenting the ICT4D.MZ project to the community of experts, researchers, business people and policy makers in the context of ICT and EU-African partnerships.

ICT4D.at @ 2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT

The hashtag for the event was #EuroAfricaICT2012 and we covered the main panels and discussions live via our Twitterfeed. The steady stream of acronyms, abbreviations and ICT lingo fits nicely in the limited microblogging format and it was a good way to make sense of all the information coming up. The twitterwall behind the speakers’ panel was good for grasping the main talking points, but a bit of a distraction when presented during an ongoing session. It also functioned as an indirect Q&A-session for the audience to bring up issues not covered in the session. Thus the meta-reality feedback loop was complete.

The informative Welcoming speeches included talks by Commissioners from both the African and the European Union (Moctar Yedaly and Zoran Stančič). A Keynote Address by Ilari Patrick Lindy from the World Bank Institute draw our attention to an interesting study on eTransformation of ICT in Africa. Harry De Backer from the EEAS (European External Action Service) was giving an overview in how ICT funding has changed in the recent years.

EU-Africa Cooperation Forum on ICT – Group Picture

We were happy to find out about other innovative projects in the field, such as the KINU Hub in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania co-founded by Catherinerose Barrett and the *iHub in Nairobi, Kenya presented by Jessica Colaço. Furthermore we were happy to meet Walter Mayer from ProGIS Software, an expert in Geo-information system and Felipe Batista from ARCTEL-CPLP, the Association of Communication and Telecommunication Regulators in the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries. We can also proudly report, that we have witnessed the official launch of the UbuntuNet Alliance and Africa-Connect.

The whole event was executed flawlessly by the very welcoming hosts, a rich experience and a overall nice time in the beautiful city of Lisboa. Obrigada! Obrigado!

As already mentioned in the last post, our in-service training for teachers in digital media skills in public schools in Ghana at Keta Senior High Technical School is over now and Margarete is back in Austria again. So it’s time for a sum-up and some lessons learned.

Here’s a group picture of all the participants.

The participants of the group have received their certificates (posing in ECDL T- shirts, a gift from the Austrian Computer Society, http://www.ocg.at)

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School

Keta Senior High Technical School is a very large school with about 80 teachers and more than 2,000 pupils (due to Margarete’s informations). Some of the teachers participated in our program – it was a voluntary decision to expand their knowledge about information and communication technologies.

In the beginning it was necessary to find out what the teachers wanted to learn – considering the different skills levels of the participants

• figuring out what the best outcome will be
• every day Margarete assessed the interest of the particpants  and adjusted her program to the audience

Currently there has been a government program put into place where teachers are given laptops to use them in their courses. The timing of this government program fits nicely with our project.

The projector donated by Fritz, another of our members, was very helpful during the course.

Generally the feedback of the teachers was very good . They expressed their appreciation to learn more about ICT and digital literacy. The participants enhanced their ICT skills during the two weeks course and they developed new ideas for their class teaching. Different methods of pedagogy in class teaching (Ghana / European practice) were figured out.

The topics covered in the course included

• basic ICT literacy
• usage of MS Office programs such as MS Word, MS Excel and MS Powerpoint
• basic internet-skills –how to use internet for better learning and teaching good practice skills (e.g. evaluation of websites)
• how to enhance teaching and learning using digital devices
• creating a digital portfolio (as an example for future teaching experience)

Challenges with the lab

• internet connection only on the last day
• PCs were no too well maintained – many disconnected parts & the working ones were full of viruses
• power outages – but only 1 full day course had to be cancelled

Headmaster Mr. D.K. Sedanu-Kwawu was involved and is very positive and forward-thinking. He is very much interested in the potentials of ICT in teaching and learning.

Ministry

The day before departure Mr. D.K. Sedanu-Kwawu and Margarete met Mr. Abu Stephen.

• Mr. Abu is Deputy Director-General & Director at the Basic Education Division and reponsible for ICT in education
• Mr. D.K. Sedanu-Kwawu & Mr. Abu are looking forward to further activities
• Keta School could become a pioneer project

It was a very interesting meeting, Mr. Abu already answered to a mail of Margarete – looking for further cooperation

Margarete also met with Dr. Bella Bello Bitugu, country manager of the Right To Play project who handed over Margarete a present on behalf of the Keta School alumnis to Margarete – a wooden stool with the sign of Keta School carved in.

Planning

We should continue with this project and plan for a next course, maybe continuing with the same group to widen their experience and build up a Trainee group, or maybe same content with another group of teachers

Organisation of the course and Margarete’s arrival and stay in Keta was perfectly fine, the mobile internet (MTN) worked perfect and and allowed her to stay connceted with Florian and Fritz in Austria and Worlali in the Netherlands.

Margarete will try to get Gameli and Eldad involved in an online project in Graz – already
talked with doctor father about this.

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Finally we want to express our sincere thanks especially to Gameli Adzaho and to Charles Amega-Selorm who organised everything on the spot and headmaster Mr. D.K. Sedanu-Kwawu. It was very kind of him to offer Keta Senior High Technical School to help make this project a success.

We’re looking forward to working with you soon again!

Big thanks and appreciation also to our member Worlali Senyo who initiated the project and virtually kept in touch with everybody during the whole period.

The first part of our project in Keta with Margarete Grimus holding the in-service training for teachers in digital media skills in public schools in Ghana at Keta Senior High Technical School has finished now. Margarete has done a great job in these almost three weeks and met some interesting people on the spot – so the next step is to assess the outcomes and possible ways to go further. From what Margarete is writing, however, there will definitely be a next part and we will continue the project.

So before we post a summary and our lessons learned, here’s some pictures of the course:

Make sure you check back soon, not to miss our summary.

As already announced, since 6 September our member Margarete Grimus is in Ghana and holding the in-service training for teachers in digital media skills in public schools in Ghana at Keta Senior High Technical School since a week already.

Now here’s a short sum up of what she writes about how everything is going:

The course is running alright, we start every day at 8 AM until 1 PM officially – but so far we never stopped before 1:30 PM. [...] There are plenty of computers in the computer room, but only 5 are working and they regrettably have viruses. Also, we don’t have access to internet. I bought an own internet stick myself on the first day and I’m using that one. There are 12 participants of the course with very different levels of skills, but the spirit is very good. [...]

From next week on we’ll only start at 3 PM because regular school is commencing.The fact that we don’t have internet is quite a constraint in the course contents. Also I cant use the questionnaire I developed upfront. What’s very good is that two thirds of the participants have their own laptops with them. [...]

It’s also very interesting to find out about the didactical aspects, which I find very important. There’s something new coming to my mind every day. [...] The participants have a portfolio where they are summing up down every day what they learned and everybody is very interested and motivated. [...]

We also have some pictures of Margarete at the school and with her hosts which you see above.

So, let’s hope internet will be available this week and that there’s a lot going forward at the course!

Because of a medical issue we regrettably had to postpone our in-service training for teachers in digital media skills in public schools in Ghana. Due to our initial plan the course should have started already, but we had to delay the start for two weeks. We’ve been in touch with everybody and have our man Gameli Adzahoon on the spot, so everything is sorted out.

Margarete Grimus will be in Ghana now from 6 September on and will probably split the course on two parts – but Margarete and the participants will plan for this when she’s there.

Another new project of ICT4D.at has already started officially and will be running for a while now.

It’s a partnership with the Vienna University of Technology and the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo – Mozambique (UEM) and the official title is

“Strengthening universities’ capacities for improved access, use and application of ICT for social development and economic growth in Mozambique“.

The project is funded by the APPEAR-program of the Austrian Development Agency and we’re very happy about that! It officially started this July and will go on for two years until June 2014.

Here’s an abstract about the project objectives from the application:

This proposed project is designed to strengthen capacity and infrastructure at the partner institution, the Department of Mathematics and Informatics of the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), while Vienna University of Technology (TUW) in Austria will provide specialist competency as a research partner in this effort. The not-for-profit organisation ICT4D.at will support as a subcontractor of TUW. The expected results are a higher quality of education offered by the department of Mathematics and Informatics at UEM and a strengthening of the research capacities to produce research outputs of relevance to the Mozambique strategic economic sectors for rural development and poverty reduction. The improvement of the information technology programmes and infrastructure, coupled with a sustainable research partnership between UEM and TUW, is the main development goal to be achieved by the establishment of this project, so that the practical results can be made sustainable for the process of teaching, research and contribution to the Mozambican private sector, civil sector and economy as a whole.

The project supports the thematic focus of this call with four specific objectives. [...]

“Improving university infrastructure to provide the basis for a high quality study programme and research activities” [...]

“Developing educational programmes by improving the quality of teaching, learning, research and gender equality” [...]

“Establishing a sustainable partnership between UEM & TUW to collaborate on projects and research outputs relevant to the needs of the university and strategic economic sectors in Mozambique for rural development and poverty reduction with ICT” [...]

“Enhancing the local intellectual property transfer office at UEM to guarantee the application of research findings to the society and economy, leading to sustainable social development and economic growth after the project period”

It’s an ambitious project and we have a motivated project team with Prof. Mosse, Prof. Shindyapin and Ms. Mara from UEM, Prof. Grechenig and Paul Pöltner from TUW and ICT4D.at members Joanna Knueppel, Isabella Wagner, Margarete Grimus, Fritz Grabo and myself, Florian Sturm.

We’ll start a project blog shortly where we will post updates and preliminary results of the project. When it’s ready we’ll make an announcement here. Of course we’ll also cross-post relevant content on this blog.

Right now we are mainly planning the first visits to Mozambique – Isabella Wagner will write the first main report on the spot and later, together with Paul Pöltner and Prof. Grechenig and UEM officials there will be the first big in-person meeting in Maputo.

We’re excited that this project – our biggest so far – has started now and we’re looking forward to a fruitful partnership with UEM and TUW! Hopefully our contribution will help UEM to make better use of the countries ICT capacity and let the people of Mozambique benefit.

If you know about any initiatives in Mozambique and especially around Maputo making use of ICT please let us know – either in the comments, on Twitter or write us a mail. Thanks!

We’re proud to announce a new project, which will already start in about two weeks time!

Our members Margarete Grimus and Worlali Senyo have joined up with Gameli Adzaho and Charles Amega-Selorm in Ghana to provide an In-service training for teachers in digital media skills for teaching and learning in public schools in Ghana. The one-month course will already begin in two weeks and will take place at Keta Senior High Technical School. Margarete Grimus, who has extensive knowledge in teaching and adult education in ICT will hold the course and meet with several people on the spot to explore possibilities for further projects in this sector.

The main objective of this pilot project is to equip 15 teachers in public schools with skills in internet research and presentation to support their teaching and learning and ultimately extend it across public schools in Ghana.

I think it’s good timing for our project to start now as Ghana has expressed their intentions to use ICT in education a while ago already and confirmed so lately. We hope that the pilot picks up and want to enable the 15 participants to pass on their knowledge to their colleagues – literally teaching the teachers.

Specifically, the project will:

• train teachers how to use computers for the learning in classroom for teaching, lesson notes preparation, and for general research
• provide teachers with skills to use the internet as a resource to improve their teaching (e.g. how to access it, integrating it in class teaching to improve learning, internet literacy and internet safety)
• guide teachers to identify good practice for Maths and Science teaching (in Junior and Senior High schools)
• acquire presentation skills as a way to enhance their lesson delivery to improve learning outcomes in the classroom
• introduce basic skills in research and statistics for evaluation of class/school-projects and scientific writing [from the project proposal]

To hear Gameli Adzaho talk in more detail about the project, check out this link to Coders4Africa Podcast.

We’ll keep you posted on the project and upload news and pictures here as soon as it has started.

Last month, at the international conference “Interactive and Competence-Orientated Education” in Brussels our member Margarete Grimus presented her article about education in Africa with a focus on ICT. The article is in German, the title “Lernen für ein verantwortliches Leben im globalen Horizont: Bildungsprojekte in Afrika” approximately translates to “Learning for a Responsible Life with a Global Horizon: Education Projects in Africa”.

I took the liberty to translate the abstract to English:

The development of the internet has opened perspectives in Africa in the last century which have been hampered by under-developed infrastructure before. The World Wide Web (WWW) can constitute a meaningful contribution to an increase in education standards – if lectureres know the potentials, have the necessary carefulness in dealing with ICTs and implements this in class. Education processes aim at the acquisition of knowledge, skills and approaches, digital literacy is a substantial part of education.

The different weight which is put on sectors such as gender or AIDS in the “first world” and in developing countries is extending experiences in both worlds. Insights in the education scene in Sub Sahara Africa are given with examples of the teacher education in Kano (Nigeria), health education in Cape Town (South Africa) and teacher education in Ghana.

So here you can download the article of Margarete Grimus. Here’s also the presentation slides she used:

Here’s the link for citation:

Grimus, Margarete. Lernen für ein verantwortliches Leben im globalen Horizont: Bildungsprojekte in Afrika. In: Holz, Oliver; Seebauer, Renate (Hrsg.): Interaktiver und kompetenzorientierter Unterricht. Interactive and Competence-Orientated Education. Verlag Dr. Kovac. Hamburg. S. 124-148 (ISBN: 978-3-8300-6422-0)

Thanks a lot to Margarete for providing this, it’s a very interesting read – especially having in mind our own projects.

Zanzicode

In the mean time, after finishing the third round of our Zanzicode project, we have also gotten the official thumbs-up from the funding agency ADA (Austrian Development Agency) for our book-keeping and reports.

The summary of our final report in German can be downloaded here. For more detailed questions please contact us.

After this, we are currently working on a new concept for the next round of Zanzicode. We want to incorporate the mistakes and lessons learned in the previous rounds of Zanzicode and create a more open space for learning and teaching. However, we are searching for a reliable partner on the spot to realise this – if you are there

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The Social Business Forge

Our book “The Social Business Forge for ICT4D” has been released already on 11 December last year – as announced on Twitter. You can check the book online at http://www.socialbusinessforge.org/.

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Future projects – Ghana

Together with Margarete Grimus – an Austrian expert for “Erwachsenenbildung” (education for adults) and new member of ICT4D.at -, Worlali Senyo, our Ghanian member and his contacts in Ghana are currently planning for a one-month teachers education course with the topic of using ICTs in everyday teaching in Tema, South Ghana.

The workshop is currently planned for mid-August to mid-September this year and preparations are on the way in collaboration with a local school.

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Homepage

Our homepage is currently being redesigned by Paul Spießberger and Georg Steinfelder We want to increase ease of navigation and introduce clear structure of posts, projects and other information. Thanks already!

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Online activity

As you might have noticed, we are not as active online as we used to be. One reason for this is that we decided to carry out work more project based and dedicate less work to the “mother organisation” ICT4D.at.