TechChange: Reflections on a year of online learning

Starting next week, I’ll be participating in TechChange‘s course on Global Innovations for Digital Organizing: Open Data, Good Governance and Online/Offline Advocacy. I’m excited about it because the topics are among the things I’m most interested in, and I think they deserve a closer and more focused look.

I wrote a post back in November 2010 asking “where’s the ICT4D distance learning.” This led me to discover TechChange, and in January 2011 we co-hosted an “ICT4D Distance Learning Tweet Chat.” Since then I’ve been collaborating with the team to input into course ideas. I also participated as a moderator in the Mobiles in International Development course last year.

So after a year of running courses, what has TechChange learned? Nick Martin, TechChange founder, says that online learning needs to be social in order for it to be effective. “Most organizations think of ‘online learning’ as uploading powerpoints or manuals onto their website or hosting monthly webinars for their employees, but it can and should be so much more than this. By emphasizing social elements such as video chats, collaborative simulations, small group discussions and through the use of video game mechanics (point systems, progress bars, and good graphics) we keep participants engaged and connected with one another, not just the content.”

Working across time zones can be a challenge, as I also discovered when moderating the Mobiles in Development course. Scheduling in side chats was difficult, but that’s not something that’s easy to fix. TechChange tries to address this by “combining synchronous and asynchronous learning in the same platform and keeping the balance between a persistent learning network where people can socialize (via video, audio, and text) with each other and experts, and allowing people to get caught up on weekends when they fall behind so that they don’t feel left out,” according to Nick.

One thing the group learned about running this kind of course is that when engaging external experts in webinars and chats, informal-yet-direct interaction is much better than more produced content.

“We tried doing formal studio-style interviews with our experts, but found that most students just tuned out like they were watching a TV show. When the experts were just talking directly to the camera from their laptops, we found students asked more questions and participated more. They really appreciated the access to experts and weren’t particular about the production value of the webcast. Sometimes less is more,” Nick says.

Personal attention can still be a challenge, however. So TechChange emphasizes the role and importance of moderators. Their last Mobiles for International Development course had 70 students from 30 countries (see map below), making moderators a key part of personalization.

TechChange recently ran an online course for Pakistani students in partnership with IREX, where Nick says the challenge was keeping up with the students. “They brought creative ideas from their cultural exchange program with Global UGRAD-Pakistan, so we were always trying to tailor lessons around ways to improve or discuss their experiences. IREX was very focused on using our platform to create a tailored four-week program for the students, so we were able to tweak it as we went along.” (Read more here: TechChange Lessons from Training Pakistani Students Online)

The class with the Pakistani group was based on the Global Innovations for Digital Organizing course. TechChange had information ahead of time on the participant profile (the students were from Pakistan, undergraduate education, good English, decent connectivity), so they were able to maximize the experience by bringing in local partners like Pakistan Youth Alliance and Khudi and targeting youth leaders that they thought would resonate (like Prashan De Visser of Sri Lanka Unites). However, doing a class in Pakistan presented some difficulties, such as rolling power outages and load shedding. “We had to really make sure everything was optimized for low bandwidth and archiving.”

What does the future hold for TechChange? According to Nick, the group is pushing ahead on two fronts:

1. Working with technology firms to create courses that can help them better engage their user communities
2. Helping international development organizations integrate online learning into their local capacity building projects.

The open enrollment courses will remain, but the team will be focusing more on partnering with tech/development firms to help them build out their engaged communities. “There’s already a ton of cool tools out there that we love to teach, like Ushahidi and OpenStreetMap, but the biggest challenge isn’t tech–it’s educating and engaging communities of practice. We’re really excited about our upcoming Ushahidi course, which we developed in partnership with Ushahidi (developer Rob Baker will be the lead facilitator), but we see it as the first of many. Developers have great manuals, products, and organizations, but we can often add value by helping them educate their existing audiences and reach out to new ones.”

TechChange plans to work in the area of technical capacity building by developing more custom courses for organizations. “We see our role as changing from being the central learning location for individual students to helping development/nonprofit organizations reach out to their key stakeholders. This fulfills a key part of our mandate. It lets us provide tailor-made courses for organizations in fragile states and countries in transition.” TechChange is also looking to integrate their platform into other online learning opportunities, such as accredited courses and online conference opportunities.

It’s inspiring for me to see how quickly TechChange has built their online learning platform and how adaptable they are to the topics and themes that different people and organizations need to get a handle on in the area of ICTs and development and related humanitarian fields. I’m looking forward to participating (and speaking as a guest) in the Digital Organizing course starting on Monday!

Aid, ethics, photography and informed consent

There’s a great, ongoing discussion happening around aid and development and the ethics of using photographs and other media and stories about people INGOs and NGOs are working with (a.k.a beneficiaries, clients, participants). The discussions are organized by CORE Group in DC. I also participated in the first meeting of the group in April (see this post: On the ethics of photos in aid and development work).

Today’s meeting focused on consent and informed consent for photographs.

Jim Stipe was the key speaker. He shared Catholic Relief Services‘ experiences with developing a process that allows for informed consent in a variety of situations.

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Sam Gregory at Witness chimed in on Twitter with some training materials on securing informed consent for human rights related videos and James Bon Tempo pointed towards some materials on informed consent that K4Health has put together.

Future discussions will cover related topics such as what happens with social media sites and consent and copyright? What about fair use of images and stories? I’m quite looking forward to continuing the discussions and learning!

Check out the compilation of tweets here on Storify - be sure to read from bottom to top!

Also see this old post: Child protection, the media and youth media programs.

Strengthening National Child Protection Systems in Sub Saharan Africa

Starting yesterday (I’m late on writing about this one!) people from across the African continent are meeting at the Conference on Child Protection Systems Strengthening in Sub-Saharan Africa in Dakar, Senegal, to discuss how child protection systems work effectively in the African context. Follow the conference at the #cps12 hashtag or via @CPSystemsS and check out a day one summary on Storify.

“Dozens of African countries are engaged in strengthening child protection systems and mobilizing new sectors for child protection. For example, education and health sectors are engaged in violence prevention work, and social protection is becoming an essential part of efforts to reduce child labour and child marriage. Child justice initiatives are being embedded in broader national justice and security reforms and the health sector is supporting birth registration. Mobile technologies are being used for the reporting of violence, family reunification and rapid assessments. Donors are also increasingly supporting child protection systems….

“’Just the way a health system deals with many diseases, a child protection system addresses a broad range of violations of children’s rights. Children cannot be protected effectively unless social workers, police officers, justice servants, teachers and health workers and communities work together to prevent and respond to abuse and violence…. Investment in national child protection systems leads to better outcomes for children because of children’s improved access to protection services, new investments in frontline workers to identify and respond to children in need; and improved partnerships to mobilize and use resources for children, families and communities,’ according to Joachim Theis, Regional Child Protection Advisor, UNICEF, West and Central Africa.”

Key conference themes include:

• Mapping and assessment of national child protection systems
• Strategies and approaches to strengthening national child protection systems
• Community based child protection mechanisms
• Children as actors and partners in child protection systems
• Social welfare workforce strengthening
• Services delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Aligning traditional child protection agendas with child protection systems
• Strengthening monitoring and evaluation for child protection
• Mobilizing resources for child protection systems

Resources and a discussion forum are available at wiki.childprotectionforum.org. Some relevant background papers include:

• Mapping and Assessing Child Protection Systems in West and Wentral Africa. A Five-country Analysis Paper
• Policy and Programming Resource Guide for Child Protection System Stengthening in Sub-Sahara Africa
• Child Protection System – Mapping and assessing Eastern and Southern Africa
• Working Paper for Child Protection System Strengthening

A few webinars are recorded here on the topics of systems strengthening, budgeting for national system and core competencies for better national child protection systems.

There’s also a good paper on community-based child protection systems that I summarized awhile back.

Coming up soon, a few of us from different organizations will be looking more closely at the role new ICTs can play in child protection systems. Some examples of ICTs and child protection systems are here.

(Thanks to Joachim Theis at UNICEF West Africa for sending over the info on this one.)

Climate Extreme

On the off chance you don’t have time to read the 594-page Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX), check out this simplified (and nicely designed, easy-to-skim) 28-page report called ‘Climate Extreme.’

Climate Extreme: How young people can respond to disasters in a changing world shares ways to prepare and reduce risks children and young people can face when disasters impact their communities and presents examples of crucial roles children have played in disaster preparedness, community education, hazard identification and in evacuation and first aid during disasters.

The report was authored by Amalia Fawcett from Plan Australia who says “Children and young people have the right to information that is tailored to them. Even complex scientific reports should be converted to child and youth appropriate versions, if the information is likely to affect them.”

Examples of young people having a real impact include:

• Young people lobbied their government to get their school moved out of the path of potential landslides in the Philippines.
• Girls and boys in Bangladesh have carried out household visits and community assemblies to share their skills and knowledge on early warning and household preparedness with others.
• A school safety program in India involves children in conducting risk and vulnerability assessments in over 2,000 schools.
• In Thailand youth are actively engaged in revising community based disaster risk management plans in flood affected areas.
• In Vietnam, children are training their peers on how climate change could affect their communities.

Climate Extreme is based on the report prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), featuring the extent to which climate change is affecting the number and severity of weather related disasters, investigating the current and predicted changes in our climate, how these affect disasters and what communities, governments and the international community can do to reduce risks people face.

Along with the IPCC report, Climate Extreme is being launched in New Delhi on May 3 and Bangkok on May 4.

*****

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body first established in 1988 by two United Nations organisations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and later endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly. Its mission is to provide comprehensive scientific assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences, and possible options for adapting to these consequences or mitigating the effects. As such it produces regular reports, the latest of which, the ‘Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation.’

Children in a Changing Climate is a coalition of leading child-focused research, development and humanitarian organisations each with a commitment to share knowledge, coordinate activities and work with children as agents of change. Members of the coalition include UNICEF, World Vision, Plan International, Save the Children and Institute for Development Studies.

Australian Aid (the disaster response arm of AusAID) funded the production of the child-friendly version.

Download the full version of IPCC report.
Download the child-friendly version.

Children’s participation in preventing violence against children (VAC)

This is a guest post by Alana Kapell. Alana has recently joined the Office of the Special Representative on Violence against Children as the children’s participation expert. As part of her work to further define a child participation strategy and identify key opportunities for learning and collaboration, she is researching projects and initiatives related to the UN Study on Violence against Children (UNVAC) specifically focused on involving children in preventing violence.

Six years after the UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence against Children (2004-2006) and in preparation for the 2012 Statement to the General Assembly, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Violence against Children is currently assessing progress made since the Study recommendations were released in 2006. This is a strategic occasion to gain perspective on progress achieved and to reflect on good initiatives, factors of success and define opportunities for further advancement.

Many initiatives, projects, networks and advancements were born out of the process, including continued efforts to support children’s participation. In order to gain further insight into children’s own efforts and perspectives, partners are invited to help inform the analysis of ‘progress made’ by sharing information (reports, publications, videos, research, etc.) about children’s own efforts to end and prevent violence.

Contributions should be current (e.g. developed from 2007-2012) and focus on ‘progress made’ with children or how children themselves perceive violence in their lives and communities.

Additional areas of interest include:

• Research: any research or data collection done with children.
• Links to UN Study: initiatives that were started as a direct result of the UN Study process.
• New forms of Violence: material or details where children have identified and/or addressed new, hidden or emerging forms of violence.
• Prevention: examples of initiatives undertaken by children to raise awareness in their communities and projects aimed at preventing violence against children.
• Evaluation: information that measures the impact or outcomes of children’s participation and efforts related to ending violence against children.

In addition, there are numerous partners and networks supporting and facilitating children’s participation to prevent and end violence. Community, national, regional and international efforts exist to ensure children’s views, opinions, realities, recommendations and actions are informing and shaping our collective efforts.

We would also like to update our contact lists and map the individuals, organizations, children’s groups, etc. who are supporting children’s participation to prevent and end violence. We want to reconnect with groups who were involved with the UN Study process, including the follow up and to also identify new partners who are doing innovative and important work.

We are looking to connect with both adult led organizations and child led organizations and initiatives working on issues related to violence against children and children’s participation.

Please be in touch with me [akapell at unicef dot org] if you have any information to share!

Girls in ICTs Day

The field of Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) tends to be dominated by men. Is this because men are more suited to working in technology? Because women don’t want to? Because boys are more interested from an early age?

Probably not. What is more likely is that there are factors throughout girls’ lives that discourage them from going into this field.

At a personal level, I’ve been lucky enough to work in settings and environments that are largely positive towards women in this field. I’ve met and collaborated with numerous wonderful men who treat me with respect and who have been more than willing to work side-by-side, to help me out, to ask for advice, to share their own experience and information, and to support and promote the work I’m involved in. The fact that I work more on the social side of ICTs rather than the super technical, engineering or ‘coding’ side, however, may have something to do with my positive experiences.

Many women who work on the more ‘techie’ side report feeling discriminated against, and the numbers tell a story that’s worth looking into.

In the US, for example…

When women are shown in the media working in technology, they are often seen as rare, they are patronized or sexualized, and their appearance is noted and commented on. (And don’t even get me started on ‘booth babes’ at for-profit technology conferences.)

As Miriam writes in ‘First Female Engineer Graces the Cover of Wired Magazine‘, ’I’m glad they’ve featured her here, and I’m glad that she’s not scantily clad like most of the women who grace the covers of national magazines. But when will we get beyond the idea of Rosie the Riveter? When can women across fields just be acknowledged the way their male counterparts are–for their accomplishments? …Posing her like Rosie feels antiquated, and also draws attention only to the fact that she’s a woman in a man’s world–not that she’s an incredible engineer in her own rite [sic].’

It’s the same, or perhaps more pronounced, the world over.

At last year’s Commission on the Status of Women, Fabiola, a 17 year old from Cameroon commented: “when a girl succeeds to sit on a computer lab, a boy will raise his voice on her, saying: ‘Why should you be holding a computer mouse when at the end of the day you will be holding a baby’s napkin?’“

In other parts of her talk, Fabiola recognized the important role that her parents played in keeping her in school and encouraging her to study for a career related to the sciences.

This highlights the importance of not only education, but of positive parental and community support and a broader set of changes that allow girls to have more freedom and more opportunities. Girls need to know that they have options open to them. And boys need to know too that girls can ‘do stuff’. Women role models are important, and where there are not yet women in certain careers to serve as role models, positive support from men to encourage girls to explore their options is key.

More girls and women in ICTs is not only an individual opportunity for women to earn an income. It can also mean that ICTs products and tools will be designed with women in mind. And I’m not talking about making things pink and purple to appeal to women, I’m talking about the design that responds to real needs in the real lives of women and girls around the world.

As part of a broader effort to encourage more girls to consider wider options, ‘Girls in ICTs Day‘, was established last year and will now be an annual event on the UN Calendar, to be celebrated every year on the fourth Thursday in April.

Many initiatives are underway already to support girls and women in the ICT sector. More governments recognize the importance and necessity of taking deliberate steps. The ITU’s latest report notes that “The choices made by policymakers, enterprises and individuals on investment in education and training must strive for gender equality—that is, to give women the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as men.”

Positive attitudes and support from families, friends, communities, the private sector and the media is also part of the solution to helping girls see their potential.

The Girls in ICT Portal offers statistics and advice on how to encourage more girls to consider ICTs as a career option. 

ICTs, Rio+20 and the Future We Want

A version of this post originally appears on the World Bank’s Connect4Climate site.

Twenty years ago, at the Rio Earth Summit, 178 governments committed to a series of legally non-binding principles designed to commit governments to balance development and environment in a way that would bring a more sustainable future. Principle 10, the first international declaration that recognizes the rights of people to hold governments accountable for their policies regarding the environment, was one key result of the summit. It provides a means for people to engage in the decisions made by political leaders and government agencies about environmental issues that affect livelihoods and long-term wellbeing.

“Environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level. At the national level, each individual shall have appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public authorities, including information on hazardous materials and activities in their communities, and the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes. States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely available. Effective access to judicial and administrative proceedings, including redress and remedy, shall be provided.” – Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration

Video by Article 19

Zero Draft 2012: participation, transparency, accountability and aid effectiveness

Since 2011, key stakeholders have been submitting ideas for the Zero Draft of the Rio+20 outcome document, to be discussed at the Rio+20 Conference in June 2012.

Like Principle 10, the Zero Draft recognizes the need for broad public participation in decision-making, linked to a strengthened right to access information and to better civil society capacity to exercise that right. It notes that technology can make it easier for governments “to share information with the public and for the public to hold decision makers accountable” and that it is critical to work towards universal access to information and communications technologies. (Clauses 17 and 18). A recent analysis showed that participation, accountability, transparency, Principle 10/access to information and social inclusion/ equity are among the terms that share an ‘excellent’ level of interest among governments, UN agencies, civil society groups and other stakeholders.

Along with public participation, the Zero Draft also calls for “increased aid effectiveness, taking into account the Paris Declaration, the Accra Action Agenda and the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation in ensuring that aid is effective, accountable and responsive to the needs and priorities of developing countries.” Greater coherence at international and national levels is urged, including “effective oversight of resources to ensure that developing countries have steady and predictable access to adequate financing, including by the private sector, to promote sustainable development.’

A role for Communications and ICT tools

ICTs can play a role in supporting Principle 10 and Zero Draft, and pushing for appropriate mechanisms for response and redress.

Mass media campaigns and communication for development (C4D) approaches have long been used to disseminate information and encourage environmental awareness and behavior change. New media has improved access to information and allows multi-channel communication rather than one-way broadcasts. Greater access to mobile phones and to new media channels mean that a broader population than ever before can be engaged in and/or participate proactively in defining and acting on Rio+20 and its outcomes.

In addition to information sharing and behavior change, ICTs have the potential to play a strong role in helping civil society organize and push for greater transparency, openness and accountability around Rio+20. As Chantal Line Carpintier suggests, “Rio+20 should also agree on an effective accountability process for all actors  – governments, business and industry, local authorities, NGOs and other major groups and stakeholders.  Accountability and ownership by all actors would favour implementation. There is growing support, for instance, for public reporting on sustainability performance.  A registry of commitments is one of the tools that have been suggested to follow up on commitments made at Rio+20 to avoid previous lack of implementation.”

An effort similar to the open government partnership and the International Aid Transparency Initiative or the integration of sustainable development goals and Rio+20 commitments into these two efforts could be something to consider, along with a mandate for corporations to also open their activities to public scrutiny.

On-line organizing combined with both online and offline actions (in places that have ready access to social media) can help the world prepare for Rio and to push for its outcomes to be implemented.

Access, capacity and the communication cycle

Despite the great potential for ICTs in communication, change and accountability efforts, however; lack of access to ICTs and potentially low capacity to interpret data that might be presented on-line in such a registry is of concern in less accessible rural communities and among some marginalized groups.

Education levels, literacy, and other excluding factors such as poverty and gender discrimination can severely limit ICT and social media access for a large number of people.  In addition, information produced in dominant cultures or languages can exclude or override those with less power. As Angelica Ospina notes in her post Knowledge Brokers, ICTs, and Climate Change: Hybrid Approaches to Reach the Vulnerable, “There are many misconceptions about what ‘reaching out’ implies, as in practice it requires much more than making climate change information and knowledge publicly available through Internet-based tools such as Web portals and online databases.”

Therefore, there needs to be, “a more holistic understanding of the information cycle, including the creation, acquisition, assimilation, management, dissemination and ultimately the USE of climate change information, particularly within vulnerable contexts. Beyond the provision of climate change information, it’s necessary to consider if/how the information is being integrated -or not- into decision-making processes at the local, regional or national levels,” she says.

The Children in a Changing Climate project uses a variety of participatory development and media tools for children and adolescents to explore and document climate change in their communities, and to share their findings and suggestions to adults and other decision makers.

From information and knowledge to practice

There is also a need “to identify, adapt and adopt innovative approaches for the effective delivery and the local appropriation of climate change messages, and most importantly, for the translation of information and knowledge -both new and traditional- into climate change practice.” This will require strong efforts as well as resources to create an inclusive environment that fosters greater participation, as mandated by Principle 10, and local ownership of sustainable practices.

“Working with knowledge brokers, also called “human infomediaries” who can help bring people together, identify local needs and transfer information and knowledge more effectively is one such approach to improve information and communication flows,” Ospina advises. “Human infomediaries support an active process that involves exchanges between people, facilitating the development of climate change strategies, adoption of adaptation and mitigation practices, and processes of local change and innovation.”

(More here on ICTs and the role of knowledge brokers).

Building on Ospina’s observations on how to bring information to the “last mile,” meaningful ways to bring community knowledge and information into higher level discussions need to be found. Local communities have vast knowledge on resilience, climate patterns, local environments and local situations and histories that can be documented and shared using ICTs both to benefit themselves and to share at broader levels, improving South-South cooperation and innovation. Multi-media curricula such as the Children in a Changing Climate website bring together young people’s voices and opinions around climate change and environment.

Post Rio+20, digital tools are one of many information and communication mechanisms that local communities and their citizens can use to confirm, validate, contest and dispute information related to compliance with commitments being put forward by those responsible for upholding them. Participatory media approaches can be effective in bringing community members as well as duty bearers at local, district, national and global levels into discussions about climate change and sustainable development.

Why are you killing me? Girls in Kenya use poetry to engage adults in discussion on climate change.

Summing up

In summary, ICTs can play a strong role in education, participation and accountability processes if their integration is well thought through, appropriate to the context, and taking into consideration good participatory practices. Hybrid approaches that use a variety of online and offline tools can be effective for reaching populations and decisions-makers at different levels of responsibility, for ensuring that ICTs are not widening existing information and participation gaps and for upholding the goals set forth in Principle 10. Children and youth can and should play an instrumental role in bringing about awareness and accountability, especially since they will be the ones who reap the long-term results of the agreements sown at Rio+20.

The Notes on ICTs, Climate Change and Development blog provides a wide range of research, commentary, and research on these areas.