digital citizenship basic education

Marco Fioretti (marco@digifreedom.net) May 11th, 2011, ESAF Brasiliahttp://mfioretti.com CONSEGI 2011http://stop.zona-m.net Some rights reserved

Digital Citizenship Education,a need of society

Why Digital Citizenship basic education is a urgent need of all contemporary societies, regardless of their industrializations,

and some proposals to achieve it

Marco Fiorettihttp://mfioretti.com

Member ofOpenDocument Fellowship (www.opendocumentfellowship.com)

Digistan.org (www.digistan.org)

www.eleutheros.org – a Catholic approach to Information Technology

Writer for Linux Journal, Linux Format and other magazines

Author of the Family Guide to Digital Freedom (2007)

Co-author of the O'Reilly Open Government book (2010)

Author of the Digital Citizens Basics Course http://mfioretti.com/node/129

Home page and writings:

http://mfioretti.com

http://stop.zona-m.net

Author introduction: Marco Fioretti

We can safely say that the world DOES have some little problems

And we may also say that:

1) Everybody is entitled to:

see those problems solved, in order to live a better life

participate to their solution

2) We need EVERYBODY to participate

Because the problems are BIG and sometimes urgent too

This is not politics, it's common sense.

Background: what is the state of the world today?

What is digital inclusion?

Why is it important?

Why does society need it?

Yes? OK, let's talk about software then: what IS software?

Do you want to know...

Software is not a stand-alone industry or set of tools, but something that:

makes every other “physical” economic activity work, from agriculture to space travel

run every service used by humankind, from mere bureaucracy to healthcare, education, tourism, lotteries...

has an exclusive mandate to package and access in digital format every kind of information we need to live

Why are SW and digital technologies so important?

“the ‘digital’ in today’s life is no longer a range of

individual things, anything from digital clocks to

cellphones to computers to..., but a culture, something

which calls upon habits or inculcates habits”.

Fr Julian Fox, SDB, Digital Virtues, http://stores.lulu.com/Bosconet

Digital is a culture, therefore...

Access to physical infrastructures necessary to use digital

services & information (“easy”)

Access to practical knowledge necessary to use those services &

information (less easy)

Willingness and interest to actually do it (even less easy)

Desire that such services and information are guaranteed and

properly regulated! VERY HARD

What is Digital Inclusion?

Today, your civil rights and the quality of your

life heavily depend on how computers are used

AROUND you

Technology (especially digital) is legislation

This is true also for people who do NOT own a

computer

Digital inclusion is important because...

Example 1 (bad):

India’s digitization of land records gives everybody a

way to see who owns what... upper classes and

corporations have been using the digital land records

data to gain ownership of land from the unknowing

www.webmonkey.com/2010/09/open-datas-access-problem-and-how-to-solve-it/

Computers affecting people without computers

Example 2 (good):

In 2001 only 1% of land claims by Bolivia’s indigenous peoples

had been settled

Community leaders were taught to use computers and understand the

databases created to assist land claims.

Since then half of the claims have been settled

www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/LandBolivia.aspx

Computers affecting people without computers

By and large, no

We have not metabolized this yet for two reasons:

software is invisible, even if it is everywhere

the written word is thousands of years old. Software, as a

mass technology for communication and information

management, only a few decades.

Are we as a society aware of all this?

What have we concluded so far?

Software is everywhere = today, (misuse of) software is

a part of many problems, and software is also a part of

their solutions!

Doing digital inclusion as previously defined can be

much cheaper and faster than trying to solve problems

in traditional ways.

Remember we said the world has problems?

All citizens can and should demand to participate in

decisions general criteria regulating usage of software,

without being specialists.

Just as it happens on topics like privatization of water

How many citizens think that their opinion on that topic

isn't worth listening because they aren't hydraulic

engineers?

The biggest problem is apathy and ignorance

It is a great way to have everybody do their part

to solve those world problems we mentioned

earlier

Corollary 1: We can't afford people to ignore what real

digital inclusion is and to not want it for themselves

Corollary 2: this is an urgent task, both because some

problems are urgent and because software moves very fast

This is why digital inclusion is necessary

Everything we said leads to another reason why real digital

inclusion is important:

to (help to) solve problems, people need Education. Soon

but the only way produce and deliver enough education, in

time, is massive usage of computers

(yes, of course this is a huge simplification, education is not a material

product like cars or screwdrivers)

What's missing? The “E” word, of course!

Everything we said leads to another reason why real digital

inclusion is important:

to (help to) solve problems, people need Education. Soon

but the only way produce and deliver enough education, in

time, is massive usage of computers

(yes, of course this is a huge simplification, education is not a material

product like cars or screwdrivers)

What's missing? The “E” word, of course!

Believing that physical infrastructure is

enough

Believing the “digital natives” myth

Starting from Free as in Freedom Software

Some errors to avoid when “selling” D.I.

Q.: Is digital inclusion made of/

based on Free Software and Open

A.: No, it's based on people!

Want to promote FOSS? Don't mention it!

Masses of common people who:

understand the need to know about certain things, to protect

their rights

understand how much software is relevant

WANT to be digitally included

Put them in that state, and they'll discover and want things like

FOSS, Open Data etc... by themselves. It's almost unavoidable

Digital inclusion is based on...

Open Data can help a lot to:

increase transparency in government and real, democracy

save public money

create jobs, evenfor people who never had the capabilities or

opportunities to get a degree in software engineering

but this only happens if there is digital inclusion, that is

people who want to have and practice it!

Link between Open Data and D.I.

Start from what really interests and touches

common people, without mentioning computers

at all and arrive from there to show that they want

digital inclusion

One problem: getting support to interest and reach also

people outside Universities, because this is basic education

necessary to everybody!

My proposal: Digital Citizens Basics courses

Foundations of the digital and real world

Me and my digital me

Education and culture

Environment

Digital Citizens Basics seven topics (1)

Work and money

Politics

Students' corner

More info? Come to the workshop or read

http://mfioretti.com/node/129

Digital Citizens Basics seven topics (2)

What do you think? I want to hear from you!!!

Questions?

Contact info:● marco@digifreedom.net

● http://mfioretti.com

● http://stop.zona-m.net

See you tomorrow at the Digital Inclusion workshop!

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