[kictanet] Africa's Absence From The Table

Wed Nov 18 08:18:48 EAT 2009

Hello All,

There is need to have an ICT Think Tank that would scope on the industry trends
and making sectoral IS alignments.  For example, we have Facebook how do
we make it relevant to the farmer, to the health worker, how do we make wiki
relevant to education, the list is endless. The mandate of the Think Tank would
be to study/research and make available its new findings to schools, colleges
and other groups that would form a foundation for knowledge generation.

Students in most cases "discover" the new technologies on there own
or through a source, this sort of discovery would be narrow.  And would
not give them a chance to anchor it well since they lack a background. It is
noted that the we use about 20% of the installed capabilities office
productivity tools that we install in spite of owning them for over 3 years on
our computers. 

Esther wondered whether the youth are aware of the capabilities of Facebook,
well they may fall within the Kenyan users of productivity software of below 20%. 
I have in the past coordinated ICT projects in schools (Global Teenager
Project, School Chain Project, Mtandao Africa and NetGen Studio Project), each
dealing with an aspect of ICT, these students can do wonders if they are
guided. This guidance must come from a different level, because going by the
current syllabus the teachers must drill them to pass exams, sadly a number of
them were also drilled!

Let us not castigate the products of science congress; the solar cooker could
be a wonder for the student, even though repeated elsewhere.  How nice
would it be if the presenter states that the solar cooker can boil water at 110
degrees through a collaboration between him/her and a Korean student using  internet resource e.g. Facebook.  We need
to look at Internet as a complementing resource than cannibalising.
It is nice reading from Hon Rege about
parliamentarian’s eventual registration and use of social networks, this is a
clear message of adoption which is good for the industry, however, it is
important to evaluate the net benefits.

How nice it would be to show teachers how time saving it is to use a portal for download and upload of learning materials.  Can proceed to class with a powerpoint presentation therefore avoiding the trouble of duster and chalk (writing and rubbing) the time saved can be used for teaching.  Sometimes we tell them we have the capacity of letting an American teacher to teach Kenyan History through a video conference!

Regards,

Sam Aguyo

________________________________
From: Esther Muchiri <emuchiri at andestbites.com>
To: saguyo at yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Tue, November 17, 2009 12:26:50 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Africa's Absence From The Table

I totally agree with Walu.

Something must be changed in our education system to allow for
creativity and ‘hunger’ for additional knowledge in addition to ‘drilling’
the youth to pass exams. 

Rad has said that Kenya is leading in Africa on the use of
Facebook! The question is – what information is being exchanged? Are the
youth (graduates) aware that Facebook has other useful content in addition to socialization?
 Hmmm

From:kictanet-bounces+emuchiri=andestbites.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+emuchiri=andestbites.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
Behalf Of Walubengo J
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 12:13 PM
To: emuchiri at andestbites.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Africa's Absence From The Table

i agree. its not awareness...i remember pushing another similar challenge from Microsoft, "Imagine Cup 2009" at Multimedia University. It got a serious mute response...i think our students from primary school are drilled to focus on and pass exams....anything that has little or no impact on their exam tends to be neglected. 

We seem to have failed to cultivate a culture of intellectual "activism" in our education system. When I was growing up we used to have something called "science-congress" where all high-schools would compete from district, provincial and finally national level to show-case their innovations. Not quite sure if this still happens...

walu. 

--- On Tue, 11/17/09, Rad! <conradakunga at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Rad! <conradakunga at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Africa's Absence From The Table
To: jwalu at yahoo.com
Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 11:43 AM
I do not believe awareness is an issue. I recall reading some statistics some time back to the effect that Kenya is one of the heaviest facebook users in Africa. It is the same internet. Why are we unable to capitalize on it? The challange has been in the public domain for years!
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 10:29 AM, waudo siganga <emailsignet at mailcan.com> wrote:
Hi Rad! Is the awareness of such opportunities done? Maybe one needs to raise the alert before rather than after the horse bolts!? 

Kind Regards,
Waudo

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