EDITORIAL

Dear IFIP friends,

This is the very first Newsletter of IFIP Technical Committee 3 ( Education). Chair Jan Wibe has initiated this process in order to foster TC3 community building and knowledge sharing across working group members, national representatives, other committee members and stakeholders in the field of ICT and education. We are actively developing this channel of communications and also trying to keep it digested due to increasing information overload problem. In the future we are heading to have it more designed and also located in the website where you can find archived numbers of newsletters. Now, this issue is more or less an act of community entrepreneurship.

The contents of this number are related to news from Chair and information about forthcoming events summer and fall 2005. In each number we also introduce our backbone i.e. people and their activities while that is what IFIP is, committed working professionals for joint objectives and international collaboration.

Enjoy our first Newsletter about on-going TC3 activities and people behind it. Feel free to contact, contribute and develop contents. Looking forward to seeing you in South Africa WCCE2005!

Professor Mikko Ruohonen TC3 Newsletter Editor mikko.ruohonen@uta.fi

TC3 NEWS

  Witfor 2005

WITFOR is an abbreviation for "World Information Technology Forum". The first conference was arranged in Vilnius in august 2003 and the next one will be arranged in Gabarone, Botswana in August 2005. See

http://www.witfor.org.bw/.

For more information see IFIP website

http://www.ifip.or.at/

  IFIP Congresses

IFIP Congresses is arranged every second year. The last one was in Toulouse in August 2004 and the next one will be in Santiago, Chile in August 2006. IFIP President Klaus Brunnstein has sent out a bid to arrange the Congress in 2008. Perhaps this could be an opportunity for your national computer society?

  TC3 Funds and Budget

A discussion about this has gone on in the last two years. In the last IFIP Council meeting in late February, rules were adopted and will be presented at the IFIP GA meeting in early September this year. You candownload the rules HERE (Note long address)

PEOPLE AND BACKGROUNDS

TC3 is based on members of each IFIP member country. National representatives are crucial in carrying message and spreading it in their own home countries. One of the newest representatives is Director, PhD Lena Olsson from Learning Resource Centre (http://www.lhs.se/larum/eng/ ) Stockholm Institute of Education, Stockholm, Sweden. Here you have some background of her expertise. Please, feel free to contact Lena in her special fields of knowledge.

Lena’s task as a director is to promote the use of ICT in education and research. Her work involves developing flexible, virtual and physical learning environments where students and teachers can cultivate digital literacy. She participates in the work of the Swedish net-university trying to establish a national basis for Learning Management platforms as well as data bases of learning objects. She has keen interest in building new business relationships and forming new partnerships, at present with Stanford University and University of Zagreb, Croatia. With background of university libraries she has worked within the International Federation for Library Associations and on the organizing committee for the yearly international Online Conference in London. Personal research is focused on the computerization of library systems as well as a national encyclopedia and recently on the use and usability of technology-enhanced learning spaces.

Lena Olsson Lena.Olsson@lhs.se

WORKING GROUPS WORK (also attached)

IFIP Working group 3.4. works for the field of IT professional and vocational education. Below you have some briefing and future directions for the working group.

IFIP Working Group 3.4 addresses „IT professional and vocational education. The WG concentrates on the following four areas of interest:

1. The integration of IT knowledge and practice with other vocational and professional education, 2. The on-going professional development of IT practitioners, 3. The provision of initial and on-going IT training and education for non-IT professionals to enable them to use and contribute to the development of IT systems, 4. The use of computer-based training methods in the delivery of education

Although WG 3.4. is a very small group it has been fortunate to have many productive collaboration relationships with other working groups and TC3. Just to name few of cross-group and „TC3-benefit‰ collaborative actions our group, such as conference activities starting from „TeLearning stream‰ in the context of WCC 2002 in Montreal, Canada (with TC3), continuing with E-training Practices for Professional Organizations in Pori, Finland (with WG 3.3) and ending last year with Information and Communication Technologies and Real Life Learning in Melbourne, Australia (with WG 3.2.). WG 3.4. has been active in projects work, too, such as the project Harmonisation of Standards for ICT Professionals which originally started 1999 and now based on WG 3.4. Policy document. Chair Barrie Thompson has introduced this project in conferences and published evolutionary findings.

The group has elected new chairs from 1 January 2005. They are Professor Barrie Thompson (Chair) and Associate Professor Arthur Tatnall (Vice-Chair). Contact information

Barrie.Thompson@sunderland.ac.uk Arthur.Tatnall@vu.ac.au

COUNTRIES (also attached)

Next WCCE will be in South Africa which is a member country of IFIP. For getting a more insights of SA activities in the field of ICT and education, see the following briefing:

INSIGHT; SOUTH AFRICA
  The home country for the next WCCE 2005

Education and Training Activities

SOUTH AFRICA and WCCE 2005 WCCE 2005 is scheduled to take place on 4 - 7 July 2005 at the University of Stellenbosch (www.wcce2005.org.za )

Computer Olympiad In an effort to involve more historically disadvantaged pupils, the first round of the South African Computer Olympiad was changed to a pen-and-paper aptitude test. In 2003, participation in the first round grew from 3,000 to 11,000. In 2004, this grew to 13,000 participants. The South African team that took part in the International Olympiad in Informatics in the USA in 2003 came home with silver and bronze. (www.olympiad.org.za )

ICDL activities The Computer Society of South Africa established a separate non-profit organisation to promote and administer the ICDL in Southern Africa. It registers student number 100,000 June 2004. The organisation is doing much to establish an IT standard in schools and in teacher training, supporting more than 6,000 less privileged learners, 1,000 teachers and 120 police officers in obtaining the ICDL. (See www.icdl.org.za). The latest development is the provision of ICDL Courseware for Open Office.

Educational projects

Khanya; This project, now in its third year, delivers educational content to pupils and teachers. (See www.khanya.co.za)

Gauteng-on-Line; This project aims to empower teachers and pupils by giving them the skills to use ICT effectively. It is part of a larger scheme to make the Gauteng Province the Silicone Ridge of Africa. (Do a search for GautengOnLine [one word]. Information is scattered.)

Microsoft Master Teachers; The Microsoft Corporation has donated a suite of Microsoft products to South African schools in perpetuity. However, many schools were not able to make full use of the offer, as they did not have computer literate teachers. In an effort to overcome the problem, Microsoft paid for the training of nearly 200 master teachers to obtain the ICDL. These teachers are supposed to go back to their areas and in time train 15 teachers each, who are supposed to go back to their schools and train the teachers there.

Open Source; Government has made a commitment to support Open Source applications. However, implementation seems to be slow. A private foundation, the Shuttleworth Foundation, has taken initiative to place networks in a number of schools using Linux thin clients and Open Source applications. (See www.tsf.org.za)

Government activities

e-Education; The government has published a draft white paper on e-education which, when implemented, will have wide reaching effects on education in South Africa. (See www.gov.za/whitepaper/2003/e-education)

Black Economic Empowerment; All sectors of the South African economy in fact, all factors of South African life are under pressure to give black citizens a larger share of equity and management. In an effort to head off government legislation, the ICT sector has drawn up an ICT Charter, which specifies i.a. a minimum of equity holding and a minimum of management positions which should be in black hands. (See www.ictcharter.org.za)

  TC3 Newsletter June 2005 -

Professor Mikko Ruohonen, Chief Executive, Chairman of the Board School of Economics and Business Administration at University of Tampere http://www.uta.fi/kkk FIN-33014 UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE tel. +358 32154444 (from 30 May +358 335 514 444) fax. +358 32154111 (from 30 May +358 335 514 111) email mikko.ruohonen@uta.fi gsm +358 400825440

CONFERENCES: WCCE2005: http://www.sbs.co.za/wcce2005/ WITFOR2005: http://www.witfor.org.bw eBRF2005: http://www.ebrf.fi