Archive for October 2011

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[ecrea] New book: Education and digital divide [Educazione e divario digitale]

Mon Oct 03 07:13:18 GMT 2011


*Title*: *Educazione e divario digitale. Idee per il capacity building*

*Author*: Magda Pischetola

*Editor*: Milano: Unicopli

*Language*: Italian

The volume offers a comprehensive discussion of the concept of digital inclusion, based on a comparative analysis of the worldwide international project One Laptop Per Child.

*Abstract*

It is generally agreed upon that ICTs are of vital importance for the social and economic development of a country. Following this idea, various initiatives have been made to address technical, cultural, rural and community development issues through projects of digital inclusion, with the direct or indirect supervision of international institutions or local agencies.

The implementation of low cost personal digital devices represents one of the main educational trends in recent years, alongside the improvement in wireless connections potential. The One Laptop Per Child initiative, with its design of a $100 laptop for the developing world, has popularized the concept of one-to-one technology. The project combines the goal of bridging the digital divide with the educational paradigm of discovery learning, but it also suffers from the inability to acknowledge essential cultural outlines, leading easily to a one-size-fits-all view of development interventions.

This book aims to expose some issues associated with the impact of ICTs projects for education, going beyond a simplistic relationship between technology and knowledge. It highlights some interesting perspectives on research into cognitive access, and it presents a digital inclusion model based on cultural needs analysis and subsequent promotion of didactics innovation, alongside the enhancement of social and intellectual capital. The results of the empirical research conducted on deployments of the OLPC project in Italy and in Ethiopia are used to illustrate parts of the model and to provide guidelines for future actions.

*About the author*

**

Magda Pischetola has a Ph.D. in Education at the Università Cattolica of Milan (Italy), and is working with adults' professional training, both in presence and at a distance. Her research focuses on the integration of Information and Communication Technologies in schools and community centers; the impact of technology on literacy practices; the relationship of ICTs to social development, with a particular interest in how digital media may alleviate social inequalities.
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