Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

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View more presentations from Univ. of Athens.
Great presentation from Maria who blogs on this site.

Here is a bit of fun. I have been invited as an ‘expert’ “to participate as an expert in a vision-building process on the future of learning aimed at assisting European policy-makers in addressing the challenges that lie ahead. This is a great opportunity for you to have an impact on European policy making and actively shaping the Future of Learning.”

The invitation continues: “Before giving you instructions on what we are asking you to do, we would like to briefly introduce the context and methodology of the study.

The context of this study
The European Commission has recently launched a foresight study on “The Future of Learning: New ways to learn new skills for future jobs”. This study intends to develop visions and scenarios on the ways in which new skills and competences will be learned in Europe in 2020-2030. The study addresses the following dimensions:
(1) Emergent skills and competences associated with future jobs
(2) New ways and practices of acquiring knowledge, skills and competences
(3) Associated changes in the roles of the participants in the learning process, i.e. learners and teachers
(4) Implications for existing Education and Training institutions, systems and policy frameworks
(5) The role of information and communication technologies in transforming and supporting creative and innovative learning
(6) Changes and challenges to assessment, certification and accreditation
(7) Implications of the envisaged changes for present policy action and support

The project team is made up of researchers from the European Commission Institute for Prospective Technology Studies (IPTS) in Seville; TNO, the applied research and technology organisation of the Netherlands; the Open University of the Netherlands; and AtticMedia, a specialist learning communications agency from London. This team will, over the next 12 months, develop a number of visions and scenarios on the future of learning and review their implications for policy making.

Your contribution to the study
As a first step in this project we would like to invite you as an expert to contribute to a vision building process using the group concept mapping method (GCM). As communicated in the invitation, you will be involved online (using e-mail) in two stages of the methodology, namely (a) individual brainstorming of ideas and (b) individual sorting and rating of ideas. In the brainstorming phase you will be asked to generate ideas about specific aspects of education of the future. This phase will typically take between 10 and 15 minutes. A week later, you will receive an aggregated list of ideas generated by all experts involved to, first, sort the statements in groups of similarity and then rate them on some scales (e.g. importance and feasibility). If you would like to know more about the GCM methodology, a short description with examples from various projects is attached to this e-mail (Concept System Introduction). Those of you familiar with the classical concept mapping approach, will probably notice substantial differences with the GCM methodology.

Please read the following instruction for the brainstorming phase of the study carefully.

Instruction to the first phase of the study
We all have the feeling that education in 20 years will have to be different from education today. Education then will possibly deal with a new set of skills and competences, new curriculums or types of curriculums, innovative ways of learning and assessment, different roles for teachers and educational institutions, different impacts of technology, just to mention a few.

1.       We ask you to generate statements about your thoughts about education in 20 years, and to do this using the following format:

One specific change of Education in 20 years will be that:”

I am not sure about my qualifications as an expert in this study, nor indeed that experts are the answers to such a study.

Anyway my somewhat esoteric list is posted below. But what do you think. Post your ideas in a reply – who knows, we might do better than the “experts”, and if enough reply I will find a way to move to stage 2 which involves the sorting and rating  of proposed changes

My ideas

• We will recognise people for what they do rather than what qualifications they have
• Open learning through the internet will become common
• Learners will be expected to take control of their own learning
• Formal learning  will become more episodic with people entering and leaving education at various points in their career path
• Digital identities (and portfolios) will replace traditional CVs
• Management of digital identities will become a crucial competence
• The workplace will become a major context for learning
• Mobile internet enabled devices will become the major tool for learning
• Practice will become a focus for learning and will be captured through mobile devices and integrated with cloud based portfolios
• Augmented reality applications will be a major tool for learning
• Schooling will become a less important focus for learning as learning moves into the workplace, community and home
• Higher education will return to its traditional core purpose of research
• Vocational education and training become the major organisational form of learning
• Systems and services will be developed to allow mutual peer group learning between groups of interested learners
• Text books will be replaced by electronic multi media publications
• Blogs and other internet based multi media will be recognised as legitimate publications for researchers
• Multi User Virtual Environments will render physical attendance in school and university unnecessary
• The financial crisis will lead to the increasing privatisation of universities
• High course fees will deter many working class students from attending higher education
• Open Educational Resources will become widely adopted
• Virtual mobility will break down barriers between national education systems
• There will be a lowering of the school leaving age as it is recognised that other contexts for learning may be more effective and more motivating than school
• We will cease to rely on experts as the source of knowledge and curriculum and move towards quality based on use and endorsement through internet systems
• Context specific learning materials and tasks will lead to more localised learning
• Personal Learning Environments will replace institutional Virtual Learning environments
• Occupational profiles will become broader incorporating elements of what are now seen as individual occupations
• It will become common for people to move between occupations with learning key to supporting such moves
• Traditional disciplinary boundaries will break down with learners pursuing individual learning programmes based on multi and inter disciplinary learning
• Educational institutions will be reinvented as community knowledge centres serving both geographical communities and wider dispersed communities
• Inter sector and inter subject networks of institutions will combine to form networks based on purpose and interest

Pontydysgu is involved in a number of European projects. Typically, these projects involve partners from five or more organisations in different countries working together around a hared work plan. Projects can last from two to four years.

One of our main roles is to provide technologies to support project development. This is not unproblematic.

Whilst three or four years ago most projects were content with a simple web page giving access to project objectives and results, we have been trying to use technology to improve collaboration between the partners, who due to distance will usually only meet face to face two or three times a year.

Levels of experience and confidence in technologies varies greatly.

One of the biggest changes in the last two years has been the use of Skype and Flash Meeting for regular audio and video communication between meetings. Both are far from ideal. ‘Can you hear me?’ is still the most common sentence to be heard in many of these meetings. Talking participants through the Windows microphone and video set up panels is still a pain. But overall the use of such simultaneous communication tools has changed both the form and intensity of collaboration.

We have also seen a slow move towards using multimedia. The days when the outputs of projects were limited to downlaodable Word or PDF files is passing. More and more project members are experimenting with podcasts and video, although once more levels of expertise and confidence vary greatly.

Platforms have remained problematic. We experimented with ELGG and Joomla before moving to WordPress. The problem with all is that they were really too difficult for project participants to use. We largely failed to break the pattern to project partners ending us their content to put on the site. And without regular participation, project web sites remained largely static, with only flurries of activity as they were updated.

We have also experimented with social software platforms including Ning and Facebook. Ning is relatively easy to use, although limited in terms of design etc. And critically you lose control over your own data, when using externally hosted applications. Facebook groups are great for notification of events etc. but offer little else. Ownership issues are even more problematic.

We have also initiated a number of bulletin boards but these once more require a critical mass of activity before they really become of social use.

The reason we have looked at these platforms is the desire for more sociability in platforms for projects. That includes the look and feel and ease of use, but especially the foregrounding of presence. Who are the members of a project or network. Who are they working with? What are their interests and what are they doing? WordPress blogs are great but the reality is that few participants can be dissuaded to blog regularly on a project platform.We customised WordPress with a plug in called Freefolio and that helped in terms of showing presence but it was still hard showing participants remotely how to use the back end of WordPress.

Our latest experiment is with the Network for Trainers in Europe website.

The Network has the following aims:

• Provide an opportunity for exchanging experiences and knowledge though an easy to use web portal. Enable policy makers, managers and trainers to access ideas, materials and opportunities for professional development.
• Undertake a small-scale survey of the work of trainers and their professional support.
• Provide access to research and ideas through the organisation of workshops and on-line conferences.
• Enhance the quality of support for trainers by sharing effective practice.
• Stimulate new approaches to the training of trainers related to the concept of lifelong learning, knowledge sharing and peer learning.
• Encourage researchers and trainers to share information and materials based on practical experience.
• Bring together research and practice from different projects and initiatives throughout Europe.

Essentially the network is designed to bring people interested in the training and support of trainers together to share materials and experiences. We have migrated from the previous WordPress Freefolio site to Buddypress. And although the site is by no means finished (especially the stylingl, NB setting up new accounts is suspended at moment but will be back on by the weekend), I am enthusiastic about the potential of Buddypress. Firstly Buddypress is centred around people and the activities of members, offering much functionality often associated with commercial social software sites. secondly it is easy to use, with little need for users ever to go to the back end. thirdly, through the affordances of the individual and group wires (walls), friending etc. it makes it easy for members to contribute through gesturing rather than being forced to write substantial blog posts.

The proof of the pudding is of course in the eating. Will members use the new site. To some extent that will depend of what activities the project undertakes. But it will be very interesting to see if the use of a full blown social networking application can lead to enhanced communication and collaboration between researchers and trainers drawn form every European country.

I have often written about personal interest as a motivator for training. But a big problem for many is gaining access to learning opportunities. Yes, open education and the proliferation of open elearning mate rails plus social networks offer many opportunities for learning. But, especially in vocational education and training, learners often require access to equipment and facilities, as well as to learning support. Employers are reluctant to spnosor learning and training is usually one of the first casualties of a recession.

Regulation is a possible answer in this respect. It is notable that in Germany where many occupations are regulated, vocat6ional training is both more popular and carries a higher scoail expertise than in the UK, where regulation is limited.

Regulation can be important not only for providing access to training, but in improving health and safety and living conditions for workers.

Over the last three months Pontydysgu has been working in a consortium looking to improve training for ships cooks.

François Eyraud, 
Director of the International Labour Organisation’s Conditions of Work and Employment Programme, has said: “There is a clear link between good nutrition and high productivity. Decent food at work is not only socially important and economically viable but a profitable business practice too. For employers and workers, proper nutrition at the workplace is a win-win-win proposition.”

However, for the maritime industry the main concerns onboard have often been safety, wages and job security. How seafarers eat while at sea is not given much thought. Too often the meal programme is either an afterthought or not even considered by employers. But access to healthy food on board is essential for “fitness for duty” and is good business leading to gains in productivity and seafarers morale, prevention of accidents and reductions in health-care costs. Adequate nourishment can raise productivity levels by 20% and 1% kilocalorie increase results in 2.27% increase in general labour productivity, according to ILO research.

Present onboard lifestyles are not healthy. The MAT-IQ study showed seafarers have between 70 – 100 % more tobacco abuse than general the population, undertake few physical activities and have a bigger intake of “empty calories” (fat, sugar etc.) than the general population. More than 50% are dissatisfied with food onboard.

Now the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) is set to change this. The MLC is a global instrument known as the “fourth pillar” of the international regulatory regime for Quality Shipping, complementing the International Maritime Organisation key conventions on safety, education & training, and pollution prevention.

Under the MLC it is becoming mandatory for shipowners to ensure that seafarers are served with food of appropriate quality, nutritional value, quantity and variety such quality food is provided free of charge. Ship’s cooks and catering staff must be competent and must be trained and qualified. Training courses must be approved or recognized by the competent authority, which covers practical cookery, food and personal hygiene, food storage, stock control, environmental protection and catering health and safety.
Furthermore, shipowners must consider the implementation and promotion of health and safety policies and programmes including risk analysis and training to seafarers.

Pontydysgu are particularly interested in how elearning and mobile learning can contribute to training ships cooks. More on this in a future post….

Today’s been a complicated day, if for nothing else because I hate chairing meetings!!!!!  On top of that this was a meeting that touched on a very sensitive area: changing practice. Although this allows me to kind of stick my nose into someone else’s practice and look at ways how it could be improved, especially [...]

Last week I wrote about Framing Curricula for Open Education.  In the past few years it has become common to describe curricula in terms of outcomes, rather than the more traditional learning objectives. On the face if it, this makes sense. Whilst learning objectives might be said to describe the teaching and learning environment from the viewpoint of a teacher, outcomes describe what a student or leaner can achieve following a programme.

However the definition of learning outcomes is problematic and contested. Yo a certain extent this reflects different ideas about teh purpose and intent of education, but just as in the debate over Open education, it masks ideological differences.

The European Commission has devoted much work to the development of the European Qualification Framework, designed to allow comparability of qualifications (and thus mobility). The EQF is based on qualifications described in terms of learning outcomes.

The EQF definition of competence is “the proven ability to use knowledge, skills and personal, social and/or methodological abilities, in work or study situations and in professional and personal development … described in terms of responsibility and autonomy.”  (European Commission, 2006)

Skills ‘means the ability to apply knowledge and use know-how to complete tasks and solve problems’ (ibid.). A distinction is made between cognitive and practical skills.

Knowledge ‘means the outcome of the assimilation of information through learning. Knowledge is the body of facts, principles, theories and practices that is related to a field of study or work’ (ibid.). In the EQF, knowledge is described as theoretical and/or factual.

This distinction between knowledge and skills is problematic and stems primarily through an Anglo Saxon understanding of competence as being functional. As Sandra Bohlinger explains, in the German speaking countries competence is more commonly seen as “action-related ability, while most authors agree that whereas qualifications define position, competence is a matter of disposition (Arnold, 1997, p. 269ff.; Erpenbeck and Heyse, 1996, p. 36), while the concept of competence also embraces individual aspects of personality that are directed towards (vocational) utility. In this connection, the main aim of the development of competence is the ‘formation of personality structures with a view to coping with the requirements of change within the process of transformation and the further evolution of economic and social life.’

Such a description of competence is more akin to Richard Hill‘s framing of curricula in my article of last week in which he talks of the need to develop “a curriculum that enables individuals-in-communities to learn and adapt, to mitigate risks, to prepare for solutions to problems, to respond to risks that are realised, and to recover from dislocations”.

Sebastion Fielder has also addressed this issue in work undertaken for the iCamp project.

“Like the more traditional concept of ability, competence conceptualizations are generally referring to an individual’s potentiality for action in a range of challenging situations. It is thus a concept that foremost indicates a precondition for future problem solving and coping (including the use of adequate tools) in a particular area of action.

The more elaborated contemporary conceptualizations of competence are best understood as a programmatic attempt to expand older notions of what constitutes the necessary dispositions for successful problem solving and coping in a given area of action. In general what used to be emphasized was the role of well trained, standardized, and largely automated procedural skills and of factual knowledge for successful problem solving and coping. Now, this emphasis is increasingly coming under scrutiny, since situational challenges in many work and life contexts cannot be mastered by applying routine procedural skills and knowledge anymore. Instead, the changing conditions for life and work produce situations that can be described as dynamic, complex, open-ended, and ambiguous, and that regularly require novel, creative and sometimes surprising solutions. This is where the old notion of qualification that is based on requirements analysis oriented in the past and on the acquisition and performance of standardized procedural skills and factual knowledge clearly shows its limits.

Erpenbeck and Heyse (1999) thus emphasize, for example, the importance of internalized orientations, values and attitudes for coping with dynamic, open-ended and complex problem situations where actors cannot exclusively rely on a stock of factual knowledge and procedural skills previously acquired. They argue that factual knowledge and procedural skills can only be viewed as necessary but not as sufficient for the execution of successful (“competent”) action in many areas of human activity. They propose to conceptualize competence as a set of (interrelated) dispositions for the execution of self-organizing action in a particular area of challenge. This broad set of dispositions entails 1) factual knowledge and procedural skills previously acquired, 2) internalized orientations, values and attitudes, understood as “order parameters” (see for example Haken, 2004, on Synergetics) for self-organizing action that requires continuous decision making under (cognitive) uncertainty, and 3) volitional aspects (notions of volition, motivation, drive, etc.) that are understood as the ability to activate and realize the other personal assets.”

In many ways this fits in with Vykotsky’s ideas of Learning through Zones of Proximal Development. Vygotsky said that people must be able to use words and other artefacts in ways that extend beyond their current understanding of them, thereby coordinating with possible future forms of action. “If we ask what makes such intermental functioning possible, we must certainly speak about issues such as context, the existing level of intramental functioning, and so forth. However, there is an essential sense in which intermental functioning and the benefits it offers a tutee in the zone of proximal development would not be available if one could not perform, or at least participate in performances, that go beyond one’s current level of competence. In this sense, social interaction is not a direct, transparent, or unmediated process. Instead, it takes place in an artefact-saturated medium, including language, and this is a point that Vygotsky took into account in a thoroughgoing manner” (Cole and Wertsch, 1996).

This debate over the nature of competence is a further key aspect of developing an expansive idea of Open Education.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

No particular relation to learning. But this stunning CG movie, The Third & The Seventh, made by Alex Roman using 3dsmax, Vray, AfterEffects and Premiere shows the potential for producing great films with relatively low technologies. It is also noteworthy that the main means of distribution appear to have been Vimeo.

Alex describes it as “A FULL-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects are already-built spaces. Sometimes in an abstract way. Sometimes surreal.”

If you are curious about teh title is seems it refers to the third and seventh of the seven arts: namely

• Painting
• Sculpture
• Architecture
• Literature
• Music
• Dance
• Cinematography

The film lasts about fifteen minutes and is best watched full screen.

An interesting post by Tim Kasteele on Networks and the Information Glut. Tim links to the video above by Dan Edelstein showing the social networks of correspondence among 18th Century scientists:

As Tim says:

“It’s great research that illustrates some important points:

• When we talk about ’social networks’ we don’t just mean facebook and twitter. People have always functioned within networks, and these have always been important in the development and spread of ideas. James Fowler makes this same point in his interview with Stephen Colbert.

• Ideas diffuse through networks. The structure of the networks through which we are trying to get our ideas to spread has a significant influence on the diffusion of our innovations. Our connections within the network can enhance or hinder our ability to get our ideas to spread. One of the reasons that Darwin gets credited with the idea of evolution through natural selection instead of Alfred Russell Wallace is that Darwin’s connections within the scientific community at the time were more numerous, more widespread, and better.
• Even though we often feel like we’re overwhelmed with information and data to be absorbed, the information glut is nothing new. Think about the volume of connections shown in the video. Or think about Charles Darwin – over the course of scientific career he sent over 15,000 letters. It’s safe to assume that he received just as many. Think about how much time he would have spent reading & writing letters, and how much new information and ideas would have been included in that – it’s probably more than we’re spending writing our blogs, updating our statuses and twittering. In fact, if you just look at the networks, you might argue that Darwin was the Chris Brogan of the 19th Century.”

Of course Tim is right in saying that social networks are not new. But it may be worth considering what has changed through the spread of social software powered networks.

One change is speed. I do not know how fast the post was in the 19th Century (probably no slower than today ) but today’s communication is almost instant. When I have finished this post I will press the publish button and the article is in the open. I wonder though if the speed of communication is leading to less reflection on what we are writing.

There are changes in power relations. Notwithstanding Facebook’s claim to own our data and to control our privacy, today we can all publish our ideas, rather than in the past when publishing was limited to those with money or to selected researchers and writers.

Moreover Twitter, blogs and wikis have opened up access to ideas. Perhaps more important than access to scholarly writing such as papers is access to discourses as they happen.

Of course, the use of new media raises the question of form and content. I can very much imagine that Darwin would have loved to have a wiki for his research. I can imagine him blogging from his iPhone in the Guadaloupe Islands. Twitter could have been useful for sending messages back home but I am not so sure it has the same affordances as a letter. Mind, Jo says Darwin might have Twittered “Got new theory, check out my new blog on it”. I am not so sure.

One question which would be very interesting to see is the patterns and interaction between social networks. My guess is that today we have denser patterns of overlapping networks – though I may be wrong.

And one of the most interesting things about today’s forms of social networks is the straying between discipline areas. Whilst I guess 19th century networks tended to be organised in fairly strict disciplinary or subject groups, today’s networks tend to wander across different subject areas and domains. It seems Time Kasteele is in the French department at Stanford. And when his video came to an end up came the video on Welsh and the importance of minority languages which we are currently featuring featuring on the front page of this site.

Περί τεχνολογίας ο λόγος και ξεκινάω την συζήτηση από το πώς αυτή έχει χαράξει την παρουσία της στον Ελλαδικό χώρο τα τελευταία χρόνια. Η κατάσταση όπως έχει καταγραφεί σύμφωνα με τελευταίες έρευνες στον Ελλαδικό χώρο αναφορικά με την τελευταία πενταετία δεν θα έλεγα ότι μας δίνει και πολύ ενθαρρυντικά αποτελέσματα. Μα ποια είναι η πραγματικότητα και πώς την βιώνουμε μαθητές, εκπαιδευτικοί και ερευνητές?
Σύμφωνα με την τελευταία μελέτη του «Παρατηρητηρίου για την Κοινωνία της Πληροφορίας» όπως αναφέρει σε άρθρο της η «Ημερησία» Διαδικτυακά αναλφάβητοι παραμένουν σχεδόν 7 στους 10 Έλληνες πολίτες καθώς μόλις το 18,2% διαθέτουν ικανοποιητικές δεξιότητες όσον αφορά στη χρήση του Internet και γύρω στο 10% χαμηλό επίπεδο δεξιοτήτων, προσθέτοντας ότι ελλοχεύει ο κίνδυνος διατήρησης ενός ψηφιακού χάσματος ειδικά σε κοινωνικά ευπαθείς ομάδες του πληθυσμού.
Σε σύγκριση με τα υπόλοιπα κράτη-μέλη της Ε.Ε. η Ελλάδα δείχνει να έχει μια σαφή άνοδο του ποσοστού εκείνων που διαθέτουν ικανοποιητικές δεξιότητες στη χρήση του διαδικτύου μεταξύ 2005 και 2007 καθώς από το 8,9% ανεβήκαμε στο 18,2% αλλά αυτό παραμένει το μόνο θετικό στις μετρήσεις. Δυστυχώς η Ελλάδα βρίσκεται στην 24η θέση στην σχετική κατάταξη των ευρωπαίων πολιτών που σε ποσοστό 34% είναι σε θέση να αξιοποιούν σε ικανοποιητικό βαθμό το Διαδίκτυο (μέτριες ή υψηλές δεξιότητες).
Αντίστοιχα, το ποσοστό των πολιτών χωρίς δεξιότητες μειώθηκε κατά 7,7 ποσοστιαίες μονάδες στο 72,8%. Το ποσοστό των Ελλήνων πολιτών με χαμηλό επίπεδο δεξιοτήτων παρέμεινε σχετικά σταθερό γύρω στο 10% (συγκεκριμένα 9% – 10,6%), ωστόσο το ποσοστό αυτό είναι περίπου το 1/3 του αντίστοιχου των Ευρωπαίων πολιτών με χαμηλό επίπεδο δεξιοτήτων, το οποίο κυμαίνεται γύρω στο 30%.
Στα θετικά στοιχεία και το γεγονός ότι παρατηρείται υψηλή αύξηση στους διαμένοντες σε αγροτικές περιοχές και τους ανέργους, από την άλλη πλευρά, όμως, το χάσμα δείχνει να διευρύνεται στους ηλικιωμένους και τα άτομα με χαμηλό μορφωτικό επίπεδο
Μια δεύτερη έρευνα αυτή την φορά από την Eurostat και δημοσιευμένη και αυτή στην «Ημερησία», φέρνει την Ελλάδα να καταλαμβάνει την προτελευταία θέση όσον αφορά τη διείσδυση του Internet στο ελληνικό σπίτι. Παράλληλα εξαιρετικά μεγάλη συνεχίζει να είναι η απόσταση που χωρίζει την Ελλάδα από τις υπόλοιπες ευρωπαϊκές χώρες όσον αφορά στη χρήση του Διαδικτύου και των ευρυζωνικών συνδέσεων.
Ενδιαφέρον είναι το γεγονός ότι η Ελλάδα είναι αρκετά πίσω στη χρήση του Διαδικτύου ακόμη και στις ηλικίες 16 – 24 ετών. Σύμφωνα με τη Eurostat, το 57% των Ελλήνων αυτής της ηλικίας χρησιμοποιεί σε καθημερινή βάση το Internet, όταν ο ευρωπαϊκός μέσος όρος είναι στο 73%. Η συγκεκριμένη επίδοση μας δίνει και πάλι την προτελευταία θέση.
Στο σύνολο των Ελλήνων ηλικίας 16 – 74 ετών, μόλις το 27% των Ελλήνων χρησιμοποιεί το Διαδίκτυο όταν ο ευρωπαϊκός μέσος όρος είναι στο 48% και η χώρα μας καταφέρνει να ξεπερνά μόνο τη Ρουμανία (19%). Απογοητευτικά είναι τα ποσοστά και όσον αφορά τις online αγορές καθώς μόλις το 10% των Ελλήνων ηλικίας 16 – 74 ετών έχει αγοράσει από το Διαδίκτυο με τον ευρωπαϊκό μέσο όρο στο 37%. Ενας στους δύο ωστόσο χρησιμοποιεί υπολογιστή.
Από την άλλη πλευρά σύμφωνα με τις μετρήσεις της Εθνικής Στατιστικής Υπηρεσίας η Ελλάδα βρίσκεται σε ανοδική τάση στη χρήση προσωπικών υπολογιστών και του Διαδικτύου. Για την ακρίβεια η ΕΣΥΕ αναφέρει ότι το ποσοστό των ατόμων που χρησιμοποίησαν υπολογιστή κατά τη διάρκεια του α’ τριμήνου του 2009 ανήλθε στο 47,3% (έναντι 44,4% το ίδιο χρονικό διάστημα του 2008), ενώ το αντίστοιχο για το Διαδίκτυο διαμορφώθηκε στο 42,4% (έναντι 38,2%).
Επιπλέον, σύμφωνα με την ΕΣΥΕ, το 38% των ελληνικών σπιτιών με πρόσβαση στο Διαδίκτυο ανέρχεται στο 38%, όταν το 2005 το αντίστοιχο ποσοστό ήταν 21,7%. Εξ αυτών, το 87% διαθέτει ευρυζωνική σύνδεση.
Τα στοιχεία της ΕΣΥΕ είναι υψηλότερα από αυτά που αναφέρθηκαν προηγουμένως σύμφωνα με το Ευρωβαρόμετρο (27% των Ελλήνων χρησιμοποιεί το Διαδίκτυο). Η διαφορά έγκειται στο ότι το Ευρωβαρόμετρο υπολογίζει μόνο εκείνους που χρησιμοποιούν το Διαδίκτυο σε καθημερινή βάση, ενώ η ΕΣΥΕ όσους χρησιμοποίησαν το μέσο έστω και μία μέσα στο τρίμηνο. Σύμφωνα με την ΕΣΥΕ, το 64,4% των Ελλήνων χρηστών συνδέεται σχεδόν καθημερινά.
Τα ποσοστά χρήσης υπολογιστή και Διαδικτύου είναι υψηλότερα στις μικρότερες ηλικίες (π.χ. στην κατηγορία 16-19 ετών, τα ποσοστά είναι 94,1% και 89,6% και πέφτουν σε 1,2% και 0,9% στην ομάδα 70-74 ετών).
Λαμβάνοντας υπόψη τα παραπάνω αποτελέσματα των τελευταίων στατιστικών ερευνών το ερώτημα είναι ποια είναι τελικά η πραγματικότητα. Πρέπει να μιλάμε για “ψηφιακό χάσμα” στην Ελλάδα ή μπορούμε να είμαστε ικανοποιημένοι ως πολίτες για την ένταξη της χώρας μας σε μια νέα ψηφιακή εποχή που επιφέρει λογικά ανατροπές και ορίζει νέους κανόνες σε όλους τους τομείς και φυσικά στον τομέα της παιδείας;
Η δική μου ανησυχία δεν είναι μόνο αν τελικά οι πολίτες της χώρας μας έχουν κατανοήσει την αναγκαιότητα της «ψηφιακής επανάστασης», αλλά αν έχουν αντιληφθεί σε βάθος πόσο απαραίτητη είναι αυτή για τον ερχομό μιας πραγματικής προόδου σε όλους τους τομείς και κυρίως της παιδείας. Για την γεφύρωση ωστόσο τόσο του «ψηφιακού χάσματος» όσο και του «χάσματος» σε πολλούς άλλους σημαντικούς τομείς οι σημερινοί πολίτες και – όχι μόνο οι μαθητές ως αυριανοί πολίτες-θα πρέπει να αποκτήσουν τις οκτώ βασικές ικανότητες της διά βίου μάθησης όπως αυτές ορίζονται από το ευρωπαικό πλαίσιο. Αυτές είναι αναγκαίες για την προσωπική ολοκλήρωση του ενεργού πολίτη, την κοινωνική ένταξη και την απασχολησιμότητα σε μια κοινωνία της γνώσης. Μεταξύ αυτών αναφέρω την 1)επικοινωνία στη μητρική γλώσσα• 2) επικοινωνία σε ξένες γλώσσες• 3) μαθηματική ικανότητα και βασικές ικανότητες στις φυσικές επιστήμες και την τεχνολογία• 4) ψηφιακή δεξιότητα κλπ.
Το ουσιαστικό θέμα δεν είναι απλά να κάνουμε λόγω για την εξάλειψη   του ψηφιακού χάσματος, αλλά για την υιοθέτηση μιας συνείδησης για μια δια βίου μάθηση. Μόνο η αλλαγή της νοοτροπίας για μια συνεχιζόμενη μάθηση θα μπορέσει να μας οδηγήσει από μια επιφανειακή δεξιότητα χρήσης της τεχνολογίας σε μια βαθειά και ουσιαστική χρήση αυτής αρχικά στην εκπαίδευση και την έρευνα αλλά και ακολούθως και σε άλλους σημαντικούς τομείς .
Ο διάλογος είναι ανοιχτός και το ερώτημα παραμένει….μπορούμε να είμαστε αισιόδοξοι ότι αυτά τα βήματα αλλαγής θα πραγματοποιηθούν έστω και αργά ή είναι απλά προβληματισμοί μιας ονειροπόλου που θα μείνουν απλά και μόνο σκέψεις γραμμένες σ’αυτό το ιστολόγιο…..;;; Δεν σας κρύβω ότι είμαι πολύ αισιόδοξος άνθρωπος και θέλω να περιμένω πάντα τα καλύτερα….

A language is like a bus, says Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis from Stanford Univeristy. And, when we lose a word we lose part of our cultural richness.