Quality Education in a digital world

Marco Fioretti (marco@digifreedom.net) November 6th, 2009, Kathmandu
http://mfioretti.com OLE Assembly
http://stop.zona-m.net Some rights reserved
Quality Education
in a digital world
Marco Fioretti
http://mfioretti.com
http://stop.zona-m.net

In today's world, digital technologies influence everybody's
life so deeply, at all possible levels that:
the knowledge of some basic digital issues and practices
must be part of Quality Education
development and deployment of Quality Education must take
into account the same issues and practices
Abstract

3
Marco Fioretti
Member of
OpenDocument Fellowship (www.opendocumentfellowship.com)
Digistan.org (www.digistan.org)
www.eleutheros.org – a Catholic approach to Information Technology
RULE (Run Up to date Linux Everywhere, www.rule-project.org)
Writer for Linux Journal, Linux Format and other magazines
Webmaster of http://Stop.zona-m.net
Author of the Family Guide to Digital Freedom (http://digifreedom.net)
Home page and main publications: http://mfioretti.com
Author introduction

4
The real nature of software, file formats and digital
technology
How do they impact or will impact our lives
How they can make the world a better place
How does that impact Quality Education
Agenda

5
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion
and expression; this right includes freedom
to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19, www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
The basics: human rights

... cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature. (Art. 1)
It widens the range of options open to everyone; it is one of the roots of development,
understood not simply in terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a
more satisfactory intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence (Art. 3)
Its defense is an ethical imperative, inseparable from respect for human dignity. (Art. 4)
All persons have therefore the right to express themselves and to create and disseminate
their work in the language of their choice, and particularly in their mother tongue; (Art 5)
heritage in all its forms must be preserved, enhanced and handed on to future generations
(Art. 7)
Source: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001271/127160m.pdf
UNESCO declaration on cultural diversity, 2001

What are these?
The importance of document formats

The importance of document formats (2)
Answer: two Nepali treaties regarding the sale of a
piece of land, written on palm-leaf about 450 years
ago (www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/gallery_ngmpp_e.html)
But how can we still read them, if we don't know brand,
model and design specifications (=source code) of the
tools used to write them?
Because the document format is completely known and
its specifications are completely separated from those
of the tool used to create it!

Basic concepts and definitions
Q: How do we create, access and preserve information?
A: Thanks to three very different things:
Physical Support: the material object containing the information
Data Format: the rules by which the information is encoded on the support
User Interface: the tools used to write and read the data according to the format
almost always, Support, Format and Interface can (and should) be
independent from each other

Support, Format, Interface: non electronic example
Interface
+
Any manual writing instrument
(don't forget quill and charcoal!)
and your eye!
Format
Hyeroglyphs (which could also
be written on paper, papyrus,
wood...) and the meanings
associated to each gliph
Support
The Rosetta
Stone,
II Century BC

Support, Format, Interface: analog electronic example
Support Format
Support and format are mixed here: Photograms can only
be impressed on a specific type of tape, in a way not usable
with other cameras and projectors
Interface
Camera and Projector that are
useless with any other tape
NOTE: this is the very popular Super 8mm home movie format, released on the market in
1965 by Eastman Kodak, not widely used since the 1980's

Support, Format, Interface: digital, finally!
Support
Hard drives, floppies, CD
ROMs, DVDs, Compact
Flash drives... usable with
different hardware
They all contain the same
bits that can represent
wildly different types of
information: text, images,
audio...
Format
CHARACTER ENCODING:
the meaning associated to each bit
sequence:
EX: “01000001” means “A”
FILE FORMAT:
how each piece of data can and
must be stored and marked:
<style:properties style:columnwidth="1.785cm"/>
...
<table:table
cell><text:p>600000</text:p></table:tablecell>
+
Interface
Any software program aware of
the file format, regardless of :
the hardware it runs on: x86 or Apple
computer, cell phone, DVD player,
remote server...
Its license of use

Why is digital information good?
If all conceivable
kinds of
information (from
texts to music,
images and 3D
models) can be
represented as a
series of bits
We only need:
ONE class of generic storage devices: bit containers which can change shape and technology without
particular problems and are very cheap
ONE (ok, very large...) class of telecom networks, ie bit transporters
And all these data can be preserved or distributed with much less money, time and effort than before!
55 73 65 20 4f 70 65 6e 44 6f 63 75 6d 65 6e 74 21

14
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?

What matters isn't software, but what is done
through and thanks to software
Your own civil rights and the quality of your own
life heavily depend on how software is used
around you
(Family Guide to Digital Freedom, http://digifreedom.net)
Why is software relevant?

Secondly, your new car needs not be "compatible" with the cars that your neighbours or co-workers use.
What is that makes software different?
“New and old car in Prishtina Market”
www.flickr.com/photos/blandm/297556309/There are some big potential differences for society
between production of software and that of most
material goods: when your car breaks or spare
parts for it go out of production, there is no
retroactive damage.
Your next car won't have to be compatible with
everything you did with the old one: all the
memories of all the trips made with your old car,
all the business relationships built thanks to it,
will still be there.

If a software maker goes bankrupt or simply
discontinues a product, instead, it can put out of
your reach for good all the files you created with it.
If that's the case, the damages caused through
software have one characteristic common, even if
in an infinitely less serious way, with those caused
by nuclear plants without waste management
policies, or by depleted uranium weapons:
It will hurt even people who weren't there when it was
used, for a long time after it was used.
Using software in the wrong way, you also limit the
freedom of choice of everybody else.
Why and how is software dangerous?

Technology (especially digital) is legislation
(derived by C. Einfeldt)
“those who control the code for the software
that makes much of the world go round, can
control things that might once have been left
to various legislatures to control”
Fr J. Fox,SDB, Media and priestly formation today 2009, unpublished
For all these reasons...

Almost all software is used to manage information. It is completely
worthless without information to process, store and display
We put up with software to manage data, not the other way around!
Forget copyright! With proprietary file formats (not software)... who
controls who can copy a file is not its creator!
M. Fioretti, 2005 www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/focus_format_history
“these [social network] databases that grow through user contributions
are the real source of lock-in. Eventually, these guys probably will
make their software open source because it won't matter. The value
lies in having the data.”
Tim O'Reilly, 2009, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10264471-16.html
What is really important? Data, of course, not software!

Software is like pens, formats like
alphabets: if the alphabet is free, it
doesn't matter which pens are used or
if their design is proprietary
(to know more about the huge negative impact of proprietary or otherwise unknown file formats,
read http://mfioretti.com/how-file-formats-can-be-used-favor-or-hamper-innovation-active-
citizenship-and-really-free-markets)
The critical difference between software and formats

21
Human relationships
Science, culture, history
Environment
Energy
Politics, National Security, Civil Rights
Health
Religion
Education
The impact of software and file formats on our lives

22
“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
Software creates (and destroys)culture and lifestyles

23
Risks of exclusion, isolation, loss of diversity
Internet makes it much easier to find people who already have our same opinions ,meet
only those people and only what we want to see (bostonreview.net/BR34.2/morozov.php)
an African writer writing in Western countries, trying to overcome the fear to not belong
to any place, may adopt a fake identity of “Citizen of the World”, and end up living in
a fictional society, a virtual ghetto (www.author-me.com/nonfiction/ghettoizationafricanlit.htm)
In a world of mass communication there is less of everything but the ten books, movies,
songs and ideas at the top of the charts... Cyberspace will be the end of our species
(M. Crichton, The Lost World )
If Crichton's scenario will become reality it won't be because Internet will be everywhere, but because it will
contain mostly USA English content, which transports USA ideas, norms and culture
http://web2.adfl.org/adfl/bulletin/V33N3/333006.htm

24
Exclusion, again
"Who controls the map controls how people perceive the world"
(Mapping Hacks, O'Reilly)
Mauritius, Seychelles, Senegal e Zimbabwe started existing in Google Maps
only in March 2009
(Source: http://web2fordev.net/component/content/article/1-latest-news/61-google-maps-africa-01)
Does
OLE International
exists less than
OLE Nepal?

“Our youth is becoming increasingly technocratic
[and adopting without thinking the negative models
received just through (digital) technology]”
“[therefore] We should learn how to use and improve
the Web for the sake of culture and enlightenment”
Who is the ex-President who said this?
Quick test about protection of cultural diversity

Answer:
Vladimir Putin, then President, now Prime
Minister of Russia
in a speech at a meeting of the Presidential Council for Culture and Art in the Kremlin,
May 30th, 2007
www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=3125
Protecting cultural diversity is a worldwide need

Format wars: science and engineering
1976: the Viking Lander reaches Mars
2003: "All the programmers had died or left
NASA, so the format of the data on the
tapes was unreadable. We had to hire
students to retype everything from
printouts”
Billions of private and public projects
(mechanical parts, furniture, buildings,
bridges...) are written in the DWG format that
only AutoCAD can read without errors.
Question: may that be the only reason why does
AutoCAD holds 85% of its market segment?

Format wars: our culture and memories
In 1986 BBC created a digital gallery of
photographs, writings and other works.
Only 17 years later, much of this gallery was
only usable with customized software and
unreliable legacy hardware
The UK National Archives risks "losing years of critical knowledge" as 580 terabytes
of data are in file formats no longer commercially available.
“older file formats is a bigger problem than keep reading floppy discs and punch
cards... we can only make sure is that it doesn't get any worse."
Quick test:
How many theses written on a computer more than 15 years ago are still readable?
You can download, read and convert all the data you put in Facebook or similar sites, right?

"Who controls the map controls how people perceive the world"
Geographic Information System (GIS) are software systems for creation, correlation,
display and interactive analysis of geography-related data.
GIS link generic data to (or through) real places, making much easier to GIS make it much
easier and less expensive to find how very different, apparently unrelated classes of
events influence each other when they happen close to each other
Format wars: map, or you will be mapped!
Many public organizations (including academic institutions which get big discounts on license prices) demand GIS project
files in the proprietary MXD format that only ESRI software can read “forcing, without a real need, anybody willing to
use other software to manually recreate GIS projects, layer by layer”
This choice is the only reason why very useful, high-quality data created with taxpayer money like the database of
European Drainage networks and associated drainage basins shown in the picture can't even be seen without paying
many hundreds of Euros. Why?

30
The digital world pollutes. A lot!
in India, 315 millions of computers not properly
recycled released in the environment 550K tons of
lead, 900 of cadmium, and 180 of mercury in 2006"
Computers left turned on even if not used will release
in 2009 as much CO2 as 4 millions cars
American companies waste for this reason about 2.8
billion USD in the same year
In 2020 data centers may become a bigger generator of greenhouse
gases than civil aviation

31
OK, but how could this be the software's fault???
“Microsoft Vista will send to the landfills tons of hardware perfectly
working, but not powerful enough for that operating system”
Source: UK Green Party, www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2851
The electricity used to deliver and then filter spam could power
2.4 millions homes and generates as much greenhouse gas as 3.1
millions cars (in April 2009)
But a great amount of spam is transmitted by computers
running weak operating systems or antivirus software

"Increased use of digital information” is
one of the essential prerequisites to build
the Smart Energy Grid that will help lower
USA dependence on foreign energy and
fuel job creation.
Source:www.consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/apr09.php#feature
is there any country which doesn't have the same needs?
Efficient energy management

33
From the Hague Declaration on Digital Rights
Government information, services and resources are increasingly
provided virtually rather than physically;
Freedom of speech and association are increasingly exercised on
line rather than in person;
The Internet and the Web provide an unprecedented avenue to
equality of education and opportunity for all peoples throughout
the world;
Source: www.digistan.org/hague-declaration:en

What about the military?
During the Falkland war, the HMS Sheffield sunk because its defense system
identified an Argentine-launched Exocet missile. as friendly since it was in
the British arsenal. But no “end user” had been able to check if that software
was correct or if/how it could be modified.
The digital technical diagrams of several critical systems of the U.S.S. Nimitz,
launched in 1972 and still in pretty good shape...
...look blurry and have misplaced items on today's computer monitors...
because their file format is not completely understood by today's software
Public Administration and National Security
Software saves (or wastes) huge amounts of money
in Italy, during 2007 "costs and inefficiencies in management of paper documents cost from 3 and
5% of GNP, that is between 42 and 70 billions of Euro: digital documents could save from
50/60% (electronic billing, digital-only archives) to 90% (certified electronic mail)"

“After landing in Tehran, the Iranian-American
girl was asked by immigration officers if she has a
Facebook account.
When she said "no", the officers searched for her
name on Facebook and noted down the names of
her Facebook friends.”
Source: www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106535773
Politics, civil rights

“absolutely riveting and thrilling reporting over Twitter by a university
student in Tehran who goes by the moniker Tehran Bureau!!!”
Source:Iran's Twitter Revolution, 06/15/2009
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106535773
BUT (according to Morozov, who signaled the “Facebook in Tehran” security check:
“ in my opinion, Iranian authorities decided not to take Facebook
and Twitter down entirely... just because they are useful tools of
intelligence gathering”
Politics, civil rights (2)

Electronic Health Records (EHR): computer files
containing the complete medical history, drug records, test
results and surgeries of an individual.
Complete and portable EHRs could:
help to greatly reduce paperwork, money and time
spent in hospitals and labs, or when moving from one
city, health insurances or service provider to another.
save (in the USA only) up to $77 billion every year”
Source:www.consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/dec08.php
...but only if all computers can read them, of course!
Efficient Healthcare

Patients could become valuable contributors to their (Electronic)
Health Records, which have long been seen as only writeable by
professionals
Physicians could actively participate to online patient communities,
correcting misperceptions
Source: www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910u/patient-empowerment-healthcare
the capacity of volunteer Community Health Workers (CHWs) to
provide quality medical care in Tanzania is increased by mobile
phone-based tools that offer guidance and decision support
Example: the system can guide a CHW through a series of questions
to assess if a newborn needs to receive emergency care
Source: http://mobileactive.org/lessons-interoperability
Through smart use of ICT in healthcare...

"The technological configuration underlying the Internet has a considerable
bearing on its ethical aspects. Use of the new information technology and
the Internet needs to be informed and guided by a resolute commitment to
the practice of solidarity in the service of the common good."
“With the right to be informed goes the duty to seek information.
Information does not simply occur; it has to be sought. On the other hand,
in order to get it, the man who wants information must have access to the
varied means of social communication.”
Who said this? Richard Stallman?

No, the Catholic Church. Sources:
1) “Ethics in Internet”
2) "Communio et Progressio"
See also on the same theme:
“Free Software's surprising sympathy with Catholic doctrine”
(www.linux.com/articles/49533)
The Eleutheros Manifesto (www.eleutheros.it/documenti/manifesto)
from Eleutheros – A Catholic Approach to Information Technology
Who said that? Richard Stallman?

“the Church's language [about communication still] belongs to a read-only
culture... The Church still sees [just another channel] for the 'professionals' to
give instruction to passive receivers, instead of offering guidelines for a world
where more and more people are using bi-directional media like the Internet”
J. Fox, SDB, Digital Virtues, Lulu.com
“Nowadays, understanding the new technologies is essential for us... We are
convinced of this to the point where we are examining possibilities for
introducing study of this into academic courses for seminarians and priests”
Cardinal Hummes, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, June 2009
Theme Chosen by Pope Benedict XVI for the 2010 World Communication Day:
"The priest and pastoral ministry in a digital world: New
media at the service of the Word."
More on digitalness and (Catholic) religion

Excerpts from “Media and priestly formation today” by J. Fox, SDB, Aug. 2009:
There is a tendency to think of the digital world as simply secular and away
from all things spiritual. Challenge number one, I would say, is to redress that
tendency.
Software is so malleable and complex.. that it tends to embody a culture's
methods, knowledge and philosophies... Software becomes part of catechesis in
today's world, since the task laid out by Pope John Paul II is to integrate the
Christian message with media culture.
One good side of the [wired] world we live in is that we are more aware than
ever of other cultures, and in the broader world of religion, inter-religious
dialogue is encouraged and facilitated in our digital culture – and by it.
Again on digitalness and (Catholic) religion

43
What about education???
This page intentionally left
blank as subject of the final
discussion

44
How can digital technology
make the world
a better place?

“microprocessors are always and only microprocessors... An
FPGA, instead, becomes whatever hardware you need.”
www.linuxjournal.com/article/10330
Hardware that becomes what you want it to be
Arduino (www.arduino.cc) is a board with embedded
microprocessors that can be built by hand or purchased
preassembled, Open Source software and hardware design
Corollary: design and assembly of custom sophisticated electronics only
requires a few hundred dollars and is accessible to many more people

46
Disintermediation!
Microformats and (more or less) Semantic Web
raw digital data in formats that are not only open, but also structured enough
that software can recognize, process and correlate them without human help
Everyday example: a phone number or an appointment written into a Web page
in such a way that if you click on them the computer adds that number or
appointment to your agenda
Result: disintermediation!
Reduced dependency from “agents” of all kinds: bureaucrats,
lawyers, unnecessary managers, Google...

47
Simplicity and openness
less effort, skills, time and courage needed to perform routine task
or find and denounce what's wrong.
Overall, I believe in the power of technology to bring abundance. But it
needs to be the appropriate technology, with some sort of social equity,
and with continual monitoring and feedback about adverse impacts..
Openness is part of getting the least pain from technology and the most
benefit from it.
Paul Fernhout (www.pdfernhout.net)

48
Open Government and Transparency
Digital technology makes it very
simple and cheap to put online as
many raw public data as possible,
from agricultural statistics to
agency budgets
Having such data online makes it much easier to “watch the watchmen” ie build
"follow the money!" search engines... to display, all in one table, things like
who got money from a public contract, who approved it, all the present and past
relationships among those people
Source: M. Fioretti in 'Open Government', O'Reilly, Jan. 2010

Have documents the world needs to
see?Wikileaks help you safely get
the truth out.
... could become as important a
journalistic tool as the Freedom of
Information Act. Time Magazine
Participation and control (1)
But don't forget to demand openness at the source,
as mentioned in the previous slide!

Naples, May 11, 2009: a man is shot in the middle of the
street. The killer did not wear a mask, but nobody
identifies him,
October 2009: 48 hours after the footage of a security cam
showing the killer is broadcast on TV and from there put
online, the killer is identified and arrested thanks to many
anonymous calls.
According to Roberto Saviano, author of Gomorra, eventually such practices may eliminate the
need to wait for one single, exceptionally courageous, and just as much lonely individual to
denounce crime, as a whole community of normal people may find the courage to do
In other words it t may lower the barrier for common people to fighting organized crime

Citizen Science allows
individual volunteers
or groups to observe,
measure, and
contribute to scientific
environmental studies.
NETWORKED NATURALIST http://urban.cens.ucla.edu/projects/naturalist/
“engaging the public in ecological research: see your data, see how your data fits in with other
people’s data, and see how involved scientists interpret those data — all in real-time”.

52
Rediscovery of the value of people
Example: rediscovery of value of creative, gifted individuals.
There is no such thing as free quality content, it does take time
and effort to put it together.
Acknowledgment that some services and skills (e.g professional
investigative journalism) are not replaceable, at least in the
short/near term
awareness that machines and software accomplish nothing if not used
to change processes... in ways that satisfy people needs, rather than
matching existing features of software programs

53
Impacts on Quality Education
What are the consequences of
everything going digital for
Quality Education?
(regardless of when students actually
start using computer themselves)

54
Duties of Quality Education
Quality Education must include and provide the awareness that:
today it is more worthwhile than ever to learn because:
for the first time in human history, not only there are (in some
countries at least) formal acknowledgments of human rights,
freedom of speech and similar principles...
...but the tools to actually practice such rights are quickly becoming
accessible and affordable to all single, average individuals
Digital communication and data management must be open, to remove any
artificial barrier

Problem: something is wrong in the world
First step: start a Facebook Group
Second and Final step: feel good NOW, on your chair
Slacktivism: “feel-good online activism that has
zero political or social impact”
http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_brave_new_world_of_slacktivism
Slacktivism is the new apathy
Image source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/69805768@N00/3292899689/
Does this mean that social networks, instant messaging and so on are intrinsically and
always evil?
No, they are so powerful that it would be a real shame to use them only to play

56
Duties of Quality Educators
"perhaps the greatest service that virtual reality can give to today’s culture
is the recovery of reality" Fr J. Fox, SDB
make clear that there is no such thing as some mythical
cyberspace, separate from reality
but that, instead, the one real world we've always lived in is being
deeply transformed by digital technologies
What we do in “cyberspace”, we're doing in the real world
We must not escape in “cyberspace”, but use it to make the world a
better place, because the first can give us more control on the second

57
Duties of Quality Education (2)
Teach and practices simplicity: “everything should be as simple as
possible, but not simpler” (A. Einstein)
Examples:
BridgeIT, Tanzania: after proper training,teachers
download video content through cellular phones
and view it on a TV with their students
http://mobileactive.org/bridgeit-mobiles-classroom,
www.iyfnet.org/document.cfm/751
Wannigame: mobile phone application to supervise the learning of numbers by
children between the age of 3 to 5.

Only distribute content in Open File Formats!!
The great majority of end users of Open Educational material will use
OpenOffice, which cannot guarantee correct formatting of
proprietary Microsoft formats
Duties of Quality Educators (3)
Example: shifting table in Architectural planning module from OLE library

“sending proprietary attachments with email is as socially unacceptable as
smoking in a closed room full of people”
(real email signature of a Hong Kong University professor)
Duties of Quality Educators (4)
The OpenDocument Format (ODF) is the only viable
alternative to the .doc, .ppt and ..xls files which are the
main, if not only, real reason of the Microsoft
monopoly on the desktop
Distribution of content in ODF format is (besides being
often necessary, see previous slide) an excellent
strategy to educate all students to the benefits of open
digital technologies
To know more: www.opendocumentfellowship.com

All the data we need to live decently are, or will soon be, in digital format:
therefore, closed/secrets data formats are never, ever acceptable. This is not
negotiable
Quality Basic Education should include the awareness that, since digtalness has
entered every corner and level of our life, the rights that already existed now
also have a digital form
We must never ignore software or escape in cyberspace, but use them to
improve the real space we keep living in.
Conclusions

Suggested reading:
Talks and seminars at http://mfioretti.com
(which also contain all the sources not quoted here)
“Open Government”, O'Reilly, Jan. 2010,
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596804367/
Articles at http://stop.zona-m.net
Contact info: marco@digifreedom.net
Questions?
References & contact info

Quality Education in a digital world

More Related Content

Similar to Quality Education in a digital world

More from Marco Fioretti

Recently uploaded

Quality Education in a digital world