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Keynote Presentation
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"Rethinking Technologies for Participation, Equity, Social
Justice, and Democracy"
By Dr. Christopher Walsh, Senior Lecturer of Educational
ICT and Professional Development, The Open
University, United Kingdom
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Bio
Dr. Christopher Walsh is a Senior Lecturer in Educational ICT
and Professional Development in the Faculty of Education
and Language Studies of The Open University and editor of
Digital Culture & Education
(DCE) www.digitalcultreandeducation.com. His current research
projects include English in Action (EIA) a 9-year
£50 million project designed to assist 25 million people in
Bangladesh improve their English language skills through new
technologies (funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for
International development (DfID) and ‘Expanding HIV
prevention and outreach coverage @Mplus+, funded by amfAR (The
Foundation for AIDS Research). His most
recent publications are an edited book entitled, Equality,
Participation and Inclusion: Diverse Perspectives (2010)
published
by Routledge and Systems-based literacy practices: Digital
games research, gameplay and design in the Australian
Journal of Language and Literacy, 33 (1), 2010.
Abstract
Cultivating digital and online platforms and communities to
sustain grassroots participation, equity, social justice
and democracy remains a significant obstacle, while issues of
citizenship, access and inclusion, are even more difficult
to adequately address with, and through technologies. While a
variety of models and interventions have been proposed
and implemented, more attention needs to focus on aligning the
micro-macro nexus of research and practice, to
leverage technologies to disrupt existing exclusionary
structures, practices and discourses, and to impact policy
change.
This paper presents three unique case studies that document
the ways information and communication technologies
(ICTs) can be leveraged to impact on participation, equity,
social justice, and democracy. The first highlights a
practitioner research study in New York City’s Chinatown where
immigrant students used ICTs to creatively redesign
school history textbooks and disrupt racist and exclusionary
discourses they encountered in school texts and their
lived experience. A second case study showcases the innovative
ways a small community-based organisation in
Thailand collaborated with local and international partners to
design a peer-based online HIV/AIDS outreach and
prevention programme, In conclusion I present the ways English
in Action (EIA), a large-scale project (£50 million
over 9 years) is working to improve the English proficiency of
25 million people in Bangladesh through
school-based professional development approaches, mobile
technologies (The Open University) and the mass media
(The BBC World Trust). This paper argues that technology alone
is inconsequential in realising equity and social justice.
Rather building trust, forging strategic partnerships, and
co-designing dynamic participatory mechanisms to
continuously rework and rethink access to knowledge for
‘ordinary’ citizens is needed in addressing today’s social
and economic challenges. Individuals, organizations and
governments must be prepared to adapt their use of
technologies
to contexts and circumstances—in ways that genuinely take into
account—its ongoing impact on those being invited
or expected to participate. Otherwise technologies on their
own will do little to disrupt existing hegemonic structures
that work to maintain the status quo and undermine social
justice and democracy.
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