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This is the temporary space to collect input from the IEEE GHTC Education Track.

Please write and save here: A short paragraph on your "take-aways" from the conference Your most burning question for this community of practice

Thank you, Liza Loop

Linda Garrison via email 2015-10-11

I don't think I have too many original thoughts but there did seem to be some interest in the basic digital literacy skill set. I am the librarian in a P3-4th 1-to-1 ipad school so each student in the upper grades is issued their own. We have found that it is critical to teach basic digital literacy skills BEFORE they get there own device. We start in kinder. Our curriculum is Common Sense Media, completely free. It covers everything from creating strong passwords to digital rights to sexting to digital communication skills. My thought is, before giving students in the educational settings that we discussed today, spend half a day teaching them the importance of passwords (i would never skip this step....it is an empowerment that everyone should have), and that what goes on the web stays on the web. While they may be a difficult lessons, particularly in cultures whose privacy issues are very different from American s, it might at least plant a seed in their minds. I would recommend we create a very basic checklist of safety lessons to be distributed and taught with the device.

Liza Loop 2015-10-11 I enjoyed this conference immensely and am impressed with the many examples of excellent work being done around the globe to benefit humanity. At the same time, I was reminded of several areas in which we, in the industrialized world, need to rethink our approaches to development and reacquaint ourselves with the history of cultural change. There are pockets of industrial and post-industrial people in almost every country and patronizing attitudes are frequent within national boundaries as well as across them. I'm convinced that the engineering cohort in attendance could benefit from some "cultural sensitivity training" to raise the level of understanding of how cultural background shapes ones own attitudes and improves cross-cultural communication. I was pleased to hear discussion of "aspirational wants" and the danger of making assumptions about community needs without querying the recipient people. Although the notion, offered by the practitioner cohort, that "It's not about you" seems relevant when focused on the poor, recipient communities, there is another perspective: IEEE is promoting engineering education and, in that sense, it is "about" the engineering students. We need to keep the dialog active and treat each other with kindness and encouragement.

My burning question is about the future of work/employment in the industrialized world. The dual trends of automation and concentration of wealth may force us to restructure our economic institutions and practices within the 21th century. Are we assuming that the developing world should go through the same stages we have experienced or would it be more "humane" to promote leapfrogging over the wealth concentration stage?