[DDN] The Digital Divide and Human Health

[Paperless Homework]

Hi Everyone,

One of the ways to improve rural/urban health is through education and e-learning  would be effective.

While there are other more effective ways, one way we are doing and have not the resources to do full scale is the use of e-learning to teach students health issues through their daily learning experience in schools.

What we intended to do was to create modules like " Learning English through Anti smoking campaign" providing modules like comprehension based on the dangers of smoking. This concept may be applied to other issues like learning sex, Aids, drugs etc.
Children while trying to learn English, will unconsciously be learning the evils of say smoking, aids etc. This method is far far better than trying to spend millions advertising the evils of such and where nobody actually bothers.

Anyway, we are leaving those aside while we concentrate our efforts on other areas until we can get volunteers (which we are not able to) to help out on this. Sorry to say out of hundreds we have only two miserable modules on that :>)

Our initial efforts now is to spread the use of e-learning generally to all schools in the world particularly in the developing countries which we are now talking with various parties in various nations.

My two pennies' worth

Alan 
www.paperlesshomework.com


--- On Fri, 8/1/08, Ed Gragert <ed at us.iearn.org> wrote:
From: Ed Gragert <ed at us.iearn.org>
Subject: Re: [DDN] The Digital Divide and Human Health
To: "The Digital Divide Network discussion group" <digitaldivide at digitaldivide.net>
Date: Friday, August 1, 2008, 5:29 AM

Hi Everyone,

Joe has some good points in terms of seekers and finders if we look  
solely at use of the net by individuals.  However, our experience  
working with schools, educators and students is that there is a strong  
evidence that meaningful and structured online connections and school/ 
community project work can make a major difference in health.  And, by  
implication these positive differences could be magnified if we work  
to further bridge the digital divide.

We in iEARN have numerous examples, some of which are active right  
now, of how connected primary and secondary schools are engaged in  
collaborative project work in health (HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB) issues.   
In addition to giving access to medical information, as Siobhan has  
suggested, collaborative project work connects youth together--to ask  
questions, share information, conduct collaborative research and then  
engage in community outreach education and health project actions.

For example, teachers students in Botswana link schools in Kenya, US,  
India and Iran to work together online to reduce malarial cases in  
their communities (https://media.iearn.org/node/174).  In the  
project's community outreach programs, connected young people play a  
key role in sharing what they have learned online through interaction  
with their peers in other countries.  They also link up communities in  
these countries to provide treated nets and provide education to  
community members on their effective use.

Similar project works are underway on HIV/AIDS prevention and  
treatment--using peer-to-peer interaction and sharing online as a  
mechanism for creating change and change agents on the community level.

Regards,

Ed

Ed Gragert
iEARN-USA - Six years older than the WWW!! Connecting Youth Making a  
Difference for 20 years! http://us.iearn.org

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