Digital Literacy and Digital Inclusion Best Practices Growing an Entrepreneurial Culture in Alaska in 3

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Digital Literacy and Digital Inclusion Best Practices

Growing an Entrepreneurial Culture in Alaska in 3-5 years

Share this online at http://lone-eagles.com/alaskan-innovations.htm

Proposed by Frank Odasz
    Lone Eagle Consulting
     Email: frank@lone-eagles.com
     PH: 406 683 6270

The Alaskan Apple laptop initiative, by legislative mandate, is intended to prepare students to be globally competitive in the 21st century through education on such topics as global awareness, civic literacy, health and wellness awareness, and financial, economic, business, and entrepreneurial literacy. The emerging opportunity is a digital literacy and digital inclusion program showcasing E-learning-for-all “best practices” and essential online resources to help Alaskans deal effectively with the current dire challenges. The first step, with your support, would be the proposed new online course "21^st Century Workforce Basics for Alaskans" described below, followed by establishing a uniquely Alaskan virtual center of excellence.

Growing an entrepreneurial culture among Alaskan youth with emphasis on stemming youth outmigration and creating more stable and sustainable local rural economies is now possible due to Alaska having the greatest rural broadband connectivity in the U.S. Creating a online youth E-entrepreneurship program can help mitigate the impacts of workers being removed from villages and communities for major pipeline projects. A unique partnership with the University system, Alaska Association of School Boards, and state and local economic development agencies is proposed to establish an online clearinghouse of broadband training best practices disseminating essential online resources and E-learning-for-all opportunities regarding:

The Alaskan Center for Sustainable Rural Families

JOBS: 21st Century Workforce Jobs Facilitation

ENERGY:   Green Clean Sustainable Lifestyles Education on Solutions

HEALTH: Community Wellness Broadband Applications

E-LEARNING FOR ALL: Alaskan Mentors: A Virtual Support Network

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally

CULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY: Digital Storytelling and Culture Expression

(An expanded outline is at http://lone-eagles.com/alaskan-center.htm )

The Alaskan Center for Sustainable Rural Families offers an elegant grassroots peer-mentoring platform that maintains an efficient clearinghouse of the best skills transfer instructional videos, screencasts, and friendly mentors, which allow Alaskans to quickly gain the skills to deal effectively with their urgent dire needs and to engage meaningfully in the global information society and economy.

It is proposed that the above Alaskan initiative will begin by inviting all Alaskans, and particularly students, to identify best practices and resources for the six categories above to be peer evaluated and to begin populating this web site with their perceived best practices and best resources, By Alaskans, For Alaskans, using new social media efficiencies and building a collaborative community of communities. A literature review with additional examples of the booming use of social media by governments at all levels is at http://lone-eagles.com/social-media-trends.htm

The Kick-Off event for this project will be the launch of an online course intended for all Alaskans, using the latest non-threatening Internet video instructional techniques, supplemented with robust online curriculum resources addressing the themes in the first paragraph above - for Elementary, Middleschool, and High School educators and students. The emphasis will be addressing the 30-49% teacher turnover by providing classroom ready curriculum for direct student engagement. This course will be offered for recertification credit building on my 20 years experience teaching educators online, most notably the past ten years teaching two graduate online courses for the Alaska Staff Development Network through Alaska Pacific University.

This unique new course will include a special self-directed learning track for adults and non-digital Alaskan leaders and legislators, both Alaskan Native, and non-native. This non-technical “Elderhood” track will present the overview understanding necessary for creating intergenerational support and participation for this overall initiative with cultural sub-emphasis on preserving elders stories and wisdom for all future generations, made possible through exercising the skills of the first digital generation. The most important component of this course will be easy tutorials on new Web2.0 tools that allow anyone to create online instructional video resources for others.

Making digital literacy and digital inclusion a reality in the short term will require the majority of Alaskans to become both learners and teachers, consumers and producers. Take two minutes and view the video tour at www.jingproject.com to see how easy it has become for anyone to instantly create instructional sources online for anyone, anywhere.

The recent National School Board Association report on Social Media in Education further validates the potential:
Creating and Connecting; Research and Guidelines on Online Social- and Educational – Networking   www.nsba.org/site/docs/41400/41340.pdf

Proposed new course: "21^st Century Workforce Basics for Alaskans"
Designed for K12 educators, parents, adults, and including hands-on activities for learners of all ages, this course covers the essential concepts for global citizenship with emphasis on meaningful participation in the global information society and economy. Global citizenship demands an appreciation for cultural diversity, and an understanding of the emerging social media dynamics for social entrepreneurship, youth E-entrepreneurship, rural revitalization, global service learning, and establishing trusted relationships.
A draft outline is at http://lone-eagles.com/inclusion.htm )

Can Alaskans lead the world in innovation? As I understand it, if you’re not the lead sled dog, the view never changes.

May we talk about your thoughts on the potential?

Frank Odasz
PH: 406 683 6270

PS:
An additional opportunity for Alaskans to lead the nation demonstrating how good people can best help others, online:

Lone Eagle Consulting, in partnership with the FCC Tribal Telecommunications initiative, has established a Broadband Training Best Practices Clearinghouse. The FCC Tribal Telecommunications web site www.fcc.gov/indians site has posted the beginnings of a broadband training best practices clearinghouse at listed as "Examples of Broadband Training Best Practices" on their Internet Resources web page at http://www.fcc.gov/indians/internetresources/   The specific link is http://lone-eagles.com/best.htm With a new FCC chairman anticipated and a new President we can expect to see a lot of innovation related to Broadband and Social Media.

Ecommerce advocacy letter to Governor Sarah Palin, February 2007
http://lone-eagles.com/support-alaskans.htm

Lone Eagle Update January-October 2006
http://lone-eagles.com/lone-eagle-update100106.htm
Includes background information and details on ten presentations to Alaskan Leadership, and six Canadian conference presentations on Indigenous Broadband Applications.

My online paper trail via the visual search engine at http://searchme.com represents my history.
Enter "Frank Odasz" and click "search all" to see the Flash display samples of my past work. Try adding Alaska, too.

For ten years I have taught two online graduate courses for the Alaska Staff Development Network via Alaska Pacific University.
These courses and final web-based projects by Alaskan educators are at http://lone-eagles.com/teachercreated.htm

Lastly, here is an example of my most recent new online course, created using the Moodle platform.

July 2008: Completed creation of a 3 credit graduate course for K12 Educators for New Mexico State University:

"Web 2.0 for K12 Classrooms."
If you'd like to explore this new online course - go to http://reta.nmsu.edu/moodle and login in as ID: franko PSWD: moodle1 and scroll down to "Web 2.0 for K12 Classrooms." It covers social media basics; blogs, wikis, podcasting, social networking, widgets, and many multimedia formats. The lesson text for lessons 11 and 12 addresses global themes related to poverty reduction, teaching entrepreneurship in primary grades to grow a global entrepreneurial culture in 3-5 years, and the commercialization of online learning. In short; how we'll learn to earn, online as part of a global information society and economy. The resources wiki is at http://web2fork12classrooms.pbwiki.com