Bridging the Divide
Geomedia, Tourism, and Civic Engagement
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Divya Mc Millin, Orlando Baiocchi
The purpose of this paper is to explore the essential elements of geomedia: the locative potential of media and the potential of mediated locations in civic engagement. Case studies offer a way to examine both annotative (online tagging) and phenomenological (subjective action) elements. The spatial turn in media studies centralizes location-based questions, and intersecting with geomedia schema, allows us to identify users as individual actors. This paper analyzes firstly two small-scale grassroots tourism initiatives in Kolkata and Bengaluru, India. These case studies demonstrate the use of social media, print journalism, blogs, art exhibits, television appearances, and folk and street theater, to advocate for the preservation of heritage buildings and parks, to reclaim identities and to ensure legacy. Based on fieldwork and interviews with tour guides in both cities, the paper discusses the complexities of producing place and nation, the field of tension between reaffirming local authenticities and responding to the logics of state-driven forms of globalization. Following, the paper focuses on the Azores Geopark located in the archipelago of the Azores, Portugal and part of the European and the UNESCO-assisted Global Geopark Networks. Its mission is to ensure conservation of the geological heritage and to encourage sustainable development, while promoting responsible tourism and the well being of the local population. The Azorean Geopark case study includes a critical discussion of the use of wireless and mobile information technologies. Together, the case studies reveal the value of technology in promoting participatory citizenship and enhancing the dynamics of collaboration and community building.
Mobile Technology for Inclusive Society: User Modelling for Targeted Integration
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sylvana Sofkova Hashemi, Nataliya Berbyuk Lindström
Sweden is one of the top recipients of asylum applications per capita in Europe. Increasing cultural and linguistic diversity is a challenge in the society to achieve successful social and professional inclusion. Getting employment, education, housing and access to healthcare are essential means of integration, which can be facilitated by language and cultural knowledge as well as contacts with the members of host society (Ager & Strang, 2008). Mobile technologies enable authentic, interactive and social contexts for learning and can serve the purpose of a bridging tool to the host society. Newly arrived migrants in Sweden have and use smartphones. The aim of this study was to map available mobile technology and to explore how the existing apps meet the migrants’ learning and integration needs. A sample of apps was first selected based on evaluation of technological, pedagogical, linguistic and cultural criteria (the TPLC-model). Next, we conducted user tests over a three weeks period with 44 newly arrived Arabic-speaking migrants of selected apps of different functionalities and learning activities (language and vocabulary training, intercultural communication, social interaction, etc.). We used questionnaires for background, self-estimation of Swedish language, cultural and societal competences and perceptions of necessary information to become integrated. The results demonstrate that apart from translation and vocabulary apps, mobile apps are hardly used by the newly arrived migrants. One reason is lack of targeted language and cultural training that facilitates migrants’ immediate needs for employment, accommodation, contact with locals as well as cultural factors in relation to design.
Games the Dust Particles Play: Dust Explosion Simulator
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Srivatsan Prativadibhayankara, Mytreya Venkata Urukram Pattaswamy
Safety is an indispensable faculty in manufacturing sector as it impacts on health, hygiene and often survival of the biome. Nevertheless, its complex and multidisciplinary nature did not allow for mathematical treatment. To the other extreme it may not be right strategy to express it mathematically, since it requires to work with novices in shop floor. Instead a shallow level treatment which aids in the development of human reflexes is desirable. Thus, we propose a new paradigm of understanding safety through gamification taking dust explosions as a specific case. By gamification, it is easier to enter into the psyche of the individual compared to mathematization. Thus, using proper level designing, the art of safety and its prevention can be made as human reflexes independent of age, IQ, EQ, gender.
Defining Digital Skills: A Literature Review
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Melissa Sassi
According to UNESCO, “literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute, and use printed, and written materials associated with varying contexts." However, there is no such consensus or clarity around a definition for digital literacy. Without such a global or uniform definition, it is difficult for the world to address digital inclusion and measure progress. Imagine the impact if the United Nations, the IEEE, or a similar body were to support a comprehensive framework for digital skills and intelligence and endorse a global standard for a definition of digital literacy and skills. This could aid in achieving a measurement and reporting methodology while enabling individuals, organizations, and nation states to track their progress over time, while proving the necessary building blocks for individuals in the Global South to gain the necessary skills for the future of work and the 21st century economy. While 50% of the world is technically connected to the internet, how many are making meaningful use of its power? Similarly, how many truly have the digital skills necessary to transition from consumers of technology into creators, makers, and doers empowered by technology? The UN sustainable development goals repeatedly underline the importance of technology and inclusion as enablers of development and economic growth. The pairing is essential – unless concrete efforts are made to give everyone access to the right skills, digital tools risk being a force for inequality. Without this foundation, there cannot be true inclusion, an especially dire challenge for forgotten stakeholders.
