Digital literacy: An idea of how we can help kids become tech savvy

Its ICT Literacy drive season again!

I’ve blogged about this event before.  Its basically a couple of Baraton Geeks who go out to secondary schools to teach the kids there how they can use technology in their education and also how they can use it  to impact the society in a positive way.

This has been a long time passion for me because I believe by teaching kids about the power of technology you are fueling their dreams and ambitions which one day could become the solutions not only to Africa’s problems, but possibly the entire world’s!

My passion has got me to a point where I want to do something about it…and here’s my idea:

I’m thinking of creating a wiki-based website using MediaWiki, DokuWiki or wikidot to create a syllabus of sorts that teaches kids how to find their way around the internet giving specific tutorials, best practices, tips and perhaps the resources they need to run their own digital literacy drives in their communities.

The one thing I hope it should be is ‘versatile’. Digital literacy is not only about computers and the internet. There’s things like photographs, Radio and television, podcasts (though not very practical in rural Africa) etc. I believe there’s a way to include all this in the syllabus so as to give a wide range of ideas and skills to the future African generation. It also gives those with a limited range of options something to do as well.

My target for this is African secondary students but would also love it if it was implemented in Asia and India!

I’m really looking forward to working with people on this one. Please send me an email via the contact page. If you’ve got any ideas on this one as well, please share them in the comments.