______
2008/HRDWG30/031
Session: EDNET
Progress Report: APEC Learning Community for Shared Prosperity
Purpose: Information
Submitted by: Korea
/ 30th Human Resources DevelopmentWorking Group MeetingBohol, Philippines
15-18 April 2008
APEC PROJECT FORMAT
Progress Report on APEC Projects
[ √ ] Operational Account [ ] TILF Special Account [ ] APEC Support Fund
Project number: / Date received by Secretariat:Name of Committee/Working Group: HRDWG
Title of Project:APEC Learning Community for Shared Prosperity
Proposing APEC Economy: Korea
Co-sponsoring APEC Economy(ies):China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand, and United States
Project Overseer: Name, Title and Organization(M/F)
1. Eun-ok Choi(F)
Director, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Korea
2. Jung-Chan Cha(M)
Director General, Institute of APEC Collaborative Education (IACE)
Postal address:
1. Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
77 Sejongro, Chongro-Gu, Seoul, Korea
2. Institute of APEC Collaborative Education
30 Jangjeon-Dong, Geumjeong-Gu, Busan, 609-735, Korea(ROK) / 1. Tel:+82-2-2100-6782
Fax:+82-2-2100-6579
Email:
2. Tel:+82-51-515-7617
Fax:+82-51-515-2617
Email:
Financial Information / Total cost of proposal (US$):
410,000 / Amount being sought from APEC Central Fund (US$):30,000
Type of Project: seminar/symposium short-term training course survey or analysis and research database/website others (Please specify)
Project start date: August, 2003 / Project end date: Continue
Brief description of Project : its purpose and the principal activities (including when and where) :
Purposes:
Operate APEC Learning Community Builders (ALCoB) in order to bridge the knowledge divide, to enhance knowledge capacity, and to promote human exchange
Organize the learning community that enables the exchange of educational culture and information through a human network, ALCoB consisting of teachers, learners, supporters (e.g., researchers, administrators, professors, etc.). This isto solve the digital divide problem in APEC economies
Promote collaboration among knowledge workers and an exchange program between APEC economies that will develop and improve the knowledge and new skills relevant to ICT
Conductvarious studies that focus on increasing the knowledge producing capacity of APEC economies
Principal Activities include:
Mobilize the APEC Learning Community Builders (ALCoB) as human network for international cooperation in education
Expanding APEC-based Human network called ALCoB with a variety of members consisting of teachers, K-12 students, university students,businessmen, government officials, education administrators, scholars, etc
Inspire members to participate in relevant activities of ALCom autonomously to experience international cooperative activities and understand member economies’ education and culture
Set up their own groups like ALCoB-T(teachers), ALCoB-L(K-12 students), ALCoB-U(university students) inside ALCoB Community
Organize autonomous on-site community in each economy such as ALCoB –Peru, ALCoB-Thailand
Foster the participation of business sector through organization of ALCoB-EC(ALCoB Entrepreneur Committee)
Operate online community, ALCoB.com
Enable member economies to contact each other for implementing cooperative activities and sharing education ideas and cultural information
Provide online communication channelto prepare and proceed ALCoB Internet Volunteers(AIV) activities and ALCoB Cooperative Projectswith members in other economies
Host ALCoB conference and Forum that focus on sharing experiences and achievements
Convene the International ALCoB Conference to check the progress activities of ALCoB and understand member economies’ education and culture
Promote youth’s participation in the APEC activities though designing new program for ALCoB-L and ALCoB-U such as English Speech Contest and APEC Youth Forum
Enhance onsite activities like ALCoB Internet Volunteers (AIV)
Promote autonomous and voluntarily activities of ALCoB members in member economies
Exchange recent information and knowledge on using ICT for teaching and learning and provide participants with experiences on international cooperation in education directly
Expand the understanding of volunteer working in the APEC region
Implement ALCoB Cooperative Project through online/onsite activities
Support educational cooperative projects initiated by ALCoB members voluntarilyto enhanceeducational cooperation network building within member economies
Deal with various themes like teaching and learning method using ICT in school subjects, cultural exchange, volunteering activities etc.
Publish the international Journal, Asia-pacific Cybereducation Journal(APCJ)
Strengthen academic research and practical activities among prominent researchers, education administrators, business people
Focus on international cooperation for cyber and future education
Provide consulting and training programs to contribute to improving informatization and internationalization of education
Convene an onsite Conference or operate online community for acquiring and sharing up-to-date information
Signature of Project Overseer:
(Separate written confirmation acceptable for email submission) Date:
Signature of Committee Chair/WG Lead Shepherd:(Not applicable to Progress Report and Evaluation Report)
(Separate written confirmation acceptable for email submission) Date:
Progress Report on APEC Projects
Status/Progress and Problems
Current status of project:APEC Learning Community for Shared Prosperity (ALCom) is for implementing international cooperative activities brought by the APEC Learning Community Builders (ALCoB).As increasing number of participants up to around 2,800 members from voluntary activities, cooperative projects, international conference and workshops with other member economies, this project is not only focused on improving its quality forbuilding capacity of ALCoB but also fostering autonomous and creative activities toward international cooperation in the APEC region.
In relation to this, ALCoB is getting to start organizing on-site community initiated by existing ALCoB members voluntarily inIndonesia, Mexico, Peru, Thailand, etc. And this has resulted more systemic participation in APEC activitiesof various sectors from education field(school teachers and students) to government officials and even business enterprisers. Therefore, based on these systemic ALCoB organization, the ALCom activities are planned and implemented by its members of each economy autonomously through online and offline community, so that the program quality and attendee’s quantity are both improving in accordance to ALCoB members’ interest and needs.
In this respect, ALCom activities with ALCoB are expected to keep and strengthen its efforts toward educational cooperation for shared prosperityunder the support from the member economies and each on-site community.
On schedule (Yes) Within budget (Yes)
Objectives
APEC Learning Community for Shared Prosperity (ALCom) aims to narrow the digital divide for APEC shared prosperity based on the human network, as connected by online and offline activities. This connection is essential for understanding and exchanging the information and knowledge of IT technologies as well as educational and cultural differences among the APEC member economies under the name of the APEC Learning Community.Linkages, Methodology, Budget
1. Linkages
The core part of this project is APEC Learning Community Builders called as ALCoB consisting of teachers, learners, and supporters-education administrators, scholars, experts, businessmen, etc. They are equipped with linguistic ability like English, specialized in using ICT and have concerns about educational and cultural exchanges within international ALCoB members.
Practically, the ALCoB members are not only the beneficiary of this project but also become creative producer of international cooperative activities. It is expected that they will derive the participation of local community like volunteer works of parents of ALCoB learners and other persons who are interested in international cooperation.
2. Methodology
ALCoB is implemented through online and offline ALCoB activities and relevant academic project as following:
- Selecting and managing the human network, ALCoB
- Operating the online community: ALCoB.com(
- Convening the offline conference: International ALCoB Conference and other onsite event
- Promoting volunteering program: ALCoB Internet Volunteers (AIV)
- Supporting team-based collaborative activities: ALCoB Cooperative Project
- Publishing the international journal: Asia-Pacific Cybereducation Journal (APCJ)
3. Budget
We have implemented the projects under the budgeting planand try to organize the whole project economically and effectively.In 2007, Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has been continuously supporting the projects of ALCom. Also as the participation of ALCoB-EC(ALCoB Entrepreneur Committee) is increasing, ALCoB-ECalso funded this project in the field of ALCoB Internet Volunteer(AIV) activities.
Gender Considerations
This project does not set up any restraint from the issues of gender and recommends ALCoB members to consider this issue.
Progress since last report :
After its first step, the ALCom has contributed to make remarkable growth of international cooperation in education through proceeding ALCoB activities. As increasing of participants and enlarging the scope of their activities, the ALCom is regarded as one of effective international cooperative projects both in quality and in quantity. In particular, the tripartite structure of this project enables ALCoB members to go through their activities as supporting technical advice and providing hardware & software for ICT.
As a result of placing emphasize on autonomy and voluntary, ALCoB have started to plan and implement the activities of the ALCom for themselves and seek organic relations with other international cooperative activities.
APEC Learning Community Builders (ALCoB)
ALCoB start to play a leading role in the whole activities of this project and produce distinguished and practical educational outcomes based on accumulated knowledge and experience for last years.
As of April 2008, around 2,800 ALCoB members from 18 member economies participate in this project and the number of participants has been expanded steadily since 2003 (see, Appendix 1,2). The accomplishment from last activities enables people who are interested in international cooperation to join in the human network. For instance, many members of APEC ICT Model School Network(MSN) and trainees of the APEC e-Learning Training Program became ALCoB and students pursued volunteer work in the APEC region with ALCom projects also joined in it. In addition, AIV activity participants and beneficiary registered as ALCoB.
ALCoB member regarded as effective in quality not only increasing in quantity as the participants increase but also through fostering autonomous ALCoB community by going through active local activities. In this respect, ALCoB activities in 2007 had a distinguish mark such as organizing autonomous community in participating economy such as Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand and Peru.
Based on local network with ALCoB members including government officials, professors, teachers, students and business sectors, they structured on-site ALCoB community such as ALCoB-Thai and ALCoB-Peru initiated by the participants in ALCom activities and trainees in APEC e-learning training program. With support from ALCoB Cooperative projects, they started out the organization of local ALCoB community and planed to expand educational cooperative activities.(see, Appendix 3)
In addition, ALCoB-U(university students)is newly launched in this year to encourage youth’s participation in APEC. Based on theircontinued participation in AIV activities, International ALCoB Conference, APEC Future Education Forum under support from ALCoB-S such as professors, they promoted to implement autonomous cooperative project participated by current university students of Korea, Thai, Indonesia and other member economies. With this opportunity, we expect ALCoB-U to contribute to doing various and meaningful ALCoB activities in the APEC region through creative ideas of youth.
Online Community: ALCoB.com (
Online activity is one of most important parts of the ALCom in order to support member economies to contact with each other for implementing cooperative activities and sharing educational ideas and cultural information. In 2007, the total number of visiting was around 143,600.
Since it’s launching in 2005 as gateway forALCom project to provide‘One-Stop’ service for ALCoB members and others, this online community is not only to share knowledge and information on international cooperation in education but also to access proper information on relevant fields and organizations. It means that this community might be a hub to connect and accumulate necessary information and knowledge for users.
As increasing the number of users, there have been various improvements including adjusting membership data for user-friendly online community and update recent information on the project for enhancing cooperative activities among ALCoB members. Participants of ALCoB cooperative projects and AIV aresharing the information and preparing for their activities through on-line community.
International ALCoB Conference
International ALCoB Conference was an annual onsite activity for ALCoB to check their progress activities like ALCoB Cooperative Project and ALCoB Internet Volunteers (AIV) and understanding member economies’ education and culture.
In 2007, the 5th International ALCoB Conference was convened in Busan, Korea from November 7 to November 8during 2 days with the presence of around 300attendees from 13 member economies: Brunei, China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, and Viet Nam, Mexico and United States. Participating ALCoB members reported their annual activities and evaluated the outcomes in AIV, ALCoB Cooperative Project and etc. For the activities in 2008, based on autonomous organization, the ALCoB members proposed new projects and suggested ideas for fostering ALCoB activities.
The overview of the 5th International ALCoB Conference is as follows (see, Appendix 4).
The 5th International ALCoB Conference
Date : Nov. 7(Fri.) ~ 8(Sun.), 2007
Participants : Around 300 from 13 member economies
Programs
- Homecoming Meeting for ALCoB
- Report on the outcomes of ALCoB Cooperative Project
- Group discussion to share new suggestions for ALCoB activities in 2008
- ALCoB International English Contest(theme : APEC and Future Education)
- APEC Youth Forum(theme: Future and Youth of APEC) with ALCoB-U
Last Conferences
- 1st (Jan., 2004) 120 members from 9 economies
- 2nd (Aug., 2004) 250 members from 15 economies
- 3rd (Dec., 2005) 200 members from 10 economies
- 4th (Nov., 2006) 230 members from 12 economies
As featured programs in the 2007 Conference, ALCoB International English Contest and APEC Youth Forum was newly organized aiming at sharing creative values of students on future education and offering a chance to develop the international capacity. In this event, 19 students from 5 economies participated and participants of Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand received the awards. Secondly, at APEC Youth Forum, 100 University students within the area in APEC discussed their roles under the theme of ‘The Future of APEC and Youth’. This Forum made a foundation to foster competent persons with creative international capacity and expect to have various activities such as international volunteer activities. Moreover, the concern and participation of youth was linked to the foundation of ALCoB-U. With these achievements, we expect ALCoB to
serve as a momentum of active participation of APEC activities of youth to ALCoB-L(K-12 students) ALCoB-U’.
ALCoB Internet Volunteers (AIV)
Differing from other volunteer work, the AIV benefits both of dispatched members and participants in the program through sharing their knowledge and information on education and culture. With the results so far achieved, many of ALCoB members including teachers, university students and parentshaveapplied for AIV to participate in even their own expenses.
In 2007, 53 volunteers were dispatched to five member economies and completed the program with around 2,700 teachers and students of those economies (see, Appendix 5). With added number of participating volunteers and economies, the program for AIV is enlarged consisting of several training program about using ICT, repairing and upgrading hardware, proceeding cultural exchanges, and opening simulation classes, and others.
Especially for the program of simulation class using ICT in member economies, ALCoB-EC donatedthe latest hardware and softwarefor students in the beneficiary economies as one of participants this year. With this support from business sector, it is expected that learners could have a chance to share their knowledge on using ICT and multi-media and it will contribute to narrowing the digital divide in the APEC region.
ALCoB Cooperative Project
In general, ALCoB go through this project through on/offline activities for a year after setting up a team consisting of international members. Since ALCoB has implemented ‘ALCoB Cooperative Project’, it provides meaningful chance to enhance educational cooperative activities including knowledge and experience sharing and cultural exchange between ALCoB members in the APEC region.After completing the projects of each round, the project team members have published its process and outcomes into booklets and presented their activities at the International ALCoB Conference for member economies to share and evaluate their project results.
Since 2004 through 4th round of ALCoB Cooperative Project, the total 29 projects are successfully completed and 8 projects are currently implementing under the support from Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. In the 4th Round in 2007,there are 8 projects which are suggested by 60 members from 9 member economies: Brunei, China, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand(see, Appendix 6).
Particularly in the 2007 project, some ALCoB membersrequested to organize local ALCoB community in their own economyandthesuggested project proposals for ALCoB community structure in member economies to promote more active ALCoB activities in themselves. As results of it, ALCoB-Thai and ALCoB-Peru was generated consisting of various participants such as officials in Ministry of Education, researchers, teachers, students, and entrepreneur etc.
Asia-Pacific Cybereducation Journal (APCJ)
As academic part of this project, the Asia-Pacific Cybereducation Journal (APCJ) has been issued since 2004. APCJ is an international journal and deals with cyber and future education and international cooperation in education.
Being issued semiannually, a total of 2 journals were issued through online version in 2007. In the 2 issues in 2007, a report of APEC International Collaborative Education, project reports relevant to future education, introduction of cases of on-the-job training in practice and general articles were published.
Future Steps in 2008
Based on the outcomes in 2007, Korea and participating member economies expect to seek a way to inspire ALCoB to go through autonomous activities and maintain high quality in satisfying the needs of participants and reflecting real situation of member economies.
Last year, based on the increase both in quantity and in quality, it expected to have more active activities of ALCoB member economies as well as Korea in 2008. On April 2008, The new ALCoB project based on the contents discussed at the 5th International ALCoB Conference starts after the final selection.
With regard to AIV, it plans to dispatch volunteers consisting ALCoB members to 5 economies twice in August and December and its special features this year are to expand participation opportunity in ALCoB-U and ALCoB-L to diversify participants.
Lastly at the 6th International ALCoB Conference in August, it is expected to share the ALCoB activity for this year and discuss the practical vision of Future Education and plan a new program based on the discussion of ALCoB members in each economy.
- January ~ December 2008 Recruiting new ALCoB members (on/offline)
- April 2008~Starting the APEC Cooperative Projects
- August 2008Dispatching the round1st AIV in 2008 to member economies
- August 2008Convening the 6th International ALCoB Conference
- December 2008Dispatching the round 2nd AIV in 2008 to member economies
[Appendix 1] No. of ALCoBas global human network in the APEC region