How Can Cultural Heritage and Language Be Preserved via ICT?
In a world that is becoming increasingly global, we still need to respect the local context. Especially language, which is the most important tool for transmitting culture from one generation to another. The loss of a language, or even just the subtleties of a language, is in fact, the loss of culture.
We all know this intrinsically, which is why in 2003 UNESCO General Conference adopted a recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace. The same year, 152 countries also agreed on a Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Our next Educational technology Debate will look at how educational systems – with the aid of technology – help countries preserve our myriad cultures and transmit culture from generation to generation and how we can best support the crucial issue of language survival in cyberspace.
We’ll seek to answer these questions and more:
- Should our education policies promote the teaching of indigenous languages?
- What priority should indigenous languages have versus more universal languages?
- Should all cultures express themselves and have access to the Internet in all languages, including indigenous ones?
- How can we encourage the creation and access to multilingual educational, cultural and scientific content in digital form?
- How can schools help in digitizing and preserving content with anthropological or historical value?
Join our selected thought leaders and your ETD peers to discuss what educational systems could and should do – with the help of ICTs – to avoid permanent losses to the collective memory of humankind.
And don’t be shy, do express your own opinions in the comments or email us with your own rebuttal post.