The end of the year offers CDD members another chance to look at our accomplishments as well as goals for the upcoming New Year. We traditionally release the statistics at this time to our Center Staff and the general public showing the number of graduates who have completed the program. Numbers don’t lie and we are always surprised at our progress. I think you can see why we are all so proud of this year’s efforts.

We are rapidly closing in on reaching the 1000 mark. This is remarkable enough but particularly considering that we have never received funding and operate solely on the generosity of individual donors and volunteers. This is a "community" effort working at the purest sense of the term. CDD shows what happens when a group of individuals who share a common view organize themselves toward a goal. Never mind the fact that our members happen to be Los Angeles’ best and brightest in the world of Technology; brilliant minds who live and work here from across the globe. When attending a CDD Group Meeting we have often joked that it feels like we are in a UN Meeting. The fact is I have seen few issues draw more passion from the highly educated than that of making technology available to the masses. These elites refuse to allow the Digital Revolution to fall the way of past revolutions, (IE: Machine; Industrial), which benefited mainly the well educated and well positioned. The Digital World has the distinct possibility of finally bringing good jobs to society at large; the elusive Great Equalizer we have heard about is literally at our doorstep.

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Toss the Traditional Textbook
Open source education resources can replace stale old volumes
In the El Paso (Texas) Independent School District, the high school algebra textbooks are dog eared and worn, thumbed by students year after year and aligned with state educational standards that have since been updated. Like all printed books, the algebra books are frozen in time, reflecting (hopefully) the state of the art of knowledge at the moment the publisher's deadline hit. Therein, however, lies the problem. Classroom teaching shouldn't be as static as the textbooks on which it's based.

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Telecentre.org Programme

CSDMS has been actively engaged in the global telecentre movement since its inception and has organised Asian Telecentre Forum 2006, 2007 and Indian Telecentre Forum 2006, 2007 as part of eAsia 2006, 2007 and eIndia 2006, 2007. Since October 2006, CSDMS joined hands with telecentre.org, a global community of people and organisations committed to increasing the social and economic impact of grassroots telecentres, through knowledge sharing. CSDMS has become the knowledge partner for the telecentre.org programme. We are facilitating the community content from the Asian region. Vignesh Sornamohan of CSDMS is the contact person for this programme. You may reach Vignesh at vignesh@csdms.in.

Azerbaijan to Establish Electronic Schools

The Azerbaijani Education Ministry is working on establishment of electronic schools in the country. It is planned to establish some 10 electronic schools in Azerbaijan by the beginning of next academic year, the Azerbaijani Education Minister said.

Presently, implementation of the project is being researched. The Azerbaijani Government considers ICT should be developed in all fields, including education. In the coming years the Government intends to allot a lot of funds for this purpose. Implementation of 5-year program on computerization of general schools in Azerbaijan will be completed this year. Previously, the computer-student ratio in the country was 1 per 1,000. It is now estimated to be 30 per 1,000.

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The fifth session of the year came to a close on October 23rd, and the ceremony was up to the occasion.

The Emcee for this evening would be long-time CDD Instructor Ben Colfax. Ben returned to fill the Emcee position for an unprecedented 5th time. His relaxed yet professional style makes Ben clearly one of the favorites to act as Event Emcee. Ben welcomed the guests and thanked everyone for attending. He then offered a big congratulation to the night’s graduates. This was met by a rousing applause; the graduates were beaming. Ben shared the reasons he has been a CDD Instructor for the past 3 years and included accounts of students who were struggling with fear and low self-esteem. His experience with how much confidence and pride these students took from learning computers and completing the program. He encouraged the graduates to continue their education and to keep in touch with CDD with updates of their progress.  

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Read Cri-Help Course Report
Read Walden House Course Report
Read House of Uhuru Course Report
See Photo Slideshows

CDD Spotlights Volunteers for their Efforts
This month CDD spotlights volunteers from the install, instructor and web teams. We are grateful to these three spotlighted volunteers for their exceptional contribution to CDD. Read their stories

Crossing the Digital Divide actively seeks volunteer teachers, tech support, website assistance and general administration. Find out how you can contribute to helping our clients cross the digital divide. Volunteer!

Publishers: Shawn Sarkaria, Nikhil Ambale, Kathleen Patton