T E C H N O L O G Y
There are those who don't have hours to spend "surfing the net," and those who would rather jump right onto the right piece of information, or just forget about the whole Internet hype.As telecommunication infrastructure improves in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Internet accesses more and more people's homes, many in the region are asking the same question. The solution lies in proper training. And that's why part of the RECNet (Regional Environmental Cooperative Network) project is geared to helping people understand the benefits of the new information superhighway (more like a deep forest path in CEE), and ease their Internet search for environmental information.
Instead of training everyone, REC's approach is to train "local trainers" on how to use the new technology, and have them spread the word into their own countries and local language. One example was a "Training of Trainers on Internet" workshop organized in collaboration with the Environmental Management Training Center's Network (EMTC) this September 1-2 at the REC's head office in Szentendre. Attended by 10 participants from the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Russia, the workshop was conducted by Rossen Roussev, REC's former RECNet Project Manager and Webmaster.
The training provided a general introduction to the Internet and the many tools it offers to access information related to the environment in CEE and worldwide. Training manuals were also distributed, including RECNet's manual for environmental information access and donations from McGraw-Hill.
The next step is that these 10 "local trainers" will now be responsible for translating the manuals and modifying them to suit their own country's situation. Local EMTC nodes will then begin providing end-user Internet training to governments, NGOs, businesses and other interested parties.