US Embassy hold ICT training for journalists

Accra, June 10 GNA - The Information Service section of the United States Embassy in Accra on Wednesday organized a day's seminar for journalists on the use of the Web 2.0s to enhance their work. The Web 2.0s include Internet Base Services (IBS) such as the Facebook, Weblogs, Wikis, linklogs, folksonomies, Podcasts and twisters that emphasize online collaboration among users.

The seminar, which was sponsored by the U.S Embassy, is aimed at equipping Ghanaian journalists to be abreast with the handling and the development of IBS currently in the system. Ms Myra Michele Brown, Information Resource Officer, US Embassy and Resource person for the programme, urged Ghanaian journalists to make use of the numerous IBS on the Internet to get their stories direct to the people without any hindrance.

She said the huge advantage that comes with using Internet Base services such as blogs and podcasts allowed a person to focus on his area of interest and research into them.

She said using the Internet to create social networking helped to improve communication and eliminated duplication of efforts among group members who were aware of each other's research and progress. Ms Brown also said Africa had become the fastest growing mobile market in the world with mobile market penetration in the region ranging from 30 to 100 percent.

She said the advent of mobile communications in Africa had contributed significantly to economic growth which she said was described as good for development.

She said even though Africa was the fastest-growing telecom market more had to be done by the governments to improve the growth of broadband, which had been constrained by patchy national network and costly connections to international systems.