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Is Open and Distance Learning the Key to Quality Higher Education for All?

wayan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:26:54 +0000

UNESCO has repeatedly argued that the number of places for post-secondary learners must increase from approximately 120 million to 240 million worldwide, with large-scale growth already having been documented over the past decade. In the emerging economic powerhouses of the world, increased access to knowledge and education is crucial to guarantee continued growth.

Yet, it is virtually impossible to build the number of traditional post-secondary institutions to keep up with the increase in demand. Traditional universities represent a tremendous ongoing financial commitment when physical campuses classrooms need to be built, maintained, heated, cooled and secured.

The Distance Learning Solution

In distance learning, these costs (and their environmental footprint) are significantly less. This translates to more resources being spent on course design, development and student support services. This in turn leads to better student outcomes linked to the higher quality of instruction. Distance learning is also uniquely flexible, allowing for studies to be combined with working and family life and to be taken at the correct pace for the student (and in tune with what they can afford). Distance learning has also proven itself able to react quickly to specific economic and societal needs.

Views of distance learning vary significantly from region to region throughout the world. In most countries and regions, distance learning is respected as an alternative to studying on campus. Here, distance education has demonstrated its capacity and quality, and in many countries programmes are accredited by the same agencies that govern campus based education. The fact that we experience convergence between campus based, blended, and distance learning is also a driver for increased understanding.

In some parts of the world, however, this is not the case. The regulatory framework might not recognize distance education, or quality assurance may be lacking, leading to confusion and mistrust. This digital divide is a global challenge, as is resistance to embrace technology, though there are countless examples of ingenuity and innovation which seek to combat this.

Distance Learning in BRIC Nations

It is now ten years since the term BRIC was coined to describe the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. In distance education, there has been an explosion in student numbers in these countries. Indira Ghandi National Open University in India has the world’s largest student body with 1.8 million students, while The Open University of China’s spring 2011 enrolment saw a 9% year on year increase to 467,000 enrolments. Almost one in six students enrolled in undergraduate studies in Brazil enters into a distance learning course.

However, while each of these countries has experienced amazing progress in distance education, the obstacles that remain are very real: acceptance, regulation, infrastructure, and particularly the question of how to maintain quality at scale.

Please join this month’s Educational Technology Debate to define the problems, present solutions, and point a way forward for Open and Distance Learning in higher education.

About the Debate Coordinator

This debate is coordinated by the International Council for Open and Distance Education, the global membership organization for actors within open and distance learning. ICDE works towards the goals of Education for All through its status as an organization in formal consultative relations with UNESCO, and seeks to raise acceptance of open and distance learning at the government, institutional leadership, academic, and societal levels. The organization also seeks to facilitate dialogue between the developed and the developing world through its conferences, projects and information activity.

This inspiration for this debate came from a session organized by ICDE at the annual Online Educa Berlin conference in Germany in December. We look forward to the contributions from ICDE members representing the BRIC nations over the coming weeks, and to engaging with the ETD community.

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How Open Educational Resources Can Increase Opportunites for Everyone

wayan — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:48:10 +0000

Let me begin by suggesting a different question than “Do Open Educational Resources actually increase the digital divide?” Instead, let me ask: How can OERs be used to reduce the digital divide? Or more importantly, how can OERs be used to increase the opportunities for everyone to maximize their potential? To me, that is the underlying criterion we should use to determine which innovations for learning are desirable, and which ones are not.

Let’s begin by stipulating that the deep divides that are increasing today throughout the world, between the “have’s and have not’s”, create dangerous instabilities that impact all of us. Let’s also stipulate that, as with free public education and free public libraries, OERs are, in and of themselves, a good thing. Widespread free access to basic information forms the foundation of a sustainable society. OERs may become a key driver for the next stage in the evolution of public knowledge and democracy.

However OERs require a delivery system and an environment that enables people to take advantage of them. To the extent these conditions are unevenly available, OERs can indeed increase the opportunity divide and destabilize societies.

To be effective, an educational system must involve a comprehensive, systemic approach. No one piece, by itself can do the job. First, we need learners who are fed, healthy, and safe. Then we need access to quality content that is aligned with the goals of the society’s educational system, including its examinations and certificates, plus teachers who are comfortable with and able to employ effective approaches to learning and the technical infrastructure required to sustain the physical and social learning system.

Let’s look at these three parts.

1. Content

Content can be divided into two categories: “Just in Case” –available in case you might want it, and “Just in Time” –available when you need it to learn something or do something. There are lots of “Just In Case” OERs in the Cloud. That is really nice to have.

Just in Time (JIT) materials, on the other hand, are scarce. They are essential for learning that is aligned with specific educational goals and outcomes. Materials that are engaging but lack such alignments are doomed to be ignored by everyone – except possibly the students. The development of JIT resources is inherently a local task that is difficult and expensive. In addition, such OERs conflict with the interests of for-profit publishers who traditionally have provided closed educational resources. Nevertheless, given the rapid global expansion of OERs in higher education, I believe there is a good chance that, in time, OERS will become the dominant mode for elementary, secondary and continuing education as well. We should strongly support the development of high quality JIT OERs for basic learning.

2. Teachers

There are simply not enough teachers, let alone effective ones, to meet the growing demand for them in the developing world. I recently heard of a region in Ghana where teachers may have over 100 students in their classes. Some elementary schools in Rwanda have two half-day sessions. Often the teachers have barely graduated from high school, frequently at the bottom of their class. Many require a second job because of their meager salaries. They tend to leave for a better job as soon as they can. However a quality educational experience requires teachers who are skilled at supporting learning, and who convey to their students that they are valued and are expected to do well.

To respond to this challenge, Open Learning Exchange Ghana is launching an innovative program for learning how to learn. The Ghana LITE program employs a low-cost multimedia digital library called a School BeLL (Basic e-Learning Library) containing videos and materials for coaching teachers and students together. The class will see videos of highly effective project-oriented learning and will be given the materials needed to try these new ways of learning. After practicing, they will video themselves trying it out and seeing the differences between their own efforts and the model. This is an example of how OERs using cost-effective ICT can improve teaching and learning.

3. Technology

Today the ICT systems needed for delivering OERs are not available to the vast majority of people throughout the world. Close to 90 percent of our world’s children have no access to OERs today. Most do not have electricity. So we have some work to do.

And it is not simply a matter of providing the hardware. Educational technology has a long history which is not that impressive. Many promises have been made but, so far, there is only scattered evidence of effectiveness. Teaching machines go back to Pavlov and the Skinner Box followed by a long list of mechanical and then computerized devices that were heralded as the “answer” to poor teaching and the different learning rates of students. I remember being entranced by the PLATO system developed in the 60s by the University of Illinois – a network of mainframes with dialup connections delivering elementary through graduate level course materials. Why did these approaches not survive? Because each of these innovations focused too narrowly on one piece of the puzzle rather than dealing with the whole learning system.

Yet many people persist in believing that technology pretty much by itself can be used to improve radically the quality of education. For many, ICT has become the “dream” solution. It has worked with telephones, why not education? Those “many” include people who manufacture ICT equipment, those who champion things like laptops for every child, and many frustrated public officials who eagerly grasp the lore of ICT as a way to leap frog traditional schooling and enable their students to develop “Twenty-First Century skills”. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, believing in the ICT dream. This is despite the clear evidence that the hardware, by itself, comprises a small portion of the total cost of its effective use and, by itself, does not deliver on the dream.

The good news is that there are a few emerging examples where ICT, involving a more comprehensive systems approach are demonstrating significant improvements in basic learning. Innovation for Learning’s differentiated learning system, the TeacherMate, is one such example. In both the US and Africa the TeacherMate system has documented major increases in basic literacy over a short period of time using low-cost hand held devices. We need more such examples.

Nevertheless there is a real danger that the high cost and uneven availability of educational technologies will dangerously increase the opportunity gap among the most marginalized of our people.

A Challenge Prize

We don’t know how soon the prices of tablets and other devices that can be used for formal learning will come within reach of most children in developing nations. At today’s prices it is primarily those families and communities that do have reasonable incomes who have access to the hardware. Under these conditions, the opportunity divide will continue to increase.

But there may be another possibility.

We could create a Challenge Prize with specs for a $40 educational tablet that can be used, off the grid and the Internet, by poor children and their families to narrow their opportunity gap. That would address one of the requirements for enabling OERs to become gap-closers rather than gap-wideners. Who among us is interested in creating such a Challenge?

More than OER

In summary, I believe that OERs are a necessary and critical element for achieving our shared goal of ensuring every person on our small planet unfettered access to an ongoing high quality basic education. But, Tahrir Square not withstanding, there is no guarantee that a thoroughly digitized world infused with OER will increase meaningful opportunities for the 99% so long as the 1% are the sole deciders.

Thus, while dealing with some of the symptoms of unequal opportunity, we must also address their root causes by employing a total, democratic systems strategy – one that aligns the rules of our economies and our governments with our universal needs for food, health, a home and learning. Since everything is connected, only that will enable us to have the lives we want for ourselves and for the rest of us.

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Do Open Educational Resources Actually Increase the Digital Divide?

wayan — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:43:58 +0000

We have often focused on Open Educational Resources (OER) in the Educational Technology Debates. We talked about the need for creating digital content and examples of existing Open Educational Resources. But this month we’re going to ask a controversial question:

Does OER actually expand the digital divide?

The proponents of Open Educational Resources are right to point out the need for digital content. There are few if any locally relevant resources for educators in the developing world – local language being a major issue. So is access – to the hardware required to view content and often the Internet access to reach it. In addition to content, and the access to reach it, teachers need the skills and training to convert good content into great lessons.

But let us say that all these prerequisites exist – content, access, training:

Does that mean teachers will actually use it?
And who will they use it with? Students already advantaged with socio-economic resources or the underprivileged learners that are the ostensible focus of many educational technology interventions?
Most importantly, regardless of the benefits for the privileged, how can we create better OER benefits for the poor?

Please join us this month for what we all expect to be a lively and informative conversation – your input can start right now in the comments below. You can also submit your extended thoughts as a longer independent Guest Post of at least 500 words. Please email Guest Posts to editors@edutechdebate.org. We will be publishing Guest Posts throughout the month to maintain the conversation.

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Creating Indigenous Language Content with Universal Design In Early Literacy

wayan — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:21:50 +0000

iLearn4Free Inc is a 501C3 non-profit, whose mission is to bridge the digital language divide and support cultural sustainability by creating digital educational applications in multiple languages for early literacy.

Current situation:

Despite the fact that 94% of the world’s children are not native English speakers, there is a shocking absence of digital educational tools for early literacy in languages other than English.
There is now overwhelming evidence that children benefit from receiving early education in their own language, known as mother tongue learning, as learning to read in a language they do not speak can be very discouraging.

Mother tongue learning also has many social benefits. In multilingual societies, all communities feel equally respected if their language is used in schools, and learning in their mother tongue fosters a child’s capacity to express cultural identity.

iLearn4Free believes all children should have access to digital learning games in their mother tongue, as digital learning is an engaging and efficient way for them to learn and remain motivated.

A Multicultural Approach:

To meet our objective, our main challenge was to create an application that is adaptable to—and accessible by—a multitude of languages and cultures, while keeping costs at a minimum to enable a sustainable deployment.

The development of the application template is the result of an international collaboration between writers, designers and educators from many different nationalities; most of the work was performed through online collaboration.

Leaders and project managers often fail to see cultural differences for what they truly are: engines for creativity and innovation, we believe that a truly diverse and multi-cultural team is an indispensible tool when trying to achieve a universal design in the field of education.

To enable a worldwide deployment, we have chosen to integrate cultural diversity within our application. Instead of being culturally contextualized, we have written six stories with six different international characters that integrate cultural specificities, while staying close to children’s usual concerns: nature, animals, friendship, family, and more. Providing the context for the educational games, these stories are the result of a collaborative creative writing project, which involved about 10 individuals from 5 different nationalities.

Education in Linguistic Context:

The educational content itself, on the other hand, is developed exclusively with reading specialists, linguists, teachers and writers natives to the specific language.

The building process is very structured to ensure that the educational content can be integrated within our template. This has enabled us to be very efficient, and it has provided the team with a sense of comfort and security, which is important in the context of total virtual teamwork.

For the languages, which already have a lot of existing material using a structured learning approach close to the phonemic/syllabic approach, the task of creating the educational content is fairly easy. We are currently well under way for English, French and Spanish. German and Portuguese should follow shortly.
For languages which are not systematically taught in schools—or for which the teaching method is not close to phonemic/syllabic approach—then creating content will require more expertise, and this will be the case of some of the developing world languages.

We are currently starting to work on Papiamento and Malagasy, two languages that are suitable for the interactive learning games, but which have a very different history in terms of their usage in education. We are hoping to set up a process enabling us to be efficient even in these fairly extreme cases.

Financial sustainability

The sustainability of the project is based on the assumption that the apps will be sold in countries where the population can afford it, and will be free in the developing world. Nevertheless, even if the population has the financial means and has access to the technology, if a small number of people speak the language, the development might not be sustainable. This is why we look at a global sustainable model. Common resources enable the cost reduction approach: graphics, app structure and educational games are used for all the languages.

The application has been initially developed for the iPod to ease the pilot phase, during which the educational content is to be validated, and then it will be deployed for other platforms including a web-based approach.

Conclusion

I believe that a global social enterprise approach is an interesting way to tackle the lack of educational content in languages other than English. While trying to create the equivalent of PBS Kids for non-English speakers is probably a far-reaching goal, I hope our application will encourage other educational content providers to take into account the entire population, and give the opportunity to learn through games to every child in their own language.

The contextualization and implementation of a teacher competency framework for ICT4E in Guyana

wayan — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:24:14 +0000

The Government of Guyana has recognized the huge potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to empower Guyanese to meet developmental challenges and strengthen the economy. The role of ICT in International Trade is making industries more competitive, in facilitating e-commerce, in the health and education sectors and in simply making a wide range of information and services available electronically is fully recognized.

The Government has therefore outlined various policies that are aimed at creating an environment that will foster technology use and encourage investment in ICT , with the Education sector being one of the most critical areas. This is because narrowing the digital gap is more than just providing physical access to computers and the Internet; people must understand how to put it to good use. The ICT in Education Strategy comprises the following elements:

Focus on Professional Development

Policy makers within the Education sector recognized that – in order for the government to achieve its objectives – emphasis had to be placed on teacher professional development in the areas of ICT in education, and therefore looked at ways to contextualize and implement the process.

The National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD) is the Department within the Ministry of Education tasked with delivering all Continuous Professional Development programmes for in-service teachers. The ICT Unit within NCERD, which is staffed by three people, is responsible for all teacher training projects. The mandate of the Unit is to:

Train all teachers to the Basic Computer literacy level by 2012.
Manage all schools with computer laboratories (65 Primary, 80 Secondary).
Implement SuccessMaker Software into the 50 schools which includes training of 2,000 teachers in its use.
Train all secondary school teachers to deliver the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) Information Technology and Electronic Document Preparation and Management Syllabi (109 teachers).
Research and develop modules for all aspects of ICT training within the Education sector.
Identify, train and implement low cost technologies with the schools system example (Jolly Phonics, Television, DVD’s, White Boards, etc).

The Unit was brought on stream in 2009 and a five-year work programme was prepared that outlined the rollout of the various tasks as outlined below:

Contracted local experts in ICT from the University of Guyana (UG) and sought permission from Microsoft to use materials from them to create the first set of training manuals for the Basic Computer Literacy Level.
Once the Manuals were completed, 20 Master Trainers were trained in the delivery of the content. These master trainers were senior IT teachers from the secondary level, with degrees in computer science from UG and Trained Teachers Certificates from the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE).
On average, 15 training classes were held every week, all over the country and in Georgetown.
The SuccessMaker Training Programme was ongoing in 14 primary schools and is being implemented in phases in additional 50 primary schools from October, 2011.
A whole-schools approach to the training of the teachers in the Schools with IT Labs was adopted and training is being done in those schools in the afternoons by the resources persons. The training is a combination of the Basic Computer Literacy and the use of SuccessMaker.
109 secondary school teachers were trained in programming over a period of one year.

As part of the five-year work programme, it is expected that all 13,000 teachers in Guyana would be trained to at least a level of basic computer literacy.

To date:

3,500 teachers have been trained in Basic Computer Literacy;
30 schools are running SuccessMaker successfully;
109 Secondary School teachers are competent to deliver Computer Science syllabi and the number of students writing these subjects has tripled in 2 years.

The ICT unit has faced some challenges. The major ones were:

Qualified personnel to help with module writing;
Retention of resource personnel;
Equipment – lack of computers for training programmes;
Lack of financial resources for implementation of initiatives and associated travel requirements;
Lack of connectivity.

After reviewing the options available and recognizing that there was a lack of direction, the Ministry decided to adopt the UNESCO ICT Competence Framework for Teacher in November, 2009. The Ministry then entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Commonwealth Secretariat (ComSec) and Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to secure their help in applying the Framework in such a way that it would suit the needs of Guyana. Based on this, an ICT Professional Development Strategy for Teachers in Guyana was developed in March, 2010, within the UNESCO Framework presented below.

The long-term outcomes of this strategy will be to ensure that all Ministry of Education officials, teacher development management and staff, school principals, and teachers are competent to harness ICT effectively to support high quality teaching and learning in Guyanese schools, with:

Most able to integrate the use of basic ICT tools into the standard school curriculum, pedagogy, and classroom structures, knowing how, where, and when (as well as when not) to use technology for classroom activities and presentations, for management tasks, and to acquire additional subject matter and pedagogical knowledge in support of their own professional development; and
A critical mass able to use more sophisticated methodologies and technologies with changes in the curriculum that emphasize depth of understanding and application of school knowledge to real world problems and pedagogy in which the teacher serves as a guide and manager of the learning environment and students are engaged in extended, collaborative project-based learning activities that can go beyond the classroom and may involve local or global collaborations.

Description of the Strategy

The ICT Professional Development Strategy for Teachers in Guyana will provide a comprehensive framework and learning pathway for Ministry of Education officials, school principals, administrators, and teachers to become competent to harness ICT effectively to support high quality teaching and learning. This learning pathway will use the UNESCO ICT CFT as its guiding framework. It will seek to develop core competences for the key intended audiences for a suite of professional development initiatives, as mapped out below.

Thus, the Guyana ICT Professional Development Framework for Teachers will incorporate the following initial professional development options.

ICT components in the revised CPCE programme (which, according to current plans, will be a two-year programme leading to a two-year Associate Degree in Education):
- Two compulsory courses to introduce teachers to technology – electronic and otherwise – and then in more detail to ICT in education, equivalent to six semester credits (these courses are anticipated to focus on the level of ‘Technology Literacy’, in terms of the UNESCO ICT CFT);
- A dedicated focus in secondary subject options to enable teachers to specialise in teaching IT as a subject;
- Subject-specific ICT integration specializations (incorporated into subject-specific courses, not delivered as separate modules).
ICT components in the revised UG programme (a further two years of study, which will lead to a Bachelor of Education Degree):
- Two further compulsory courses on ICT integration in education, again equivalent to six semester credits (anticipated to focus on the level of ‘Knowledge Deepening’, in terms of the UNESCO ICT CFT)
- A dedicated focus in secondary subject options to enable teachers to specialize in teaching IT as a subject;
- Subject-specific ICT integration specializations (again incorporated into existing modules, not delivered as separate modules).
A suite of courses to be offered by NCERD, with the possibility that some may, through a licensing agreement, be delivered by one or more suitable third-party suppliers and quality assured by NCERD. In the next five years, the objective will be to:
- Create a dedicated module on ICT Integration for school principals, to be integrated into the 18-month course for school principals. In addition, it will be important to offer this module as a stand-alone course for people who have already successfully completed the course without the ICT Integration module. This module will include a specific focus on ‘Using ICT in school administration’.
- Re-package the four ICT Integration modules being designed for the new CPCE and UG ADE and B. Ed. programmes as into two stand-alone courses for qualified teachers, as well as designing a stand-alone course for qualified teachers who are teaching IT as a subject, but are not formally qualified to do so.
- Develop a stand-alone course on using Success Maker in schools. This short course will require two versions, one for teachers who are already ICT literate and one for those who are not.
- Design of a course for ICT Coordinators at schools.
- Design of a course for ICT maintenance and support personnel.

Implementation

The Innovative and Communication Unit within NCERD has worked closely with a consultant appointed by COL and ComSec on all aspects of the strategy and agreed upon the following principles and assumptions:

Integration of the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers into all ICT TD initiatives and the curriculum design of all courses;
Focus on constructing clear learning pathways for Guyanese teachers aligned to the Framework;
Use of appropriate technologies and online/offline applications – different models;
Delivery of professional development will be timed to coincide with ICT infrastructure models and rollout into schools;
Alignment of pre-service and in-service TD (CPD);
Increase capacity to deliver and capacity building of all staff;
Change management is central to the strategy;
All courses will be competency-based and include appropriate blends of face-to-face and distance learning and use of e-learning/appropriate technologies;
Seek international benchmarking for courses (e.g. submit relevant courses and modules that it designs to The Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth for formal approval when this becomes possible);
Seek to build on and adapt existing national and international courses and modules wherever possible;
Facilitate sharing of courses and materials by releasing them as Open Educational Resources (OER) on the Connected Classrooms Repository.

In addition, the World Bank, in collaboration with the Government of Guyana, has launched a project for the re-structuring of the CPCE and the UG Faculty Of Education and Humanities. The decision was taken that the UNESCO Framework would also be the basic for all ICT Courses offered by the two Institutions and that they would be aligned with what was offered at NCERD.

The COL/ComSec consultant, working very closely with the ICT Unit at NCERD, has:

Designed an instrument that is being administered to all Guyanese teachers, as well as personnel at CPCE, UG, and NCERD. This instrument is a baseline study that will be used to determine the ICT capacity of the respondents. The data analysis and results will be used for decision making within the MOE, and this analysis will be repeated annually.
Begun developing the Modules for Technology Literacy and Knowledge Deepening. The existing modules from all ICT courses offered at the three institutions will be reviewed and modified to meet the standards of the UNESCO Competency framework for Teacher Professional Development. The first set of modules is expected to be piloted in August, 2011.
Several proposals for the improvement of the ICT Infrastructure within the three institutions have been tabled and procurement is on-going.

Conclusion

In conclusion, recognising that it is people that drive ICT use to create change in societies, the Ministry of Education is of the notion that the integration of ICT into the learning and teaching process through teacher training and professional development will become the backbone to creating a knowledge society that will have impact on the way ICT is used in the Country.

The plans and initiatives outlined in this document are aimed at:

Changing the education culture of Guyana by addressing one of the critical needs within the system – stimulating and inculcating the use of ICT by all educator at all levels thus moving them from the analogue mode of thinking and moving them to the digital age, which will bridge the digital divide between teachers and their learners.
Creating a society of responsible ICT users who can effect change in the way ICT is currently being used in Guyana – teachers and students can make decisions and choices that are based on a social and moral responsibility to the country.
Preparing teachers with the fundamentals to be the driving force behind all of the initiatives that are being implemented by the Government of Guyana.

The conceptualization and implementation of the UNESCO competency framework will equip the teachers to face the growing demands for Guyana to join the rest of the Caribbean and world in creating a global Knowledge Society.

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African NRENs can expand educational opportunities across education sectors

wayan — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:22:44 +0000

Over the past three decades, the revolution in computers and telecommunications networks has created unprecedented changes in business, commerce, government, science, health care, and education. New jobs, new industries, an explosion in entrepreneurship, new modes of community building, increased learning opportunities, ease of access to timely information and global markets, and the ability of an extended community to interact closely across space and time: all are dividends of this revolution in network and information technology and the remarkable underlying Internet culture of change.

Yet the fruits of this Information Age are still unevenly distributed. This gap threatens to continue to cut off some populations from new opportunities. Access to new forms of education, good jobs, medical and health information, communication, and the chance to participate in the affairs of the broader society may be denied to them. For some individuals, technology brings the promise of inclusion, education, opportunity, wealth, and better health; for others, greater isolation and continuing poverty. Many look to universities and K-12 schools to bridge this gap.

Meanwhile, today’s Internet—the commodity or commercial Internet—has recognized a number of limitations. At the same time numerous opportunities and new possibilities have emerged. Some challenges, like the inability to provide workable “quality of service” or end-to-end performance guarantees needed for demanding applications such as telepresence (the current state-of-the-art videoconferencing technology) were outside the scope of the Internet’s original design goals. Challenges, such as dealing with today’s gargantuan amounts of traffic, exploding number of users and sites, privacy and security needs of users and institutions, and requirements for Internet addresses, are the consequences of unanticipated success.

Many new but challenging opportunities, like the delivery on demand of real-time, movie-quality, high definition television (HDTV) or even films over the Internet, as well as many new and experimental approaches to health care, are the product of extraordinary progress in a wide array of technology industries that are now convergent with the Internet’s evolutionary path. Other new applications and capacities are outside the focus of the commercial Internet. These innovative activities are supported best by research test-beds, the international fabric of national research and education networks (NRENs), which focus on the development and deployment of the next generation of Internet technologies.

The regular or “commodity” Internet was not designed to handle the huge amount of data transfer, the explosive numbers of users, or the interactive, media-rich applications commonly used today. For applications where reliability is critical and delay is unacceptable – applications such as real-time streaming events, access to remote scientific instruments, high definition video-conferencing, online gaming, and interactive immersive worlds and simulations – the commodity Internet is inadequate. Research and education networks were purpose-built by the research and education community to offer the flexibility, performance, speed, and advanced services that allow these applications to evolve and thrive.

NRENs serve many functions. They create leading-edge network capability for the international research community; they enable revolutionary Internet applications; they ensure the rapid transfer of new network services and applications to the broader Internet community; they provide a platform for sharing scientific (and other) applications and resources; they aggregate demand for bandwidth and thereby create “buying clubs,” drive down the cost of bandwidth; and they create social value by including communities outside their primary research university constituencies, like primary and secondary schools, libraries, museums, scientific and cultural institutions. In order to flourish, NRENs must focus on the technical dimensions of data networks and they must also attend to the human dimension, the creation of shareable expertise for support and collaboration across many fields of research and education.

The African Context for NRENs

NRENs began in Africa about ten years ago, with Eastern and Southern Africa at the forefront. The availability of fiber and the high cost of bandwidth were, initially, limiting factors. Now, with several trans-oceanic submarine cable systems completed or near completion, and with a concurrent expansion of terrestrial fiber across Africa, access to fiber is within reach on most of the continent. Prices have dropped significantly, although bandwidth is still pricey when compared with rates in many other parts of the world. NRENs can help to address pricing inequities across countries by (a) aggregating demand among universities and, more broadly, within the school sector (more on this below); (b) architecting networks with points of presence across broad and complex geographies; and (c) and by working across national boundaries to create regional optical networks and, ultimately, a pan-African optical network.

Furthermore, African NRENs can leapfrog their counterpart NRENs elsewhere in the world and build networks without some of the inherent historical limitations of comparable networks, emphasizing collaboration and mass access to education and research applications across educational sectors. In addition, African NRENs can design their networks to combine the best of wireless and mobile technologies with optical networks. Inspiring leaders, ambitious goals, and imaginative and carefully crafted plans – these things (and more) will guarantee that African NRENs will flourish.

The continent has a firm foundation in place. There are NREN success stories such as KENET in Kenya, RENU in Uganda, TENET in South Africa, Xnet in Namibia, to name a few. And there are regional efforts, the most prominent of which is the UbuntuNet Alliance, which began as a regional bandwidth aggregator and now has created a very strong human network and an operational point-of-presence which can, over time, be the initial hub of a regional network. The UbuntuNet Alliance is, in fact, a model for subsequent developments in West Africa (WACREN) and North Africa and the Arab States (ASREN) – both of which are nascent regional networks, now human networks and, eventually optical networks.

The cornerstone of the R&E networking is the Local Area Network (LAN), which is the network serving a university, school, museum, or research institution, and the network closest to the end-user. In some instances, these LANs might connect to a municipal network or another Wide Area Network (WAN) and then to an NREN. In other instances, the LAN may connect directly to the NREN. Similarly, NRENs may connect to a multi-national regional network or directly to other international NRENs or, perhaps, to a pan-African R&E Network. Much will depend upon local conditions, regulatory structures, and geography. (In its ideal state, networking is a function of the best technological practices and geography, not politics.) Figure #1 below illustrates the various strata of networking.

NRENs: A Necessary Foundation for African e-Science

Advanced information, communication, computation and collaboration technologies – known as cyberinfrastructure – have become essential elements for education and for research in the 21st century. Of particular interest to many researchers and educators is the use of these tools for “e-science,” as computational discovery has emerged to complement the traditional practices of theory and experimentation. Examples abound across all scientific disciplines, as well as in the arts and humanities.

Explosive growth in the resolution of sensors and scientific instruments has led to unprecedented volumes of environmental and experimental data, which can be combined, compared, and correlated across time, place, and types of data. Computational science aids in modeling, simulation, and scenario assessment using data from diverse sources. Complex multidisciplinary problems – from health care and public policy to national security, scientific discovery, and economic competitiveness –complement the historical focus on single disciplines. And important multidisciplinary discoveries are now made by teams of experts spread around the world.

Advanced cyberinfrastructure, enabled by very high-speed research and education networks, is essential for participating in all these efforts. Those without access and the ability to participate will not have full participation in 21st century innovation.

Therefore, a major challenge confronting African nations today is how to ensure that all colleges and universities, including those that have not traditionally benefited from expensive research infrastructure, can participate seamlessly in national and multinational e-science efforts that are cyberinfrastructure-enabled. The challenge begins with the need for ubiquitous deployment of advanced research and education networks.

NREN Practices to Consider

Peering
As the Internet evolved from a US government funded network in the 1980s to a world-wide, market driven network in the 1990s and beyond, one organizing principle continues to endure – the settlement-free exchange of Internet traffic among independent networks. Often referred to as “peering” by the community of engineers and operators of networks, this seemingly contradictory notion of the free exchange of traffic among competitors as an economic benefit has become an important foundation in the growth of the network. Large centers of settlement-free peering have also resulted in greater network resiliency in light of geographic or systemic outages, and the promotion of fair and equitable access to the constantly evolving Internet marketplace.

There are a few key structural principles one may wish to consider when implementing settlement-free peering facilities in an emerging NREN or regional network:

Geographic diversity. Internet routing decisions often follow the “first exit rule”. Thus, a network needing to pass data to another “peer” network will usually pass that traffic to its peer at the first opportunity. This often results in networks only agreeing to peer with one another if the peering facilities are distributed widely in a given geographic area.
Resiliency. One should build a high degree of redundancy in all of the necessary components comprising a peering facility; electricity (i.e., multiple feeds with generator backup), diverse fiber paths in to and out of the facility, and “carrier class” environmentals such as HVAC, security, and fire-suppression.
Open access. A peering facility should have equitable, open and easily understood criteria for all participants who wish to connect to the peering fabric (i.e., switches, routers, fiber-distribution panels). The more participation from networks in a peering facility, the higher the degree of usefulness to all concerned.
Sustainability. The success of a peering facility itself becomes a potential service liability if the facility is underfunded or inadequately maintained. Early peering facilities in the US in the 1980s were sponsored and subsidized by the federal government, with commercially managed peering facilities quickly following once economies of scale were reached. Depending upon the financial realities of a nascent deployment of continental peering facilities, one may want to consider government subsidy and oversight of early peering facilities until an economy of scale is achieved to allow a more independent yet still reliable support model.

IPv6
Conventional computers have been joined on the Internet by a myriad of new devices, including iPads and smart phones, smart TV set-top boxes and videogames with integrated Web browsers, and embedded network components in equipment ranging from office copy machines to kitchen appliances to automobiles.

Internet Protocol version 6 is needed because the Web is running out of addresses. The current technology, known as Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), supports just 4 billion addresses, not nearly enough to cope with the new devices that connect to the Internet and need addresses and certainly not enough addresses to cope with the explosion of new devices across the African continent.

With the future in mind, IPv6 has been outfitted with an enormous address space that should provide globally unique addresses for every conceivable variety of network devices for the foreseeable future (i.e., decades).

But IPv6 is a complex structure and addressing is only the most visible component. IPv6 also attempts to deal with critical business requirements for more scalable network architectures, improved security and data integrity, auto configuration, mobile computing, data multicasting, and more efficient network route aggregation at the global backbone level.

Middleware: Access and Identity Management
The term “middleware” is used to cover a broad array of tools, information, and what programmers call “hooks” that help applications use advanced network resources and services. Middleware can be thought of as glue layers that provide reliable, standardized support services like authenticating users and authorizing them (or not) to use specific applications or have access to certain on-line resources. Indeed one common application of middleware is to provide the common services and information necessary to allow applications to restrict or enable access (“log on”) to certain resources.

Middleware such as authentication (are people or programs who they say they are?), authorization (what is he/she/it allowed to do?), and the directory services needed to keep track of users, resources, and any rules that may apply to them, comprise essential elements of any shared network computing infrastructure. Other middleware services, such as cooperative scheduling of networked resources, enabling secure multicast or interactive video or object brokering (matching requests with providers for relatively high level services, such as databases, format, or protocol conversion) are preconditions for many applications and services sought by the research and education communities. These include a number of innovative applications.

Broad adoption across education of certain standardized middleware fabric is a key requirement for addressing the needs of the education community for capabilities like user-friendly, but broadly shared and highly cost-effective access to libraries and other educational resource repositories, remote scientific tools, music repositories, and other intellectual property; for use of widely and safely shared interactive services; and for workable and properly protected wide-scale student records access and transmission. As such, middleware must be, as a practical matter, interoperable between applications, among campuses and other educational institutions, and the wider Internet. This effort will not be successful if individual groups or institutions build their own internal versions of middleware and then try to patch the pieces together. African NRENs are at a distinct advantage here as the compromises required to develop a common framework, standards, and protocols for attribute naming, storage, and exchange are easier to obtain when there are no existing use cases.

However, developing and managing the trust relationships necessary for the success of identity management can be tricky. The more diverse the groups, the more complex this becomes, particularly when the focus is inclusion of many educational sectors beyond universities. One should expect significant challenges as divergent interests and priorities will be even greater in this environment. The bottom line is that the technical issues are the least difficult to address. New policies specific to access identity management, and the operational issues caused by them, tend to be bigger hurdles. As with introduction of any new processes, effective change management will play a significant role in successful outcomes.

Some engagement of organizations like UbuntuNet and key leaders among existing African NRENs in international access and identity management federations like REFEDS would, ultimately, be extremely beneficial to successful implementation of middleware across diverse educational sectors among these NRENs.

Wireless Access
Given the prevalence of mobile and wireless technologies for mass access to education in African countries, careful attention to the integration of the various forms of wireless technologies – Microwave, Wi-Fi, WiMax, and cellular (3G, 3.5G and 4G) – is critical. These are all excellent ways to extend the reach of wired R&E networks. The best practices are dependent upon the environment, potential commercial partners, available spectrum, and other local conditions.

Wi-Fi is still the leader in terms of network speed. It is best suited for building or campus environments. The equipment is inexpensive and readily available. WiMax and cellular networks are usually deployed in connection with a wireless service provider, although there are several examples of communities and institutions deploying their own. The real differences between 3G/4G are data-rates and the amount of spectrum that is in use. For instance, 3G networks can exceed the speed of a T-1 line (a fiber optic line with a 1.5Mb/s speed). Second generation data networks (2G cellular) still have a place as they are widely deployed and their slower speeds often mean less cost.

Extending the Reach of African NRENs: Supporting Schools and SchoolNets

NRENs can provide significant social benefit by extending their reach to schools and other educational institutions (e.g., libraries, museums, scientific and cultural organizations). Such efforts can contribute to the development of prospective university students who can begin to develop fluency with information technologies while in primary and secondary schools. In addition, there are many compelling models of university students being trained to be both technology and content experts who intern at school sites and in doing so, enrich their own experiences as well as the students and teachers whom they support. It is a wonderful way to train students, particularly those in non-technical fields who may aspire to occupations where information technology is either at the center of their work or essential to it.

In the U.S., the K20 Initiative now engages schools in 43 of the 50 states, and over 70,000 schools and millions of students. It was not conceived at the outset of the creation of Internet2 but has become one of the hallmarks of the U.S.’s advanced R&E network initiatives. If African NRENs are essentially greenfield efforts, extending their reach to schools would have many benefits. By increasing the numbers of institutions participating, such an effort could have a positive impact financially by aggregating bandwidth costs across significantly more institutions.

Broadly stated, a schools initiative can have many goals, which may include the following: (1) to bring innovators in K-12, colleges, universities, libraries, and museums into appropriate regional, national, and international advanced networking efforts, creating new “workgroups” where warranted; (2) to develop mechanisms for enabling quick, pervasive technology diffusion and transfer; (3) to create mechanisms for timely communication across educational sectors and regions; (4) to leverage and propagate a culture of parallel independent efforts along with education, private sector, and government partnerships; (5) to get interested and capable schoolnets connected and properly engaged in existing workgroups and projects; and (6) where there is interest and realistic opportunity, to include appropriate experiments in learning and education and help enable experiments involving innovative deployments of advanced technologies in education at school sites.

Among the many activities of such an initiative, relevant local, provincial, and national special interest groups might be formed in some of the areas described below to pursue collaborative ventures:

Digital learning resources, content repositories and open educational resources
Learning management systems and education management systems
Videoconferencing: H.323 and other interactive video and multimedia technologies, digital video, low- to high-end video multicast, and the convergence of on demand video and broadcast
Access to scientific apparatus and other broad application areas which could be shared across educational communities
Middleware, enhanced portal, and “relationship-ware” deployment and partnerships
Advanced server technologies, caching, and co-location strategies
IPv6 deployment
“Buying clubs” to purchase access devices (computers, mobile devices, etc.)
Cloud resources

Despite the many challenges and complexities ahead, African NRENs have innumerable opportunities to expand educational opportunities across the widest range of education sectors, to create a platform for African faculty and students to engage in research collaborations across the continent and the globe, and to support a rising generation of researchers, educators, professionals, and leaders who will contribute to a peaceful and prosperous Africa.

This discussion is part of the eTranform Africa initiative.

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The Role of NRENs in National Development

wayan — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:30:42 +0000

National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) are gaining clout in Africa. At the last count, UbuntuNet reports 13 NREN members and 6 NRENs in development in East and Southern Africa, while WACREN reports 2 NREN members and 9 NRENs in development. UbuntuNet and WACREN are regional RENs for their respective regions.

This modest success has come with repeated failures, often after multiple attempts at forming an NREN within the same country. Many times, the failure has been the result of competition amongst member institutions or simply the perception that an NREN would favour a particular institution. The indifference of most national governments has also not helped.

Despite the challenges, Africa now has some NRENs to talk about outside of South Africa’s TENET. Emerging NRENs like Kenya’s KENET or Tanzania’s TERNET are already peering with their global counterparts via the UbuntuNet hub in London. The successful efforts emanate from recognition by a few local research and educational institutions that they stand to benefit more from working together, despite their competition, rather than alone as has been the norm in different African countries.

Luckily, early adopters tend to leave the door open for others to join when they come around, in true NREN-spirit. Emerging trends in Africa indicate that when Universities drive NREN formation without government intervention, the tendency is to work together to address a common problem—usually the high cost of bandwidth – by pooling resources like in the KENET example. Where governments intervene to start an NREN, they tend to provide basic infrastructure to interconnect members like in Sudan’s SUIN or even subsidise the cost of bandwidth like in Rwanda’s RwEdNet.

Opportunities and challenges

As more African countries embrace ICT as a tool that can be leveraged to improve their education systems, a number of opportunities are available for NRENS. Perhaps the biggest role NRENs can play is the development of the necessary technical human expertise to help sustain this drive. Many African countries are working towards getting access to international fibre optic cables in an effort to improve Internet connectivity.

With faster pipes to the Internet, also come digital espionage, hackers, malware and many of the other vices of the Internet realm. NRENs can become a valuable national asset that is independent and knowledgeable, helping nurture the requisite knowledge to not only appropriate the digital realm, but also secure networks in the national interest.

Examples might include coordinating a national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), managing critical infrastructure like an Internet eXchange Point (IXP) or even the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. Unfortunately, few if any African NRENs have so far gone down this route.

An NREN can help address various ICT divides that exist within a country. An access-divide might exist between institutions with Internet connectivity and those without because they cannot afford or are simply out of reach. Through the NREN, well-off institutions or even government can help subsidise poor institutions in the national interest.

A geographic-divide might exist between institutions near the capital city that pay much less for connectivity compared to their rural counterparts who pay much higher costs. Usually the NREN guarantees the same bandwidth cost irrespective of distance like the case of KENET in Kenya or TENET in South Africa.

Many more opportunities can emerge from institutions collectively working together through an NREN. These may include:

Lobbying government departments and various regulators about issues that affect their functions;
Leveraging the resultant network to offer distance courses that can be delivered over e-learning platforms;
Working together to make portability of students and their records much easier
Cost-sharing when it comes to the procurement of expensive information systems that support common functions

There are challenges that NRENs have to navigate before they can play a complementary role in the development of many African countries. Key amongst these is the lack of recognition by national governments of the critical role that NRENs could play in national development.

Thus, many have neither created an enabling environment with supportive policies nor provided the necessary funding for NRENs to thrive. Many national regulators do not quite understand the operations of NRENs and have no distinct license that can permit their full range of activities. Hence an NREN has to engage and educate a whole range of players across different levels of government in order to be able to operate.

There is also still a perception amongst some within the private sector, particularly the local telcos or Internet service providers (ISPs), that NRENs are their competition. This makes it harder to argue for special status or funding that is critical to get NRENs off the ground. Often, the commercial sector and indeed regulators argue that this special treatment might distort the local market.

These private sector players are usually more effective lobbyists and can severely hamper a nascent NREN’s activities or even kill it off, in circumstances where NREN members have not convalesced around a common problem. Given that many emerging NRENs do not own infrastructure and have to rely on the private sector, they have to walk a delicate path in the beginning to survive and thrive.

Sustainability of African NRENs is another significant challenge. Even in the rare case that capital costs are born by another party (government or development partner donation), recurrent costs tend to be a problem for most since network spares and maintenance are both costly. Good technical ICT expertise is difficult to nurture, but once developed, the NREN finds itself in competition with the private sector.

NRENs have to devise different motivational schemes to hold onto exceptional talent since they cannot match private sector salaries. Sometimes being on the cutting-edge of network technology can attract talent, but one wonders if African NRENs could collaborate more to attract and retain talent. Information and management systems are still costly, but while becoming increasingly critical for member operations, this is an area worthy of collaboration, but member institutions still seem unready to share despite overlapping functions.

Success factors and barriers to wider dissemination and take up

There are a number of critical success factors that can help NRENs navigate many of the challenges identified above: Key amongst these include:

The need to identify and cultivate local champions, particularly within various arms of government and amongst member institutions. These can help push for the NREN cause and be advocates in places like the regulators, the Ministry of ICT (or telecommunications), the Ministry of Education, etc.
Separating responsibilities and relationships between the provision of NREN services on one hand and ownership of the NREN on the other. At the service level, NREN management must nurture relationships with direct contacts at member institutions like the ICT director. At the ownership level, high-level executives from member institutions must develop a sense of commitment and shared ownership of the NREN so that there is shared vision despite institutional differences;
For financial sustainability, an NREN should strive to recover operational costs from member institutions from the onset. This can help the NREN quickly focus on competitive service offerings on one hand and dissuade members from the “free-service” syndrome on the other hand. Third-party assistance should best be sought for capital expenditure and capacity development initiatives

There are still few barriers out there that most African NRENs still need to figure out how to mitigate

Many potential NREN members tend to compete for the same students and/or research grants. This can make it difficult to see beyond short-term competition, to enable members explore avenues for collaboration that create a vibrant NREN useful to all in the long-term
Many NRENs start life as bandwidth consortia, given the high cost of bandwidth in Africa. It is quite easy for commercial ISPs to offer such services at better prices in a bid to thwart an NREN and fend off perceived competition. How can nascent NRENs engage them can help address this threat?
Member institutions need to put their money where their words are. If ICT investments are deemed critical to educate the new breed of workforce, then budget priorities within the institution should reflect this

Reflections

While NRENs in the developed world focus on next-generation challenges for research and higher education, in Africa NRENs must also worry about this and much more:

How can NRENs nurture the human networks that provide a structure to enable Africans to produce and share knowledge more effectively? To increase research and academic collaboration? Such networks would form the core users of the underlying physical networks that NRENs seek to create.
How can NRENs foster local content networks so that NREN network traffic is increasingly local or regional and not always destined to the west?
How can NRENs help develop and support ICT capacity within member institutions in competition with the private sector that can pay much more for ICT talent than NRENs will ever afford?

This must all happen within the context of increasing student enrolment and dwindling support and investments in education from African governments. Higher education in Africa is becoming commercialised—as government owned institutions receive less funding and increasingly compete with commercial institutions or those funded from other sources.

Recommendations to policy makers, regulators and other stakeholders

I would like to make the following recommendations to various stakeholders:

Policy makers in Africa should wake up to the potential role that NRENs can play within their national development plans. If developed countries, with much better digital infrastructure still continue to invest in their NRENs, how about us who are just barely getting started? They need to formulate policies and regulations that empower the national NREN to exist and thrive.
Government should bestow formal recognition to the NRENs and facilitate them to acquire an appropriate legal status. In some countries, the legal recognition that NRENs can acquire might be in conflict with the international expectations and thus hinder the local NREN’s full participation in the global arena.
Regulators need to grant NRENs appropriate licenses that permit them it to peer or transit network traffic with neighbouring NRENs. This is a prerequisite to full participation within the global NREN fraternity.
Leaders of research and academic institutions need to figure out ways to better collaborate even if they compete for the same research grants and students. They face similar challenges when it comes to ICT integration within their core functions. How can they effectively work together to create more awareness about the potential role of ICT in education? Address the fear-of-change and mind-set issues that arise when people feel that their once-lifetime jobs are now threatened? Tackle the varying levels of ICT literacy both within their own and across institutions?
Regional RENs need to engage regulators through regional fora and enlighten them about the potential of NRENs within a national context. In addition, they need to encourage African NRENs to peer locally on the continent. For while there might not be much to share for the moment, “one generation plants the seeds, another generation gets the shade” says an African proverb. The recently approved AfricaConnect project is a good start in this direction, but it is just that, a start!

This discussion is part of the eTranform Africa initiative.

Assessing the Impact of iPads on Education One Year Later

wayan — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:28:04 +0000

Mobile digital devices rocketed to popularity around 10 years ago with the release of the iPod. Mobile computing went mainstream with the release of the iPhone in 2007. With the release of the iPad just one year ago, we are now seeing a significant shift in the dynamics of computer purchase and practice – moving away from desktops and laptops to iPads and other mobile devices. Their cost relative to laptops along with the promise of mobile computing has raised tremendous interest in iPad use in education.

I don’t believe Apple anticipated the demand for iPads as educational devices. When they were first released, more than one Apple sales representative suggested that iPads were designed for personal media consumption and laptops would be a more appropriate investment for schools. In response to overwhelming interest among educators, I started our online community – iPads in Education – within weeks of the iPad’s release.

The site is an online network that provides guidance on educational usage, allowing users to ask questions and gain from others’ experiences. In the past several months we’ve learned a significant amount about how mobile tablet computing may impact education now and into the future.

The Promise

Form factor: Anyone that has used an iPad can attest to its compelling form factor. It just feels right. Light, portable and easy to hold or lay in your lap. As opposed to a laptop where the upright screen acts as a barrier between people in classroom settings, the iPad tends to be used more organically; it’s small, lays flat and is easily shared and passed around.
Long battery life and instant-on: Continuous, transparent access to information is a key educational goal and these are two core requirements. The long battery life of iPads allows you to charge them overnight and use them throughout the school day without any need to pull out messy power cords or search for sparsely located electrical outlets. Additionally, they power up almost immediately. Teachers have little class time to meet increasing demands and don’t need to be wasting five or more minutes every lesson waiting for students to open laptops, power up and log in or shut down. The iPad simply flips open and it’s on. Importantly, as with other mobile devices, this also enables natural, almost transparent educational use. You’re more likely to just spontaneously turn to it for information in the course of a discussion. Students can carry it around easily and instantly access and integrate information and tools into discussions and educational activities.
Price: The cost of computer implementations has been a stumbling block for many communities and countries. The advent of cheaper alternatives – netbooks, smartphones and iPads – are closing the digital divide and making computing increasingly accessible to more people.
Touch interface: When combined with the simplicity of the screen layout, the touch interface is a key element of the iPad’s popularity. Most notably, you will observe how young children instinctively take to it without instruction – the web is replete with examples. From my own experience, I find that younger children adapt to the interface even more naturally than teens.
Improved digital reading: The crisp quality of the display, especially when combined with the light weight and portability, enables a far superior reading experience than currently exists on desktops and laptops. Along with the iPad’s light weight and portability, this finally opens the door to the possibility of utilizing eBooks in education in place of their far heavier and more expensive paper counterparts.
Integrating multimedia: We live in a society that increasingly expresses itself in images and video. There is an abundance of apps delivering high quality multimedia content to iPads, allowing for integration of fantastic media experiences into educational activities. This is especially applicable to news events where fresh, sharp video footage and images are easily accessible and can spark valuable class discussion.
Special education: Increasingly we are hearing how the iPad has been a huge success within special education. The simplicity of the touch interface is making it an extremely popular device for students with special needs.
Connecting: The educational value of social networking lies in its ability to facilitate the growth of impromptu virtual learning communities – connecting people around the globe to share opinions and experiences. Social networking applications are an integral part of iPad usage – whether connecting users to news events, industry experts or video-conferencing with students and classes in other countries.

Consumption or Production?

Much has been written about the opinion that iPads are great consumption devices but are less stellar at allowing students to express themselves creatively. I don’t entirely agree. Firstly, it isn’t simply a consumption device – it’s an extraordinary consumption device – and the role of information acquisition in education shouldn’t be under-valued.

Also, as the application market matures we’re starting to see an evolving depth in the creative opportunities. Music applications, digital storytelling, animation, mathematics … now with the addition of a camera to the second generation iPad and the hallmark release of core Apple applications such as iMovie and GarageBand, the creative possibilities are expanding rapidly.

Some Considerations

Sharing: iPads are intensely personal devices that record your digital footprint – logins, preferences and more. There’s no login process. This makes them difficult to share. A 1:1 iPad implementation requires very different planning than an implementation that shares iPads among students. My hope is that educational app developers will see the obvious need for sharing in schools and add login layers to their apps.
They aren’t laptops: You can’t manage iPads in the same way as laptops. Imaging and synchronization processes, content management, application purchasing – they all raise specific issues that require thorough discussion and planning.
Keyboard: The touch screen keyboard is not popular with all users. I find that it’s more than sufficient for smaller typing tasks such as emails, notes, blog posts and more …. but I believe we’re approaching the end of qwerty typing in computing. The popularity of tablet computing may end up stimulating development of alternative, more efficient input methods that also utilize voice and video.
eTextbooks: At this point, the promise of eTextbooks still exceeds the reality. There aren’t enough quality books available in digital format and frankly, most still stem from a model that is built upon their physical, paper counterpart. It’s not enough to simply translate textbooks to digital files – we need new models that utilize the media and interactivity capabilities available on iPads. A digital textbook should be cognizant of what the learner has mastered and where he/she needs assistance. It should customize the content to the reader’s strengths and weaknesses and report the student’s progress to the teacher. Effective use of multimedia – interactive multimedia – will become core elements of new eTextbooks and eCourses. There have been some excellent first attempts and eTextbooks and eCourses will improve as the market matures.

The Immediate Future

The app market will mature and we’ll move from single task, short session apps to more sophisticated offerings. The release of GarageBand and iMovie are the first steps in that direction.
The barrier to entry for creating and distributing eBook content will become lower. Increasingly, teachers and communities will create their own eBook content.
Social reading is an imminent phenomenon that combines the reading of eBooks with social networking. When reading eBooks users can connect to friends and other readers, asking questions and sharing notes or opinions. Apps such as Inkling are a bold first step in that direction.
While the iOS browser is adequate it still lags behind desktop offerings. As mobile continues to expand we can expect a consolidation of desktop and mobile systems and browsers resulting in better mobile web editing, more collaboration tools and support for a wider range of web technologies.

Finally, it’s still a free-for-all in the mobile tablet market. The huge popularity of the iPad is spawning a wealth of new applications and cultivating the development of a host of competitive products that will only serve to strengthen the overall educational value of mobile tablet computing.

How We Use Technology in Education is More Important than Which Technology We Use

wayan — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 13:29:06 +0000

After ten years of continuous effort to bring digital technologies to the classroom (particularly in the secondary and tertiary education levels) the European Commission has acknowledged in several policy assessments that the impact of these regional investments in technology have not been as effective as it was expected (see The use of ICT to support innovation and lifelong learning for all – A report on progress).

From these evaluations arose the discussion that in addition to the public initiatives that encourage and promote the acquisition of technology, it is also compulsory to develop e-skills that enable the proficient use of the Internet and other technologies.

Recently, CERI from the OECD published an interesting analysis based on the results of PISA 2006. This report, Are the New Millennium Learners Making the Grade?, analyzed the influence of computers in the performance of the students. Some of the main results of this study are:

There is evidence of a second “digital divide” emerging [...] between those students who have the skills to benefit from computer use and those who don’t. Although the data do not prove a causal connection between familiarity with computers and performance, they show that better-performing students are more familiar with computers.
Noteworthy, the use of ICT in schools do not lead to having better results in subject-based standardized tests such as PISA 2006.

Interestingly this broadly adopted test highlights the existence of a correlation between better performance and higher use of computers at home.

Can developing countries emend and do better than the European policies? What lesson can be learned from the European experience and the OECD report?

The Second “Digital Divide”

There are several reliable studies to understand the “digital literacy” from a broader perspective (See e-competencies research). This means not only to focus on the development of certain specific abilities for the use of software but also being able to transit towards a strategic use of the knowledge and information through the ICT in a more holistic sense (360º). This will demand to rethink certain strategies of the current educational policies in order to transform ICT users into “e-skilled digital citizens” (see knowledge brokers) capable to face the challenge and take advantage of the knowledge-based society.

For instance, the EU Commission but also the EU industrial sector has highlighted the importance of adopting common initiatives to rethink the educational system in order to promote the development of XXI century skills in the coming generation of professionals (IDC Skills for Innovation Survey), previously referred to as the “second digital divide”.

The reduction of this “divide” will demand a transversal, multidisciplinary and mid but also long term collaboration between the private and public sector. But also it will demand a more ecological approach to combine formal and informal environments of learning.

It is expected that the design of the 2015 EU Digital Agenda will be a supportive instrument to enhance these initiatives and strategies oriented to reduce this not-always-visible “second digital divide”.

Finally, it might be fair to say that the problem is not due to the technologies by itself, but because the lack creativity and innovativeness of how ICT have been integrated in the core educational activities.

A lesson already learned is: What technologies are being used is not as important as how we are using them. From the perspective of developing countries that has to be understood as stronger opportunities for open source and/or low cost technologies as equally valuable instruments to better prepare learners for the already changing society.

These trends bring new questions to be explored. How are students using the computer at home? How relevant is the “technological capital” that they acquire within the family or community? What are their strategies to transfer skills and knowledge in informal environments? Are we ready to explore more flexible strategies of learning? Do we have the mechanisms to promote and validate the informal use of technology? And finally, What are the impacts of these massive investments in technology in the classroom?

Some of these questions will be explored in the next publication: Invisible Learning: Toward a new ecology of education (see this post or presentation). This book written together with John Moravec will be published as an open conversation of how we can better connect formal, non-formal, informal, lifelong and serendipic learning for building better education futures.

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