I’m not convinced that the challenge of promoting literacy ICT is a market failure, a human constraint, or a technological constraint. It’s a bit more nuanced than that. The tech capabilities are there, teachers will use good literacy tools, and the market exists. But what is lacking is the connection between all three of these things.

What I’ve observed during my short time in this whole ICT realm is that people who design ICT tools for literacy have never really gotten into the brain of a child learning to read and have probably never taught a child to read. I think what we need are more teacher-centered solutions in ICT. We need to mimic what REAL human beings already do well while teaching our children. And we need to make it as simple and as useful as possible.

Teaching a child to read is no easy task.

What continually amazes me is that the more years I spend teaching, the more styles of reading acquisition I see with children. One of the main reasons it is difficult to utilize ICT to teach children to read is because most ICT tools do not often differentiate between a child’s fluency and comprehension needs.

These two facets of reading adoption intertwine and are relevant the moment a child first opens a book, or is read a book. Some children are quick decoders, with the ability to grasp phonemic awareness and phonics almost instantly. In other words, they can sound things out, they can recognize sound patterns, and they can orally read what’s on the page. But that doesn’t mean a kid knows how to read.

The second part of reading gets even more complicated – comprehension. The way that I see basic comprehension is that a student can understand the essentials of what s/he’s reading, retelling the main parts with some important details. But…

• Can the student differentiate between what is relevant and irrelevant in a text?
• Can a student understand the use of different language tools an author uses in a specific type of text?
• Can a student grasp and utilize complex vocabulary words?
• Can a student identify a theme and analyze how an author utilizes that theme in a text?
• Can a student truly evaluate a text?

It’s hard for any type of tech tool to capture a student’s comprehension in these ways. Dang – it’s hard for a reading teacher to do that well!

My mythical ICT tool for literacy

Trying to think of a tool that would really and truly help with literacy, I concocted a mystical tool that mixes a bit of artificial intelligence, a computer adaptive-type learning system to do what reading intervention teachers do – figure out a student’s fluency level and comprehension level and adapt learning exercises based on this. (Great reading intervention tools like Reading Recovery do this. See Fountas and Pinnell also.)

A student would begin an initial fluency assessment based on phonemic awareness and phonics. It would detect the student’s ability to decode both simple letter sounds and complex letter combinations. (Found this and thought it was funny. Word to the wise, a kid learning CVC words can’t read the stuff on the left!)

This fluency assessment would also need to incorporate both voice and text. Questions would adapt according to the level of the student. At around the 10-15 question level, this adaptive test would determine a fluency level.

After this, the student receives a fluency score and is encouraged to continually practice to increase their level.

On the comprehension side, students would take a similar adaptive test that utilizes the most basic comprehension skills first (such as retelling), and then, it would gradually get more difficult or easier, depending on the student’s comprehension level. After about 10-15 questions, the student would get a comprehension score, like the fluency assessment. The student would then be encouraged to increase their mark.

The student would need to read short comprehension passages on a device, but if the comprehension level of the student is low enough, the system would adapt by voicing short reading passages and then asking questions via voice.

Next, the student encounters a series of practice exercises mixed with both fluency and comprehension, using reading passages of high interest. If a student’s decoding ability is very low, then most tasks are fluency work. However, they will also listen to stories and answer comprehension questions to those stories based on voiced questions.

For both fluency and comprehension, each time they answer a series of 5 questions correctly, their score goes up. (For the sake of student confidence, their scores can never go down from the initial score given.)

Ideally, this whole system would be utilized on existing class computers or at home. I think it would be really effective on the phone as well.

Let us not forget differences in language

One of the comments earlier brought up a good point about language. Any literacy tool should also incorporate other languages besides English, which I haven’t completely thought through yet. What I know from teaching ESL and managing ESL teachers through Teach For America is that the best ESL teachers just use really good reading tactics – phonemic awareness, sound patters, listening to others speak, hearing yourself speak, and comprehension strategies.

With a mixture of fluency, comprehension, and some simple artificial intelligence, students could learn to read much easier on their own and teachers would be happy to encourage students with a tech tool for something they already do. I’m no longer a teacher, but if I still were, I would definitely use this in my classroom.

I am Martin Mungai, a secondary school teacher in Kenya, but currently on study leave undertaking my studies at Hokkaido University of Education in Japan. I am keen on researching children and information media. I wish to share my experiment that i carried a year ago on the use of Internet in classrooms in Kenya. I am aware that not much educational research in Kenya has been done in this area.

In my school we had new software installed in the computer lab. The software allowed the teacher to control the students PCs from one location, which we would call the “teacher control centre” (TCC). The TCC allowed the teacher to view all the students’ workstations and even take over the control of the students PC without the teacher having to physically move to the particular student. The students were not informed of the features of the newly installed software.

I sampled a group of students from form 3, they fell in the age bracket of (15-16) years. They were allowed an uninterrupted 1-hour session to browse the Internet; all the while I kept an eye on the TCC, monitoring what each group was doing.

Observation

I did not give them any prior information on what websites to visit, within 5 minutes, of the twenty 21 computers that we had in the room (see figure 1), 11 had already logged in to a social website; facebook, 4 were on youtube, 3 were on popular European soccer clubs 1 was on an entertainment site 1 was on adult site and 1 was still googling. The computers were shared between 2 students and about 4 were shared by 3 students.

After 1 hour, I blocked the popular social networking sites and none of the computers could access it. I noted that a group of students affected were getting irritated and they tried logging into other sites, next I blocked youtube, the irritation now became more evident as the noise levels in the lab was raised. I next moved to block the sites of popular European teams, and the reaction was almost instantaneous, some students clicked and others started peeping at others screens, one student was even courageous to come forward and tell me that the Internet was not working. I feigned ignorance and told him to try other sites, I even suggested in passing, “try educational sites”.

The students who had initially taken over the control of the computer in their workstation gave up the mice and the keyboard and they became passive participants. For the next 1 hour I observed that students were keen to search on educational materials in science, history, computing, career opportunities and institutions of higher learning. See the table below

It was very evident that social networking services (SNS) such as facebook is very popular with students. It was not possible to establish the number of students who had registered on facebook. Of particular concern were the students who visited the adult sites. In spite of several posters displayed on the wall, and verbal instruction given to the students, some still went ahead and browsed the adult sites. I sought to know where they had got information about those sites, and the response was almost instantaneous; “From friends”. Interestingly almost all the students knew the code name of the adult sites “gwati”. This is a clearer indicator that peer influence plays a big role in motivating the students on visiting the adult sites.

Conclusion

The above case study should however not be used to make a generalized conclusion that the same effect would be observed in a different set –up say for example a girl school, or a rural school. A more comprehensive study would probably yield different results although it’s only a slight deviation that would be expected.

This clearly demonstrated that, students when left on their own to use the Internet will only engage in areas that seem to entertain and socialize. Proper supervision, control and guidance will help the students unlock their potential in looking for information that will have direct impact on their academic life. Further when 2 or more students share a computer, they are more creative in terms of the information that they look search for in the net.

As pointed out, Internet appears to have some educational effects on children’s attitude towards learning. For example, Clifford Stoll (2000) argues that multimedia systems such as computers or Internet may lower or decrease children’s problem-solving ability, intellectual curiosity and motivation for learning.

However, this can be overturned by offering guided supervision to the students on the use of the Internet. Further, implementation of “Information Moral education” is as important as using an interactive hands-on approach to moral learning. Teachers and educators should emphasize the need to balance both the positive and negative aspects of ICT.

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This mode of education was first introduced by the World Bank, through its African Virtual University (AVU) project, that worked with Makerere as a Partner Institution. The experiences and lessons have enabled the University adapt to the changes within its context.

Emerging trends and best practices

There are emerging trends in ICT usage which can be utilized in the various segments of the Education spectrum.

Ubiquity:The growing ubiquity of mobile devices has provided opportunities for their use in education. The expansion of Smart phone growth in all areas has given rise to more educational opportunities in teaching, learning, supervision and assessment, in the process expanding ICT applicability.

Affordability: In the last few years, there has been a growing interest in lowering the costs of connectivity of telecommunication services to a reasonable level. Competition in the sector has offered more people access and utilization of these services. Outside voice transmission, there are now provisions of banking services, payment of rates and utilities, dissemination of results, electronic applications and many others.

Richness: The mix of digital educational resources has enabled various affordances to be explored. The internet, the mobile phones, the podcasters, Web 2.0 tools are some of the resources which have eased content delivery. This richness allows for users to adapt and use them in education and other sectors.

Opportunities and Challenges

Foremost has been the Development Partners’ willingness and contribution in supporting various initiatives, either in terms of infrastructural development, research, capacity building or piloting emerging online teaching methods. They have been particularly amiable towards ICT related projects. Their role has accelerated Makerere’s rate of adoption and adaptation.

Secondly, the staff members went for further studies or attended workshops outside the country and got exposed to some of the online tools like Web 2.0. On their return, they shared, exposed their colleagues in their use and used them in their teaching, research or in supervision.

Thirdly the proliferation of several affordable mobile devices in the country has created opportunities for inclusion of multimedia content towards teaching, learning and research, in the process enhancing both the lecturers’ and students’ abilities.

However, there have been several challenges in the implementation of Online learning. Foremost has been the slow pace of its full integration in the University system due to the restrictive budgetary allocation. This has affected the rate of implementation of online activities.

The bulk of support has tended to come from Development Partners who have ensured that online activities are functional. The University needs to provide a conducive environment for e-learning support to keep abreast with the current educational trends. This could be in terms of specialized equipment, acquisition of software required for the design of electronic content and a commitment to build the necessary capacity for staff to use it in the preparation of their content.

Secondly, the readiness of academic staff to participate in electronic learning is still wanting despite training over 30% of the lecturers since 2005. Most of those trained never translate their training into developing online courses either as a result of a fixed mind set or fear of extra workload. Presently there are only about 30% of total courses created in the system which can be said to be active.

Thirdly, like most Sub Saharan African countries, the use of ICT in Uganda is still new, rare, and prevalent to a specific age group. Unfortunately, that age group is not at decision making level which makes it difficult for them to make or influence policy. In a recent PHEA (Partnership for Higher Education in Africa) ICT study, usage of ICT was more prevalent among the Lecturers and below than the Lecturers and above categories. Most lecturers are stuck with the chalk and talk teaching method with very low adaptation rate. Sensitization and some motivational methods could be used to reward early adapters.

Fourthly, there is the widespread challenge in accessing and using Internet, despite the Seacom cable promise. While accessibility is intermittent, the regular power outage has not helped the situation either. To date there are many students who cannot activate their emails and usually find it difficult to get around the system despite being given direction by their lecturers. This is either due to a phobia or lack of skills which need to be addressed.

Provision of Content

Most of the content in the LMS is not interactive. A number of lecturers have tended to use the system as a repository rather than as a learning tool. This lack of integration into the teaching process does not encourage students to be enthusiastic about this mode of learning. To date, only 50 courses have been designed and quality assured by pedagogical experts and is being used as model courses. Despite this, a lot needs to be done to reach a level where it is appreciated as fully online courses.

There is need to train more people to handle student support otherwise many who are interested might be put off. The support should be in form of educational counsellors, with empathy and capacity to handle online student frustration.

Furthermore, online support requires much time to be spent on students. This has raised motivational concern from lecturers especially during training. Devising a reward scheme would motivate those involved in the delivery of online content.

Finally, assessment methods have been contentious in terms of inadequacy and policy. There is need to design multiple assessment methods to ensure that trust is built in the entire online process. A well thought out approach needs to be used for its success.

Due to slow internet, streaming and buffering of online sessions and downloading session modules is difficult. This is compounded by factors like power failure and system malfunctioning. In addition, the software associated with online learning requires minimum computer specifications. Its absence, and the large number of people accessing the services, often causes the system to crash. There is need to fit the Institution’s requirements with user capabilities to ensure that online learning is effective.

Lastly, a strong ICT team is needed to support, and make regular system updates to safeguard against intruders and sustain a seamless system. Presently, there is no dedicated team to do so although this falls within the ICT Support Directorate’s mandate.

Reflections

There are a number of questions which require some answers. For instance, there has been an increase in the use of social networks especially among the students in the university. It is acknowledged that these networks increase collaboration and team work. Within our own context, how much of it can be incorporated in Teaching and Learning especially as there are many lecturers who are not very keen to join these networks? How much creativity does it promote given that most of the students use it for social relations?

In most institutions the use of computers has been relegated to computer literacy (using MS office). This is a common phenomenon in most educational institutions. How much ICT can be integrated in teaching and learning (where technology facilitates learning across the curriculum)?

Of more concern is the present disparity in access and use of ICTs in education. Is it likely to widen divisions along economic, social, cultural, geographic, and gender lines?

Recommendations

I would like to make four recommendations arising from the Makerere experience. Firstly, there is need for ICT policy to be formulated at various levels, for primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. The policy should spell out the road map on how ICT is integrated into education and the role each stakeholder should play in the delivery of content. This will assist many educational institutions including a number of Universities in Uganda.

Secondly, the Intellectual Property Laws need to be well articulated and publicized in view of the online resources which are currently developed under Creative Commons license. Many people in Uganda are not aware of this alternative license scheme and are therefore reluctant to upload their content for public consumption.

Thirdly, the lack of Quality Assurance Framework for Online Education in Sub Saharan Africa is a very serious matter. There is need for an urgent and concerted effort to have this in place if we have to have quality digital learning environment.

Lastly we need to identify champions who are prepared to take Online Education to the next level. In doing this we need to ensure there are adequate ICT facilities in selected tertiary institutions for students and teachers to use. This can be followed by identifying the actual people who are ready to take this process to the next level. The resultant effect will have a multiplier effect and ensure that more people are aware of the potential benefits of ICT in education.

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SchoolNet SA is a not-for-profit NGO, operating in South Africa since 1997. In the early days we attempted to cover all aspects of ICT in schools by sourcing and providing hardware and software as well as training teachers. Our mission has always been to create communities of teachers using ICT to enhance teaching and learning. These days we concentrate on teacher development with a particular emphasis on ICT integration and on underserved schools. These two areas often appear to be incompatible, as I will try to explain.

What we do

Our most supportive funders are Intel and Microsoft but we also have other partners such as Oracle, Vodacom, Commonwealth of Learning, SITA, Nokia, Multichoice, Peermont, Adobe, Uniforum, provincial departments of education, and a number of universities. We could claim that SchoolNet has trained vast volumes of teachers, which we have, but we do not like to fixate on numbers. We would prefer to consider how effective our initiatives have been. Hit-and-run interventions are not our style; we like to prolong our relationships with schools.

Sadly we often fall into the trap of chasing numbers to satisfy funding targets, sometimes losing contact with schools after training. This is the reason why we have recently embarked on a SchoolNet SA premium membership drive with the intention of engaging with individual teachers and encouraging them to stay in touch with each other. Our focus on social networking through our Facebook page, newsletter, blog and twitter (@SchoolNetSA) accounts all contribute to this aim.

The biggest challenge we face is in encouraging teachers to improve the way they teach. This applies to teachers across a range of schools. At the e-Learning Africa conference, Tom Power from the Open University UK said that the only way there could be any hope of changing existing pedagogies was to provide new classroom activities involving new technologies. This is a philosophy to which SchoolNet SA has always subscribed.

Our strategy for growing teachers into more advanced stages of ICT use is an incremental one. Teachers are often unable to make the leap from their own ICT literacy to its classroom application where they engage learners in the use of ICT in the curriculum. To combat this, we designed a range of courses to cover each stage of maturity with ICT, from basic literacy to project-based learning and the higher levels of innovation.

The 3 key pillars that uphold this strategy and that should be in place from the moment that technology is introduced to the school are leadership, technical support, and a culture of professional development. The Partners in Learning ICT Leadership for Education Managers course introduces school leaders and local ICT government officials to a range of crucial educational ICT issues.

The Partners in Learning Student Help Desk course is an effective course for computer clubs of learners. This is relevant to schools where there is no option for first-level trouble-shooting other than costly companies which are even more expensive if the school is remote.

Schools that work hard at staff development find that the most effective method of sustaining teachers’ motivation in ICT integration is through peer coaching; pairs or small groups of teachers planning lessons together and sparking off ideas has an instant and positive effect on the quality of teaching and learning.

SchoolNet SA is just beginning to venture into m-learning, training teachers to track students who are participating in the NOKIA MoMaths project using MXit and Moodle. We see a viral uptake of any new project using MXit – e.g. HIV 360 had 39 000 teenage users within a couple of months.

SchoolNet has always tried to contribute towards national ICT discourse and policy and we are grateful that South Africa does have in place the e-Education White Paper (2003) and the Guidelines for Teacher Training and Professional Development in ICT (2007). Implementation of these policies on the other hand has been slow.

Lessons learned

1. Educational Technology interventions often forget about the “educational” part and consider it to be completed once they have installed the technology. This results in teachers not being trained and consequently hardware remaining unused.
2. We must split training sessions and revisit schools to allow for a period of practice and self study before the trainer returns to the school to consolidate.
3. Teachers complain that training sessions are too short and that they do not have enough time for training or for practice.
4. Cascaded training, where multiple training of trainers takes place, does not work; it dilutes learning and quality is jeopardised. If a project requires a high degree of scale, trainers should be trained by a national master trainer and thereafter train directly in schools themselves.
5. We are not reaching the knowledge deepening level of the UNESCO Framework. Intel Teach project based courses are at this level, where the emphasis is on higher order thinking skills. Insufficient teachers are completing Intel courses; only two provinces have invested seriously in Intel Teach. If we study the TPACK theory (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) it becomes clear that teachers in many of our schools have challenges in each of the 3 separate knowledge areas let alone in the 4 sections where these areas intersect.
6. Teachers are unaware of what is available. From the Gauteng Department of Education evaluation we conducted with SAIDE, it became evident that not only do teachers have little knowledge of what resources are available to them online, but they are unaware of the array of educational software provided on their own school networks. This is directly due to insufficient teacher professional development in initiatives that are technology driven.
7. Access for learners in high schools is reduced when schools decide to offer external exam subjects such as IT and CAT because these monopolise the computer rooms. Only schools with alternative access such as two computer rooms or a mobile lab should consider offering these subjects.
8. High school teachers often argue that they cannot integrate ICT because they have to complete their syllabus, instead of realising that ICT can greatly assist to achieve this.
9. The disconnect between teachers and learners is growing. Schools need to be connected and pedagogy has to adapt. Children are online and becoming more connected, living in an exciting world of communication and “instant” everything. Then in classrooms, teachers say, “open your books and turn to page …. “ A high dropout rate should not be a surprise. As the saying goes, “If children do not learn the way we teach then we must teach the way they learn.”
10. Beware of Interactive Whiteboards (IAW). IAW have proliferated in schools despite the expense and yet in many instances this has resulted in teaching methodology reverting back to being teacher-centred.
11. Sugata Mitra’s TED Talk, Child-driven Education, illustrates through the cognitive studies that he has conducted. that children learn more effectively through discourse in groups. Mitra takes “child-centred” one step further to become “child-driven”.
12. At SchoolNet we are sceptical of educational software that does not require 21st Century learning skills and wary that some m-learning projects use merely drill and kill content.
13. It is important to commence ICT initiatives with the school leadership because they have great influence over the future take-up of technology by teaching staff.

What we recommend

We recommend sustainable plans for staff development in schools; ICT planning that is focused on the teaching and learning needs of educators. Teachers require lifelong learning opportunities.
Connectivity in schools has to be provided and at a reduced, or no cost, to the school.

We are seeing the value of android handheld and mobile devices with charging trolleys because these satisfy the need for learners to be involved, hands on and not just one learner at a time; they have to share the technology and share ideas, just as Mitra advocates.

Mobile phone use in schools has to be accepted. Teachers can collect second hand phones and allow working in groups to ensure that learners without phones are not excluded.

Obviously the one recommendation that SchoolNet is going to make time and time again is that there has to be greater investment in teacher development. The business community has to be strategically involved; they must specify the skills they require school leavers to have so that teaching is forced to adapt to developing those skills.

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Often, the word competency and skill are used interchangeably. While they are related, they are not the same. A competency is a demonstrated ability to perform a particular job or task. A competency includes skills, but also behaviors and the ability to apply those skills in order to perform a job or task. For example, a teacher may know how to use a computer and productivity software (skill), but may not know how to use those skills to increase collaboration and critical thinking in their students (competency).

“Through the ongoing and effective use of technology in the schooling process, students have the opportunity to acquire important technology capabilities. The key individual in helping students develop those capabilities is the classroom teacher. The teacher is responsible for establishing the classroom environment and preparing the learning opportunities that facilitate students’ use of technology to learn, and communicate. Consequently, it is critical that all classroom teachers are prepared to provide their students with these opportunities.” (UNESCO)

Continuing professional development in the teaching profession has always been a priority: after all, how can one expect to create a classroom full of life-long learners if one isn’t a life-long learner oneself? However, the way professional development has traditionally been structured can be ineffective and expensive at best, and a waste of time at worst. Unless a teacher understands the requirements, or competencies, necessary to perform their job as well as which competencies they are lacking, effective professional development with lasting impact is not attainable.

Other challenges to effective professional development of ICT integration:

• Many teachers are aware that they should integrate ICT into their teaching practices, but are uncertain as to what that actually means. While brain science, teaching strategies and classroom management are part of most formal teacher preparatory curriculums, the integration of ICT into teaching and learning is not broadly offered outside of technology oriented courses.
• The absence of a common internationally recognized standard in the area of ICT integration, as well as training based on those standards, prevents having a consistent method to measure whether teachers are effectively using technology to achieve desired student outcomes.
• A “one size fits all” training approach fails to meet the needs of individuals. Teachers within one school will have very different needs with regards to ICT training. While some may have never used a computer, others may be using multiple devices and applications to achieve desired outcomes.
• Mandating training which is not relevant to a teacher. Buy-in by the learner, including the assessment and planning of their development goals, decreases teacher resistance to training and increases the likelihood that what is presented actually results in a change in their teaching strategies.

In 2008 UNESCO, in partnership with Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, and ISTE, formalized the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT-CFT) with an aim to measure the ICT proficiency of teachers against a common international standard and to aid in their professional development. Governments everywhere are striving to improve student outcomes and meet the challenges of preparing a 21st Century workforce for a global, knowledge-based economy. The UNESCO Competency Framework for Teachers is a response to these challenges.

Objectives of the Framework:

• Create a common core syllabus that can be used to develop learning materials sharable at a global level
• Provide a basic set of qualifications that allows teachers to integrate ICT into their teaching
• Extend teachers’ professional development to advance their skills in pedagogy, collaboration, and school innovation using ICTs
• Harmonize different views and vocabulary regarding the uses of ICTs in teacher education

The UNESCO ICT-CFT helps ensure continuity of competencies across teacher populations and geographies. For example, in Ireland, teachers have taken a self-assessment written to the UNESCO ICT-CFT standards in order to better understand what professional development resources and support they need. Countries like Mexico, Russia, and Australia are using the UNESCO ICT-CFT as the foundational competency framework on which they will build future ICT Continuing Professional Development offerings.

How Competency Based Professional Development is Different

In closing, effective competency-based professional development includes the following components:

1. Adoption of a common set of competency standards defined by role. A computer science teacher may require different competencies contained in the ICT-CFT than a 3rd grade literacy teacher.
2. Teachers identify areas where they need competency improvement.
3. A rich and varied set of aligned resources is provided to teachers to fill those competency gaps which could include job shadowing, classes, workshops, or eLearning.
4. Improved teacher competencies are verified through assessments, observation, or portfolio work.
5. Peer support or mentoring is offered to help teachers carry forward ICT use to the classroom.
6. Teacher competency development is refined and iterated in a continuous-improvement cycle.

This is competency-based professional development. The difference is that teacher’s build their competencies where needed, so there is no need to study what they already know. Emphasis is on application, performance and understanding, not simply on the recall of knowledge. With time to focus on new challenges, teachers can work toward enabling both themselves and students with the technical skills, knowledge and attitudes needed for success in life and the 21st Century workplace.

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Over the last 5 years, several low-cost laptops were introduced expressly for educational systems of the developing world. Starting with the XO-1 laptop from One Laptop Per Child, and expanding to include the ClassmatePC, these computers then spawned consumer netbooks like the Asus Eee-PC, which could also be used for education. Now we have tablet computers like the Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPad that also can be used in educational settings. In fact, there is a whole plethora of low-cost ICT device options for educators.

So which one of these computing platforms is the best for education? Which form factor can help students learn better and allow teachers to reach greater educational outcomes in the classroom and across school systems? Is there a single laptop that works better than the rest?

Let us first learn more about the four main types of low-cost computers that are widely used in education

Which one is the best?

This is a great loaded question as there isn’t any one device that is best for every situation. In fact, experts in ICT for education (ICT4E) deployments have come up with six success criteria for educational ICT projects that should be considered long before choosing the hardware:

1. Infrastructure:
   ICT4E projects require a significant infrastructure in order to run effectively. This infrastructure need doesn’t just include technical aspects such as the availability of electricity and Internet access but also logistical aspects such as how to efficiently and reliably distribute hundreds of thousands of laptops in some of the remotest regions of the world.
2. Maintenance:
   Regardless of how robust an ICT device or software solution is there will always be issues with a certain percentage of them. This is especially true when computers are deployed in rugged environments, which are dusty, hot, and humid, and the main users are young children. As a result processes and solutions need to be developed to address how to repair broken equipment.
3. Content and curriculum:
   One of the core requirements for ICT4E projects is appropriate e-content and e-curriculum that enable the technology to be used as a tool for learning. Simply scanning in existing books and making them available digitally doesn’t come close to utilizing the full potential of a digital and connected device such as a laptop or mobile phone. Hence interactive learning content the supports the local curriculum, and supplemental materials such as digital multimedia libraries, need to be developed to effect learning, regardless of the hardware chosen.
4. Community inclusion:
   One component that often seems to be underestimated in ICT4E projects is the importance of community inclusion and the buy-in from key stakeholders such as teachers, parents, principals and administrators. Grassroots support is the main requirement for enabling initial adoption, daily project support, and long-term sustainability.
5. Teacher training:
   Using a new tool and approach is always hard, particularly when we’re talking about something as complex as learning and education. Therefore it is vital that teachers receive adequate training on how to efficiently and effectively use ICT such as laptops as a tool for education. Training people is both very resource-intensive and complex, yet without it ICT4E projects are very likely to fail.
6. Evaluation:
   Last but not least, evaluating the impact that ICT4E has on learning, and the broader society, is a key criterion. Unfortunately, appropriate baseline data is difficult to acquire in many cases, hampering the project evaluation process. Evaluation is often an afterthought that only receives attention once technology implementation has started. This is too late to gather baseline data. Ideally, evaluation is started in early project stages as well as a continually used toolset to refine and improve a project.

Recommendation to policy makers

Note what is not listed in the six criteria for success: the actual hardware form factor or its unit cost. In fact, research on the cost of ICT interventions in education by Vital Wave Consulting found that hardware was not the main cost in ICT4E activities:

Governments need to consider the entire cost of school computing solutions, rather than merely the initial expenses. A total cost of ownership model takes into account recurrent and hidden costs such as teacher training, support and maintenance, and the cost of replacing hardware over a five-year period.

Support and training are recurrent costs that constitute two of the three largest costs in the total cost of ownership model. They are greater than hardware costs and much higher than software fees.

So it is my continuous recommendation to policy makers to focus on the educational ecosystem, and support the change management that is required when introducing a new tool. Because no matter if it’s a “$100 laptop” or a magical iPad, the success (or failure) of ICT interventions in education is directly related to the supporting investments in teachers, administrators, community leaders – people not devices.

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The Xnet Development Alliance Trust was established as a connectivity provider for schools in 2004 and expanded its operations to include all educational institutions in 2007. Through partnerships with telecommunications operators in the country Xnet was able to secure subsidised pricing on behalf of its beneficiaries.

Current beneficiaries include tertiary institutions, libraries, teacher’s resource centres, vocational training centres as well as schools. Beyond connectivity, services such as e-Learning, email provisioning, website hosting, spam filtering etc. are now possible through the Xnet ISP. It therefore made sense, given the educational beneficiaries already connected, for Xnet to seek membership with the UbuntuNet Alliance and become a NREN.

As a NREN, a number of benefits are accorded to beneficiary institutions. For one, as members of the NREN, these institutions would benefit from lower costs of bandwidth. Furthermore, national bandwidth linkages would be established between member institutions, where possible, to encourage co-operation between institutions and more importantly, to conserve international bandwidth. Over time such linkages would also lead to collaborative research projects between educational institutions in the country.

Opportunities

With the advent of cloud computing it may make sense for the more established NRENs to consider hosting services on behalf of start-up NRENS to allow them an opportunity to concentrate on growing capacity. Furthermore, this eliminates the need for the NREN to have to procure equipment immediately, or to hire additional staff from the onset. Moreover, when the NREN has grown enough to a position where it can support additional staff, the transition from the supported NREN to an independent institution would be better planned for and less stressful.

As it is now, it’s like jumping into the deep end and hoping to be able to swim and not sink. One has to consider costs of ISP equipment, cross-border connections to the closest UbuntuNet routers, meetings with potential beneficiaries, staffing needs etc. As a result, CEOs can sometimes be overwhelmed by the number of issues requiring attention during the start-up phase and could greatly benefit from such collaborations.

Collaborations need not be restricted to research alone. The day-to-day management of the ISP could become an educational project jointly managed by the research and educational institutions. The lack of qualified technical skills, in Namibia anyway, leaves industry with no other choice but to import these skills from outside the borders – at a premium. And yet, every year tertiary institutions produce graduates in the Information Communication field with little or no hands-on technical experience. This relationship could include administrative and financial services which would earn the students some money but more importantly provide them with hands-on experience.

Outsourcing of key functions should be encouraged as it lowers overheads to the NREN over the long run – especially for small NRENs. Inflated staffing costs can erode potential price benefits to be passed on to beneficiaries. In the infancy stages of a NREN costs have to be kept as low as possible and as beneficiary institutions increase, then too can key operational and administrative positions. The rest should either be outsourced or managed under collaborative agreements with member institutions.

Challenges

Support, encouragement and development of research in Africa is crucial. Of equal importance is access to this research. Currently a number of African scholars are published in international journals. However, their work is never accessed by the very people the research is meant to impact on.

As NRENs continue to expand their beneficiary institutions, libraries should form a crucial part of these institutions. Libraries as a neutral body, freely accessed by the public, should become the custodians of all the content/research generated through the collaborative research efforts of beneficiary institutions. At the very least, they should serve as references where such research output can be located.

Where library consortia don’t exist, tertiary institutions operate as individual islands catering only for the needs of their students. Consequently, access to information is a challenge for these students as their institutional libraries don’t always have the most recent editions of books or publications. This then leads to scenarios where individual institutions purchase the same books and subscribe to the same journals, replicating efforts and wasting money in the process. Collaboration and sharing of research thus becomes a problem at these institutions and sometimes NRENs find themselves having to mediate between such institutions.

Ministries, with education taking the lead, have to play a greater role in ensuring that their research and education institutions co-operate and not compete with one another. Inter-institutional politics can derail or at the very least hold back progress for a REN. Unfortunately these rivalries exist everywhere. However if the line ministries (in the case of public institutions) were to “encourage” these institutions to collaborate it would make the job of the NREN that much easier. After all, most NREN applications are submitted to the Alliance with the support of the Education ministries, but it sometimes seems as though that is where the relationship begins and ends.

At what point does an NREN overstep its boundaries as an institution? Is it the responsibility of a NREN to spearhead the creation of policies on research? Is it the responsibility of the NREN to spearhead the formation of a library consortium as discussed previously? Should NRENS just concentrate on fostering collaborative research and leave the rest for others to resolve? Is it the responsibility of the NREN to ensure that research content is readily available to the public?

These and other similar questions are pertinent as they impact on the success/failure of the NREN. This then requires the NREN to work closely with government ministries, or at the very least directorates within these ministries, in order to address some of the questions asked above. NRENs need to be seen as partners to government providing much needed, and relevant, research.

On the issue of access, connecting to the closest UbuntuNet Router ensures that NRENS have access to affordable, good quality, bandwidth. However, the costs of connecting to the closest UbuntuNet router sometimes deter progress. In the case of Namibia there are 2 available connection points in South Africa. The options are to either connect to UbuntuNet routers in Cape Town or Johannesburg.

Access to the UbuntuNet network is a problem as the national telecommunications infrastructure is owned by commercial providers. Despite the cost of bandwidth being cheap (once connected to the UbuntuNet network), the cost of carrying the data traffic over a long distance negates these benefits.

Access to the UbuntuNet network gives rise to another problem that plagues start-up NRENS, staffing. A key requirement of becoming a REN is for the REN to acquire an Autonomous System Number (ASN) as well as its own IP range through AfriNic. This means that the REN needs to: a) have/operate its own ISP; and b) there needs to be someone with some level of technical expertise to manage the ISP functions such as, management of IP allocations to beneficiary institutions. The cost of setting up can be daunting and discouraging especially for an institution in its infancy stage.

Recommendations

Induction of new members to the UbuntuNet Alliance should include a formal meeting/discussion with either Board members or the Chief Executive Officer whereby the new member is provided with a full background of the Alliances activities and briefed on the expectations of the Alliance of the new NREN. The discussion should also allow for new members to ask questions and also provide feedback on their understanding of their role as well as intended plans.

Such a session would allow for discussions on who is responsible for what as well as what level of assistance is possible from the Alliance. Not all NRENs are managed and run by technical people, Xnet being a case in point, and sometimes assistance and advice is necessary in the infancy stages of a NREN. Given the various forms of communication available, the meeting can take place through various means, such as, Skype, Instant Messaging (IM), a conference call or even a face-face session where possible.

As NRENs create possibilities for research collaboration, both nationally and internationally, institutions as well as individuals also need to consider intellectual property rights and the preservation of copyrights for any research work they embark on. They need to ensure that they have in place policies and contracts that protect them from being exploited. At some point this discussion will have to be entered into in order to sensitise potential researchers on the pros and cons of research.

Internationally there is a growing demand for Africa’s resources and as a result Africa needs to protect herself from exploitation. As more research opportunities become available through NRENs proper policies need to be developed in order to safeguard the intellectual rights of all material developed in the process.

In addition, research funding needs to become more prominent in the national budgets. Funding should be set aside annually to support those individuals willing to embark on research projects. Currently, research is not readily undertaken as this usually involves an additional work load and sometimes even salary sacrifices for the individual(s) concerned.

Those who do take the time to conduct research tend to favour international journals for the publication of their research papers. As pointed out earlier, the majority of these journals are not readily accessible to people on the African continent. And yet, the research is, more often than not, based on local circumstances with insightful revelations and recommendations.

Conclusion

The establishment of a NREN is not an easy task – as mentioned above, however, the benefits accrued from such an initiative are extremely relevant for the development of the nation. Research and innovation are the development pillars of the 21st century.

Africa has to build up a generation of researchers and innovators who will come up with meaningful research targeted at specific problems endemic to their countries. The continent cannot afford to rely on solutions from well meaning international institutions. Only through collaborative research – whether locally, regionally or internationally – can we hope to compete on the international arena.

Governments need to ensure that they are aware of all the research being carried out in their countries and should make it a point to ensure that they have copies of the final research papers published. Copies of these papers should be made available at public institutions such as libraries and tertiary institutions for public access. In order to do so research councils need to be established and be seen to be active in streamlining and overseeing research within the country.

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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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Internet2 (USA) shares a key characteristic with other National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and that is provision of connectivity to multiple universities. However, Internet2 is organized as not-for-profit whereas some NRENS are government/ministry based. Internet2 takes pride in being community led and member focused.

Internet2’s core mission is “to ensure that scholars and researchers have access to the advanced networks, tools and support required for the next generation of collaborative discovery and innovation and for effectively preparing the next generation of innovators, our students”.

Started in 1996 with 34 universities, Internet2 now has 372 members and 131 sponsored education group participants. Members include U.S. universities, corporations, government research agencies, and not-for-profit networking organizations representing over 50 countries. Internet2 membership is by institution and has been restructured into four levels based on the Carnegie Classification assignment for Higher Education members, operating budgets for Affiliate members and revenues for Industry members. These levels determine membership dues and fees.

EMERGING TRENDS AND BEST PRACTICE EXAMPLES

Expanding to a broader education community
To bring more innovators to the table, the Internet2 developed a K20 Initiative to connect university members to the broader education community through a process called Sponsored Education Group Participants. The result is connection to the Internet2 backbone network of 66,000 Community Anchor Institutions (CAI) in 38 U.S. states. CAIs are community-based organizations that include K-12 schools, libraries, community colleges, health centers, hospitals and public safety organizations.

The plan is to extend the network to 200,000 CAI through a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant. The $62.5 million grant will upgrade the Internet2 Network to an 8.8 Terabit per second national network. The infrastructure will serve not only the Internet2 members but also 200,000 CAIs. Since CAIS are not Internet2′s traditional research university members, a different network, U.S. Community Anchor Network (CAN) was established to bring together the diverse voices of CAIs, with start-up costs provided by Internet2 and other partners. Thus, the physical infrastructure will be shared by Internet2 and U.S. CAN; however, Internet2 will focus on network R&D needs of its members while U.S. CAN will tailor its programs to the various community anchor sectors.

Opening Internet2 membership to industry partners has reciprocal benefits.
Benefits from industry include significant contributions in support of the development and deployment of advanced, Internet applications and services, including donations of equipment, cash, software, personnel, consulting, and services. By serving on Internet2’s Board of Trustees and its advisory councils, industry members make available valuable input and strategic guidance on advanced networking in research and education. Benefits to industry partners include ability to interact with current and prospective customers, showcase products and services, acquire market and user intelligence, tap and recruit university talent, and discover new market opportunities, among other things.

The governance structure is member-led and member-focused.
The Board of Trustees is inclusive, consisting of representatives, from members, including university presidents and CIOs, and leaders from industry and research agencies. The Board offers leadership, strategic direction, and oversight.

The size and diversity of its membership require advisory councils, again coming from its membership, for its many services–Applications and Middleware, Architecture and Operations, External Relations, and Research. These Advisory Councils guide strategic planning and implementation, help set organizational priorities, and ensure that Internet2 continues to serve the needs of the research and education community members.

Members are engaged and opportunities for membership engagement abound through a variety of Working Group activities, such as:

• Development efforts in network infrastructure, network performance, middleware, applications, and security, and;
• Discovery, research, and collaboration in discipline areas, such as the arts and humanities, health sciences, and sciences and engineering.

Members have access to a comprehensive menu of services, tools, capacity building, and R&D. Examples include access to:

• A systems approach to high performance networking provides a wide range of integrated services, from dark fiber to production IP and optical networking, to middleware and advanced applications. The network is designed to deliver next-generation production services and serves as a development platform for new networking ideas and protocols. The Internet2 Network is scalable to meet bandwidth-intensive requirements of collaborative applications, distributed research experiments, grid-based data analysis and social networking. The network will be upgraded with the BTOP grant mentioned above.
• The Internet2 Commons is a suite of tools that integrate presence, instant messaging, chat, voice, video, data and application sharing. It now offers cloud-based interoperable video services from tele-presence to videoconferencing to desktop and mobile tools.
• The pS-Performance Toolkit includes a pre-configured suite of network performance tools for collection, storage and analysis of network performance data.
• InCommon is a framework for inter-institutional authentication and authorization to enable secure access of protected online network services and resources.
• The U.S. Higher Education Root (USHER) acts as a public key infrastructure (PKI) solution for the higher education community for applications and services that require encryption or true digital signature technologies.
• Internet2 workshops provide participants with the opportunity to learn about and experiment with advanced networking technologies. Workshop topics include: Hot Topics in Identity Management and Federated Identity Management, Network Performance, IPv6, Campus Architecture and Middleware Planning, Digital Video Transport System, Performing Arts and Master Class production to advance the frontiers of high-performance networking in service of research and education.

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES, SUCCESS FACTORS AND BARRIERS TO WIDER DISSEMINATION AND TAKE UP

The July 2008 strategic plan indicates commitment to “continuous innovation and sustained leadership”. The plan is under review to enable Internet2 to respond to the following 2010 opportunities:

• Involvement in “Community Commons” tools for “computing and services above the campus,” including collaboration tools, cloud computing services, and other initiatives so that campuses are able to better leverage each other’s resources.
• Participation in major U.S. federal programs and policy initiatives that define the future of advanced networking for the research and education community, other community anchor institutions, as well as the general public in the U.S. and worldwide.
• Leadership in shaping and investing in U.S. federal policy development and advocacy and reinforcing the role that the research and education (R&E) community has played, and continuing to provide intellectual leadership in advanced networking and in research and education in network policy in the U.S.
• Recognition that research is a global enterprise requiring (i) support for Internet2 member universities with international programs and with campuses abroad, and, (ii) support for U.S.-based researchers to have the same levels of high-bandwidth access that they have for domestic as well as for international research resources. This recognition will entail working with other nations and regions of the world with regard to the development of a global broadband.
• The best practices highlighted in Section I contribute to success in the achievement of Internet2’s core mission. Success factors include remaining focused on core mission; membership that is inclusive of university, industry, and government agencies that are involved in network R&D; tapping members for leadership roles, governance, and active engagement through working groups; and outreach to the broader education community, including to the global education community. One success factor is showcasing advanced networking efforts among its members. Internet2 recognizes and awards applications of advanced networking that show progress in research, scholarship, collaboration, teaching and learning not only by researchers and faculty but also by students.
• As with any NREN, barriers arise from the fact that the membership is by institution, yet institutions are made of people who may not be inclined to participate due to lack of interest, lack of time, lack of perception of individual benefit, lack of trust, and lack of knowledge to use the advanced applications. In January 2005, faculty and researchers at a member university indicated they still “experience significant barriers in creating and using advanced applications. “ Among the barriers identified were lack of ubiquitous help identifying and solving performance problems; lack of well-integrated and easy-to-use tools for human collaboration; and lack of secure, authenticated access to data and resources. It appears that technology solutions now address these barriers but getting faculty and researchers to embrace these solutions probably remains an obstacle to full utilization of the high performance network.

REFLECTIONS

Clearly, the immediate benefit of Internet2 is connection to a high performance network by its members. This infrastructure allows for collaboration with Internet2 university, industry, government research agencies and not for profit networking organizations on network R&D and discipline specific applications. Member benefits include access to services and tools, such as middleware and other Internet2 commons; updated knowledge on advanced Internet technologies and innovations for technology transfer; market opportunities; and, development of new projects with other Internet2 members. However, full utilization of the high performance network and all its applications is probably not equal among the faculty and researchers and students that make up the member institutions.

It is also worth stating the obvious: that Internet2 serves members primarily from the U.S. and that a regional or Africa-wide REN will necessarily have to deal with many countries with competing interests. While Internet2 has Special Interest Group on Emerging NRENs, NRENS can perhaps look to Internet2 for knowledge exchange, collaborative network research and development, and test the suitability and relevance of the Internet2 network applications, middleware, software and other tools. At the same time, NRENs should be able to offer up their own success stories, particularly in the use of mobile phones for applications and content delivery. NRENs should be able to facilitate discussion on a global commons for research and education not only in networking but also in discipline specific areas.

While working in Afghanistan a Chief of Party for the Afghan eQuality Alliances, I had a chance to participate, along with our project partners from Kabul University, Ministry of Higher Education, and the Ministry of Communications, in a video conference call with the South Asia Interest Group in 2007. The purpose of the Group was to keep each other up-to-date about activities/needs/projects in the region; raise issues important to the region and help guide additional activities to enhance R&E network connectivity within and to the region. The Afghan participants were able to share what their thinking was with regards to an NREN and what initial steps were being done. The Afghans appreciated hearing about the NRENs in other countries. I sense a disconnect between expectations on what Internet2 can deliver versus the constraints faced by Internet2 in collaborating with under-resourced potential partners.

RECOMMENDATIONS: ON THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN THE PROVISION OF PRIORITY ICT APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES IN ORDER TO MAXIMIZE PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT

• Develop a broad set of policies, including funding, to protect and encourage competition in the private sector markets that make up the broadband ecosystem (including wireless broadband): network services, devices, applications and content.
• Establish technical broadband (including wireless broadband) performance measurement standards and methodology, with the help of NRENs.
• Support and promote online learning by: funding development of innovative broadband-enabled (including wireless broadband) online learning solutions; encouraging copyright holders to grant educational digital rights of use or offer some of their content to the creative commons; and, establishing standards for locating, sharing and licensing digital educational content across institutions and national boundaries.
• Modify the e-rate program to support modernizing educational broadband infrastructure.
• Encourage the formation of an NREN and a regional or Africa-wide REN that would:
  1. Fill the R&D investment gap by funding network research that would yield net benefits to society
  2. Operate a national and a regional or Africa-wide REN
  3. Provide advocacy on the set of policies, including financing, of the broadband ecosystem at the national, regional and Africa-wide level
  4. Ensure access to standard-based tools and services
  5. Act as the R&E commons for evaluating and adapting software, middleware, and other network tools and services for deployment to and adaption by member institutions.
  6. Promote innovation and technology with industry members
  7. Provide enhanced information technology (IT) applications training, such as applications for e-learning, e-government and e-commerce.

This discussion is part of the eTranform Africa initiative.

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The Human Development Index, originally developed by Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul Haq, places education and health as 2 key measures of human development. The founders of Mindset recognised that in order to nurture much neglected human development in South Africa and in other places on the continent, it was essential to place the focus here. As Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

And so, in 2002, Mindset Network was launched by Mr Mandela and has since operated as a non-profit organisation creating, sourcing and delivering high quality educational content for use in the formal education and (since 2004) health sectors where such provision can support human development. Wherever possible, access is made free or affordable to the end user.

About Mindset

Most of Mindset’s work is directed at South Africa and in this Mindset focuses on leveraging its skills and position to assist Government deliver better services rather than establishing parallel systems of delivery. In the Schooling programme, for example, it is clear that the Apartheid legacy still bedevils many attempts to improve the quality of education delivered to most children and that there remains the tendency for more affluent learners to attract a disproportionate share of the available resources thereby advantaging them and perpetuating the original income gap. Mindset actively works to assist Government to try and correct this imbalance which, if left unchecked, will result in the gaps in income and educational attainment widening.

As a non-profit organisation, Mindset relies on external funding to sustain many of its operations. To date, funding has been received in cash and in kind from South African and international businesses (including Liberty, Standard Bank, Intelsat and Multichoice) as well as multilateral donors and funding agencies. Increasing, however, Mindset is developing its own revenue streams to ensure financial sustainability and indeed an increase in its productive output. For example, all its video production and delivery capabilities have been spun out into a for-profit company servicing the needs of a range of additional clients.

Mindset Content

The development of high quality, contextually relevant content is naturally a key part of Mindset’s business. In the last 9 years, Mindset has developed over 500 hours of video content for grade 4 to 12 South African learners and teachers and approximately 250 hours of video content for the public and Healthcare Workers on issues around HIV/AIDs and TB. Allied to the video are hundreds of hours and thousands of pages of interactive multimedia and print content respectively. In all cases, Mindset creates content in these multiple formats to be mutually reinforcing and also to ensure that as many people as possible are able to benefit from it irrespective of the technology they have access to.

The key challenges in producing such content tend to be:

• developing high quality content as cost effectively as possible;
• ensuring that all content is perfectly accurate and correctly aligned;
• keeping content up-to-date in the midst of changing school curricula and shifting health policies;
• finding and investing in building the skills of suitable content developers and producers;
• understanding and correctly exploiting the educational affordances of each media format;
• and constantly measuring and evaluating the notion of high quality.

Since 2002, Mindset has developed a set of robust processes to deal with the issues and has shared its learning and skills with many other organisations. Such content production capacity development is an important part of Mindset’s work.

Content Distribution

Mindset uses several digital platforms to distribute its content including satellite broadcast, the Web, distributable media like DVDs and, increasingly, mobile devices. The choice of these digital platforms is based on the need to distribute content as widely and cost effectively as possible. Satellite broadcast, for example, while requiring high upfront costs provides significant economies of scale and exceptional reach, particularly to traditionally technologically under-serviced areas. In addition, television tends to be a familiar and non-threatening technology.

Currently, Mindset broadcasts its schooling content on 2 pay TV networks (one – Dstv – with an Africa wide reach) to over 2.5 million households and approximately 1300 individual schools and resource centres. Mindset Health is broadcast by Mindset as a free-to-air channel to over 490 clinics and hospitals through South Africa. Mindset is currently exploring opportunities to broadcast several additional free-to-air channels through its capacity on the IS17 satellite.

Broadcast television is necessarily restricted to the delivery of video content. The Web, DVDs and many emerging mobile devices provide the ability to distribute other media formats like interactive multimedia and traditional print as well as representing additional access points. Coupled with this is the web and mobile devices ability to also allow one to provide other value-add services to users. For example, Mindset Learn has recently launched a free help desk to Grade 10 – 12 learners accessible through the Learn website, Facebook and MXit.

Free Content

As an educational non-profit organisation, Mindset not only believes in providing free content in the financial sense. Especially in formal education, Mindset sees the need to give users creative freedom to use its content in ways that enhance its educational benefit. Thus, early on Mindset made the decision to release versions of all its content on its website under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike licence. Attribution was selected to ensure that Mindset and, by extension, its funders were appropriately credited for the original work while Share-Alike was selected to ensure the continued freedom of Mindset content.

Significantly, Mindset chose not to apply the non-commercial restriction for 2 reasons. Firstly, it seemed that by applying this restriction, users’ freedom to remix Mindset content with other content would be severely limited due to licence incompatibilities. Secondly, as part of Mindset’s vision was and is human development, it made sense to try and empower those with the ability to value-add Mindset content in ways that Mindset could not and so to create a way to keep such endeavours financially sustainable noting that the attribution requirement would always point users back to the free version thereby nullifying the business model in instances where no perceived value was being added.

Face-to-Face Meetings

In order to increase the extent and quality of impact that Mindset content has, the organisation develops and runs face-to-face workshops with teachers and community health practitioners. In the case of teachers in particular, Mindset actively encourages the use of Mindset content in locally developed resources as part of an overall effort to help teachers create their own high quality teaching and learning resources in the context of an underlying resource based teaching methodology.

These face-to-face workshops also provide Mindset with invaluable opportunities to test the efficacy of the content it has developed. In addition, significant samples of Mindset content are user group tested during the development phase not only to ensure that the content is factually accurate but is also at the correct language level, that the visual cues are well understood, that it meets the educational needs of the intended audience and that it is enjoyable and engaging to watch.

Periodically, Mindset also undertakes large scale programmatic evaluations to measure the identified proximal indicators for impact and ensure that all aspects of the programme are delivering effectively and efficiently.

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