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ICT and the Early Grade Reading Assessment: From Testing to Teaching

wayan — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:45:09 +0000

The science of early literacy acquisition and proven techniques for teaching reading are both backed by years of experimental research, as well as practical experience implementing programs to improve reading.

EGRA testing in Ethiopia

Experts agree that measuring reading progress early offers the benefits of informing remediation, taking a snapshot in time or showing progress over time of children’s reading abilities and informing stakeholders and policy makers about what programs or methods work.

Frequent diagnostic testing at national or classroom levels can serve to establish benchmarks; and monitoring progress against these benchmarks can be a key factor in motivating schools, teachers, students, and families (Davidson, Korda, & Collins, 2011).

The Education for All Fast Track Initiative recently set two indicators related to reading skills:

Proportion of students who, after two years of schooling, demonstrate sufficient reading fluency and comprehension to “read to learn”
Proportion of students who are able to read with comprehension, according to their countries’ curricular goals, by the end of primary school

These indicators are considered an effective measure of a school system’s overall health as well as a specific diagnosis of reading performance that can inform policy and implementation of curriculum and teacher training, among other things. According to Gove and Wetterberg (2011),

“The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) is one tool used to measure students’ progress toward learning to read. It is a test that is administered orally, one student at a time. In about 15 minutes, it examines a student’s ability to perform fundamental prereading and reading skills” (p. 2).

Over the past five years, we at RTI International, various donors, and experts in the field of early reading have worked to “develop, pilot, and implement EGRA in more than 50 countries and 70 languages” (p. 2). Assessments like EGRA help teachers focus on results, by describing what children know or do not know, and where instruction must focus in order to change that. For example, in Egypt, the first Arabic EGRA survey showed very clearly that children who knew letter sounds performed better on reading a short passage than children who only knew letter names; yet 50% of children tested could not identify a single letter sound. These findings signaled that a fundamental shift in instructional methods was required, and after schools adopted a phonics-based approach using letter sounds, performance increased nearly 200% over baseline one year later (Cvelich, 2011).

That said, to measure for results, teachers and their supervisors must find the tools accessible and easy to use to inform their own instruction. It also helps if the results underpin communication with parents and communities, as well as national politicians. (Crouch, 2011). Too often, results from national standardized tests remain at the national level, with teachers rarely getting feedback on performance, much less feedback that is more specific than classroom averages. Furthermore, it can sometimes be months, if not years, before the results of large national assessments are made available, at which time it is too late to change instructional practices – at least for that set of children.

How can ICT play a role?

Systematic use of mobile devices to assess early literacy and numeracy, especially in developing countries, remains limited to date. Reasons include:

Initial procurement cost of the devices and the necessity for specific training in their use;
Lack of robust cost-benefit analyses to inform sustainability of this type of approach; and
Limitations in local capacity to develop or manipulate the necessary data collection software.

As we state elsewhere (Pouezevara & Strigel, 2011), there are several ways in which information and communication technologies (ICT) may be applied to the assessment process to make implementation and use of the results more accessible:

Creating or tailoring tests
Training data collectors
Collecting actual field data
Manipulating and managing the data to extract and present the most significant findings.

Among these, the greatest added value is in using electronic devices for data collection and rapid analysis in place of paper-based assessments.

Electronic devices can reduce the amount of paper needed, as well as the associated costs. Expenses dispensed with include the actual purchase of paper, clipboards, pencils, timers and so on, as well as the labor involved in the lengthy processes of checking student sheets for copy quality, stapling individual packets, counting instruments out by team and school in advance of data collection in the field, and distributing the packets. Paper-related costs such as printing, supplies, data entry, and data cleaning can make up 5%–15% of the entire budget of an EGRA implementation, according to an RTI internal review.
Collecting data digitally means that it can move directly from a device into a database for analysis. This has several benefits in terms of efficiency: less time for data entry, lower data-entry costs, and less time to report out results. Quicker access can encourage stakeholders to do such assessments even when they need data rapidly to make important decisions based on results.
Electronic means have the potential to reduce the number of points for human error in moving from paper to database to analysis software. As with most sophisticated survey software, programmers can build in checks or stops to help assessors recognize data-entry errors immediately, at the time of administration.
Electronic media can be less physically challenging than dealing with paper-related administration: “An electronic solution may also reduce measurement errors arising from problems in handling the timers and other testing materials. Difficulties include forgetting to start the timer, setting the wrong amount of time on the timer, or leaving student prompt sheets with the student when they should have been taken away” (Pouezevara & Strigel, 2011, p. 188).

What solutions are available?

In theory, there are many potential ways to transform paper assessments into an electronic equivalent, but a custom solution is required because of differences between oral reading assessments like EGRA and other standard surveys. For example, data have to be entered at the child’s pace on the subtasks, not that of the assessor. Therefore, survey data collection applications on the market for phones, PDAs, or portable computers typically are not appropriate.

After investigating a wide range of potential hardware and software platforms, we developed Tangerine™, a digital assessment interface for touch-screen tablet computers running the Android operating system (see photographs). It can be used for the standard EGRA approach, or customized for other types of surveys such as early math diagnostics or school information surveys.

Other organizations are also exploring a variety of solutions. Prodigy Systems, an organization that has partnered with RTI in Yemen, successfully developed iProSurveyor for use with Arabic assessments on the iPad. Its first large-scale implementation in Yemen in early 2011 confirmed many of the benefits of the digital approach.

The database output was easily readable by any data analysis program, avoiding time-consuming manual data transcription and recoding before statistical analysis.
Administration errors, such as forgetting to start the timer or enter a response, were minimized through built-in error control.
Significantly fewer materials had to be transported in challenging terrain and an environment unfavorable to printed materials.
No issues arose linked to poor printing quality or stapling.
Total administration time was quicker relative to paper assessment (comparison conducted over one assessment administrator).

Cost-Benefit Analysis

At RTI we recently conducted a preliminary cost-benefit analysis using approximate costs from recent EGRA implementations in four different African countries. The analysis aimed to identify the point of cost recovery at which the digital approach would actually yield cost savings. We modeled not one, but three data collection rounds for each country, because it is common to repeat assessments - e.g., for program baseline, midterm, and post-intervention evaluation, or annual monitoring of student outcomes.

In our cost calculation for the digital approach, we assumed hardware costs of USD300/enumerator plus a 10% contingency for spares and accessories, such as a wireless access point for field-based data back-up for the first data collection (e.g., baseline). For the cost of a second digital data collection, we assumed re-use of the tablets from the first data collection, but factored in a 15% contingency just in case replacements are needed.

To calculate the cost of a second paper-based data collection we multiplied the paper-related costs by two, as the same costs for printing, data entry, and data cleaning would incur again. We followed the same process for adding a third data collection to the calculation (assuming baseline, mid-term, and post-intervention assessments).

As shown in Exhibit 1, for most small-sample data collections or one-time assessments, the cost of the hardware may not be offset by the eliminated paper-related costs. The return on investment in repeated implementations, however, is clear in terms of cumulative costs.

Exhibit 1: Cost of EGRA implementation, paper vs. electronic, for three administrations

In addition to making large national assessments more efficient, the same devices can be adapted for use as classroom-based continuous assessment tools, or as data entry interfaces for situations that still require paper-based tests. With such devices in their hands, teachers or school supervisors can do regular mastery checks more frequently, and capture the results at student and classroom levels.

The resulting data set is a rich one, and if it is supported by built-in computer-based analytics, it can be analyzed in multiple ways to indicate not only whether the methods in place are improving reading ability, but also what areas of the curriculum need more attention, and which children or groups of children are falling behind. For example, detailed item analysis at the classroom or individual level might show a recurring problem with vowel sounds, or decoding. This subsequently provides clear instructional recommendations to focus on.

Limitations and pitfalls

However, electronic administration is not necessarily a cure-all:

Obviously, using electronic data collection at either national or classroom levels does not solve all the limitations of print-based testing; indeed, doing so might introduce new challenges. For example, although a digital solution would eliminate the risk of environmental damage to paper forms during difficult transport situations, it might pose a great risk that all assessment data could be lost at once through loss, damage, or theft of a single device, if proper backup procedures were not in place. Likewise, handling of the new device might prove to be more challenging than handling the timer and all associated materials. […] Thus, strong electronic quality control and supportive supervision during data collection would be crucial. (Pouezevara & Strigel, 2011, p. 188)

Furthermore, the EGRA approach is intended to be a simple solution that can be adopted by countries with minimum technical assistance. An electronic solution should be flexible enough that it does not create dependency of users on software programmers or hardware technicians to change test items and configuration as needed.

In terms of costs, clearly, initial investment costs for specialized hardware may be prohibitive in some situations, but our preliminary cost-benefit analysis indicated that over time the investment will pay off if used for multiple large-scale implementations. Additionally, implementers can leverage the initial investment by choosing tools that can be used for other purposes when not in use for assessment—for example, by loading tablet computers with other instructional materials, training resources, or literacy materials.

We can also foresee assessment software being linked not only to automatically generated analysis of results, but also to suggested instructional resources tailored to those results and a record of day-to-day time on task. It is also possible, using the same technologies that power Tangerine™, to adapt the assessment methodology to more common and less expensive handheld devices, such as mobile phones. These smaller devices might be particularly useful for the most rapid types of literacy assessments, such as Pratham’s yearly literacy and numeracy surveys, which involve fewer subtasks than EGRA and fewer items per test.

Another potential pitfall related to making national or continuous assessments more readily accessible is that they could be used for excessive assessment, and focus on “teaching to the test” at the expense of other higher order or student-centered activities. Too much focus on averages or aggregated results can draw attention away from the achievement of specific subgroups. Additionally, care must be taken that classroom-level results are not misused by aggregating small samples and reporting them up to the national level or attempting to generalize them.

This is a rapidly evolving field, with new technologies arriving on the market almost daily, and prices falling significantly, so it is expected that it will become increasingly feasible to implement electronic methods for literacy assessments in developing countries. Meanwhile, we are piloting various solutions and collaborating with other institutions that have similar goals. Further interest and ideas from the international development community are welcome.

References

Crouch, L. (2011). Motivating early grade instruction and learning: Institutional issues. Ch. 7 in A. Gove & A. Wetterberg, The Early Grade Reading Assessment: Applications and interventions to improve basic literacy (pp. 227–250). Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press. Available from http://www.rti.org/pubs/bk-0007-1109-wetterberg.pdf

Cvelich, P. (2011, September/October). Egypt shakes up the classroom. Frontlines. Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Available from http://www.usaid.gov/press/frontlines/fl_sep11/FL_sep11_EDU_EGYPT.html

Davidson, M., Korda, M., & White Collins, O. (2011). Teachers’ use of EGRA for continuous assessment: The case of EGRA Plus: Liberia. Ch. 4 in A. Gove & A. Wetterberg, The Early Grade Reading Assessment: Applications and interventions to improve basic literacy (pp. 113–138). Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press. Available from http://www.rti.org/pubs/bk-0007-1109-wetterberg.pdf

Gove, A., & Wetterberg, A. (2011). The Early Grade Reading Assessment: An introduction. Ch. 1 in A. Gove & A. Wetterberg, The Early Grade Reading Assessment: Applications and interventions to improve basic literacy (pp. 1–38). Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press. Available from http://www.rti.org/pubs/bk-0007-1109-wetterberg.pdf

Pouezevara, S., & Strigel, C. (2011). Using information and communication technologies to support EGRA. Ch. 6 in A. Gove & A. Wetterberg, The Early Grade Reading Assessment: Applications and interventions to improve basic literacy (pp. 183–226). Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press. Available from http://www.rti.org/pubs/bk-0007-1109-wetterberg.pdf

The eWaste of Development: What are the consequences of new technologies on the environment, and how can we act responsibly, starting now?

wayan — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:22:06 +0000

Over the past few years of activity on the ETD forum, we’ve read many examples of how ICT in education projects have improved and innovated practice, making access to education more modern and accessable. At the same time much criticism has been focused on projects that, despite best intentions, focus first on hardware provision without sufficient consideration of how it will be used to improve learning, effectively wasting the investment.

Many of us have witnessed firsthand this kind of wasted investment—i.e., underutilization of equipment—but how many of us are still around to see the long-term consequences of high-input ICT projects, such as those designed to give every child access to computers, either through large computing labs, mobile laptop stations, or one to one computing?

What happens when those computers reach the end of their lifecycle?
Who is responsible for disposing of them when the project that purchased them is no longer active?
How many projects today are integrating this type of foresight into their design and costs?
What donors are requiring that type of planning from their implementing partners?
Which client governments are requiring such action as part of international aid programs?

For the past three years, the ICT for Education and Training group at RTI International has been looking at these questions, and developing strategies and protocols for approaching ICT in education interventions with a focus on realistic, effective inputs for the present, while planning for the effects of those interventions in the future.

Why? Because although some may argue that informal electronics recycling—i.e., picking and sorting through piles of electronics at the dump—provides a reasonable income for some people (for example, a Kenyan can earn up to $3/day; in Guiyu China, about $8/day—much more than farming), the question is whether or not it is safe and adequate. In most cases, it is not. When we don’t properly recycle, there is human and environmental damage from direct contact with toxic substances, inappropriate methods for extracting raw materials, hazardous working conditions, etc. Additionally, we are ignoring the market potential for additional sources of sustainable and safe livelihoods, while losing raw materials that will have to be re-extracted (with all of the associated environmental problems that come with that.) Thus, the idea of e-waste for us is more than just a by-product of development projects; instead, it can become “the development project”, led by countries in an effort to spark new, safe, and sustainable economies. It is a human as well as environmental concern, both of which have long-term impact on development and improving the human condition, our key mission.

What can be done?

Recycling is just one possible approach to e-waste management, and a broad one at that. The least desirable approach to e-waste management is no management at all, but rather the direct disposal of unwanted equipment and materials using environmentally unsound practices, such as dumping and incineration, and bypassing all efforts to reuse or recycle. We talk a lot about how to use ICT in education, for good reasons. But we don’t talk enough about how the principles of “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” should be integrated into ICT in education projects.

Reduce
Purchase smaller devices—tablet computers and mobile devices, for example; purchase more energy efficient devices; purchase fewer but sufficiently powerful devices (i.e., Thin Clients); extend the lifecycle of the equipment that you have through effective preventive maintenance, proper handling by users, and repairs–this also provides an opportunity for vocational and technical training within the school, organization, or community.

Reuse
In addition to the preventive maintenance described above, when equipment can truly no longer function as its original purpose, it can still be reused or repurposed. For example: refurbish one new device out of parts from other non-functional devices; use non-working devices in vocational and technical training courses to understand parts and how, for example, a computer is put together; repurpose devices into totally different objects, for example computer chips and circuit boards have been “upcycled” into luggage tags , jewelry or art.

Recycle
Despite best efforts, there will always be parts of equipment that cannot be reused or repurposed. The key is to ensure that prior to disposal one considers all responsible recycling options: plastics can be ground or shredded and sold back to plastics manufacturers; parts can be sorted and resold for refurbishing purposes; metals, primarily gold and silver, are recovered by commercial recyclers. The recycling option should aim to create new, viable and safe sources of livelihoods in the community, such as sourcing, separating and sorting parts and then reselling them to appropriate manufacturers.

Examples of Success

In Egypt’s Manshiyat Naser district, also known as “Garbage City”, girls come one day per week to learn how to turn trash into income. With the help of a trained teacher, the girls break down non-working computers collected by the Zabaleen (garbage collectors) or donated to the association, and rebuild them into working computers. Each working computer can be sold for approximately $300 on the local market, with half of the proceeds going directly to the girls, and half funding the warehouse facilities and trainer. The parts that can’t be repurposed into a new computer are sorted for recycling, including the valuable gold and silver of microprocessors, motherboards and circuit boards.

Kenya is emerging as one of the leaders in e-waste management, having convened The National Stakeholders Workshop on Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (e-waste) Nairobi 2010. They are also one of the first African nations to have a comprehensive-government-led e-waste policy and strategy and there are recycling facilities set up to handle it. Computers for Schools Kenya (CFSK) a non-governmental organization, dismantles computers into metals, wires, plastic, aluminum, copper, monitors and electronic boards which are then sold separately. CFSK also converts the monitors into television sets by replacing its boards with those of televisions.

An eWaste “code of conduct” for development partners?

When engaging in development activities, particularly ICT in Education projects that aim to introduce considerable amounts of technology infrastructure, we must act responsibly with regards to e-waste. There are many opportunities, or “entry points” to integrate responsible e-waste management into our projects.

At the proposal stage:

Build e-waste considerations into the proposal, with budget (for example, budget for responsible export of e-waste, local recycling if possible, for training and advocacy events, etc.)
Integrate partnerships with IT companies, private sector partners, community-based organizations, and waste management facilities
Budget for a rapid situation analysis of government policies and procedures surrounding e-waste management.

During project implementation:

Require eco-friendly materials, or manufacturer take-back agreements (‘producer pays principle’) as part of hardware specifications and evaluation criteria for large procurement contracts.
Include in training programs strategies to help extend the lifecycle of computers, and clear instructions for what to do with non-functional equipment.
Conduct advocacy and policy support by work with government counterparts to advise them on long-term considerations and collaborate on developing appropriate actions and solutions

At project exit stage:

Ensure proper handover of used equipment–including project office equipment–to local organizations that have the capacity to restore, refurbish and recycle it.
Insist on transparency in reporting to project donors, stakeholders, clients, etc. on both successful and challenging aspects of electronics recycling and ensure that they have a road-map for the future based on project experience.

However, e-Waste management cannot be externally driven in the long term. Therefore, our most critical responsibility is to support national governments to address this issue and to increase their own capacity for end-of-life processing of e-waste. We can:

promote and support the establishment of recycling facilities as part of economic growth and workforce development projects.
participate in and foster effective environmental lobbies in countries where we work so that citizens also put pressure on governments to create such facilities and enforce appropriate legislation.
encourage governments to develop appropriate legislation to protect themselves and promote development; for example, by outlawing the importation and dumping of foreign e-waste.
encourage the re-use of electronics through social programs that donate equipment to schools or hospitals, and subsidize recycling of e-waste when reuse is not possible.

Further research needed

As a community, we can make a larger impact faster by working together. First, we need more information on who is doing what, which donors and which governments have policies and procedures related to e-waste, and where we can find common ground. Some important questions remain from an institutional perspective:

What is our e-waste “tolerance”?
At what point does this become a clear “hazard” that cannot be ignored?
What constitutes a “significant” amount of technology input in a project?
Is this only relevant to ICT in Education projects?
What about our project offices?
Do we practice what we preach in our institutions both at home and abroad?
Do smaller devices necessarily contain less e-waste per unit?
Are donors likely to view e-waste considerations as a positive or a negative contribution to projects where it is not expressly requested?
What about the health and environmental effects of the use of electronic devices even before reaching the disposal phase (i.e., increased electricity consumption and hazards related to long-term exposure to cell phones, wireless internet, etc.).

We welcome your contribution to this ongoing research, by sharing your experiences, activities and opinions.

A version of this piece was previously presented to the 54th annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in Chicago, March 3, 2010. Background research was commissioned by RTI and carried out by Amos Cruz, and submitted to RTI International as an unpublished research paper entitled “Electronic Waste: Considerations and Solutions for Integration of Information and Communications Technologies in the Developing World”, August 29, 2009. A multimedia version of the presentation is also available

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Making Interactive Radio Instruction Truly Interactive with Community Radio and Mobile Phones

wayan — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:08:08 +0000

Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) isn’t sexy per se. It doesn’t employ cutting edge networking and caching technologies. It isn’t an Android application. It doesn’t even do social media. IRI may not have the whistles and bells that often support (and sometimes distract) in ICT for Development, but what it lacks in bling, it makes up for in effectiveness.

It scales – one tape player, one moderator, many students.
It engages – students’ attention spans are courted and kept.
It reaches – thousands learn, in places where cellular coverage providers, electricity utilities, and governments have little incentive to provide service.

However, IRI lacks the “R” – the radio in Interactive Radio Instruction refers to the content, not the mechanism. Students listen to voices coming out of a rectangular device, much like a radio. Where does “real” radio come into IRI?

I have been self-taught with IRI, reading what I could on the subject by experts like Mary Myers and following EDC efforts – probably the most comprehensive programs to date. However, as many community-based organizations know, having the experts create an IRI initiative for a community is expensive (and likely worth the expense, unless the expense is simply out of range). Custom hardware initiatives, such as the Talking Book by Literacy Bridge, offer alternative ways to conduct IRI-based education.

Through my own work in trying to add interactivity to community radio, I’ve gotten good exposure to educational programming and have come up with some permutations of IRI that seem appropriate for communities and less expensive than “expert” IRI providers, even if the processes are not as clean. The traditional model of tape recorder, tape, and teacher starting and stopping the tapes is always fine and good, but limited in terms of extensibility, and collaboration with other schools and organizations that can be helpful in curriculum development and subject matter expertise.

Tapes and their players break. The interactivity is based on information dissemination, not information exchange, remaining a one-way communication system. While real-time two-way communication is a luxury in many communities, there are ways to truly make IRI interactive and to engage radio. It’s time to upgrade the I and R in IRI.

Using Community Radio

I’ve worked with elementary schools where teachers outsource teaching to CDs and IRI programs, even though IRI requires in-class moderation of learning modules. Lessons were often repeated, and learning became rote. As part of an unrelated project to build a closed WiFi network that connected wifi-enabled phones to the community radio station in town, the radio station saw the opportunity to offer interactive teaching, inviting subject experts and teachers come to the station to deliver lessons. Radio receivers are more common than tape players, and having educational content on the air gave the content cachet and visibility that won students and non-students alike to listen.

In addition to delivering lectures and lessons, the radio gave the WiFi phones to the students so that they could answer questions and take quizzes on air. Kids wanted to have their say on the radio, and parents wanted their kids to do better in school as it reflected well in the radio program. Classroom attendance grew, as did program complexity, using SMS and interactive voice recording systems as the community radio producers and teachers became more creative. This may not be a case that can be replicated in every community, but leveraging community radio stations is a great way to add a “real” R to IRI.

Using Mobile Phones

Similar to this, on another closed network in an Amazon educational scenario, teachers from the only high school in 400km used the mobile handsets to call other river communities on speakerphone. There was no community radio in this community, and some of the towns were a three day boat ride away. It used to be that the high school would send books and academic materials on these dugout canoes for educational use, but the river and rain more often than not ruined the texts.

Here, the original IRI model provided an effective blueprint from which to modify for geography and need. Students in other towns, facilitated by the primary school teacher or elder in the community, listened along with the lesson and were prompted to respond to the academic conversation a la conference call.

No Standard Solution, Many Options

There are natural and immediate critiques to both of these scenarios. In the first case, public praise may not be a great pedagogical model. In the second, the often-terrible connections between communities required the use of Citizen’s Band radio – one of the original ICTs! Certainly the content creation is the hardest part – this is a bit easier where English is a national language, but the judgment call needs to be made by someone much more knowledgeable about education that some of us general ICT folks are.

Is there a national curriculum standard to follow?
Does that standard have relevance to the students in this community?
If not, what supplemental information is necessary for community-specific education?
Does this content reach into vocational/health/development content?

I’ve found no dearth of content in education departments at colleges, where masters of education students are mostly willing to help for a lot less money than content experts demand – and they are also well-versed in curriculum standards and national tests, if that is an aim of the school using IRI for preparation.

Let’s also not forget richer media in the search to integrate community radio and interactivity into IRI. CD and DVD players are common in several communities, primarily in South Asia. Visual cultures seem like a natural fit for such projects as Digital Study Hall. The cost is relatively low, the scale potential is high, and the ability to show – rather than just tell – can’t be replicated by IRI or community radio. It follows one of the most effective models I know, the “see one, do one, teach one” model.

So let’s start leveraging all the ways to hear one, teach one, do more.

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The Makerere E-Learning Experience Providing Professional Development to Academics

wayan — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:30:30 +0000

Technology has been a key driver to educational innovation in a number of Higher Educational Institutions. Makerere University in Uganda has been at the forefront of providing and implementing Online Learning through various initiatives it has undertaken since 1998.

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 Learning from Experience

wayan — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:29:50 +0000

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

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.

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.

Teachers complain that training sessions are too short and that they do not have enough time for training or for practice.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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”.

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.

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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Which Low-Cost Laptop is Best for Education?

wayan — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:30:39 +0000

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

XO-1 Laptop
In 2006, the One Laptop Per Child organization introduced the XO-1 laptop as a purpose-build computer for education. It’s features, from a sunlight-readable screen to a rugged design, custom Open Source software, and a low cost, created much excitement in the technology and education communities. Marketed as the “$100 laptop” it allowed Ministries of Education to actually consider introducing technology to their students on a per-child basis.

Since the XO’s introduction, OLPC has released several new updates to the hardware and software, and several countries (Uruguay, Peru, Rwanda) have widely distributed these computers in their primary education schools.

ClassmatePC
In 2007, Intel introduced the Classmate PC as a competitor to the XO-1 as an alternate education-specific laptop for education. The Classmate PC was part of the Intel World Ahead program to expand the use of ICT in the developing world and often bundled with the Intel Teach program to train teachers on its use in the classroom.

The Classmate PC has several updates and versions and several countries (Portugal, Brazil, Venezuela) have widely distributed these laptops to their primary and secondary schools.

Netbooks
In 2007, the Asus Eee PC was the first consumer netbook – a small low-cost laptop designed around price as the over-riding factor. The Eee PC was not designed or marketed as an education device, yet it’s very low cost and ubiquity made it and other netbooks an alternative, easy-to-obtain laptop for education.

The Asus Eee PC was an instant hit with general consumers and quickly spawned many imitators, which collectively formed the netbook category. Netbooks grew to over 20% of the PC market at their peak sales. Several school districts in the USA and other developed countries have distributed these consumer netbooks to their students.

Tablets
In 2007, Amazon.com introduced the Kindle and in 2010, Apple introduced the iPad as consumer devices. The Kindle is specifically designed as an eBook reader and the iPad touch screen, coupled with iTunes, was a revolution in the ease of use for consumers. Neither device was designed for education, yet their intuitive user interfaces have made educators wonder what is the potential impact of tablet computers in education?

Both the Kindle and the iPad were great commercial successes for their respective companies and have generated imitators as they expand the tablet market. There are limited trials of both devices in several schools districts around the world.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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Opportunities and challenges for use of mobile phones for learning

wayan — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:30:04 +0000

The Mobile landscape in Africa has rapidly evolved over the past decade with 380 Million mobile subscribers and 1 million added every week. This growth has been fueled in a large part by the liberalization effort resulting in the formation of independent regulatory bodies and increased competition in the market. This has enhanced numerous grassroots efforts to empower the poor and marginalized by providing access to knowledge through technology, more so a platform for communication. SMS and voice is being used in innovative ways to share knowledge and improve learning among students in Africa.

Text to Change: Best practices

Text to Change has over the years proven that SMS and Voice based applications can be used successfully in various interactive mobile health education programs reaching thousands of people across the African continent. Text to Change (TTC) uses text messaging (SMS) to encourage behavioral change and has proved that this approach is a highly effective communication channel for health education, encouraging testing and drug compliance and informing people of the choices available to them concerning their wellbeing.

For example in 2008, TTC in partnership with Zain and Aids Information Centre, Uganda, devised a six-eight week SMS behavioral change campaign which was advertised with the slogan ‘’Don’t guess, learn the truth about AIDS’’ and its aim was to encourage people to know about their HIV status and learn more about the disease. Today, TTC is active in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). However, the impact of these programs needs to be complimented by other media like Radio and posters to build an awareness platform.

Opportunities and challenges

60% of people in Africa are under the age of 24, a school going age, which is knowledgeable about new technologies (even the use of smart phones) and becoming very demanding. The youth are booming with lots of enthusiasm to explore and learn any technologies at their disposal in schools and communities. They learn fast and are inquisitive. Technology distracts youth- either positively or negatively. The idea is keeping it simple to encourage learning. Also, mobile is still a more affordable technology than a computer for the youth seeing that service providers always have subsidized packages that accommodate them.

Technology role out for learning is still stalled by a number of factors in Africa including:

Poor ICT policy implementation especially in the areas of Health and Education. These two areas are complimentary – will you educate an unhealthy nation?
Most schools in Africa still do not accept mobile phone possession in classroom or even at school. Aspects of high teacher absenteeism and quality of teachers are still apparent.
Limited mobile coverage especially in the rural areas which has also led to poor internet connectivity. Mobile operators are always seeking a win-win market situation– how then should we package these programs to make them interesting to the operators?
Africa is characterized by too many ICT pilots of which most have not materialized to ongoing impact generating programs.
Technology is powered by Electricity, which is a challenge to most of rural Africa.

The bloggers reflections

The future of ICT/Mobile deployment in mLearning is encouraging, however, this cannot be substituted for a weak education system – a good quality education sector is vital. It should be understood that ICT/Mobile is just a tool or an enabler to development. Success stories and failures aside, we need to be unambiguous about the definition of M-learning which varies from country to country. I believe the biggest opportunities lie in the access to information and knowledge.

In my outlook, many of the mLearning initiatives are designed within a ‘’what if’’ scenario: “What if everyone in rural Africa has access to a smart phone and/ or has access to internet?” The fact of the matter is that, inspite the rapid growth of the mobile industry; we need to use that which is currently available and practical. In most parts of Africa, we are limited to SMS, and Voice; this is the only medium that works on most basic devices. Teaching how to read, write and to do simple arithmetic is the responsibility of the parents, teacher and the government. It is complex to replace that by applications and mobile technology. I encourage that ICT or mobile should always be used as an enabler and could never be successful if it is used in isolation.

Mobile operators could encompass the role of an incubator; where a commercially viable product is introduced that will encourage the deployment and uptake of the other operators. Competition drives innovation. It is undeniable that operators are an enabler of technology with good network coverage and infrastructure their primary role. Text to change has partnerships with most major mobile operators in East Africa from which we get subsidized tariffs. Our short codes run on all networks in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

For example, Orange is providing us with technical support in countries where they have operations; however, the partnership does not demand exclusivity- we are open to work with other existing operators within the region. I then must argue that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is always a short term association. To have a sustainable working relationship with the mobile operators we must ensure a win- win situation since the primary goal / core business of the operator is to provide network services and make profits. This is how it should be. I rather have premium services and pay for it than a CSR project that doesn’t have priority for the service provider because it is not profitable.

Very many pilots in developing countries are currently donor funded and have created vast impact. The question is if they are successful, why then doesn’t the government take them on and scale them up nationwide? It is a pity to say that if the government does not scale them up then we remain in a pilot cycle.

The role of government (education ministries) can never be over emphasized. Development of a strong regulatory framework involving a range of stakeholders with accent on end user involvement will bring us far. For example, in Uganda a technical e-readiness working group is in place with the aim to bring different stakeholders together to accelerate ICT implementations in Uganda. A national ICT policy is in place and an education sector ICT policy is before Cabinet. The Ministry of Education and Sports is taking steps to co-ordinate ICT development and has allocated resources to support implementation of its ICT strategy.

Nationwide deployment of a mLearning application programme could only be successful with the inclusion of government having a dedicated budget. That said, mLearning applications have the potential to improve and strengthen the current Education system if integrated into an existing ‘well functioning’ Education system. It is interesting to ask ‘’If the paper based system works; why replace it by mobile phones? ‘’

The fact that Mobile is the most widely used technology in Africa and more people have access to a phone than a computer or even to good quality educational material offers vast opportunities for mLearning.

Recommendations to policy makers, regulators and other stakeholders

My 2 cents lie in the need to develop a legal regulatory framework, mobilize resources to support development of programmes and applications for mLearning. The Ministry should also directly support the development of mLearning applications and or innovations. In addition, the use and deployment of proved programmes and applications in the Education sector.

Before supporting more pilots, donors should research on what already exists; what has worked and what hasn’t. This will help cub duplication. Since most pilots are funded externally, therefore, we need to be creative in sourcing funds and build new business models to ensure continuity. The role of government and other private sector parties cannot be undermined to ensure continuity or sustainability of the pilot projects after the donor has exited. However, we need to be mindful that the MLearning project objectives should therefore be able to meet the countries’ development goals to attract continual implementation by government.

Public private partnerships in the mobile industry need to be encouraged. Tax on Mobile technology, especially on mobile devices is very high in East Africa. In Uganda the VAT on Mobile products is high at 30%. A recent report on the GSMA shows that mobile subscribers across East Africa are highly taxed the world over. This has to be lowered to encourage mobile deployment in Africa. In order to encourage mLearning, the government needs to be creative with tax incentives that will encourage service providers to engage without incurring losses.

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Learning with Mobile Devices Somewhere Near the Bottom of the Pyramid

wayan — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:29:24 +0000

I am grateful for the chance to contribute to the current debate on the potential for Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in education in Africa. It is clearly a debate about important issues.

Mobile phones hold out enormous promise as the single ICT most likely to deliver education in Africa, and to do so on a sustainable, equitable and scalable basis. I think however that so far, we have not often seen much progress beyond fixed-term, small-scale and subsidised pilots and it is worth exploring whether mobile phones can really deliver their promise.

Delivering education in Africa using mobile phones probably strikes governments, institutions and practitioners as easy and obvious because mobile phones and mobile networks are almost universally accessible and reliable in places where environment, economics, infrastructure and security might variously militate against any other ICTs and where the demographics of mobile phone ownership, access and competence, unlike most other ICTs, takes us near to the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ – the actual ‘bottom of the pyramid’ is of course populated by people who can’t even afford mobile phones! Furthermore, mobile phones are an individual ICT not an institutional or corporate ICT and are not predicated on access to colleges, business centres, cyber-cafes or maybe even cities. Therefore, learning on mobile phones should work.

The current World Bank Group and the African Development Bank study is intended “to raise awareness and stimulate action, especially among African governments and development practitioners”. These are indeed vital prerequisites but perhaps ‘critical awareness’ and ‘rigorously evidence-based action’ are even more vital. This is important debate is often characterised by simplifications, misplaced optimism and untested assertions. Hopefully this piece will strike a better balance.

My contention is that whilst many good projects using mobile devices to support learning, by definition, do good work and thus deserve to be praised and celebrated, our problems start when we try to understand these projects, when we try to reason and infer about these projects, when we try to explain and disseminate them in the hope that we can reproduce and replicate them. This is all the more worrying as we overlook the far larger number of less successful projects or when we group, organise and cluster projects in order to find common generalisable themes, forces, causes and mechanisms. Therein lies our problem with scale, sustainability and equity.

Something is wrong and we need to dig beneath the surface. What are my reasons for advocating such caution?

Firstly, of course, failure often goes unreported, unpublished, and unacknowledged, and common impression is that careers and reputations are not built on failures however interesting or thought-provoking. Furthermore, many projects are doomed to success and are reported accordingly. Funders, agencies, ministries, officials, researchers and others will have all invested much prestige and resource giving projects the necessary momentum and visibility, and failure becomes unthinkable or inconceivable.

A common saying maintains that, “if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Watching evaluations in South Africa and Kenya made me think this is true of the mind-sets we bring to our analysis and evaluation of projects. An educationalist will see educational explanations, a technologist will see technological ones, a policy-maker will see policy ones and so on. Our inferences about success are conditioned by our backgrounds.

Sometimes these predispositions are built in projects from the outset. In looking at siting or sampling, people from different backgrounds and organisations bring their own ideas about where to site their cluster of project interventions in the hope of getting maximum generality from limited resource but in doing so they bring to the fore, those variables they think significant (and thereby make them significant) and push others to the background. So class size, network coverage or educational content will appear important because they were built in that they would be!

Furthermore, the dream of successful large-scale sustainable learning with mobile devices has been haunted by high-profile successes like mPesa and Grameen. These successes create the expectation and the pressure that learning with mobile devices should be a worldwide runaway success.

On top of that, some years ago, I and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme looked back at reports of mobile learning research projects from around the world and concluded that the researchers were not always very competent and trained in project evaluation. Their evaluations were often fairly informal, disconnected from project objectives, bolted on as late extras, unfocussed and not informed by the relevant literature or expertise. Also, funders and donors are not necessarily trained or critical readers of monitoring and evaluation reports. Below the executive summary and the headlines might be many caveats and nuances that get in the way of simple prescriptions and these get lost.

Of course, in saying this, I am caught between funders who want results, policy makers who want simple robust bases for policy, the development community talking about predictable unexpected consequences, social scientists telling us reality and experience are contingent and postmodernists telling us that the grand narratives of the Western European mind, of which development is undoubtedly one, are all broken and dead.

So our first conclusion must be that our inferences about success and about critical success factors in learning with mobile devices are fairly shaky.

If we look at the mechanics of mobile learning projects in particular and ask about sustainability, things do not get better.

Firstly, funders fund projects, and understandably they try to fund good projects, and as soon as their funding finishes so does most of their influence. This makes moving projects towards sustainability problematic in practical terms. It might however be starting from the wrong perspective all along. Perhaps instead of funding good projects in the hope that they will become sustainable, funders should fund sustainable projects in the hope that they will become good.

Meaning that funders should pay more attention to the host, the target, the destination, to the culture, values and expectations of the people who will inherit and support the project and less to the concrete specifics of the projects and its innovations. Perhaps funders should actually avoid known innovators and early adopters on the basis that these people have least in common with the rank-and-file staff who will institutionalise, embed and appropriate educational change and have least in common with the ethos of their institution.

Most mobile learning projects, especially research projects, have been based on providing learners with the necessary devices, especially first generation projects when devices were rare, expensive and complex. This was sensible in producing more rigorous evidence in coming from a uniform technology platform but not in producing evidence that was transferable into the world where funds did not exist to continue to provide learners with devices.

Those mobile learning project funded by corporates, especially from within their corporate social responsibility budgets, suffered from similar problems, compounded by the shorter time-scales that characterised the corporate and commercial world. Fixed-term projects, either funded as research or as corporate social responsibility, taught us little about sustainability. By definition, they were not intended to teach us about sustainability. The fact that projects run more smoothly and produce cleaner less noisy data with provided devices rather than learner devices, that they often use the enthusiasm of project staff and the novelty of innovation, has instead created very false and contrived environments and evidence that does not transfer.

If we could produce evidence that was convincing and relevant, we then have the problem of what to do with it!

In countries of big government, where society expects government support from cradle to grave, the role of evidence is at least in theory straightforward, namely researchers take evidence to government, this impacts on policy and then releases or diverts public resources. In fact, informing policy and changing practice are much more complex than this, involving various ways of exploiting expertise as well as evidence but it is still being basically a political process underpinned by a particular set of ideals about the responsibilities of government.

In countries of small government, however, the role of evidence, expertise and experts is more complex and problematic. The players in any possible mobile learning space might include network operators, publishers, handset manufacturers, maybe government, maybe not, and possibly social entrepreneurs and various kinds of community activists. We must work towards models of learning with mobile devices that make money since this ensures that they are sustainable, big money in the case of scenarios that include corporates and small money in the case of scenarios that include social entrepreneurs.

Corporates, of course, each have a specific focus, be it handsets, content or connectivity, and so the challenge for advocates of learning with mobiles devices is moving the argument forward and fostering collaborations, with evidence and whatever else works, with these players. We must recognise however that even if a commercial operation can take learning to the mythic next billion subscribers of the global South, there will still be parts of the curriculum or parts of the population left uncovered, where governments must still recognise some responsibility and recognise the potential to build human capital and potential for the greater good, if only we knew the language, the issues and the arguments that would change their course.

The alternative is working with social entrepreneurs, those individuals embedded within their own communities, prepared to blend making a profit and delivering a social service, perhaps analogous to community teachers in rural schools in Kenya or bare-foot doctors in China. The challenge for advocates of learning with mobile devices is finding out how to design or adapt those devices or applications that hit the spot where market and education might just overlap.

A colleague recently remarked that every technology embodies an ideology; I realised that the implication was that every educational technology embodied a pedagogy, embodies a specific set of ideas about teaching and learning. This ideology or pedagogy may be that of the designers or the manufacturers; the technology may however be appropriated by users and learners and the ideology or pedagogy embodied within the technology becomes theirs not the original or intended one. This issue represents one of the challenges to transferring strategies for educational technology from one culture to another, even from one community or sub-culture to another, especially when we recognise how many slightly different communities and sub-cultures inhabit phonespace and cyberspace.

Finally, one obvious way to enhance sustainability and scale is to consciously exploit learners’ own devices, to base national or institutional strategy around the phones that individuals choose, own and carry everywhere. Of course, institutional culture and regulations may actually prohibit phones on the premises and much needs to be done in order to address issues of standards, infrastructure and performance, of access and equity, of content and training but the main hurdle is teachers’ and officials’ perceptions about loss of control and agency in the class-room, about suddenly letting the animals run the zoo. Fortunately some countries, South Africa, for example, are starting to explore these issues and make progress on a major prerequisite to sustainable learning with mobile devices.

There’s a lot going on in this blog and some prevailing assumptions and generalisations may have been addressed with just a different set of assumptions and generalisations; the aim was however not to convince but to unsettle, and perhaps to encourage more caution and scepticism. Learning with mobile devices somewhere near the bottom of the pyramid is still our best bet.

African NRENs can expand educational opportunities across education sectors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The African Context for NRENs

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

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

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

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

NRENs: A Necessary Foundation for African e-Science

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

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

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

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

NREN Practices to Consider

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Extending the Reach of African NRENs: Supporting Schools and SchoolNets

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

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

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

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

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

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

This discussion is part of the eTranform Africa initiative.

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