We have just completed three years of publishing the World Bank’s EduTech blog.  As we did at the end of 2010 and 2009, we have put together a consolidated list of ‘top posts’ from the last year. 

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The EduTech blog is meant to provide an informal way to share information about some of the things (projects, challenges, technologies, approaches) that we think might be of interest to a wider audience, especially in so-called “developing countries”, hopefully serving in some modest way to promote greater transparency related to some of the sorts of information, conversations and discussions that previously were accessible only to limited groups of stakeholders and partners with whom the World Bank is in regular dialogue.

There is no shortage of blogs that focus on educational technology issues.  The vast majority of the ones available in English are written by and for people working in schools and education systems in the United States, Canada, the UK and other places in Europe, Australia, etc.  While we are certainly happy when *anyone* reads our short weekly posts, this is decidedly *not* our target audience. (People interested in that sort of thing are directed to the lists of excellent educational technology blogs available here.)

On the EduTech blog, our goal each week is to “explore issues related to the use of information and communication technologies to benefit education in developing countries”, and it is through this prism that we always try to view things. Most posts are actually extensions of, or complements to, on-going conversations that we are having with various groups about particular projects and, truth be told, we often write a post with an explicit target audience of just a handful of people in mind.  That said, we are quite happy that we seem to have found a pretty wide and dedicated weekly readership.

International development institutions are often seen as notoriously traditional and hidebound institutions, especially in their embrace of new technologies, and by publishing (nearly) every week, we hope to demonstrate to various partners within the UN and international development community, as well as our partners in government around the world, that it is possible to share information quickly and cheaply with interested groups in ways that are a bit more idiosyncratic, and possibly more interesting, than via a press release touting the achievement of some milestone or a dense paper that goes through a lengthy review process before finding a wider audience.  Both of those mechanisms obviously have their place. 

That said, based on personal experience with this blog, I find that the immediacy and wide readership of some blog posts prove useful to advance dialogue on some topics in ways that other ‘traditional’ publishing mechanisms is less suited to do. (Yes, this may be old news to many readers — this paragraph isn’t directed at you.) Whereas press releases and more formal academic papers often signal the end of a process of some sort, this blog is often used to spark conversation about starting something new, in places where some of the topics or ideas or approaches are not widely known.

So: That’s enough preface.  Below is a collection of top posts from 2011.  There were fewer posts to pick from this year, given that we suspended publication for three months due to other commitments (and from sheer exhaustion — maintaining the blog remains a largely ‘extracurricular’ activity), but we hope that you found something of interest and relevance to your work.

Top World Bank EduTech Blog Posts of 2011

10. Reporting back from eLearning Africa 2011 & Education & Technology in Africa: Creating Takers … or Makers? & eLearning, Africa, and … China?
Collectively, these three posts about the use of ICT in education in Africa — all occasioned by 2011′s eLearning Africa event in Tanzania — were widely re-circulated.

9. Crowdsourcing, collaborative learning or cheating?
The introduction of computers often challenges educators, parents, communities and educational systems in ways that are poorly anticipated.  This post looked at how the ability to communicate instantaneously, and to cut and paste, highlights some of the issues at the core of what it means to ‘educate’ someone in the 21st century.

8. Using ICTs in schools with no electricity
In many places in the world, the ‘digital divide’ is as much about access to electricity as it is about access to the Internet and computing resources in general.

extra: Latin America
When people ask about where educational technologies are being widely used in ‘developing countries’, many instinctively look to Asia for answers.  The fast pace of changes and initiatives in Latin America — like in Uruguay’s Plan Ceibal — is attracting greater interest around the world, and was the subject of many blog posts in 2011, including What’s next for Plan Ceibal in Uruguay?, One-to-one computing in Latin America & the Caribbean, Educational Technology Use in the Caribbean and Surveying ICT use in education in Brazil.

7. The Aakash, India’s $35 (?) Tablet for Education
Interest in a cheap computing device for students shows no sign of abating.  The latest gadget to grab headlines is India’s Aakash — this post described a visit to the World Bank by the head of the company that makes it.

6. Running your own FAILfaire
No one gets promoted for failing. So why talk about it?  And even if you do want to talk about it: How can you do it without getting fired?  This post draws on lessons from a number of FAILfaire events that have been held at the World Bank to help share lessons about what hasn’t worked in the past, in the hope that this might provide some useful guidance and perspective for people contemplating similar things in the future.

5. When students are in charge of maintaining the computers in schools
Few education systems provide sufficient budgets to ensure that computers in schools remain in working order. This post looked at an interesting initiative that enlists the help of students to keep everything running.

extra What Are the Costs of Not Investing in ICTs in Education?
Whether one agrees with such a question, it is commonly asked (if not rigorously considered) as an important part of considerations of large-scale investments in ICTs in the education sector in many countries.

4. What happens when all textbooks are (only) digital? Ask the Koreans! & e-Learning in Korea in 2011 and beyond
The bold decision by educational leaders in South Korea to introduce digital textbooks in all subjects at all levels by the middle of the decade is being closely watched around the world.  This is a topic that we will continue to revisit over time, especially given the close partnership between the World Bank and Korea exploring how best to support the effective and relevant use of ICTs in education in developing countries.

3. SMS education in Pakistan & More on SMS use in education in Pakistan
There is much hype about potential uses of mobile phones in education.  A lot of this excitement is related to the potential for applications running on high-end smartphones.  What about the types of low-end phones most people in the world actually use?  These two posts looked briefly at one World Bank-sponsored initiative in Pakistan.

extra Education & Technology in 2025: A Thought Experiment
This short blog post tried to turn a common discussion held at ministries of education about the use of educational technologies on its head, asking If costs weren’t an issue, what would you be seeking to do with technology to support learning? Would this change your perspective on the role of ICTs from what it is now?

2. School computer labs: A bad idea?
Sometimes it is useful to take a step back and ask: Do we need to change some of our fundamental approaches to how and where we consider the use of educational technologies? The concept — and reality — of a computer lab is central to the use of new technologies in most schools in developing countries. Should it be? This short post ignited a lot of discussion in a number of places.

1. Mobile learning in developing countries in 2011: What’s new, what’s next?
As in past years, the topic of mobile phone use in education continued to draw lots of readers to the EduTech blog.  Will 2012 finally be the year where this topic breaks into the mainstream in some new places?

While blog posts are often meant by their very nature to be rather ephemeral, a number of EduTech posts from earlier years enjoyed strong readership in 2011, including Worst practice in ICT use in education, 10 Global Trends in ICT and Education, and pretty much anything about mobile phones.  The lists of top posts from 2009 and 2010 may also be of interest. An easy way to be informed of new posts on the EduTech blog is to follow us on Twitter @WBedutech and/or to subscribe to our RSS feed (we put the complete text in the feed, to make it easy to read off-line and/or to re-publish on other sites).

Finally, an end-of-year “shout-out” to our sister site, the Educational Technology Debate, which continues to spark interesting discussion through regular contributions from a wide variety of people from different backgrounds; the main World Bank education sector blog (where EduTech items are occasionally cross-posted) and IC4D blog (not sure where the “T” got lost); and a general thank you to a number of international development-themed blogs, from one-man-shows to collective endeavors of various sorts, from which I continue to draw inspiration, and which regularly provoke me to think about things I often don’t think about it — or which challenge me to about things I do think about but in different ways. Happy New Year!

Note: The image used at the top of this blog post of the celebration of the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin (“lots of people celebrating another happy birthday”) comes from the German Federal Archive via Wikimedia Commons and is used according to the terms of its Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1987-0704-015 / Schindler, Karl-Heinz / CC-BY-SA)

D is for desktop. L is for laptop. M is for mobile. E is for expensive!

For the time being, traditional technologies are too expensive and complicated to implement in scale, while also allowing sufficient funding for teacher training and learning materials development.

Desktops in school computer rooms require a dedicated, secure classroom that would otherwise serve as an instructional space in an often-overcrowded school. The opportunity cost associated with losing an instructional space alone, is incalculable.  Some initiatives adopt a “mobile lab” approach, where they introduce laptops – or increasingly, tablets – to provide students with 1:1 instruction, without losing instructional space. 

Another approach is mobile phone technology.  Nokia recently announced a Linux-based smartphone for $100, and there have been announcements about Google-powered Android smartphones, also priced in the $100 range.

Yet, the challenges with all three approaches remain more or less the same. First, there may never been enough computers and smartphones available (at least not in the foreseeable future) to adequately serve every student. Second, assuring the necessary maintenance of equipment, networks, and access to reliable electricity is a particularly expensive proposition when a nation considers equipping the majority of its schools.

And finally, the responsibility placed on the individual teacher to effectively integrate technology into instruction is immense. He must be trained to facilitate use of high-quality software, facilitate student use, troubleshoot technical issues during facilitation, and monitor individual and collective student progress in order to achieve measurable goals – in addition to his regular teaching responsibilities!

For technology that relies on the delivery of web-based content, there are even greater risks for abandoning use of computers altogether if the network is not fast or reliable enough, or if the cost is prohibitive over a longer period.

Providing a whole-class learning solution to reach more schools

In partnership with USAID/Senegal and Columbia University’s Earth Institute, CyberSmart Africa has introduced a whole-class learning solution that integrates the use of a specially adapted interactive whiteboard directly into classroom instruction. We started the program in 2010 and now operate in three primary schools and six middle schools. The objective is to focus on learning, as teachers facilitate an active, student-centered classroom that integrates the use of digital resources in support of all core academic subjects.

The whole class learns together as an interactive whiteboard moves between classrooms, impacting hundreds of students during a single school day. More than a dozen students will actually use the interactive whiteboard during a single class session, while all students become active learners as they benefit from the experience of observing and influencing their peers’ work at the board.

Implementation is simplified and the Total Cost of Ownership is low compared to laptop and school computer room initiatives because there is less equipment to be maintained and managed; and there are minimal installation costs because all of the equipment is portable. Resources are primarily directed toward ongoing teacher training, the single investment in education that is most closely associated with student success.

Many of the classrooms in our partner schools have rusted ceilings, and some lack electricity. Power is supplied with a solar-charged battery that moves between classrooms along with the equipment. The technology consists primarily of a lightweight screen manufactured in-country, a netbook, a low-power video projector, and an interactive “controller” that enables the touch-screen capability. Users interact with the computer – opening files, playing games, searching for content – by touching the screen with a special infrared pen that acts like a mouse.

All the necessary software to run the applications resides in the stand-alone netbook, and Internet connectivity is optional. The equipment is easily moved between classrooms, over sand and sometimes even through the village to an off-site space, and can be completely set up in under ten minutes.

In contrast to using a regular video projector, the teacher and students are not glued to a computer keyboard – which will most likely be controlled by the teacher – in order to manipulate desktop content on an interactive whiteboard. Lessons are purposely designed to be participatory, and viewable by the whole class so that students are more engaged in the learning process. Interactive whiteboard software also makes use of a suite of “blackboard-like” annotation tools – underlining, circling, coloring – among other capabilities.

Success requires a “toolbox” consisting of ongoing training, content, and support

As ICT has become central to the USAID Education Strategy (February 2011), it is essential to keep in mind that ICT use in schools will accomplish very little if not integrated within a toolbox full of supporting educational content, ongoing teacher training and support, and a context that nurtures evolving teaching and learning styles.

Our work at CyberSmart Africa has been motivated by the unfortunate reality of too many education initiatives who introduce ICT simply for ICT’s sake, and whose budget and program activities go to supporting only the use of the provided equipment. Our approach extends directly into the pedagogical implications of ICT; the bulk of our activities support the ongoing teacher training necessary to successfully integrate ICT to improve the quality of instruction, and thus impact student learning.

A Focus on Professional Development including use of SMS

Through our ongoing professional development activities, we support the teachers in a shift toward learner-centered strategies. The teachers gradually move away from the traditional lecture-style approach and become facilitators of the learning process.

As part of our teacher professional development activities, we nurture professional learning communities where teachers support one another and create their own technology-integrated lessons. With ongoing teacher-to-teacher support, the content shared in the classroom is guaranteed to align with the Senegalese national curriculum, as well as the teacher’s personal instructional objectives.

Relying again on simple, available, and affordable technology, CyberSmart Africa uses SMS to extend our professional development. Every Monday, teachers receive by SMS a  “Weekly Challenge” exercise, a follow-up on themes introduced during face-to-face meetings and classroom observations.

The challenge may simply require a response to a question, such as “What software did you use the previous week?”. Other challenges may be task-oriented, such as “Co-facilitate a technology-integrated lesson with a colleague this week.” The challenges are designed to both provide direction, and encourage teachers to put their learning into practice. We have found that the challenges are motivating and fun, while also providing CyberSmart Africa with valuable feedback concerning the level of teacher participation.

Teaching reading in support of the USAID Education Strategy

The USAID Education Strategy (2011) intends to leverage ICT to improve reading in primary grades; and we observe that the possibilities to use the interactive whiteboard for reading instruction are seemingly endless. It provides a way to accommodate for different learning styles, as students not only write on the interactive whiteboard, but also read, speak, listen, and even manipulate otherwise static content.

As part of CyberSmart Africa’s Senegal implementation, for example, we have created the framework for a word magnet exercise, where students form sentences by dragging disassociated words, and sometimes images, from one part of the screen to the other. This creative learning exercise sharpens students’ ability to think critically, as they learn sentence construction and vocabulary.

With an interactive whiteboard in their classrooms, teachers and their students are not limited to the static content of their textbooks – often in short supply – nor are they obligated to search very far for content presented in different formats – audio, visual, and text. In an effort to produce appropriate localized reading materials, CyberSmart Africa has collaborated with teachers to create various talking books that integrate different learning modalities.

With each talking book, students are able to listen to the story, read the text themselves, participate in discussions based on the pictures, annotate the story directly on the interactive whiteboard screen, and more. These stories can be shared among teachers, and enriched and shared again. They present a unique learning opportunity for students who otherwise have little, if any regular exposure to a variety of reading materials.

Learning to read does, of course, require practice and ongoing support beyond the classroom. Still, the classroom is, and will be for the foreseeable future, the place where students learn to read. When teachers facilitate technology-integrated lessons directly in the classroom, they can draw from engaging content originating from teachers, the community, packaged software, and other sources globally.

Conclusion

Although use of an interactive whiteboard by no means represents a complete solution for reading improvement, our experience in Senegal indicates that teachers and students enthusiastically embrace use of the interactive whiteboard for active, whole class learning. The approach impacts large numbers of students with minimal equipment, and has the potential to scale because the Total Cost of Ownership is low. Still, it is important to emphasize that teachers need ongoing professional development in order to prepare high quality technology-integrated lessons, and to facilitate an active, learner-centered classroom. With the appropriate support, use of an interactive whiteboard holds tremendous potential to shape the classroom learning environment in Sub Saharan Africa, and globally.

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

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

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

The Promise

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

Consumption or Production?

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

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

Some Considerations

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

The Immediate Future

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

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

Mobile phones are becoming ubiquitous in the developing world – almost everyone can get access to simple voice and SMS text messaging phones. With the introduction of $100 Android smartphones, real computing power is coming to mobile phones at a price point that can be affordable for educational systems.

One powerful smartphone per teacher, or a combination of voice/SMS phones and smartphones for teachers and students, have the potential to actually achieve the unfulfilled technology saturation promise of One Laptop Per Child.

But before we get lost in the possibilities of mobile phone usage in the classroom, lets look at the practicalities – programs that are already using existing mobile phone technology to reach educational objectives inside and out of the traditional classroom. In this month’s Educational Technology Debate, we’ll look at several mEducation initiatives where mobile phones are reaching and teaching students across the developing world:

• Janala Project in Bangladesh
• BridgeIT in Tanzania
• Project ABC in Niger
• Yoza Cellphone Stories in South Africa
• SMS:Learning in Nigeria and Uganda
• Jokkoo Initiative in West Africa

Yet these are not the only mEducation projects. Please be sure to add your favorite use of mobile phones for education in the comments below. We’ll collect all the examples for a mEducation directory at the end of the month.

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Our model: Producing Educational Games for a $10 Computer

Playpower is an open-source community that supports the design of affordable, effective and fun educational media for underprivileged children around the world. We are currently developing a suite of educational games for a $10 educational computer.

The computer is so affordable because it is based on a 30 year-old 8-bit microprocessor technology that is now in the public domain; the computer is now produced by dozens of competing manufacturers, driving costs down. The 8-bit computer comes with a keyboard, mouse, game controllers, dozens of games, and uses a home television as a screen.

This computer is widely available for sale in dozens of developing countries, including India, Pakistan, Nicaragua and Brazil. The existing economy of scale creates an opportunity for a new model of ICT4D distribution, which we call a “Manufacturing Intervention.” In this distribution model, the completed Playpower games are given away to the manufacturers, who can “preload” the games with the computers they sell to distributors. In this manner, Playpower games can piggyback on the existing distribution network, which is already reaching millions of BOP (bottom of the pyramid) consumers.

This $10 8-bit computer is just the beginning. We believe that a wide range of technologies, including netbooks and smartphones, will soon be widely affordable to BOP consumers. As these devices already come preloaded with games like Solitaire and Snake, preloading educational games and media on these devices could effectively reach millions of children for a very low cost.

Where is the Educational Content?

While market forces will make ICT that is affordable to BOP consumers, it seems clear that low-cost computer manufacturers will not have the profit margins to invest in the creation of effective educational content. So, the question is, who will create the content? Perhaps more importantly, who will pay for the creation of the content? It won’t be the consumers, nor the device manufactures. We believe that government and private support is needed to create a shared, remixable global library of educational media.

Intellectual Property and Content Appropriation

The $10 computer uses the same microprocessor technology as the 8-bit Apple II computer. The Apple II (along with other low-cost 8-bit computers) introduced computing to millions of children in America, with 8-bit educational games like Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego. While these games have little commercial value, they would be valuable on our platform—unfortunately, their copyrights will not expire for another 50 years.

We strongly advocate the modification of international intellectual property laws to promote the availability of educational digital media content in developing contexts. Ironically, at a consumer and business level, intellectual property is often completely unprotected in developing contexts—but this is not improving the availability of educational media. We believe that Intellectual property laws and licenses should be enhanced to support the legal flow of information to places that need it most—those who are most unable to pay for it.

The Case for Public Support of Digital Educational Media

Even conservative political philosophies believe that governments should provide free and effective primary school education. This is one reason why a quality, free public school education is recognized by the United Nations as a Universal Human Right. Despite this fact, millions of children around the world are receiving an ineffective primary education in government schools. In addition to the life of ignorance and low-wages facing these children, a lack of education stalls economic and political development. Low-quality education may even effect global security: the low quality of public schools has driven the dramatic expansion of religious schools in places like Pakistan.

In contrast to teacher training, quality digital educational media can scale rapidly and at a very low cost. It can often be quickly modified for regional languages and curricula, particularly if the source code is available. Furthermore, digital educational content can be improved over time, through an iterative development process. This suggests that digital educational media could dramatically impact education in developing contexts.

Unfortunately, creating quality educational media is difficult, time consuming, and often requires expensive efficacy studies and iteration. As a result, commercial media companies do not have the incentive to participate in the production of quality educational media—particularly media that is focused on developing contexts. This suggests a clear need for the public support of educational media development, at a regional, national and even international level. In addition to governmental procurements, governments could also incentivize content development through tax credits for media that serves the public good. To make the case for public support, however, it is important that ICT4D researchers can generate solid evidence for the utility of digital educational media.

Playpower Research

While we strongly support digital educational media in schools, Playpower.org is focused on providing games that can serve the needs of families—specifically, families that might buy a $10 educational computer. Therefore, we have undertaken an extensive field research program in India to identify these needs and to understand the use of the 8-bit computer in low-income households. Surprisingly, this research has identified a range of low-cost computing technologies that are currently prevalent in low-income households ($100-$300 per month, per household).

Since cable TV is widespread, even in low-income households, we found many families that had televisions or set-top boxes that had built-in games, including educational games, which are played with a remote control. Other households had handheld video game systems with small screens, while others had “Toy Laptops” that contained a range of educational games. Of course, mobile phones are ubiquitous in low-income households, and are almost certainly the most common gaming platform. Playpower.org has an academic collaboration with Millee, an organization that is focused on developing English learning games for mobiles phones.

Value of Playing Video Games

Given that our 8-bit computer platform is primarily used for playing video games, we hope to investigate whether video games contribute or detract from our educational objectives. Our fieldwork indicates that many low-income children in urban India have played video games, either on a mobile phone, on the television, in an arcade, or even on a PC. Does this experience have any positive or negative effects?

There is the possibility that playing videogames can improve economic opportunities for low-income children. While further study is required, the logic of this claim is as follows: videogame play seems to generally increase a child’s interest in computers; this interest results in more exposure to computers and enhanced motivation to learn computer skills, which subsequently results in videogame-playing children developing more computer skills, relative to children who do not play videogames. These greater computer skills can directly lead to meaningful economic opportunities.

Join Us in Person

Sound plausible? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And if you’re in New York City this weekend, join us for a Playpower 8-Bit Game Design Workshop at NYU.

The workshop will be led by Playpower founder Derek Lomas, Playpower programmer Kishan Patel, 8-bit artist Don Miller, and NYU professor Chris Hoadley (host). We’re focusing on:

• Furthering the develop Playpower’s current suite of games (e.g., Hanuman Typing Warrior, Hanuman Quiz Adventure, Malaria Prevention prototype)
• Learning the basics of 8-bit game design
• Expanding Playpower’s growing volunteer network!

We’ll have a mix of artists, graphic designers, programmers, learning specialists and ICT4D experts. If you’re interested in attending, please fill out this form ASAP.

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In the developed world there are numerous technologies to help the blind and visually impaired “read” books, periodicals, and Web based content via computers and mobile devices. Advances in Text To Speech, Braille interfaces, and navigable audio books allow millions to access information in ways not previously possible. But software and hardware for the visually impaired often runs into the thousands of dollars.

The major roadblock to accessing digital content in the developing world, where more than ninety percent of the world’s visually impaired live, are affordability and access. A more affluent, English speaking resident of India with a desktop computer or smartphone has access to much of the print disability technology and content available in the developed world. But this is not the case for the wide majority of the poor. Their visual learning is often restricted to what others care to read to them and to what content is available locally in hard copy form.

Blind and visually impaired children are at a distinct disadvantage in school without the visual aids and technology that many children in the West now take for granted.

Mobile solutions for visually impaired

With such a high rate of adoption in the developing world, cell phones offer a potential solution to address the challenges of content access and learning for the visually impaired. Much screen reader and book reading software for the visually impaired on mobile phones already exists. Code Factory’s Mobile Speak and Nuance Talks are available for Symbian, Windows Mobile, and RIM mobile platforms. Their mobile software packages are also available in numerous languages. Pioneers like T.V. Ramen of Google are developing innovative screen reader and geo navigation technologies (e.g., Eyes Free) on Android platforms.

A variety of Optical Character Regognition (OCR) and object recognition software for cell phones also exist, allowing the user to point a cell phone camera at written material or an object to have it read or verbally identified . Examples include the Knfb mobile OCR reader and LookingAid Mobile by iVisit.

The mobile vision field is advancing quickly just as mobile phone price points are coming down. Hence the time is right for the emergence of an “mDisability” sector to target reading and learning opportunities for less affluent print disabled communities worldwide.

Barriers to mDisibility adoption

Before jumping in with both feet, however, a number of practical challenges must be addressed.

First, the above mentioned (mostly) smartphone solutions are still not affordable and/or available for the wide majority of the poor in the developing world. So over the short term leveraging mobile for the visually impaired will require screen reader and voice recognition technologies being built directly into low cost feature phones. They must be accompanied by design improvements to assist the handicapped user. Over the long term, and as smartphones become more affordable and widespread, there are also opportunities to make use of existing screen reading technologies for higher end Nokia, Android, and Apple phones – not to mention their downloadable apps.

Beyond technology and device barriers are some additional challenges.

The first is copyright. Depending on the country, copyright protections may prevent access to books and periodicals for free or at a low enough cost for many. Unlike in the United States, where access to books and periodicals is often free for the visually impaired, many countries still do not allow for such accommodations. Without the widespread availability of low cost content, a mobile device with reading capabilities is useless to the print disabled poor.

Second, because the current diversity of reading file formats is not standardized across regions and devices, many will be unable to read content even if openly available and cheap.

Third, even where books and periodicals are made available in appropriate formats, digitized versions may not yet exist. Even in the USA, free content does not include the cost of reading hardware, software, and subscription fees charged by some digital library distributors.

Finally, and perhaps most important from an educational perspective, is the integration of mobile learning tools with relevant learning processes and curricula. While having access to books and periodicals is one thing, guided and productive learning for the visually impaired student is another. Schools and other educational institutions will need to not only make their content available, but tie that content directly to locally and linguistically appropriate learning systems.

mDisibility holds hope and promise

Overall, mDisability offers unprecedented educational pathways for the print disabled and visually impaired citizens of the global South. Imagine visually challenged children and adults having 24/7 access to up to date books and periodicals and specially designed learning software on their phones? How many millions more could be educated and enjoy the benefits of leisure reading if local content in local languages was made readable anywhere, anytime?

The vision to bring millions of visually impaired individuals into the mainstream reading community, literally allowing them to carry learning in their pocket, is a grand one. But the march of mobile and advancements in mDisability might just point the way.

Paul Lamb is a Man on a Mission

But is this change beneficial to the educational objectives of school systems, especially when compared with the capabilities of computers, a technology only just recently embraced? We had Mike Trucano argue that mobile phones are a real alternative to computers and they’ll Inspire inevitable educational change, but most commenters disagreed. They were more aligned with Bob Kozma’s assertion that computers are more capable than mobile phones and to be useful, phones need to converge into computers.

And all parties were smart to take J Tim Denny’s lead with this comment:

[W]e tend to chase the technology, there are all sorts of exciting devices for the geek in us, but what is better for teaching and learning is the crux of the argument

To begin with, many educators are thinking that mobile phone usage in the classroom can be detrimental to educational goals. Why? Let’s have Weziwe Sikaka explain the basic issue:

I agree, mobile phone technology is quite advanced but these are not designed for educational purposes. The distructive nature in the design of a mobile phone makes it nothing more than a communication accessory. The accessibility and affordability of phones has in fact adversely affected the educational environment in schools whereby you find students heavily immersed in conversations through phones during classroom sessions which is quite distructive.

In addition, often the term “mobile phone” is confused with “smart phone”. While mobile phone penetration is soaring, these are basic phones, not high-end iPhones, and Alan argues it will be a long time before we see a switch from one to another:

While mobile phones’ usage may outnumber PCs in terms of ownerships, most are non smart phones like what Shabani said. To have the general population to have smart phones with latest gadgetry would be a long long time or never will. Phones have their main uses mainly for communication. In a way, this is a form of learning. But to equate or even think that using mobile phones to impart knowledge, the way a PC is able to do, is wishful thinking.

Bob Kozma gave thought to the ways in which computers are more capable than mobile phones, and listed a number of learning applications are not adequately supported by mobile phones. While the list was not exhaustive, Shabani highlighted Bob’s basic argument:

The advantage of computers is their complexity. They are complex and use complex applications that allow teachers and students to work on complex projects in science, math, etc. More often this advantage is hurting computers in education as complex applications require complex training. Teachers, both in developed and developing countries are not learning fast how to use these complex applications, student are.

Don’t count smart phones out of the long-term educational mix though. And do not think there is a binary choice between mobile phones or computers. As Mike Trucano points out, we should be more holistic in our technology thoughts than that:

With few exceptions, education ministries have done a poor job of changing to support the kind of learning enabled by PCs today. If and where ‘phones’ are relevant learning tools to students in developing countries, let’s hope that policymakers don’t (belatedly) orient themselves to plan on how to take advantage of just the PC. Learning-centric, device-agnostic – that should be our aim.

Especially when Alex Twinomugisha tells us the major difference between smart phones and computers, this ability to run complex applications, is shrinking fast:

The problem, in my view, is that the (web-based) applications that mobile phones are supposed to access were designed for computers. This is changing quickly with many of the new web applications having mobile versions. In Nairobi ( I know this is a far cry from rural Africa or Asia but nevertheless offers interesting insights), scores of secondary and university students can be found rapidly clicking away on their mobile phones: chatting using Google Talk, exchanging emails via Gmail and constantly interacting on Facebook (which I am told is the latest mobile addiction in this city!). All these applications can be harnessed for education.

Luckily, some teachers are already exploring how they can integrate mobile phones into the classroom, in a positive way. They’ll have help from the likes of Chansa:

Being a teacher myself I have been using my laptop and my mobile phone to do on line research and exchange information with friends in other parts of the country this has helped to alleviate the problem of lack of text books. This facility has benefited my fellow teachers and students. as well.

Better yet, smart phones can empower teachers to move from phones as basic teacher aids to empowering a whole new vision of the classroom, according to Todd Diemer:

As educators, if the Smartphone era is coming, and coming soon (or already here), now is the time that we need to be preparing for it. The lack of quality resources that scaffold learning is one of the biggest challenges that smartphones can address. Tools that allow for the distribution of materials, collaborative learning between students, feedback between teacher and student, and communication to the outside world need to be developed. Teacher training programs need to be developed, for this change will amount to a complete rethinking of where the physical focus of a classroom will be (from teacher in the front to student groups spread out).

In fact, Shabani shares a viewpoint that is almost universally held in the education and technology fields:

The biggest beneficiaries of these technologies will be students, not really teachers, because the youth tend to learn fast when it come to technology-related applications and devices. This gives me an idea of reverse capacity building: When will students start teaching their teachers? We should think about this and not limit students’ capacity to share their knowledge. There are millions of kids who can help their teachers in how to use technology-related devices and applications.

And that’s a great egalitarian answer to the original question, “Are mobile phones better learning tools than computers?” In a collaborative learning environment, where teachers, students, and technology co-exist, its not the technology, its education that’s the focus.

As Tim says, “device convergence” will make this a stale debate, but not yet. Comparing computers and phones is like comparing “apples and oranges”, we can (and will) eat both, as Allen suggests. But, for the sake of this debate, let’s stick with the artificial choice of either/or:

Phones can indeed be a distraction device. We are seeing them banned in many schools (including the USA, as Wayan rightly notes). We are at the same time seeing parents lobby in some countries against such bans, arguing that they need to be able to connect to the children in the case of emergency.

Cheating with phones, cheating with computers, cheating with calculators, cheating with crumbled up pieces of papers. While mobile phones do perhaps offer certain advantages in this regard, I don’t know that any device as a monopoly here.

Indeed, phones are out of reach of most students and teachers in most countries, and smartphones are even further out of reach. But what if we extend our time horizon a bit? Smartphones are coming faster than we think. Can anyone who has seen the explosive growth in mobile phone use over the past five years doubt that cheaper, more powerful, more widespread smartphones are coming, and soon? Government policies and plans often look 5-10 years in the future. A fixation on the ICT form factor of the past — the PC/laptop — seems to me to be terribly short-sighted.

Are there currently abundant, compelling uses of mobile information devices, something that I will label a ‘mobile phone’, for lack of a better term, in widespread use today in the education sector? Aside from uses of PDAs and calculators, all of whose functions will presumably be subsumed within the functionalities of the ‘phone’ at some point, the answer today is largely no. This answer, I would like to submit, will change.

Of all the commenters who have posted insightful remarks on this site, I must confess that I agree the most with Alex’s points.

Seeing phones as destinations for education content and applications ported from PCs is an unnecessarily limitation on our vision here. Simply digitizing textbooks and making them available for use on a computer has not proven to be terribly effective. Why should we expect content developed for 15″ computer monitors to work on 2″ screens?

The success of the iPhone is showing that there are many types of compelling content and applications that only make sense to develop for the phone — and that there are critical masses of software developers willing to do such development.

Only five years ago, the use of the mobile phone for access to banking services had been largely abandoned in ‘developed’ countries. ‘Why would we use the phone to access our banking information, people asked, when we had access to a much richer experience using PCs and the Internet?’ At about the same time, firms in the Philippines were finding many users were quite willing to use their phones in slightly different ways to transfer money to/from their banks — and each other — in ways slightly different from how such practices were envisaged in OECD markets. Learning from such experiences, Safaricom rolled out its version of m-banking in Kenya last year with explosive results.

Just as computers offer certain key andvatages over printed books (and vice versa), so too do mobile phones present us with certain opportunities that computers do not. These are some of the key attributes of mobile phones that make their increased use in education inevitable:

1. Personal.
2. Mobile.
3. Always-connected.
4. Cheap(er).
5. And increasingly ubiquitous.

While I agree with Bob and Alex (and so many others here) on many issues, I disagree a little bit on one final point. Yes, the eventual impact of any technology to transform teaching and learning in the classroom does depend on larger, fundamental educational reforms. But I think we need to think a little more broadly here. One recurrent lament in educational technology circles is that ‘ICTs are revolutionizing education everywhere but in the classroom’. Reform of educational systems takes time — often a long time.

But going forward, the rapid growth of mobile phone use, especially in developing countries, and the inevitable development of education content for use on such devices, highlights an important opportunity for individual learners outside of the classroom to engage in meaningful education activities whenever, wherever they want. This is of course no substitute for formal schooling, and certainly no substitute for the critical relationship between teacher and student and teacher at the center of most learning processes.

The importance of such outside-the-classroom use should not be discounted, and, to the extent such use is increasingly effective and widespread, it may turn out to also be an important trigger for larger educational reforms within the formal education system.