Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 8

Does ‘openness’ enhance development?

Does ‘openness’ enhance development?

This was the question explored in a packed Room 3 (and via livestream and Twitter) on the last day of the ICTD2012 Conference in Atlanta, GA.

Panelists included Matthew Smith from the International Development Research Center (IDRC), Soren Gigler from the World Bank, Varun Arora from the Open Curriculum Project and Ineke Buskens from Gender Research in Africa into ICTs for Empowerment (GRACE). The panel was organized by Tony Roberts and Caitlin Bentley, both pursuing PhD’s at ICT4D at Royal Holloway, University of London. I was involved as moderator.

As background for the session, Caitlin set up a wiki where we all contributed thoughts and ideas on the general topic.

“Open development” (sometimes referred to as “Open ICT4D“) is defined as:

“an emerging area of knowledge and practice that has converged around the idea that the opening up of information (e.g. open data), processes (e.g. crowdsourcing) and intellectual property (e.g. open source) has the potential to enhance development.”

Tony started off the session explaining that we’d come together as people interested in exploring the theoretical concepts and the realities of open development and probing some of the tensions therein. The wiki does a good job of outlining the different areas and tension points, and giving some background, additional links and resources.

[If you’re too short on time or attention to read this post, see the Storify version here.]

Matthew opened the panel giving an overview of ‘open development,’ including 3 key areas: open government, open access and open means of production. He noted that ICTs can be enablers of these and that within the concept of ‘openness’ we also can find a tendency towards sharing and collaborating. Matthew’s aspiration for open development is to see more experimentation and institutional incentives towards openness. Openness is not an end unto itself, but an element leading to better development outcomes.

Soren spoke second, noting that development is broken, there is a role for innovation in fixing it, and ‘open’ can contribute to that. Open is about people, not ICTs, he emphasized. It’s about inclusion, results and development outcomes. To help ensure that what is open is also inclusive, civil society can play an ‘infomediary‘ role between open data and citizens. Collaboration is important in open development, including co-creation and partnership with a variety of stakeholders. Soren gave examples of open development efforts including Open Aid Partnership; Open Data Initiative; and Kenya Open Government Portal.

Varun followed, with a focus on open educational resources (OER), asking how ordinary people benefit from “open”. He noted that more OER does not necessarily lead to better educational outcomes. Open resources produced in, say, the US are not necessarily culturally appropriate for use in other places. Open does not mean unbiased. Open can also mean that locally produced educational resources do not flourish. Varun noted that creative commons licenses that restrict to “non-commercial” use can demotivate local entrepreneurship. He also commented that resources like those from Khan Academy assume that end users have a computer in their home and a broadband connection.

Ineke spoke next, noting that ‘open’ doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Sometimes power relations become more apparent when things become open. She gave the example of a project that offered free computer use in a community, yet men dominated the computers, computers were available during hours when women could not take advantage of them, and women were physically pushed away from using the computers. ‘This only has to happen once or twice before all the women in the community get the message,’ she noted. The intent behind ‘open’ is important, and it’s difficult to equalize the playing field in one small area when working within a broader context that is not open and equalized. She spoke of openness as performance, and emphasized the importance of thinking through the questions: openness for whom? openness for what?

[Each of the presenters holds a wealth of knowledge on this topic and I’d encourage you to explore their work in more detail!]

Following the short comments from panelists, the room split into several groups for about 15 minutes to discuss points, tensions, and questions on the concept of open development. (See the bottom of the wiki page for the full list of questions.)

We came back together in plenary to discuss points from the room and those coming in from Twitter, including:

Should any research done with public funds be publicly open and available? This was a fundamental values question for some.
Can something be open and not public? Some said that no, if it’s open it needs to be public. Others countered that there is some information that should not be public because it can put people at risk or invade privacy. Others discussed that open goods are not necessarily public goods, rather they are “club” goods that are only open to certain members of society, in this case, those of a certain economic and education level. It was noted that public access does not equal universal availability, and we need to go beyond access in this discussion.
Is openness fundamentally decentralizing or does it lead to centralization? Some commented that the World Bank, for example, by making itself “open” it can dominate the development debate and silence voices that are not within that domain. Others felt that power inequalities exist whether there is open data or not. Another point of view was that the use of a particular technique can change people without it being the express intent. For example, some academic journals may have been opening up their articles from the beginning. This is probably not because they want to be ‘nice’ but because they want to keep their powerful position, however the net effect can still be positive.
How to ensure it’s not data for data’s sake? How do we broker it? How do we translate it into knowledge? How does it lead to change? ‘A farmer in Niger doesn’t care about the country’s GDP,’ commented one participant. It’s important to hold development principles true when looking at ‘openness’. Power relations, gender inequities, local ownership, all these aspects are still something to think about and look at in the context of ‘openness’.

The general consensus was that it is important to fight the good fight, yes, but don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal. Open for whom? Open for what?

As organizers of the session, we were all quite pleased at the turnout and the animated debate and high level of interest in the topic of ‘open development’. A huge thanks to the panelists and the participants. We are hoping to continue the discussions throughout the coming months and to secure a longer session (and a larger room) for the next ICTD conference!

Note: New Tactics is discussing “Strengthening Citizen Participation in Local Governance” this week. There are some great resources there that could help to ground the discussion on ‘open development’.

Visit the ‘does openness enhance development’ wiki for a ton of resources and background on ‘open development’!

March 22, 2012/by actualize

A quick look at Moroccan Internet stats

Hand painted sign for a Moroccan internet cafe

Credit: Menassat

The Oxford Business Group published an economic update on Morroco which, not surprisingly, consists entirely of of telecommunications growth metrics. These days, mobile growth is nearly synonymous with overall economic growth and can be used as as decent macro-economic barometer.

Notes from “Maroc: L’Internet mobile a le vent en poupe” (Morocco: Mobile Internet on the rise)

ICT contribution to GDP in Q3 2011 increased by 19% over Q3 2010
36.55 million mobile subscribers
3.18 million Internet subscribers

in 2011, the number of mobile Internet subscribers increased by 70%

81% of Internet subscribers access via 3G
19% of Internet subscribers access via ADSL

Internet penetration rate just under 10%
dramatic rise in number of online retail services
1/4 of social network Viadeo’s African users are Moroccan
national bandwidth increased by 66% from 2010 to 2011 (75 Gbps to 124 Gbps)

cable linked to Spain is expected to go live in late-March 2012
a terrestrial cable to link Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, and Burkina Faso is on the way

March 22, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

TED Announces New TED-Ed Initiative: What Does it Mean for Development?

Image from TEDEd/YouTube

The ever-growing universal digital library, full of open educational and adaptable resources which allows teachers and students from around the world to pursue opportunities in distance learning, is about to raise its standards for a new initiative due to be launched in April —TED-Ed. TED, a nonprofit famous for its award-winning TED Talks devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading”, introduced its new “Lessons Worth Sharing” project last week and, according to its short introductory video, aims “to capture and amplify the voices of great educators around the world.”

By connecting exemplary teachers with animators, TED-Ed will produce videos — no longer than ten minutes each — capable of explaining innovative, thought-provoking, and challenging ideas through easy-to-understand visual representations. The TED-Ed initiative promises to bring the same high production values used in its TED Talks to create a valuable collection of resources, coupled with new interactive leaning tools, to improve education quality and promote life-long learning — that is, primarily in the US and English-speaking world.

Photo credit: Computers4Africa

So what does this mean for teachers from non-English speaking countries and the developing world? Though TED has not announced plans to translate each of the TED-Ed lessons, its TED Open-Translation Project has already provided subtitles and interactive transcripts for many of its TED Talks — currently 86 languages and counting — so it’s possible they’ll do the same for the lessons. And if they do and plans are made to use TED-Ed lessons within a foreign context, could the content be ‘open’ and easily adaptable to be considered culturally appropriate for different educational settings?

These are some of the questions that the ICT4E sector and the international teaching community need to start asking. With so much of the focus being placed now on how using digital devices like tablets and mobile phones will affect the delivery of educational information, the importance of improving the quality of that information is easily being pushed aside. So who better to raise the standards for this quality than organizations like TED who have made so many complex ideas like nuclear fusion and how cymatics work to be understandable and relatable, presented by experts in their given fields and directed to a diverse audience of learners.

This is a revolutionary idea when considering the ways in how to raise the poor quality of education in many schools throughout the developing world. Imagine how students’ — and teachers’ — comprehension of STEM subjects could be improved if the teacher-centered pedagogy used in many classrooms today was enhanced by supplementary videos explaining new ideas through understandable terminology and images for visually-inclined learners. Moreover, imagine the effects it could have on teachers’ teaching methods if they adopted some of the conversational-style approaches used in the videos.

Image from Khan Academy

Though TED-Ed’s teaching style and delivery method is unique, Innovators and creative thinkers in distance learning have already been exploring this territory of open educational resources (OER) and organized open education since the 90’s. The Khan Academy, a not-for-profit organization created in 2006 that has pioneered the free open educational video platform, has already created a vast digital library of over 3,000 online videos covering various subjects, though mainly in the maths and sciences. Having delivered over 131 million lessons, Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, has impressive goals for the organization and aims to create “the world’s first free, world-class virtual school where anyone can learn anything.” Given Salman Khan’s stature and notoriety in the field of distance learning, he was featured as one of the speakers at the TED 2011 conference when the TED-Ed initiative was first announced to the TED community.

So what can we expect from TED-Ed in the future? If its lessons are as interesting, well-structured and thought-provoking as TED talks, students are in for a pleasant change from their usual lecture-based lessons. And hopefully TED-Ed will have a similar approach to that of the Khan Academy to contribute to and enhance the universal digital library while considering what it means for education quality around the world.

March 21, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Two Guides You Must Read Before Using Mobile Technology for Behavior Change

Photo Credit: Larissa Frei

As the desire to utilize mobile phones in international health projects has increased in the last few years, organizations continually ask a similar question, “We want to use mobile phones. Now what?” But the decision to introduce or start a mhealth project needs to come after answering many questions before “now what?” especially when dealing with behavior change communication projects. Enter Abt Associates, FrontlineSMS, and Text to Change. Two guides have recently been released to help organizations assess whether or not mobiles are the right tool, and if they are, the process moving forward. One is from Abt Associates and is entitled mBCC Field Guide: A Resource for Developing Mobile Behavior Change Communication Programs. The other one was created in collaboration between FrontlineSMS and Text to Change and is entitled Communications for change: How to use text messaging as an effective behavior change campaigning tool.

mHealth is a sexy term these days but it is not always the best approach to creating behavior change. Simply using mobile devices will not instantly make your project/program better. But when designed and implemented with the end user in mind, they can be a cheaper and more direct tool to pass information along in order to change behaviors.

Reason for the Guides

Abt and FrontlineSMS/Text to Change saw the need to have a guide that can lead practitioners through the necessary steps in order to see if and how a mobile solution could be used in the field. Each guide clearly shows the need to analyze on how a mobile intervention would fit into a program. They both do a great job pointing out that every situation is different and that a mhealth intervention must fit into the context and infrastructure of the region. But they are structured in very different ways and have noticeably different lengths (50 pages vs 7 pages). The Frontline/Text to Change guide is structured more like a checklist and mostly focused on text message interventions. The mBCC guide is longer and walks the reader thoroughly through the assessment process. But the guides show how to strategically think about behavior change communication projects.

The mBCC Field Guide

Abt Associates broke down the guide into 6 chapters with each chapter focusing on a specific topic. Each chapter lays out the necessary research and design that must be conducted in order to successfully utilize mobiles for behavior change. The chapters are in order of how one should follow the process (even though you can pick and choose chapters if you have already completed a chapter before reading). The chapters include Situation Analysis, Audience Segmentation, Behavior Change Objectives, Message Development, Tools & Technologies, and Monitoring and Evaluation. Each chapter also includes tools in the form of Excel templates that can be utilized to complete the assessment discussed in the chapter. With a high level of detail along with the structured worksheets, this guide is designed for those who are new to mhealth and are seeking a step-by-step walk through from the start.

Frontline/Text to Change

As mentioned before, the FrontlineSMS and Text to Change guide is more of a checklist of things to research and discuss before designing and implementing a mobile-based behavior change project. With a DOs and DON’Ts list, it covers context, content, developing campaigns, and monitoring and evaluation. This skeleton format is a quick read and is probably better suited for an organization that either has worked with mobile devices before or is somewhat knowledgeable about mhealth.

Both are very useful guides for the intended audiences. With mhealth still only mostly being used in pilot projects, we need to find answers to what changes behavior. The greater number of projects that use mobile devices for behavior change communication (when they are deemed most appropriate) means more data and evidence will be produced in order to show the true impact of mobile devices. These guides give the necessary direction to organizations to start leveraging mobile devices in health projects and discover what does and does not work along with why, which is the most important question of all.

As an ending note, the mBCC Field Guide was presented by Gael O’Sullivan, Stephen Rahaim, and Shalu Umapathy from Abt Associates during the latest mHealth Working Group meeting. They explained that the guide needed to be a “living document,” and they requested feedback about it from mhealth practitioners, especially those in the field. Please visit their website (http://www.mbccfieldguide.com/) in order to provide any feedback. To provide feedback to FrontlineSMS and Text to Change, please find used the contact information here and here.

March 21, 2012/by actualize

Anti-corruption, Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Rule of Law

5 Tools to fight internet censorship

Today South Africa is celebrating Human Rights Day. We’re celebrating the long road to democracy covered with sticks and stones leaving apartheid’s oppression behind us. The path we’ve tread has been a long one, but 18 years into our democracy we enjoy rights many others around the world are still denied. Freedom of speech and media freedom are some of the most important rights we’ve gained.

Man sitting on the ground using a laptop, in front of a convoy of army tanks. (Similar to the famous photo from Tiananmen Square)

Internet censorship is one arm of media censorship. (image: bestvpnservice.com)

However, if you look at Reporters Without Border’s annual freedom index released earlier this month, many African governments still deny democratic media coverage. Many journalists cannot report openly on what is happening in their country.

Technology could play a crucial role in helping journalists get the message out of what is happening in their countries. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of five programs journalists can use to get their stories out:

RiseUp

This email service allows you to send emails without the government monitoring your actions as the connection is encrypted. Journalists need safe and secure access to correspondents abroad if they want international media coverage of possible local atrocities.

Eraser

Government official knocking on your door as you’re working on a confidential file? Eraser allows journalists to secure delete files and invisible recoverable files from their computer should their laptop be seized.

Tor Internet Browser

This Mozilla Firefox-based browser allows users a secure tunnel to the internet, hiding your digital online identity in case you’re being monitored. There’s a portable edition available which users can run from a flash drive.

Cobian Backup

This program works on the same basis as file-sharing program Dropbox. Running in the background, users can quickly and effectively back up their data. Journalists can encrypt and decrypt files with this program if ever confidential files were to get ‘lost’.

Pidgin with OTR

Free open-source instant messenger allows users to connective to several instant messaging accounts and services. However, with the Off-the-Record (OTR) plugin, journalists can chat online with others truly ‘off-the-record’ as you enjoy a secure connection.

Nico Gous

March 21, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Who wins: Rural Agriculture or Mobile Sector?

mAgri Panel @ GSMA Mobile World Congress

Is rural agriculture a big business opportunity for the mobile industry or the mobile industry is a big business opportunity for rural agriculture?

This is the question that I continue to grapple with as I browse through presentations at the mAgri event during the just ended GSMA Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Spain, and also analyze the “charge” by the Chairman of Microsoft at the IFAD Governing Council Meeting in Rome, earlier this year. Below is the recap of the presentations at the event that seem to highlight the importance of these services to the rural smallholder farmer followed by the perspective from Bill Gates.

GSMA Mobile World Congress

Introducing the mAgri event at the Congress, the Managing Director of GSMA Development Fund, Chris Locke reiterated the importance of mobile technologies in improving food security by reaching rural farming communities that are otherwise, not served by the traditional agricultural extension services. He stated that with the continuous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID, the goal is to expand the mAgri program to six more countries. “What we are really looking for is a delta in a data – a delta that shows that there is a significant mobile penetration among the audience we are trying to reach but the lack of access to existing services that are trying to give them valuable information to help improve economically and socially, said Locke.”

Subrahmanyam Srinivasan, the CEO of IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd (IKSL) then shared their experience in India through push and pull model of information delivery to their clients. Through an enviable partnership between IFFCO, Bharti Airtel, and Star Global Associate, m-powering utilizes mobile technology to provide agricultural information to over 3million revenue earning farmers in India and another 1million listening farmers.

The Global Product Leader of Nokia Life Tools (NLT), Bhanu Potta also emphasized the importance that Nokia place on educating rural farmers about production of new crop and animal varieties. According to him, these farmers are now switching from the traditional food crops to commercial and cash crop commodities and therefore need actionable, timely, locally relevant information in their local languages, and from trusted sources. The Nokia Life Tools provide farmers with market price information, weather updates, and news and tips on crops within their geographic location. A new feature that was released during the congress will enable interactions among the users and with experts through voice. NLT currently serves over 50million users in the area of health, education, agriculture etc. in India, China, Indonesia and Nigeria.

Mark Davies, CEO of Esoko then explained how access to agricultural information through mobile phone has improved revenue generation of smallholder farmers in Ghana. According to him, through the mobile services of esoko, farmers are able to better negotiate price with traders, avoid traders and go directly to the regional markets, delay selling their products until they can obtain the best price, and socially help address trust issues in marriages when women return from the market with their sales. With the challenge of scaling their services, esoko now serves between 10-20 thousand farmers in Ghana and also franchising their tools to other countries to deliver their own contents.

Finally, Marc Ricau, Vice-President Country and Partnerships of Orange AMEA outlined how the company is shifting focus from urban customers to rural customers in 25 countries (18 in Africa), since about 60-70% of the population in these countries live in rural areas and are farmers. According to him, they are developing and expanding network coverage in these countries and partnering with content developers to serve these rural farmers with mobile services and solutions for their agricultural needs. “Mobile services can bring development in these areas by increasing productivity of the farmers, said Ricau.”

IFAD Governing Council Meeting

Bill Gates at IFAD GC Meeting

From a different perspective, the Microsoft chairman recently charged three UN Organizations – the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Program (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to do better to serve farmers. “Right now, a digital revolution is changing the way farming is done, but poor small farmers aren’t benefiting from it” said Bill Gates. The billionaire philanthropist also criticized countries, food agencies, and donors that aren’t working together in a focused and coordinated way to provide the help small farmers need, when they need it.

So my question remains as to whether the digital revolution is an opportunity for the mobile industry or an opportunity for the smallholder farmer? In other words, who is benefiting from the this huge opportunity – the smallholder farmer or the mobile industry? Is the smallholder farmer really benefiting from all these interesting stories by IKSL, NLT, esoko, Orange and hundreds of ICT and mobile solutions being designed for agriculture? If yes, how and if no, why?

March 21, 2012/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Rwanda launches next stage of their ICT development plan

Rwanda on Tuesday said it had officially launched the third phase of their National Information and Communication Infrastructure Policy aimed at increasing the country’s IT infrastructure and offering new services to its citizens which were established during the first two phases.

Minister in the Presidency managing ICT Ignace Gatare. (image: biztechafrica.com)

The government’s 2000 national ICT plan was created using the four five-year cycle idea in order to gauge where the country was heading and what could be created and established. The first cycle, which ended in 2005, laid the groundwork for the last five years ICT initiatives to be established.

The government said that the second cycle, from 2006 to 2010, placed emphasis on the development of key ICT infrastructure such as fiber optic cable layout.

Speaking at a news conference on Monday evening, the Minister in the Presidency managing ICT Ignace Gatare said, the third phase has been “broadly divided into five areas, ICT skills development, private sector development, ICT for community development, e-Government and cyber security,” which the country hopes will propel the nation into the technological age to compete with other East African nations.

“Under this plan we are looking at improving formal and non-formal education. With the use of fiber optic cable, we want to ensure that there is much of open distance learning in the country,” said Gatare.

He said that the private sector will be instrumental in the third phase, and that government hopes to unveil an electronic payment system to improve mobile finance.

“We also want to take the ICT facilities down to the people by digitalizing all the government programs, increase the tele-centers in the country as well as use of tele-medicine,” Gatare added.

Joseph Mayton

March 21, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Mobile Money, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Kenya’s Safaricom upgrading mobile money service

Kenya’s leading telecom provider Safaricom announced on Tuesday that it was upgrading its mobile money platform M-PESA to a newer version, hoping to make doing financial transactions wirelessly a bit easier.

Safaricom set to upgrade their M-PESA platform. (image: biztechafrica.com)

According to the company, the new system “will enable users to make instant payments for corporate services such as insurance.

“The migration, to be done in the next few years, will enable M-Pesa users to instantly pay electricity bills,” the company said.

Other mobile service providers in the country have called on Safaricom to allow them access to the platform, and have repeatedly said they would be willing to pay royalties to the company. Safaricom has thus far refused.

“It will also save customers inconveniences such as disconnections that occur as the current platform reconciles the transactions,” the company continued, adding that the new service will reduce the time it takes to make payments on bills.

“It takes 48 hours for payments made to Kenya Power, for instance, to reflect on the electricity distributor’s systems, while those to the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) take 76 hours,” the company added.

The new service will also provide users the ability to use the mobile money platform to pay for items online instantly, with a balance being reduced with every purchase, instead of having to be forced to wait until payment clears.

Safaricom also added that in order to reduce costs, part of the M-Pesa servers in Germany will be relocated to Kenya in order to improve “the reliability of the mobile money platform and cut down on overheads”.

Joseph Mayton

March 21, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Can Video Instruction Improve Education Quality in Low-Resource Schools? 7 Important Lessons from India

Photo Credit: www.popsci.com

If education quality is largely dependent on the teaching capacity of educators, wouldn’t integrating video instruction from expert teachers into low-resource schools’ curricula seem like a good idea?

Digital StudyHall (DSH), a program that has pioneered Facilitated Video Instruction for primary school education in low-resource settings since 2005, might seem revolutionary to the improvement of education quality in theory. However, a team of researchers from the University of Washington and the StudyHall Educational Foundation recently completed a two-year study in government primary schools in Northern India which concluded that might not be the case.

The Facilitated Video Instruction in Low Resource Schools report detailing the study and research results was presented at the International conference on information and communication technologies and development (ICT4D2012) last Tuesday in Atlanta, and offers valuable insight into the core challenges that prevent the project’s scalability and sustainability, as well as a few lessons that the whole ICT4E sector could benefit from.

Over the course of two years, researchers observed and compared the use of DSH in eleven schools on the outskirts of a large city in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, one of the most populated and least developed provinces in India. With the approval of the Indian government and while adhering to the national curriculum, the team introduced video recordings of high-performing teachers into low-performing classrooms and conducted quantitative and qualitative studies to measure the impact of this educational intervention. The team also held technical training seminars for participating teachers and helped establish electrical connections to support the TVs and DVD players.

Setting out, the researchers expected to see positive quantitative results in student competencies and noticeable improvements in the participating teachers’ teaching skills. However, within this cultural context, a number of variables such as student test scores heavily influenced by cheating and a large number of student and teacher absences during harvest seasons, prevented the researchers from collecting reliable quantitative data.

Though the researchers saw positive improvements in some of the participating teachers’ pedagogy during DSH and throughout the rest of their teaching — based primarily on their ability to use the interactive teaching methods displayed by the model teachers in the videos — other teacher’s were not receptive to working with DSH staff and two schools had to drop from the program due to theft of equipment.

So while the report ultimately concludes that the project is not sustainable in this particular context, at least not without substantial support from outside organizations, here’s a few lessons we can take away from this project:

Teacher buy-in is essential. The major contributor to successful programs in the study was having at least one motivated staff member who was passionate about teaching, as well as having support from strong school leadership.

It is critical that all of the participants — teachers, principals, students — view the educational intervention as valuable relative to available options. This should help to ensure sustainability and reduce incidents of equipment theft.

Photo Credit: Teach for India

The main obstacle to scalability is the educator’s view of their profession and personal teaching capacity, as well as their commitment to education. Teachers must value their role as an educator in order to have incentive to continue to grow professionally and use effective teaching strategies.

Educational context matters. The content and format of the lessons should reflect the cultural context in which they are used. In other words, is it appropriate for the target audience considering what teaching methods they are already familiar with? In a context like India’s where the teaching profession is respected in the community but is divided between credentialed teachers and paraeducators, what are the impacts of introducing a teaching aid that might undermine the efficacy of a teacher’s previous training and teaching skills?

The improvement of the participating teacher’s pedagogy is essential and progress should be continually monitored. Teachers should show progress in using student-centered teaching methodologies to be considered effective. For example, do they ask questions and initiate discussion? Do they check for student understanding?

Programs of this kind should supplement a teacher’s instruction, not replace it. A teacher can learn just as much as the students can from educational videos — especially if they have not received the proper training for teaching their assigned subject — but without improving the teacher’s teaching strategies, the project’s overall goal cannot be achieved.

Photo Credit: www.mtestsite.com

Socio-economic issues can indirectly be addressed within video content. The report notes that the students in the videos were all girls and came from poor, urban backgrounds. The participating students responded well to their video peers, sometimes interacting with them, like clapping for their video peers who answered a question correctly, small details that can have positive lasting effects. (A recent blog entitled What Sesame Street Can Teach the World Bank by Michael Trucano, offers additional lessons in developing this kind of valuable video content)

The DHS researchers anticipate that as the ICT4D field matures, there will be increasing emphasis on larger evaluation studies. Until then, facilitated video instruction programs need more program refinement and teacher buy-in to be considered a worthwhile investment.

March 16, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Reefs at Risk, Mapping Coral

Last month WRI (World Resources Institute) released its report on threats to coral reefs, Reefs at Risk Revisited, a three-year study that resulted in the greatest-detailed global maps to date. The maps were produced in partnership with the Google Earth Outreach Development Grant and are meant to protect critical areas through mapping. Besides the report, maps, and data set, WRI created an awareness video that provides a tour of all of the world’s major coral reefs.

Interesting facts from the video include:

there are 6 coral regions of the world: Caribbean, Red Sea/Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, Australia/Great Barrier Reef, and the Pacific
a quarter of life forms in the ocean live in coral reefs, which are less than 1000th of the ocean’s total area
more than 250 million people live near coral reefs
coral reefs are at risk because of unmanaged coastal development, deforestation, soil erosion, nutrient and fertilizer runoff, overfishing, and rising water temperatures
human actions have put 60% of coral reefs at risk

Image courtesy of WRI

March 16, 2012/by actualize

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