ICT4EDU – Page 3 – Integra LLC

Tag Archive for: ICT4EDU

Agriculture, Education, Education, Education Partnerships, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Learning, Freedom and the Web: Mozilla’s eBook Explores and Offers How-Tos

Mozilla published a book last month that offers a glimpse at how open-source technology is shaping the field of education. The book entitled Learning, Freedom and the Web written by Anya Kamenetz and some of the 400 participants of the first Mozilla Festival held in Barcelona in 2010, explores possible answers to the questions: How can the ideas of the open source movement help foster learning? What are the most effective ways to bring learning to everyone? How does openness help the spread of knowledge?

The book contains session notes from the festival, quotes and blogs from leading experts, key-findings from current projects, as well as several how-tos including how to create your own ebook. The format of the book itself follows the ethos of the minds which collaborated to create it so that printed copies are available for purchase but it can also be downloaded as a PDF for free or accessed in an easy-to-use web version that includes video clips.

Exploring ideas such as the concept of industrialized education, the future of the physical library, and the quality and sustainability of open content, contributors include promising new ideas and tools that can be used to develop and share educational resources. For people who are unfamiliar with these concepts or are interested in developing their own open educational resources (OER), the book’s easy-to-follow instructions and format make it a great introduction to open-source technologies and their applications.

Helpful how-tos include difficulty level, amount of time to develop, who they involve and benefit, as well as steps. Topics include:

Creating an open education resource
Contract grading
Adopting an open textbook
Creating your own how-to
Creating your own ebook
Creating your own festival
Teaching and learning with Wikipedia

Learning, Freedom and the Web, both the book and the festival, might well serve as a barometer for the level of involvement and development of this new open source movement. When faced with the question of the movement’s future, authors leave the reader with a need to contribute and collaborate. “What really keeps a community going? Shared work, shared goals, shared fun, shared vocabulary, and shared rituals. There doesn’t have to be one ultimate unified vision. The idea of what learning will mostly look like in ten years, 50 years, or 100 years remains fuzzy, and that’s by design, because one definition of an improved future is one that has a greater diversity of choices than in the past.”

January 31, 2012/by actualize

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

UNESCO Mobile Learning Week Report: 3 Projects for Policy Development

UNESCO released a report last week introducing three exciting new projects that promise to shape how policies are developed for mobile learning programs. Within the year, UNESCO will develop and release a set of policy guidelines, commission and publish ten working papers, and introduce four pilot projects in teacher development in Mexico, Pakistan, Nigeria and Senegal.

The report was a summary of project goals as well as an overview of discussions and ideas organized by participants at UNESCO’s first Mobile Learning Week (MLW). The event which was held at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris last month drew approximately 30 experts in mobile learning and 100 participants from the fields of mobile technology and education to discuss the use of mobile technologies in the classroom.

Policy Guidelines:

The most challenging but promising of the three UNESCO initiatives is the development of a set of policy guidelines due to be released by the end of 2012. There are currently many examples of the use of mobile technologies in the classroom but few are supported by – or the result of – effective and sustainable policy-making initiatives. Through discussions between UNESCO, MLW participants, and a growing global community of mobile learning educators and leaders, these new guidelines will be broad enough to encompass different cultural contexts, stakeholders, and technologies so that they can be used by national governments and educators and evolve with new developments in mobile technologies.

Discussions surrounding this topic generated general considerations and challenges including:

Consideration must be given to the perspectives of the stakeholders (mobile network operators, teachers, students, etc.) and their interaction with each other
Guidelines should be flexible and be able to adapt to new technologies and their applications
Costs of internet access and personal-ownership of devices remains a challenge
Efforts should be made to dispel negative views of mobile technologies within the classroom
Lessons should be learned from past examples of successful and unsuccessful projects
Mobile technology should support a well developed curriculum and pedagogy and not become the focus of the content

10 Mobile Learning Working Papers:

To provide research information for the policy guidelines and teacher development projects, UNESCO has commissioned ten working papers: five that will investigate mobile learning policies in the five major world regions (Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and North America) and five that will investigate mobile technologies for teacher development and support. Drafts of the papers were presented and discussed at the MLW.

Photo credit: http://www.redorbit.com

The five papers on mobile learning policies won’t provide an in-depth analysis of each region but should give a general overview and provide examples of policy development. The papers will explore the pervasive lack of mobile learning policies around the world, observing the misconception by some policy makers that mobile technologies are distracting from learning and should be banned in schools. They will also include lessons learned from success stories of initiatives supported by governments and tech-savvy model teachers.

The additional five papers will examine professional development for teachers using mobile technologies in the classroom as well as how professional development can be delivered through mobile technology to teachers across the five regions. These papers will observe how mobile technologies are being used already, how they can be used in the future, and explore the use of mobile technologies with other educational tools and resources.

4 Teacher Development Pilot Projects:

Finally, UNESCO will launch four pilot projects to explore how mobile technologies can be used to provide support and professional development for teachers in Mexico, Pakistan, Nigeria and Senegal. Though the projects are still in the planning stages, MLW participants were able to provide input to important questions such as “What guidelines and understandings should steer the projects? What does the organization need to do, address, and keep in mind to best ensure the projects it launches are successful?”

To learn more about the MLW participant’s comments and ideas about these new projects and mobile learning policy development, see the full report here.

January 27, 2012/by actualize

Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICTs in the Classroom: 8 Recommendations from Zambia

A new report by Aptivate and the Centre for Commonwealth Education (University of Cambridge) suggests that there are practices that can be utilized to make ICT use in classrooms more effective. The study, conducted in part by iSchool.zm, an online multi-media eLearning package designed to cover the whole of the Zambian school curriculum, examined underprivileged school communities in Zambia.

The project entitled Appropriate New Technologies to Support Interactive Teaching in Zambian schools (ANTSIT) was funded by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID), and provided a detailed report including recommendations for introducing future ICT4Ed projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Future ICT4Ed programs can benefit from the researchers’ recommendations detailed in the report:

Purchase classroom sets, including a teacher laptop and student laptops, and don’t forget storage and transport needs

Provide training to teachers on the ICT tools and how to use them creatively, incorporating them into a participatory teaching approach

Use ICTs with non-ICT resources, such as mini blackboards, a cheap and invaluable teaching aid

Choose cheap netbooks (e.g. the Classmate netbook) over Android-based tablets which may be promising in the future but currently make keyboard-based entry activities difficult

Don’t mix multiple ICT devices within a single class if cost and maintenance problems are an issue

Invest time in setting up and configuring computers well so that tech problems don’t interfere with lesson planning or class time

Consider resource sharing between student computers through local wireless networks

Enable ICT ownership through microfinance

During the 6-month project, a team of researchers conducted over 30 visits to two under-resourced Zambian primary schools. Through observing classes and working with local science and mathematics teachers, the team was able to analyze and compare the effectiveness and applicability of a variety of mobile technologies in the classroom. Netbook, tablet and laptop computers, e-Book and wiki readers, digital cameras and mini-projectors along with Open Educational Resources and Open Source software were all considered when determining the most appropriate and versatile resources for creating an environment supportive of learning through active participation.

“Based on our understanding of ICT use in schools and of successful pedagogies such as interactive teaching plus collaborative, project- and enquiry-based learning, and given limited resources, what does an effective ICT-enabled Zambian school look like?”

The team worked with participating teachers not only to create lesson plans utilizing assigned ICTs, but also to ensure a participatory and interactive learning approach which research shows is key to ownership, sustainability, and replication. The report concluded that considering the often outdated and passive pedagogies used in many Zambian schools, the ‘most appropriate’ device is largely dependent on the particular classroom circumstances and the teaching goals and methods used by the teacher.

In addition to the full report, researchers from the Centre for Commonwealth Education, Bjoern Hassler and Sara Hennessy, created a video clip summarizing their findings that they presented at the “Mobile Technologies for Education: The experience in the developing world”, an event sponsored by Cambridge Education Services and co-hosted by the Humanitarian Centre and the Centre for Commonwealth Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. The event was part of a themed year on ICT4D (ICT for Development) run by the Humanitarian Centre in partnership with technology company ARM.

January 24, 2012/by actualize

Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mobile Learning Week: Paving the Way for Policy Development

Nearly 200 mobile technology experts and international education leaders met at the first annual UNESCO Mobile Learning Week last month, December 12-16, at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris. This was the first such UNESCO meeting in which mobile technology took center stage.

Ministry of Educations’ officials, along with other experts from the fields of mobile technology and education, discussed the potential uses and benefits of mobile technology within the field of education in developing countries which has been informally debated and discussed the world over, the technology’s limited accessibility often hindering sustainable policy-changing actions. The meeting was prompted in part because of the growing access to mobile networks now available to 90% of the world’s population and 80% of the population living in rural areas, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in its “The World in 2010” report.

These figures have certainly gained the attention of top-policy makers. Discussions on how to use mobile technologies to transform educational processes will contribute to the anticipated Guidelines on Mobile Learning Policy which is currently being developed by UNESCO and due to be released in 2012. The guidelines will help to develop the future of mobile learning beyond the UNESCO global movement of Education For All (EFA) goals.

The weeklong meeting was split into two events. Leading officials in the ICT field gathered for the International Experts Meeting on Mobile Learning which was limited to selected attendees. Following the meeting, representatives from Nokia, Pearson Foundation, SK Telecom, ISTE, iLearn4Free, ICTP, Microsoft, Commonwealth of Learning, Alcatel-Lucent, Orange, Intel, Ericsson, KERIS and the Mobiles for Education (mEducation) Alliance showcased recent developments in mobile technologies and projects on mobile learning from the field during the UNESCO Symposium on Mobile Learning.

Several keynote speakers at the symposium identified and discussed major challenges to implementing policies and innovative ideas for creating sustainable solutions. Stephane Boyera, Lead Program Manager of the World Wide Web Foundation, stressed the importance of considering the sustainability, scalability, and replicability of mobile learning initiatives during his presentation, “Mobile Technologies, Education and Socio-Economic Development”. He indicated that the main obstacles to development are directly linked to policy makers’ understanding of specific cultural needs.

Dr. Paul Kim, Chief Technology Officer and Assistant Dean for Stanford University School of Education, spoke about the contextualized innovations in education and mobile empowerment design in his presentation, “Future Trends in Mobile Technology Development: What Can We Expect in the Next 5, 10, and 15 Years?”

The event achieved UNESCO’s goal of promoting the potential contribution of mobile technology to education and promises to lead to positive changes in policy development. Working papers that were developed during the event are due to be released sometime in early 2012.

January 18, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICT Center Project To Educate Women in Rural Ghana

The international NGO Camfed, the Campaign for Female Education, has collaborated with Google to set up a network of three ICT centers that will reach some of the poorest and most remote rural areas of Ghana.

Photo of woman in Africa from Camfed website

Photo credit: Camfed

The women-run ICT centers will act as “hubs for learning, communication and entrepreneurship.” They will be located in the northern region of Ghana and the first will open later this month in the town of Bimbila.

Camfed’s mission is to fight poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa by educating girls and women so that they can become leaders of change. The organization’s head of enterprise and leadership, Catherine Boyce, explained to EWeek Europe that because women in Ghana have few employment opportunities and are pressured to marry young, the female center managers will serve as “powerful role models” to the center’s clients.

Photo credit: Blackstarcommunications

Google has pledged to fund the ICT centers during the first two years of operations and while the centers get established with computers, printers, photocopiers and digital cameras. Though Camfed originally thought it would need to rely on solar energy to provide power to the centers, and may explore solar options on a case-by-case basis, the project will likely be able to use electricity since the power supply in Ghana has improved in recent months.

Development projects aimed at educating rural women through the use of ICTs are becoming more prevalent and take many forms. A successful Gates Foundation farm radio project taught women farmers about a drought and disease-resistant rice variety which greatly improved the income of farmers in the area.

Studies have shown that rural women in Africa face many challenges in gaining access to ICTs, such as affordability, distance, and time. Thus simply providing ICTs such as computers and Internet alone will not improve the lives of rural women. Rather, projects must provide low-cost options that contain a strong capacity-building component, such as education, in order to be successful. The Camfed/Google project in Ghana hopes to see success in improving the lives of rural women by providing free access and training in ICTs.

October 14, 2011/by actualize

Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Workforce Development

Mobile Money to Pay Rwandan Teachers

Ange is a teacher at the Rubona Public School living too far from the nearest branch of the Rwandan Teachers’ Credit and Savings Cooperative, or the Umwalimu SACCO, to receive her monthly salary.

She relies on her payment each month to put food on the table.

To resolve this problem, Umwalimu SACCO announced last month commencing a mobile money transfer service to pay members living in areas where the cooperative has no branches.

Currently, the cooperative has 16 branches countrywide, with about 57, 000 members.

Teachers living in rural areas similar to Ange, complain of having to trek long distances to access their salaries and loans, which is costly and time consuming, so SACCO decided initiate a mobile money transfer system.

Umwalimu SACCO, is a Rwandan cooperative of credit and saving which gives out loans and salaries to teachers, allowing them to set up income-generating activities to complement their measly monthly pay

The typical salary for Rwandan teachers is $40 per month. To supplement this, requests for start-up loans to engage in activities such as making mandazis (donut-like pastries) and selling them to other teachers on school grounds, is standard.

Jean Marie Vianney Nzagahimana Photo Credit: Rwandan Patriotic Front

Jean Marie Vianney Nzagahimana, the Chairman on the Board of Directors of the cooperative, recognizes that mobile payments allow teachers to be paid on time, while spurring further economic development and growth.

“We knew about the problem and that’s why we came up with this system to further address teachers’ needs. We cannot do it at once but we will be addressing them beginning with priority areas,” Nzagahimana says.

Although MTN and Tigo are currently offering money transfer services in Rwanda, Nzagahimana said that the SACCO money transfer system is to be implemented in partnership with South African company, MFS. Teachers will be able to get overdrafts through the same process.

The cooperative is also looking to expand beyond merely providing fiscal provisions for the teachers, aiming to meet the demand for new services from one of the biggest cooperatives in the country.

The Umwalimu SACCO cooperative has experienced rapid growth. Their financial assets have nearly doubled in a year from 3b Rwandan franc (Frw) in 2009, to Frw 7.3 billion in 2010.

The cooperatives financial budget for the next fiscal year worth Rwf 11.7 billion, converts roughly to $US 18 million.

“We are committed to at least establish a permanent SACCO office in every district by the end of July,” Nzagahimana asserts “This (is) done to get close to teachers and facilitate access to our services, which we also want to expand beyond financial ones. We are working on one laptop per teacher and solar energy at every teacher’s house.”

The financial services provided by SACCO are encouraging more teachers to educate Rwandan children in the classroom, while the cooperative’s new mobile payment system ensures that educators receive the money they deserve—in the time and place they need it.

July 19, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

There Are No Technology Shortcuts to Good Education

This article by Kentaro Toyama on the Educational Technology Debate website argues:

“There are no technology shortcuts to good education. For primary and secondary schools that are underperforming or limited in resources, efforts to improve education should focus almost exclusively on better teachers and stronger administrations. Information technology, if used at all, should be targeted for certain, specific uses or limited to well-funded schools whose fundamentals are not in question.”

January 13, 2011/by actualize

Tag Archive for: ICT4EDU

Case Studies

Contact Details

Quick Links

About

Expertise

Impact

Join

Sign up for Updates