ICT Devices:

Wayan Vota drew attention to Sony’s decision to adopt a common e-book format, and asked whether this could be the beginning of a unified content publishing system that would lower costs and barriers to entry. I responded that a unified system would certainly overcome some of the compatibility problems, but it would not mitigate the costs of encryption, Digital Rights Management, and host servers.

Richard Rowe welcomed the idea of a unified system, and expressed the view that Sony was way behind the Kindle with its e-Book Reader, on account of Sony’s requirement for a wired link to a computer for downloading – which he described as a non-starter.

My own view is that the current version of the Kindle is a non-starter for developing countries, because it has no web browser, e-mail facility, or applications like Word and Excel. My current preference is the Asus, but new products are being launched all the time, and I have no doubt that more suitable and lower cost ICT devices will continue to appear for the foreseeable future. However, no one device is suitable for all educational needs, and institutions in developing countries need advice on what is best for their students.

Affordability:

Peter Rave expressed the view that ICT devices would remain out of range for the “bottom of the pyramid” unless the price was less than US$50, or as low as US$15 in a country like Nigeria. While this may be true for children in most primary and many secondary schools, it is by no means true for all, especially if the devices are shared. Also, most university students can afford at least US$1 per week, which is just enough to purchase a notebook computer, provided the cost is subsidized, and it can be spread over 2-3 years by means of hire purchase facilities or built into the educational fee structure.

Incentives:

Tim Kelly endorsed my view that institutional recognition and financial rewards are needed to encourage more academic staff in developing countries to develop and/or adapt OERs. Alex Draxler agreed, and pointed out that OERs are being created to some extent in developed countries in higher education, but not at the school level. He added that “the joyous anarchy that reigns in the creation of on-line content for general audiences is not a working model for education”, and then he asked the key question: “How can we create the proper incentives in developing countries?”.

My response is advocacy, oiled by that scarce educational commodity – money. The advocacy part needs to focus on the low hanging fruit, namely, the prospective champions. These may be Vice Chancellors, academic staff, head teachers, or even Ministers of Education and civil servants in some countries.

The object is to create good examples of collaborative OER development and adaptation, underpinned by sustainable communities of practice and, most importantly, relevance to the participants. These need to be hailed as examples of best practice, and accompanied by institutional awards as well as financial rewards wherever possible. I could even envisage competitions in certain countries at national or institutional level although, in certain other countries, corruption would likely create a disincentive.

Courseware Packages:

Richard Rowe responded to Alex’s incentive question by describing a road map, which started with the creation of courseware packages covering the basics of learning to read and manipulate numbers, including lesson plans, textbooks, and workbooks – the idea being to give people something to work with.

The next stage was translation and contextualization by NGOs in partnership with government agencies responsible for curriculum development – the idea here being access to both the core content and the software tools required to convert it into something appropriate for respective regions. The final stage was teacher development, so that teachers learned how to use high quality learning resources effectively.

In my view, the road map has much to commend it, especially at primary school level; however, I do not believe that “one size fits all” and, in many countries, it would likely falter for reasons of language, capacity, ownership, motivation, and/or budget – all of which are asymmetrical. As I am sure Richard recognizes, the key ingredient for success is the quality of local input and collaboration; however, this needs to include academic staff and teachers as well as NGOs and civil servants, and I suspect it is needed at stage one, and not left until stage two.

Also, in many countries, parallel programs will be required to build local capacity in terms of courseware design, computer literacy (especially teachers at primary school level), and to deal with monitoring and evaluation. Above all, a “take it or leave it” package, supplied with the best of intentions from the US and other potential donor countries, is unlikely to fly.

One final point is that, in Richard’s introductory post, he says that “high quality, free, and open courseware… resources are readily adaptable to local conditions and are inexpensive to produce and distribute.” While this may be true of a few areas of science, my experience has generally been the opposite, especially at primary level, and when interactivity and multimedia are involved.

Global Library Network:

In Richard’s introductory post, he outlines plans to develop a federated network of national libraries, comprising free and open k-12 content. This is an ambitious program, which recognizes the asymmetry of needs and resources by establishing Open Learning Exchanges (“OLEs”) in each participating country. I believe that the program could have great developmental value; however, many obstacles need to be overcome, as I am sure he knows, notably:

1. the concept of a multinational OER platform is not exclusive, e.g. OER Africa,
2. many existing silos of OERs will need to be integrated, requiring compatible formats, and consistent tagging of metadata,
3. a federated network of national libraries runs contrary to vested interests in some countries, and will require agreements at both government and institutional level,
4. the system will need to aid selection, provide feedback, and deal with obsolescence, and
5. the system will need to support multiple languages.

Languages:

Tim Kelly expressed the view that the development of OERs works much better for widely-spoken languages, such as English, than for local languages. He thought that, while both will co-exist, the wider use of OERs might reinforce the pre-eminence of English as a teaching medium. I acknowledged that English is already the pre-eminent language in which many subjects are taught, especially at universities, and I emphasized the need to find suitable ways of supporting the teaching of language, literacy, and numeracy at primary schools with ICT, where local languages are most commonly used.

Richard thought that English was becoming the common language of the world because the world’s economy is choosing it. He emphasized, that the OLE model provides each country-based center with the tools they need for translation and localization into the languages of their region. Ideally, he thought this would enable literally thousands of local languages [to be supported], with English as the second language. He acknowledged that a centralized system for such translation and localization would, indeed, lead to an almost exclusive focus on English.

Intellectual Property (cost structure):

In Richard’s introductory post, he anticipated that commercial producers of educational materials employing Digital Rights Management systems will find it difficult to compete with OERs in the future, and that for-profit publishers will perforce modify their business models.

While I agree that publishers are modifying their business models, I think it is important to compare the cost of producing OERs and proprietory content on the same basis. In particular, educators who produce OERs may not be “in it for the money”, but they are usually paid, as are the editors, formatters, promoters, and reviewers. The difference is that the cost arises at source and is only incurred once, whereas proprietory content is paid for through the mechanism of sales.

The true cost difference therefore lies in the relative cost structures and profit/loss of the publishers and distributors, which may or may not represent value for money in terms of efficiency, quality, and awareness. I therefore don’t think that publishers are at an intrinsic commercial disadvantage, and I believe that changes in the business model are driven more by perceived new profit opportunities than by fear of competition from OERs. The real concern of publishers is breach of security, since it denies them the income from sales, while continuing to expose them to the costs of production.

Conclusion:

The discussion above highlights, among other issues, the asymmetry of requirements in the field of education in developing countries, and it points to the overriding requirement of needs assessments when designing interventions. The maxim “one size fits all” should always be viewed with the greatest caution.

A note on Terminology: In this paper, as in my introductory post, I use the term “e-books” to describe proprietory, full text books that are available in digital format. I use the term “e-book devices” and “ICT devices” to describe the hardware upon which e-books and/or Open Educational Resources (“OERs”) can be accessed and displayed.

First I am struck by the degree of consensus. But I am not sure what it means: Maybe we just have a wise bunch here or maybe we’re not hearing from other perspectives that powerfully influence education decisions in the developing world.

Second, with regard to eBooks, in our discussion we have not emphasized sufficiently the importance of reinforcing a sense of “agency” in students. Paper-based books are at the low end of the “agency” scale. Simply replacing them with electronic versions is not a leap forward for learning. We all grew up with paper books and most of us love them.

However a key to learning is the process of creation and problem solving including physical manipulation and reshaping of objects. The digital world enables a level of agency and interactivity with words and numbers that can greatly enhance learning. Thus we should not settle for eBooks as they now are. They are too fixed and passive. At the very least we need to be able to include our own and other unpublished content into them and enable us to share with others our comments and suggestions.

Third, I am intrigued by the suggestion that handwriting is a skill that we should preserve. This is a new thought for me and I am not sure how I feel about it. As a lefty, I have found the keyboard to be more user-friendly that the right-handed desks in my schools. I want to think more about this suggestion. Clearly people need to sign their name, fill out a form and write a thank you card. However my guess is that, once the price is right, most cursive writing will involve keyboards and highly accurate voice-to-text software.

Reframing the Discussion

But maybe we should step back, and take a moment to rethink the frame of our discussion. We have tended to circle around today’s version of a specific technology: eBooks, This is the assignment our teacher (Wayan) gave us.

But what would happen if we changed the frame for a moment and ask a different question:

What kinds of systems are needed in the developing world to facilitate learning – at what different levels of learning, for what different skills and knowledge?

Let’s take a “systems” perspective and see where that takes us to achieve a Quality and Universal Basic Education (QUBE).

A Three-legged Stool:

We see immediately that technology, of all kinds, is only one part of the dynamic that leads to QUBE. In simplest terms, a three-legged stool of content, technology and people is required to achieve our goal. But we must differentiate their functions:

Content.

Content is dependent upon both skill and subject levels. For the early grades learning systems are needed for acquiring basic knowledge skills such as reading, speaking, arithmetic, problem solving, interpersonal relations. Learning to speak and learning to write require quite different systems. These content variables may, but need not, be included in the same technology.

As I have indicated before, the most crucial need in developing countries is for courseware: a lesson plan, textbook, workbook suite that teachers can, with a minimum of change, use in their classrooms with assurance that most of their students will pass their test. The k-12 Siyavula content in English and Afrikaans, developed by Shuttleworth Foundation in South Africa, is a good example of such content. Since it is free and open on the Internet it can easily be adapted for use in other countries.

Technology.

I have listed in my opening post the fourteen key device requirements for basic learning. Check them out. I am not aware of any existing technologies that meet all of these requirements. And it is not necessary for one tool to have all. The earliest grades do not necessarily require a keyboard although the later grades do (IMHO). If you have no access to electricity that limits the kinds of technologies you can use. In those cases paper and pencil technology with highly effective content can be excellent. That is what most of us grew up with quite well.

Electricity, but no Internet connection, gives you more options. It seems prudent to assume that for the foreseeable future most students in the developing world will not have dependable Internet connectivity.  So every educational initiative in developing countries that seek to employ technologies to improve their schools should also plan to provide paper and pencil resources for those without access to more advanced technologies.

We also need to give greater attention to technologies that teachers and school administrators can use to increase their effectiveness. We need to explore the substantial benefits that information and communications technologies can bring to education outside the classroom –their use in testing and record keeping and as tools for following students when they move from one place to another.

Here’s one simple example: Lawrence Massachusetts has the largest concentration of Dominicans in the U.S. Their students travel back and forth between the Dominican Republic a lot. Yet schools in neither country have a way to keep track of their students’ progress when they are in the other country. Everyone would benefit form a simple student tracking system both countries could use. The educational return on investment outside the classroom can be great.

People.

The evidence is clear that QUBE cannot be achieved by simply providing cool technology, such as laptops, without parallel and intensive investments in the development of appropriate content and the preparation of the people involved to use that technology well. In contrast to baseball fields, if you build it they will not necessarily come.

However it is not sufficient to simply hire more teachers. They need to become familiar and skilled with using whatever technologies they have. Beyond teachers we need to give attention to school principals, district superintendents and subject matter specialists all need to be comfortable and skilled with whatever technologies are involved in the learning process.

Resources.

Providing a strong three-legged educational stool requires money. Such funding is a major limiting factor for achieving QUBE in the developing world. The education budgets of most developing countries are grossly insufficient to meet the most basic needs for QUBE. Teachers are often paid intermittently if at all. Few if any books are available for students. Despite the flowery rhetoric one hears about its importance, education is consistently given short shrift in the budget. It is relatively easy to create small jewels of quality learning that one can showcase.

However scaling innovations so that every child, indeed, every person, has access to a quality basic education is much more difficult. Too often we resign ourselves to reaching a limited percentage of people. The rest seem too hard to reach. A large part of the reason for under-investment in education the widespread doubt that more money will make a difference – that things cannot change. Thus for QUBE to be achieved in developing countries at least three things must happen

Working closely with government as a catalyst, giving their leaders credit whenever possible, we must:

1. Demonstrate highly effective and scalable learning systems that include free and open content supported by a combination of affordable new and old technologies,
2. Provide clear and convincing evidence of their cost/effectiveness, instead of relying upon faith-based assertions, and
3. Persuade the stakeholders that QUBE can be achieved economically and quickly.

This last step is the most challenging. It in involves changing the expectations of students, teachers, administrators, politicians, businesses and the public at large and persuading them that the long-term return to them personally as to their whole nation that such investments generate are better than just about any other investment they can make.

These kinds of changes can only be accomplished from the inside of each country. It takes a strong, influential and independent board of directors led by a talented 24×7 social entrepreneur who is irrationally committed to QUBE. Such a three-legged campaign implemented with vigorous persistence and courage, can be successful.

The short answer is “very slowly”!

In spite of all the hype, the vast majority of students in the developing world cannot afford suitable ICT devices. And, while low-cost mobile phones are becoming more widespread, they are of limited value in terms of the creation and distribution of open content.

The second problem is connectivity. Most universities and schools either do not have broadband, or their bandwidth is inadequate. Also, the ratio of lab based computers to students is very low. The result is that internet access is painfully slow, and on-line reading of e-books is not an option.

The third problem is relevance. While much good work has been done to develop local context Open Education Resources (“OERs”), and to adapt internationally available resources, this has so far only scratched the surface. And local language resources are almost non-existent.

The fourth problem is culture. The scarcity and cost of physical books has led to a non-reading culture; it has also let to the prevalence of “content” teaching from photocopied extracts instead of “conceptual” teaching, in which students learn how to learn.

And the fifth problem is capacity. Most academic staff at universities are too busy to search for relevant OERs and proprietory e-books, let alone develop new OER content. Also, large numbers of teachers at primary, and to a lesser extent secondary, schools are not even computer literate.

The solutions to these problems are asymmetrical at each of the country, institution, and staff levels, and they include:

1. providing subsidized hire purchase facilities for students to acquire low-cost Notebook computers, or building the cost into the educational fee structure,
2. replacing the high-cost-low-volume model for e-books with a low-cost-high-volume model (the IADP has recently reached agreement on this with a core group of the world’s leading publishers),
3. downloading e-books and OERs onto ICT devices so that they can be viewed off-line,
4. giving academic staff who develop and/or adapt OERs institutional recognition and financial rewards in addition to the normal practice of attribution, and
5. developing sustainable communities of practice among “pioneering” academic staff, and extending their influence through the hub and spoke principle.

Question: will educational systems, and the stakeholders that support them, be able to adapt existing and new content onto these devices? Might this adaptation facilitate a more egalitarian content creation structure, challenging the existing pricing structures and vested interests of current curriculum production & dissemination models?

The short answers are “yes, and maybe”.

There are no technical reasons why OERs cannot be developed, adapted, and viewed on ICT devices – subject, of course, to system and format compatibility. The challenge is to make these resources mainstream, and integrate them into the curricula and pedagogy.

The first issue is quality and usefulness. Common standards and appropriate tagging of metadata are a given, but quality and usefulness require a review process. Committees usually don’t work because they create an obstacle and/or a bottle-neck. The best model is a periodic virtual peer group review, including a star rating system, in which individual and institutional reputations are placed on the line. Wikipedia has some of these elements, but in my view it doesn’t go far enough. A further point to emphasize is the importance of high quality abstracts.

The second issue is awareness. Busy academic staff do not have the time or inclination to search through the universe of OERs and e-books; equally, they don’t like the “all or nothing” approach of content aggregators. The best model is a well researched package of resources from which academic staff can choose, including the ability to step outside the package when desired.

The third issue is: who pays? The popular belief among some stakeholders is that OERs are, or should be, “free”. In reality, however, they are not. Quite apart from the fact that the platforms upon which they reside need to be maintained, most of the developers, editors, formatters, promoters, and reviewers of OERs are paid.

The only difference is that they are paid directly or indirectly by governments, universities, or NGOs, rather than by sales to the end users. It is therefore open to question as to whether authors and publishers of proprietory resources offer good value for money compared with those that produce OERs.

I personally believe that both proprietory resources and OERs will have a continuing place in the future, and that convenient and affordable access through the advent of ICT devices will improve the quality of selected resources and enhance competition.

Question: should this content focus on e-books and other electronic media that replicates existing content? Or is this an opportunity to change the way in which content is created, teachers educate, and students learn?

The short answer is “both”.

Much good work has been done to archive physical resources in a digital format. Also, publishers are beginning to make e-books available in developing countries at an affordable price. As a result, academic staff and school teachers are at last beginning to have affordable access to high quality educational resources. But much needs to be done to improve awareness and integrate this into curricula and pedagogy.

The advent of low-cost ICT devices is indeed a wonderful opportunity to change the educational landscape. Apart from teaching computer literacy, which is an essential component of education in today’s world, it brings the prospect of higher education and technical training closer to the millions of prospective students who cannot attend, or cannot afford to attend, campus.

It also facilitates the creative use of digital technology to make the content more compelling, and to enhance the learning experience by bringing an interactive and visual dimension to voice and text. The constraint, however, is the capacity of teachers to use the technology and to participate in the development of the resources, which points to the overriding need to improve standards through teacher education.

1. provides a global network of quality, free and open k-12 courseware,
2. enables teachers everywhere to use innovative approaches to learning and
3. employs suitable and effective information and communications technologies.

These three legs must be balanced and closely linked to achieve a quality and universal basic education.

The growing impact of free and open educational resources

Content is king. Yet today high quality k-12 courseware that is aligned with educational standards, as distinct from interesting bits and pieces of content, is rare. Over the next few years, spurred by the Internet and Creative Commons licensing, high quality, free and open courseware will become increasingly available to schools in the developing world. Such resources are readily adaptable to local conditions and are inexpensive to produce and distribute. The evaluative feedback that authors receive from users enables these resources to be improved continuously.

Intellectual property. We can expect educators increasingly to use the Creative Commons, “for attribution, non-commercial” license for the basic educational resources they develop. Most are not in it for the money. Thus it will be difficult for commercially produced educational materials employing digital rights management systems to compete with open source content. As a result for-profit publishers of basic educational resources will perforce modify their business models.

Global Library Network. To facilitate the availability of free high quality content, the Open Learning Exchange is developing a federated network of national libraries comprising free and open k-12 content, including online interactive, offline interactive and paper-based materials. Emphasis is being given to contextualized and printable courseware packages complete with lesson plan, textbook and work book that teachers can download and use “as is” in their classrooms.

The potential educational roles for eBooks and other ICT devices in the developing world.

Technology is powerful. And it can be seductive. Some have assumed that quality content and well-prepared teachers, to the extent they are needed, will somehow follow the introduction of laptops in classrooms. However learning is not automatically enhanced by the distribution of cool technologies. Although they can have important roles in improving education, it is naive to believe that by themselves technologies will change education.

eBooks have a limited role. eBooks can deliver information. However more interactive tools are far more effective in helping learners develop the skills they need to manage information, physical objects and interpersonal relationships. Tools that support the key learning principles of immediate positive and negative feedback, mental and physical manipulation, standards-based practice, curiosity and creativity provide learners with the crucial experiences of agency and competence. Interactive content can be highly effective not only for developing the basic skills of reading, writing, speaking languages and performing basic arithmetic calculations but also for stimulating a positive framework about learning that lasts a lifetime.

We’re not quite there yet. Today’s eBooks, such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader are essentially one-way delivery systems. Low cost cell phones have many interactive features and they are rapidly becoming ubiquitous throughout the world. But so far they lack effective learning materials. PDA’s, while more expensive, are even better suited for learning basic educational skills. Laptops are dropping in price but are still too expensive. And in those places where laptops have been employed extensively, such as the state of Maine, their results have not lived up to initial hopes.

Content for cell phones and PDA’s. We should focus on developing high quality courseware for cell phones and low-cost PDA’s, especially for the earlier levels of learning. They are widely available and inexpensive compared with other devices. Other tools specifically designed learning skills are continually under development. The TeacherMate, developed by Innovations for Learning is one such example; designed like a handheld game console it meets the basic learning requirements for early elementary levels, including its moderately low cost.

The Total Cost. Even as hardware costs decline, however, the costs for technical support, and maintenance will continue to be significant. All things considered, scaling ICT devices for all students remains outside the current financial capacity of most developing countries. The situation is only compounded by a serious shortfall in both high quality content and well-prepared teachers. While it is tempting to use technology to create a few centers of educational excellence, that does not satisfy the vital need to reach every child.

Paper-based content. It follows that, for now, strategies for achieving universal Quality Basic Education must not focus primarily upon ICT’s in the classroom, as attractive as that approach may be. It will be years before ICTs in the hands of every teacher, let alone every child will be affordable. Technologies can, however, be used now to provide teachers and students high quality paper-based lesson plans, textbooks and workbooks at low cost. The Siyavula Project of the Shuttleworth Foundation in South Africa has created an impressive such system for the development, localization and distribution of its printable free and open k-12 courseware. Such an approach is scalable.

An Important Demonstration

Notwithstanding the obvious problems involved we have much to learn about how best to employ ICT’s in schools. The Open Learning Exchange of Nepal (OLE Nepal) provides an excellent model for exploring the introduction of ICT’s in a developing country. The OLE Nepal team is now in its second stage of a carefully designed program involving student-owned laptops. Four thousand students in six widely dispersed rural districts of Nepal are using student-owned XO laptops with interactive content developed in Nepal.

OLE Nepal is documenting their process of creating interactive content, done in collaboration with the Nepal’s national Curriculum Development Center, and their extensive preparation of teachers and villagers. Both formative and summative assessments are providing evidence of the strengths and weaknesses of their approach. Initial indications are that students, teachers and villagers, including those in neighboring villages, are enthusiastic about the laptops and are asking for more content. We have yet to see how this approach can be scaled to the millions of students in Nepal.

Summary

I envision a world where virtually everyone has access to a quality basic education that is aligned with their capabilities and interests. That was a distant dream a decade ago. Today high quality, free and open digital and paper-based learning resources are spreading rapidly throughout the world. A plethora of ICT innovations for learning is becoming available and affordable. Teachers, principals and education leaders are improving their skills.

Our biggest challenge is to align and balance the three key components of change – content, technology and people. When that is done, the UN’s Second Millennium Development Goal and Quality Basic Education for all will become much more than a dream. While achieving that goal will still be an enormous and complex challenge, we will then be on a path that will make it possible.

From this conversation came a very interesting question:

What is the impact of open access resources for primary schools on the current educational content creation models?

Now this question has many angles to it, but for the August Educational Technology Debate, let us focus on how low-cost ICT devices are transforming the creation and distribution of open content in the developing world.

Will educational systems, and the stakeholders that support them, be able to adapt existing and new content onto these devices? Might this adaptation facilitate a more egalitarian content creation structure, challenging the existing pricing structures and vested interests of current curriculum production & dissemination models?

In addition, should this content focus on ebooks and other electronic media that replicates existing content? Or is this an opportunity to change the way in which content is created, teacher’s educate, and students learn?

To lead us in this conversation will be two respected discussants:

• Richard Rowe
  Richard Rowe is the Chair and CEO of the Open Learning Exchange, a network of nation-based NGO’s committed to achieving Quality Universal Basic Education by 2015 . Dr. Rowe has served as Director of Test Development and Research for the West African Examinations Council, Associate Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Technology and Education.
• Angus Scrimgeour
  Angus Scrimgeour is the President of the International Association for Digital Publications, a program to provide university students and academic staff in developing countries with affordable access to e-books, and support for the identification, development, and effective use of open access e-learning resources. Mr. Scrimgeour is also a former Vice President of the World Bank Group a member of the Knowledge and Learning Council.

Please join us for what we all expect to be a lively and informative conversation – your input can start right now in the comments below, and Richard and Angus will post their opening remarks beginning Monday, August 10.