Ministry of Education and Sports is to spend Shs 6billion on digitizing the O’level science and mathematics syllabi. Mr Humphrey Mukooyo, the coordinator of the project, says the money will be used to buy copies of the digitized syllabus, computers, projectors and screens as well as installing solar power in some rural schools.

The project started three years ago and already runs in 200 schools nationwide. About the same amount of money has already been spent on the first phase. Termed Digital Science, it involves animating pictures/images in science experiments to make them appear the same way the actual systems operate.
For instance, for the blood circulatory system, one is able to see blood flowing in the veins and in and out of the heart, with the different valves opening and closing. Mukooyo says that digital science was introduced to improve performance in schools.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/jobs/Shs6…

I really like your three "use cases" (rural, village, slum) and agree that each is like to be different. It will be interesting to see just how common each of these three is in different parts of the world. Cultural differences may make them seem quite different.

Richard

As for content, the teacher selects which content to expose to which students, when, and under what conditions.

So when we discuss cost, we need to look at the combined cost of teacher and ICT (assuming content is "free") and the other costs of schooling (school buidling, other materials, etc.)

And when we discuss the function of ICT, it should be in the context of how does it support the teacher: what does the ICT add in terms of effectiveness and efficiency that the teacher alone cannot provide?

My point is that not only is ICT just one leg of the stool, but it can't be designed in isolation of the other legs. We need to think in terms of total solutions in which ICT is used to make teachers more effective and schooling more efficient.

Within the developing world my assumption is that the solution will not look too different from country to country or region to region (even though the content will be different). But there will need to be one solution for extreme rural poverty, another solution for village poverty and a third solution for slum poverty. I believe that we will discover that ICT is an important, and affordable, part of each solution, but in different ways for each of these three cases.

I agree totally with Angus' "asymmetry" observation and his point that each country, and many situations within countries, require highly customized solutions. One size does not fit all. This is why country-based catalysts that are integrated with their governments are so essential in order for Quality Universal Basic Education to be achieved.

Devices. I also agree that none of the current "eBooks", defined as one-way "readers," fully meet the needs of teachers and students in developing countries. This is particularly true for the development of basic learning skills. That is not to say that such electronic readers cannot be useful for some purposes in some places, particularly at the university and graduate levels where acquisition of large quantities of information are a large part of the learning process.

Regarding affordability, Angus' suggests that, adequately subsidized, laptops can be afforded at the university level. I suspect that will increasingly be the case. It is a different story at the elementary level however where the cost of a $50 machine, amortized over five years, is still beyond the reach of hundreds of millions of children. In time we will get there but, for now, the urgency of reaching millions more children with a quality basic education requires us to use technology to support more traditional methods of learning.

Again, I agree with Angus about the need for institutional incentives to move the OER movement forward. Chuck Vest, MIT's former president, was the one that launched OER at the university level. Once started it has grown virally. There are, however, still few institutional rewards for faculty who contribute their work in an open environment. This is particularly true concerning the criteria used for academic advancement and tenure decisions. The elementary and secondary levels lack even the institutional support that has stimulated OER at the university level. Thus, one of the goals of the Open Learning Exchange is to provide visibility and credit for the creation of quality courseware for learning the basics that can grow virally as it is happening at the university level.

Concerning courseware packages, yes, interactive courseware requiring ICT requires a lot of skill and investment. However, again, the greatest need at the level of basic education is for really good courseware that does not require a lot of hardware in the classroom. The development of such courseware should be given priority at this point.

I m pleased that Angus like the concept of the Global Library Network and that he correctly identifies some of the challenges that need to be overcome in the development of this network. My only puzzle about his list is assertion that "a federated network of national libraries runs contrary to vested interests in some countries." That has not been our experience so far. Each country totally controls what appears in their national library. There may well be things in the Global Library Network that a given country does not want to be accessed by their students. That is something determined by their governments in collaboration with their OLE Center. Our only requirement is that everything they publish in their national library be freely available for others to download from the Global library.

Finally, on the issue of intellectual property and cost structure, we shall see what happens. Clearly there will be competition among those who take different approaches. I believe the key question is whether the more "free and open" approach, compared with the profit-centered one, will yield high quality coursewares that are at least as good as, if not better than, commercial products. Provided the choices of what teachers and students use are made on the basis of merit, rather than extrinsic factors, the result will benefit children, their teachers and their countries. Personally, I expect, over time, the "free and open" approach will thrive at the level of basic education.

Thank you Angus for your thoughtful participation. I look forward to continuing our discussions.