{"id":453,"date":"2009-10-01T16:06:09","date_gmt":"2009-10-01T20:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/?p=453"},"modified":"2012-09-27T10:37:34","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T14:37:34","slug":"what-is-sustainability-in-ict-for-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/ict4e-sustainability\/what-is-sustainability-in-ict-for-education\/","title":{"rendered":"What is “Sustainability” in ICT for Education?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When planning ICT deployments in schools, there is much talk around making the effort sustainable. But what does “sustainability” really mean in this context? If we tweak and paraphrase the Wikipedia definition<\/a> of “sustainability”, we could say that:<\/p>\n

Sustainability is the ability of an educational ecosystem to maintain scholastic processes, functions, diversity and productivity into the future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet that’s a pretty broad and vague statement. Bringing it down to a practical level, how might we introduce information and communication technologies into existing educational ecosystems where they can absorb it and own the change? <\/p>\n

Starting with cost, where most do, is “sustainability” covering local costs through local fees or taxes? Should national governments be the funder? Or is sustainability actually greater than merely its monetary price, but actually creating community ownership to the point of local customization in implementation, and self-propagating growth and expansion?<\/p>\n

Regardless of how we define it, how can schools or Ministries of Education achieve this “sustainability”? What resources do they need or need to re-purpose to achieve it?<\/p>\n

For October, the Educational Technology Debate will have two distinguished discussants who will take a holistic approach, considering the many stakeholders in education, and hopefully go well beyond funding, without loosing sight of this always-rare resource:<\/p>\n