Four years ago, Nicholas Negroponte introduced the world to the “One Laptop Per Child” idea at WSIS by showing off a “$100 laptop” with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The educational and technology fields haven’t been the same since.

First, by the end of 2009 OLPC should pass a stunning milestone – 1 million XO laptops deployed in over 40 countries around the world, almost all in 1:1 computer to child ratios. Next, the humble XO laptop which was once ridiculed by the titans of technology, spawned the netbook. And the netbook is eating the computer market at a stunning growth rate.

But OLPC has impact deeper and farther than just XO’s passed out or netbooks snapped up. Its changing education, technology, even culture in ways beyond any one person’s understanding. What do YOU think we’re learning from Negroponte’s wild idea of Constructionism via XO laptops?

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At the start of this debate, I proposed what I thought was a radical idea – “Do we need ICT4D assessments?” I was under the impression that we’d hear a few calls for dismissing them, but there would be an overwhelming validation that evaluations were not only necessary but instructive for decision makers and the educational stakeholders faced with pressure to accept technology in the classroom as inevitable.

From the onset, my assumptions were proven wrong. As Rob van Son stated in his opening post:

However, the most remarkable thing about any ICT4E assessments to decide on the introduction of ICT in education would be their uniqueness in history. One reason such assessments are so scarce is that there are few (if any) historical examples of assessments of any kind done before the introduction of an educational reform. Even less examples where the outcomes of the assessments really mattered in decision making.

How can we assure them that technology should be on an equal footing with other educational investments then? In that context, should ICT4E assessments ignore the technology – it changes to fast and is too hard measure its impact – and focus on assessing the ability of educational systems to best adopt ICT usage to their goals?

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In this debate there appears to be a lot of consensus on both sides of the motion and even a spill-over in commentary from one side to the other. Perhaps this is because the motion was more of a question than a statement. We have ended up not quite arguing for and against but rather questioning the status of assessment in education in general and its impact (or lack of) in ICT policy and practice in particular. Therein lies most of our consensus.

We recognize the inadequacies of evaluating the use of a tool and its potential for transformational innovation in education systems that are intent on simply harnessing it for maintaining the status quo. As Rob (on the other side) observed ‘any real assessment of educational reform requires a new reflection on what skills and knowledge the children are supposed to acquire at school’.

And so in my response I would like to revisit the question presented by Wayan and reflect a little more on its parameters. I would also like to draw on commentary from both sides of the discussion (quite a lot of comments on your side Rob) to tease out some of the issues.

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A large problem with educational evaluations of any kind is that the “public” (aka, the media) are only interested in national and international competition scores, like the PISA scores. Any reflection on the value of these competitive tests for the children is lost in the media noise. It seems that it does not matter so […]

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ICTs can be powerful, essential tools for learning: understanding, interpreting and communicating about the real world OR they can be black holes into which we pour our money, intelligence and time, getting very little in return.

Still, yes we do need to assess ICT4E initiatives more particularly when we are working in environments with scarce resources as in the developing world where investment in ICT can constitute what Unwin (2004) describes as a ‘wasteful tragedy’ if it is not managed and utilized properly.

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Would accurate ICT4E assessment be great? Definitely. The more we know about education and teaching, the better we can educate.

However, the most remarkable thing about any ICT4E assessments to decide on the introduction of ICT in education would be their uniqueness in history. One reason such assessments are so scarce is that there are few (if any) historical examples of assessments of any kind done before the introduction of an educational reform. Even less examples where the outcomes of the assessments really mattered in decision making.

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Back when One Laptop Per Child started, they made an interesting point around evaluations of computer usage in schools. Their core belief was that all evaluations were flawed because we don’t have the right tools to assess the impact of ICT in education, and therefore talking about testing the efficacy of 1:1 computing was wasted effort.

Now, Nicholas Negroponte is putting forth the idea that one computer per child is like electricity – such an accepted benefit for society that we’ve moved on from discussing its impact to just looking for the right models to fund it.

While we may have differencing opinions on OLPC or its benefits, the basic questioning of ICT4E evaluations is compelling. Starting with the simple question of “Do we need assessments?” we can branch into related questions that examine the basic assumptions we hold dear.

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“Regime change from without has not been very successful.” –Dick Gordon, host of American Public Media’s The Story, discussing Iranian history with a guest. In my opening position I made the case that the traditional tools of policy and financing can help develop and sustain Opportunity and Capacity but that they are not effective tools […]

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To illustrate the idea of sustainability in the context of using ICT for education I point to a recent news report related to the use of XO laptops in Manipur, a small state of about 2.4 million people in India. The Manipur state government recently announced that it will spend Rs 155 lakhs (around $300,000) in getting 1000 XO laptops for its school system. Those figures are from a news item dated Oct 6, 2009.

Let’s put those numbers in perspective first. The total budget for the Manipur state school education is Rs 6,000 lakhs (around $12 million). That is, state expenditure on school education is $5 per capita for the budget year 2009-10. Assuming that about 40 percent of the state population falls in the school-going age group, per student state spending on education is around $12 this year. These numbers are fairly representative for the various Indian states. Compare that to what the state is paying for each XO laptop: $300.

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when considering what sustainability means in the context of Information and Communication Technology for Education (ICT4E) I find myself wanting first to understand what it means for something – anything – to be sustainable. I’m not sure if what we had while I was growing up was a Merriam-Webster dictionary, but this is what that venerable publication offers up: :sustainable – capable of being sustained. As you can see, that definition isn’t very helpful, but if we dig a little deeper we get (among other definitions): “sustain – keep up, prolong.” So something that is sustainable can be kept up or prolonged. This definition is consistent with the common understanding of sustainability in development programs. Generally, one of the explicit goals of such programs is to establish a system – security, governmental, financial, healthcare – that is capable of continuing to function effectively after external support has been diminished or withdrawn

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