“If you can read this, thank a teacher” – that’s a popular bumper sticker in educational circles, and one that I think best illustrates where educational investment should be focused on. Rather than pimping out classrooms with fancy information and communication technologies, let’s invest in better teachers and teaching systems. They are the true technology of education.
It would be churlish to claim that ICTs are the best educational investment. After all, take away the teachers and the schools and there is not a lot left. On the other hand, taking away the ICTs would only take a school back a few decades, but it would keep functioning. Nevertheless, ICTs represent a […]
Given the limited resources available in educational systems in the developing world, and the lack of any great will to change the situation, is it better to invest in known teacher aids like textbooks, chalkboards, or basic school supplies or do new technology options, like ebooks, smart boards, computers really offer a paradigm shift in educational efficiencies?
infoDev’s Education page has numerous resources on ICT for education, including comprehensive surveys of ICT4E in Africa and the Caribbean. UNESCO has information relating to education, broadly, as well as ICT for education. The World Bank’s ICT for education site has key issues, data and projects. The Commonwealth of Learning is an […]
In developing a future vision of using ICTs in education in developing countries, as Kevin Donovan says in his thoughtful article, it is the policy and the approach that matters not so much the technology itself. But the technology is nevertheless highly variable. An interesting recent illustration of this comes in a road test carried […]
In my earlier post I wrote of peering through the clouds of uncertainty; Tim, however, rightly points out that we do already know many of the challenges facing ICT4E. His larger point, though, is the more important one: technology is not a panacea. Although connectivity and lack of hardware durability are important hurdles, they are essentially solveable […]
If anything is certain about the future, it is its uncertainty. The amplification of changes brought about by globalization makes it essential that today’s educational systems prepare students to be adaptive and flexible to tomorrow’s reality. Information and communication technologies can be harnessed to create a learning paradigm that goes beyond the traditional model of […]
The Millennium Development Goals target universal primary education and the elimination of gender inequality in education by 2015 at the latest. The greater use of technology, especially information and communication technologies (ICTs), in schools can accelerate this goal and help to prepare students to participate in the information society. Several developing countries have established ambitious […]
What is your vision for an African learning environment that transcends the formal educational system to offer multiple learning opportunities to youth via multiple facilitators? And how can the full breadth of information and communication technologies – from the humble radio or newspaper to advanced computers and the Internet – be utilized in that vision in a cost-effective and practical manner?
