{"id":878,"date":"2010-05-18T09:12:56","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T13:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/?p=878"},"modified":"2012-09-27T10:37:31","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T14:37:31","slug":"sam-carlson-enormous-wastage-in-ict-implementation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/is-ict-in-schools-wasted\/sam-carlson-enormous-wastage-in-ict-implementation\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Carlson: There is Enormous Wastage in the Implementation of Education Technology for Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Educational Technology Debate is one year old this month and to celebrate, we had a Live Debate: Are Most Investments in Technology for Schools Wasted?<\/a> at the World Bank offices in New Delhi, India. With six great speakers, we focused on the issues around technology implementation in educational systems of the developing world. <\/p>\n

This is the opening remarks and initial response of Sam Carlson, World Bank Lead Education Specialist and project team leader for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in India, to the question: Are most investments in technology for schools wasted?<\/i><\/p>\n

.
\nSam Calson:<\/b> (download the podcast<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Thank you very much Tim Good afternoon everyone, worthy opponents, comrades in this particular motion. <\/p>\n

Let me start by saying I am a huge proponent of educational technology and I spent seven years of my life working 24\/7 trying to get technology, Internet, into secondary schools in over 35 countries around the world, establishing the very first school based Internet connectivity in over 10 of these countries. When we came to work here in India, actually I worked with Ashish as our India Coordinator for this program back in 2001 and 2002. And I am absolutely passionate about the vision, about the potential, of education technology. <\/p>\n

But this motion is not about the justification for education technology or the vision or the potential. Its about the reality of the implementation. This motion is about most<\/i> investments in educational technology are wasted. That\u2019s an implementation question and it\u2019s not a question about vision or potential or the justification. <\/p>\n

I am a big believer in education technology. I am great disbeliever in how education technology has been implemented and I believe it has led to enormous amount of wastage.<\/p>\n

Why is that? I come back to the point that I raised earlier this morning that the basic problem is that teachers are not given the incentives, the time, the encouragement, the opportunity to take advantage of the educational technology, which is made available to them. And if the teachers are not given the incentives, the time and the opportunities in order to take advantage of this then the technology investment in the computers and the internet content activity, and the building of the computer lab and putting in the electricity and all of those activities will be wasted. <\/p>\n

Secondly, teachers actually have a disincentive particularly in India to incorporate educational technology into their learning because of the board examination system in this country. The board examination system is the tail that wags the dog. The board examination system here measures factual recall of material that is in the textbook. <\/p>\n

There were some efforts and it had board exam change right now but it is on the margin and it is very timid. CBSE has tried some reforms but the state board exam system here has not changed and the questions that are on that board exam come directly from the textbook. And if a teacher deviates from the factual filling in people’s heads from those textbooks, and goes off in project collaborative learning to develop information reasoning skills, problem solving skills, team work skills, and all the things that the labour market says want, those children will do less well on that board exam. And that is ultimately how secondary school teachers are measured, is by how well the students do on a board exam. The pass rate percentages here in the first division and second division.<\/p>\n

Unless the board exam system changes to measure things that educational technology can help develop in terms of information reasoning skills, problem solving skills, collaborative skills, then that teacher will not invest time and energy in learning about the technology and how to use it, to enhance real fundamental learning. <\/p>\n

Third point, the point that was eluded to us earlier. Policy makers typically believe that they only have to put computers into a lab and magic will happen. Having computers at the other end of the school doesn’t help a teacher in his\/her classroom at her time to teach science, not having electricity obviously does not help, not having a reliable internet connection obviously does not help. <\/p>\n

Not having really serious teacher professional training to do the job – and I do not mean 2 days, 5 days, 10 days – I mean a sustained 2-3 year iterative program where by teachers, the same teachers are led through a process, initially ICT literacy, then its thinking about how can I use the resources that are immediately available to me in my class, and then its about how can I start collaborating other networks with other subject matter teachers around me. Then in the fourth phase, it’s about how can I start developing new e-content. That’s a process iterative process and learning is fundamentally a social process. <\/p>\n

Technology is just boxes, right, its not a social process. So all I am saying is technology, if we are going in the wrong way down the road, which I believe most of the Indian Education system is, the technology will just get you further down the road and more quicker. <\/p>\n

Fundamentally what has to be re thought is the examination system, the kind of pedagogy, the kind of real skills that we want our students to be learning, and until that’s done, most investment in educational technology will be wasted. <\/p>\n

Thank you <\/p>\n

.
\nDr. Kelly: Thank you Sam, a very persuasive argument. Sam you bring the distinction between aspiration and implementation, arguing quite correctly that this title that we have posed is not about the aspiration, it’s about implementation. What can we as a World Bank, what can we as an organization committed to improve the situation, what can we do to improve implementation?<\/b> <\/p>\n

Well I think there are a number of things that we can do to improve implementation. First I would agree with my colleague from UNESCO that one has to plan investments in educational technology so that they succeed. Because bad educational technology investment discredits the whole promise in the concept and the potential and you end up turning people against something when it could be very useful and positive. <\/p>\n

So part of it is just good planning and looking at that whole ecosystem and not putting your money on the table until that whole ecosystem has got some promise to all be in place and not just jumping off.<\/p>\n

Secondly , I think we have to promote as much learning about experience on the ground as possible, to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them. Wayan made a very good point that its important to be able to try, to take risks, to be willing to make mistakes, but there has to be a learning curve about those mistakes so that they are not repeated. I guess disappointingly to me, is too many of the policy makers are not on this learning curve and they are just repeating the same mistakes that would be made ten years ago and that’s very discouraging when I see that. <\/p>\n

I think whether its the world bank or other developmental organization, or its the private sector or NGO’s or trust foundations, we all have a greater task to play, to hold the policy makers accountable for at least learning from the previous experience and not just repeating the mistakes of the past. <\/p>\n

Thirdly, I would say we should be funded innovation and funding pilots, and funding new ideas in the area of education technology and see what works and what doesn\u2019t work on a small scale, evaluate it and then to disseminate it and get the information out to the policy makers who are at the real resources in their hands. I think we need to use some of our money is venture capital or risk capital to experiment with education technology and not be experimenting with the government’s larger resources. <\/p>\n

I think we have a responsibility and opportunity to help the governments plan, to help them learn from the past, and also to help them learn from the future so that the decisions they make are good decisions. I don’t think we are fulfilling that role as well as we could or we should because if we were, we would not be seen in these circumstances today .<\/p>\n

I think if that ship is going in the wrong direction then yes we have an obligation to drive again in the front of the ship and say “don’t go this way”, it needs to be steered in a different direction otherwise you are gonna end up on the rocks and just keep slamming the ship against the same rocks I don’t think is a very useful exercise. <\/p>\n

I keep coming back to the question that the human ware is far more important than the hardware and the software and that\u2019s where the bug lies, that\u2019s where the education technology investments have broken down. Because we do not invest in the people to make the investment in the technology – the hardware and the software – worthwhile. <\/p>\n

Until that investment in the people who are going to be using it, and understanding why they are using it, and why they get some benefit in using that – until that happens, then the politicians and the parents may decide to keep pumping technology into the schools but that to me is not a good investment with scarce resources. <\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\n

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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am absolutely passionate about the vision, about the potential, of education technology. But this motion is not about the justification for education technology or the vision or the potential. Its about the reality of the implementation. This motion is about most<\/i> investments in educational technology are wasted. That\u2019s an implementation question and it\u2019s not a question about vision or potential or the justification. <\/p>\n

I am a big believer in education technology. I am great disbeliever in how education technology has been implemented and I believe it has led to enormous amount of wastage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[476],"tags":[500,501,503,193,502,470,442,1525,498,499],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":886,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions\/886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}