Evidence Please!

We tend to take positive results and the real progress of computer-assisted teaching for granted. However, there are very good reasons to exercise care in this area. To date, independent large-scale research carried out in rich countries reports hardly any positive effects on learning standards - at least not in the long-established school subjects - see our posts. Where is the evidence for the claim by the IT community that computers really promote rapid improvements in teaching or learning in middle and low income countries? Here Allen, a regular contributor to the debate, raises a valid question:

Allen's question in the Debate led by Mark Warschauer:

"You've investigated successful programs?"

"You've investigated successful programs? Even highly successful programs? Could you, perhaps, identify one or two of these programs?

Without your resources I haven't found any successful programs, at least by the metric of improving educational outcomes, so I'm interested in successful - highly successful - programs. In fact all the programs I've had access to have been dismal failures both financially and educationally so you can understand that highly successful programs, and how they achieved their success, would be of interest to me".

Find the Debate here 
EduTech Debate by InfoDev World Bank

for Research Reports see this blog and
see: 20 yrs IT - a reality check 
see: Sound pedagogy
see: ICT-IT harmonised

..................

In the mean time:

Teachers in developing economies need in their classrooms robust and reliable tools.
The Nationwide Visualisation Project introduces on highschools simple to use teaching aids.
How to explain static electricity? Below one off the 2500 visuals: "Put on - take off".

Step up question: "Why is her hair standing strait up?"

To modernise teaching today, see:  Nationwide Visualisation Project