Avoid only "worst practice ICT use in education"?

Highlighting the Delhi debate in April/May 2010 organised by InfoDev/World Bank:

"Most Investments in Educational Technology are Wasted"

Three guest speakers defend the way computer technology has been introduced in middle and low income countries so far, and three opponents argue that much of the money could have been better used. Here is a response to that last position.

Michael Trucano, Senior ICT and Educational Policy Specialist at InfoDev/World Bank has seen it happening around the world, over and over again:

"Given that many initiatives seem immune to learning from either 'best' or even 'good' practice in other places or contexts, it may be most practical to recommend 'lots of practice', as there appears to be a natural learning curve that accompanies large scale adoption of ICTs in the education sector in many countries - even if this means 'repeating the mistakes' of others".

from:Michael Trucano on Fri, 04/30/2010
Worst practice ICT use in education

Next Trucano raises the question: "But do we really need to repeat the mistakes of others?" and concludes that maybe only "worst practice in ICT use in education" should be avoided. A statement like this from a top researcher at the World Bank reveals a lot about the common acceptance of the waste of investment in educational technologies. And "we" refers directly and correctly to the role of the IT community itself.

On a regular basis I talk to top management at government ministries in middle and low income countries and meet their influential IT advisers - mostly from abroad and paid by donor facilitating organisations. Ministers listen carefully to them. To me, it appears like these advisers are responsible for many of the policies subsequently adopted: it is at their level - and not the lower levels in the educational hierarchies - that decisions about the amount and destination of investments in educational technology are made. Outcomes have not been good and so for IT advisers and aid facilitating agencies a fundamental re-think is urgently needed.

Here Trucano's list of nine 'worst practices in ICT'         photo Trucano © World Bank 

(mostly directed by enthusiastic IT specialists and the computer lobby) -

1. Dump hardware in schools, hope for magic to happen

2. Design for OECD learning environments, implement elsewhere

3. Think about educational content only after you have rolled out your hardware

4. Assume you can just import content from somewhere else

5. Don't monitor, don't evaluate

6. Make a big bet on an unproven technology

7. Don't acknowledge total cost of ownership/operation calculations

8. Assume away equity (fairness; justice) issues but which need careful proactive attention

9. Don't train your teachers (nor your school headmasters, for that matter)

I'd like to add:

10: ignore the benefits of achievable ICT to modernise teaching at low cost and no risk (click)

There is a false dichotomy in the "Delhi - Waste debate". Are those who think too much money is wasted really against computers? I don't think so. There is a common understanding that computers have to be integrated in developing economies as fast as possible, wherever it makes sense and especially in education. That is why donor facilitators have established IT-task forces to promote and assist this strategy. But there is an enthusiasm within the IT community which makes them regularly overlook (for instantce) points 5 to 8 in Trucano's list. This oversight leads to unrealistic policies for middle and low income countries. The IT advisers reject 'waste' as an appropriate description of what is going on, as if they don't have to be cautious regarding the financial consequences of the implementation strategies they advise be taken.

Implementation strategies which advisers promote should become longer term, spending 3 to 7 years creating a stable infrastructure before teachers start using IT in their classrooms.
Analysis followed by evaluation based on research elsewhere is simply not being effective in most places, partly because researchers and opinion-makers who report to the IT community are too eager to get computers into classrooms as a first priority as the key measure of success. Conclusions are reported to 'the home front' in optimistic terms and tend to obscure the shortcomings or failure of programs - holding up the cheap promise of 'computers enriching education' as a cover, instead of concluding that a firm step-by-step approach dealing first with critical barriers is far preferable.
Being pragmatic is essential. Instead of implicitly allowing similar mistakes to be repeated, annalists, government consultants and education leaders should note carefully Trucano's observations and the Delhi debate outcomes and question themselves about the value and appropriateness of their future implementation advice.


Role of ICT conferences

5th African e-Learning Conference
Zambia May 2010

Photos by Inzy Studios Lusaka, © ICWE GmbH

ICT conferences are important places to promote and present sensible implementation plans, concentrating first on preparation (and to raise voices against investment schemes doomed to failure). But ICT conferences, like the one recently held in Zambia, traditionally celebrate the arrival of computers in education as if this will bring immediate blessings - no matter where and even when failure is highly predictable. Also and especially, the 'professional advisers' at such events ignore the downsides of computer technology in the classroom and set out false expectations for visiting educationalists and policy makers who want rapid progress in their schools and who are in positions to get money flowing quickly. Instead of being warned about doubtful investments (as listed by Trucano), they go home with unrealistic IT policies in their minds - a side effect of these over-optimistic gatherings which the organisers and guest speakers should plan to prevent.

How to come up with blueprints for success? How to replace misleading over-optimism with common sense? You do not have to be Einstein to understand that the highest priority is to promote solutions to critical barriers first - like developing a solid infrastructure, preparing the teachers and only introducing educational technology which has already proved its worth in low or middle income countries. With smaller spending limits, much more can be achieved when wastage is minimised. Researchers, opinion-makers and computer-industry promoters have much responsibility to exercise in this process. Consider Trucano's Point 8, the equity issue: developing economies have no money for experiments. Loans, taxes or donor money gets wasted and is lost for basic needs such as salaries, furniture to sit on, school lunches or schoolbooks. Here realism in setting goals is imperative to foster progress.

A new, scientific approach is required from infoDev, US-Aid, UNESCO ICT4D, GeSCI and others who promote implementing expensive IT in education. Novelties which seem promising, like Negroponte's new eBook Being Digital, can be experimented with in a few regions or small countries until a complete working model is capable of implementation at manageable and accountable cost. In the 21st century the approach of 'trial and error' should be left behind, especially by the IT community. If they really want to close the digital divide they by now have to come up with blueprints for success. Here's an eye-opener on this subject, courtesy of Chris Blattman who did put this speech on his blog a few days earlier:

Esther Duflo's TED talk

Prof. Duflo is development economist at M.I.T. and has been awarded the John
Bates Clark Medal for "the most significant contribution to economic thought
and knowledge.” This award is regarded as a step up for the Noble Prize.


To close the digital divide systematically,
see: ICT-IT harmonised
see: Beyond chalk and talk
see: Nationwide Visualisation Project

original post Trucano 
 

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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 relate rain, static electricity and lightning? Below one of the 2500 visuals: "Put on - take off".

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Step up: "What is happening to the ice-cubs in the circle?

eLearning conferences: marketing vs realism

An open answer to the eLearning Team Africa 

Photo impressions eLearning Conference Zambia 
May 2010   © ICWE GmbH  German organisers

Thank you for letting us know about your appreciation of our blog and for the invitation to Tanzania in 2011.

Let me ask, after following your conferences for several years: is the first priority for the organizers of the e-Conference Africa to focus on how to use ICT to the max to improve education in Africa? Or is it to serve the IT community, whose obvious aim is to get hardware and software installed everywhere?

Let us set things out clearly for the better.
To me, it seems the main problem with the eLearning Conference Africa is that, as organizers, you are not yet separating the aim of integrating computer technology at best in education from the aim of improving teaching.  
There is hardly any serious attention given to the short-comings, complexities and extremely high costs of setting up and maintaining digital learning as evidenced by rich countries’ experience. Such experience should send a clear warning to less affluent countries about the over-optimism and problems associated with introducing computer technology into their educational systems. On top of this there is the issue of developing a new and effective pedagogy which teachers can use to maximize the benefits of e-learning approaches.

Experts selected to make presentations and contributions at your conferences should be noted for their realistic assessments and advice about what is really achievable and what the first priorities should be if value for money is to be achieved. Such experts should be able to elaborate on strategies to overcome the most critical barriers first, instead of - excusez le mot - marketing the launch of unproven technologies and new gadgets as if these will achieve miracles on their own.

It appears that your conference events are set up to demonstrate that success with digital technologies will be immediate. And your reports afterwards confirm this feeling. When I meet with policy-makers in Africa, or with educationalists who have visited your conference and refer to what they encountered, I am baffled by their unrealistic expectations – as if they have been lifted out of reality. Often the notion is lacking that a step by step approach is paramount. Your e-conferences so far have promoted that naive and potentially damaging optimism displayed by many in the international IT community and industry.

Let us get a taste of your 2009 report, written under the glowing title: "eLearning Africa Conference Shows How ICTs Empower Education for All in Africa":   ... after three days of “sessions with world-class experts” ... “about the use of the vast potential of ICT to empower future generations of African children” ... “A Brilliant Mix of People, Opinions and Solutions" ... “Highlighting eLearning: Africa's innovative approach and setting the tone for future conferences” ... "Birthplace of numerous fruitful collaborations.”

The message is breath-taking: everything will change soon - just sign up for technology.

No lessons seem to be learned from the past or anywhere outside Africa. The denial reaches a level where one starts to wonder if the opposite is true. Is it really your aim to battle against the bitter realism found among your visitors one year earlier - in 2008? On your eLearning Conference in Ghana, 66% of participants agreed with the statement: 'Over the past decade the eLearning situation in Africa has hardly changed for the better' (eLearning 2020. 32 issues checked by M. Trucano, InfoDev World Bank and H. Fraeters, GDLN).

Optimism rules again in your announcements for the eConference 2010 in Zambia (no report yet, just photographs). I hope that your 2010 conference evaluation this time will emphasize realistic views on what is needed prior to succes. There must have been at least some attention to the debatable impact todays' computer-learning has on students’ learning and to the debate on what steps in the African context urgently have to be taken one after the other to achieve computer literacy (and digital learning) and other benefitis of computers to schools. Unrealistic yet costly ambitions result from unreal expectations about the potential of today's digital technology for improving teaching and learning of almost all school subjects.

You invite me to the 2011 eConference. For me it would be interesting to come - as for most visitors - when you have swapped your priorities from "ICT because of ICT" to: getting ICT to work on African schools effectively.

Please address the bitter realism that visitors report and the disappointing results from eLearning over the last decade. I am sure that the audience will appreciate it when your 2011 Conference in Tanzania gives centre stage to - what so far was second on your conferences: “the challenges and obstacles that technology brings to daily routines in education”.
Start with the educational management on the ministry and service institutes as for curriculum development, examunation and inspection: arrange speakers who can give direction for change and who have practical solutions for the vast preparations that are needed to effect change by this means. Be down to earth about what is needed and what is achievable now on ministries of education where e-mail and network problems are persistent and where toilets rarely flush. Have specialists elaborate “comprehensively” about the minimum requirements needed for the infrastructure needed for Internet access at the national level and then as a reliable element in teacher training and school and classroom practice. And deal head-on with the financial limitations of African countries and how they can overcome these as you “reflect the great potential of learning with technology”.

This will not cut investment in ICT but put it where it is needed first.

I can advise you about some key-note speakers who really have a message to share.
Success with your work - make your eConference really exciting for real progress!

Jan Krol - Visual Teach achievable ICT.


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Teachers in developing economies need in their classrooms robust and reliable tools.

The Nationwide Visualisation Project introduces on highschools simple to use teaching aids.

What water erosion and silt?  Below one of the 2500 visuals: "Put on - take off".

Bleak impact of IT on learning

infoDev is a global development financing programme co-ordinated and serviced by the Global ICT Department (GICT) of the World Bank. InfovDev rarely consider low-tech ICT applications such as school radio, TV or the overhead projector as serious options, even when the implementation of new technologies are likely, or better: doomed to fail. In a Briefing Paper five years ago infoDev summed up what is debatable about much classroom use of ICT to support learning and is soon to host a debate in Delhi on the theme of 'Most investment in technology in schools is wasted.'

Briefing Paper
Impact of ICT on Learning and Achievement

A Knowledge Map of Information & Communication Technologies in Education

It is generally believed that ICT can empower teachers and learners, promote change and foster the development of ‘21st century skills' but data to support these beliefs is still limited.

Download the full text here

Read also 20 years of IT in education and Silver bullets