Re: [DDN] Achieving Sustainable Edtech Initiatives

[Pamela McLean]

Andy Carvin wrote quoting Ravi Venkatesan:
To move forward, he said teachers and students must be at the center stage of ICT initiatives. 
"Putting them center stage and using ICT to solve real problems rather than perceived 
problems is an important step." ... You also must get the community involved  we 
really, really need to have local ownership of initiatives."
I'd like to agree that on behalf of CawdNet, especially regarding "using 
ICT to solve real problems rather than perceived problems"

One of CawdNet's long term aims is to teach communities about the 
*potential* of ICTs so that they can say how ICTs might usefully serve 
their needs. When we designed the Teachers Talking (about ICTs) course 
it wasn't just about teaching teachers to use computers, and it wasn't 
just about giving them relevant ICT content to teach back in school on 
their "no computers computer courses". It was about enabling all of them 
to experience the *potential* of ICTs in ways that they could share with 
their pupils, their colleagues *and their communities* even where those 
communities have not seen computers..

Our vision is to run more courses, so that we get a good number of 
high-flyers coming through, people who will go forward to enter into 
informed debate about the role of computers in rural education and in 
rural development. The teachers want more courses. They want us to give 
their colleagues the same opportunity they have had. They also want more 
advanced courses to continue their own development. (They told us this 
and also wrote it, strongly, on their - anonymous- feedback sheets.)

Government policy is that teachers must become computer literate but 
there is no government budget to support their training. Teachers are 
willing to pay but cannot afford sufficient fees to cover the full cost. 
Our first course was made possible through voluntary effort and the free 
use of Fantsuam Foundation facilities, plus a subsidy from the FF micro 
credit bank.

This means that the course was paid for partly by the teachers 
themselves and partly through local - but unrepeatable - sponsorship. To 
me it seems amazing that the necessary sponsorship was from the profits 
of the FF micro-credit bank. This means that this initial course was 
made possible through the savings of poor women hoping to demonstrate 
that they are fit to be given loans and through the faithful repayments 
of those women who have borrowed (repayments are close to 100%).

The course was run by Fantsuam Foundation (a CawdNet associate). 
Fantsuam Foundation was set up by Nigerian professionals, it is led by 
Nigerians for Nigerians, in a rural area, with a view to replication. 
Its training initiatives are already being shared with the InfoCentre in 
Ago-Are (another cawdnet associate) - two days journey away from FF's 
centre - but linked by VSAT.

For details of the teachers course, including a photo of the 
participants with the children they taught as part of the "no computers 
computer course" practical sessions see 
http://teacherstalking.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/TeachersTalkingCourse

We believe this is a good example of a community driven, appropriate way 
forward through teacher training, but have no resources to sponsor any 
follow up course yet. If list members know of any potential sponsors 
then CawdNet - and the teachers we are trying to serve - would 
appreciate help in finding them. Please consider passing this email on 
to appropriate contacts.

Forgive me if this is not an appropriate request to make through the 
list, but it seems to me that members on this list do genuinely want to 
*act* to bridge the digital divide - not just *theorise* about it. 
Encouraging federal and state government to pay for training courses 
would be a useful action that some list members may be in a position to 
make. Sharing this need more widely, and thus gaining sponsorship, could 
result in another practical step towards reducing the digital divide.

Pam
<>Pamela McLean - CAWD volunteer and CawdNet convenor
CawdNet – Networking in rural Nigeria and through the virtual 
communities of the Internet (CAWD is registered charity number 1104228).
<>To subscribe to the newsletter 
http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/oocd2000plus
To contribute to CAWD’s work www.bmycharity.com/cawd1 

For an introduction to CawdNet www.cawdnet-intro.blogspot.com 

A CawdNet website bringing all these odd bits together will soon be set 
up on www.cawd.net  (time scale depending on the 
conflicting demands of our website volunteer’s baby and day job).
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RE: [DDN] Achieving Sustainable Edtech Initiatives

[Alfred Bork]

Andy, thank you for reporting on the interesting talk by Ravi Venkatesan.

 

The issues he raises are critical not only for India, bur for the entire
world. India and China have about one third of the population of the world,
and perhaps the largest share of those art the bottom of the pyramid, with
incomes of less that $2 per day.

 

"It's the shortage of skilled teachers, high student to teacher ratios,

teacher absenteeism, student absenteeism" that are among India's greatest

educational challenges, he continued. However, there are ways ICT can

combat these challenges. 

 

[Alfred Bork] I think it very unlikely that we will ever have enough good
teachers in the world, regardless of what we do. But this does not seem to
be understood well by the World Bank and other organizations. Their vast
expenditures of money to solve the education for all problem are based on
schools and teachers.

 

 

Unfortunately, no major breakthrough has been achieved on a large,

replicable scale, he said. "I don't think anybody really knows; there is a

remarkable lack of information on what drives success and sustainability."

 

"When you look across all these projects, there is always a visionary,

passionate, committed leader," he continued. "Our problem is that we then

become over-reliant on this small group of leaders." There is no substitute

for this type of leadership, he said; how do we identify more people to

fill these roles?

 

[Alfred Bork] We cannot base a large scale educational system in a few
visionary leaders. There is already too much searching for 'successful'
examples, ones that are not repeatable. 

 

It's quite common for a project's funding to dry up before it reaches

critical mass for sustainability, he pointed out. There are many

well-intentioned efforts, some led by the government, some by NGOs or the

private sector, but they're not coordinated. "I'm constantly surprised"

when you look at the projects of major IT companies, running project that

have very similar goals, in the same communities, "but we don't come

together, so there is a tremendous missed opportunity."

 

Language and illiteracy is also a major challenge, particularly when

content isn't available in the local language. "It's incredibly important

for us to make sure that the user interface is in the local languages."

Microsoft is working to put its software into 14 Indian languages by the

end of the year, he said, "but it's not enough because of the 40% of

people who are illiterate."

 

[Alfred Bork] We need more that Multilanguage interfaces. All the learning
material, beginning with very young children, should be in the child's
language, the one they have learning since birth. Since there are many
languages in the world, this is a major problem that must be faced
immediately in an educational system.

 

A lack of content also stifles well-meaning initiatives. 

 

[Alfred Bork] But the critical need is not information content, but
learning. If we consider what is needed globally for lifelong learning, it
is a large array of content.

 

What are the possibilities? As mentioned, I do not think it will happen by
building schools and training teachers. We must seriously begin to evaluate
other possibilities that would have a reasonable chance of success, both
sustainable and scalable.

 

First, we need proposals. These need to be tested by major experiments, in
many languages and in many parts of the world.

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[DDN] Achieving Sustainable Edtech Initiatives

[Andy Carvin]

 During today's morning keynote at the Baramati conference in India,
Microsoft India CEO Ravi Venkatesan offered his company's latest thinking
on information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education.

India graduates two million students each year, he said, yet 60 million
children don't even go to school, and overall literacy is below 60%. "Sixty
million is roughly the entire enrollment of the US school system," he
noted. There are also about 400 students per computer in Indian schools.
"Only a small fraction of educators have basic ICT literacy," he added,
noting there are approximately 250,000 trained teachers amongst a total of
five million teachers. In the general popualation, there are also around 10
PCs per thousand people overall.

"I find this interesting because there's a remarkable thing in India going
on today," he continued. "Middle class Indians now believe we can be an
educated, developed nation." Indians are starting to view their nation's
one billion people not as an obstacle, but as an asset, he said.

"It's the shortage of skilled teachers, high student to teacher ratios,
teacher absenteeism, student absenteeism" that are among India's greatest
educational challenges, he continued. However, there are ways ICT can
combat these challenges. For example, Venkatesan admitted that despite his
personal successes in business, he is illiterate in his own native tongue,
Tamil, yet he has been amazed how much of the basics he was able to pick up
by using multimedia training tools at an ICT kiosk he recently visited.

Beyond formal schooling, ICTs can help village women achieve financial
independence.
"You take women from self-help groups and give them basic ICT skills, and
you dramatically increase their opportunities," he said. In partnership
with an NGO working with agricultural workers, ICT access helped women
increase their salary from 500 rupees (USD $11.50) a month to 2000 rupees
(USD$ 45) a month.

Unfortunately, no major breakthrough has been achieved on a large,
replicable scale, he said. "I don't think anybody really knows; there is a
remarkable lack of information on what drives success and sustainability."

"When you look across all these projects, there is always a visionary,
passionate, committed leader," he continued. "Our problem is that we then
become over-reliant on this small group of leaders." There is no substitute
for this type of leadership, he said; how do we identify more people to
fill these roles?

It's quite common for a project's funding to dry up before it reaches
critical mass for sustainability, he pointed out. There are many
well-intentioned efforts, some led by the government, some by NGOs or the
private sector, but they're not coordinated. "I'm constantly surprised"
when you look at the projects of major IT companies, running project that
have very similar goals, in the same communities, "but we don't come
together, so there is a tremendous missed opportunity."

When developing an ICT project, he said, very often you get consumed by a
particular goal, like wiring every village, or putting a kiosk in all of
them. But unless you put in all the building blocks, "things fall apart."
He then identified some of these building blocks, including local
connectivity and affordability. "It's the affordability of everything:
hardware, software, the cost of connectivity," he said. "I don't think any
one company can solve the issue," he added; Consortiums organized by
government are a positive step in the right direction.

Language and illiteracy is also a major challenge, particularly when
content isn't available in the local language. "It's incredibly important
for us to make sure that the user interface is in the local languages."
Microsoft is working to put its software into 14 Indian languages by the
end of the year, he said, "but it's not enough because of the 40% of
people who are illiterate."

A lack of content also stifles well-meaning initiatives. "There is a
tremendous diversity in the kind of information needs that people have; it
even varies from district to district." So just because you offer access
doesn't mean you're given access to the local crop information that would
be vital for a village's farmers.

He then noted the need for education and training. "It's training,
training, training - it's the single biggest differentiator between success
and failure." When looking at the success of kiosks, the most important
factor is having kiosk managers who are well trained and able to train
others. "We are very conscious of the fact that we are just beginning to
scratch the surface."

"All of these building blocks must be in place if we are to have
sustainability," he concluded.

Venkatesan then described a visit President Clinton paid to a village in
Rajasthan that was using VSAT technology for Internet access. Many months
later, journalists returned to see how they were maintaining the program.
"It was quite sad," he said; the VSAT terminal wasn't work