ICTlogy

infoDev has published the report of a survey about the state of ICTs implementation in the education sector in Africa.

Some highlights:

• Growing commitment to ICT in education on the part of government leaders across the continent. Leadership, leadership, leadership.
• Public-private partnerships are important mechanisms enabling the implementation of ICT in national education systems in Africa. Mark Davies also spoke about this at the Web2forDev Conference when he presented Tradenet, and it’s getting a subject on which everyone comes over again and again.
• The need for digital content development relevant to local curricula is becoming more
  urgent as ICT use becomes more widespread. Surprisingly, there’s few mentions to initiatives such as Creative Commons and no mentions at all about open access policies, strategies, debates and so.
• Interest in open source software and operating systems is growing rapidly in Africa, but this growth is constrained by a lack of sufficient human resource capacity to support such systems and applications. Once again, the problem is not only infrastructures, but capacity building, digital literacy at all levels — and a strong local ICT sector, strong local industry. A chance for endogenous development?
• Internet connectivity remains a major challenge, which is no surprise but becoming a major challenge as Web 2.0 demands more and more connectivity quality.
• Wireless networks are developing rapidly throughout the continent, and of increasing relevance to the education sector, something that projects like One Laptop per Child have turned as their main asset/bet
• e-Learning for Higher Education is still not widely adopted, despite efforts like the ones made by the African Virtual University, USAID’s DOT-COM, SchoolNet Africa, to mention a few. Lack of content, hardware and connectivity being some of the main barriers.

It is especially relevant to me what the preface states:

Despite widespread beliefs that ICTs can be important potential levers to introduce and sustain education reform efforts in Africa [and] much rhetoric related to the ‘digital divide’; there has been no consolidated documentation of what is actually happening in Africa in this area, nor comprehensive baseline data on the state of ICT use in education in Africa against which future developments can be compared.
A lack of information impacts planning […]
A need for coordination […]
No consolidated information resource […]

which I honestly think could be transposed to many many other areas of the ICT4D field. Hence, the need to establish a methodological framework for ICT4D and pursue more research, analysis, indicators, raise datasets, etc.

More info

• Piece of news and main findings
• Survey web page
• Farrell, G. and Isaacs, S. (2007). Survey of ICT and Education in Africa: A Summary Report, Based on 53 Country Surveys. Washington, DC: infoDev / World Bank. (569 Kb)

(Thanks Michael)

Akiko Hemmi, Sian Bayne, Ray Land
Research methods for Web 2.0 practices: investigating e-learning using Web 2.0 in higher education

The importance of social context when writing/contributing to a wiki, e.g. others’ consent to be written about. Same, even more, when concerning changing others’ writings.

Second Life seems more suitable for informal chat than for exchange/creation of information and knowledge. Indeed, it is not a really reliable tool at this stage.

Identity issues in Second Life and Facebook and how you present your self (Goffman) in virtual realities.

Paolo Lattanzio, Mauro Sandrini
e-learning and web 2.0 – learning spaces for people or machines

The Web 2.0 is not, as it changes and evolves along time by using it.

Possibilities of strong personalization of learning.

Not intended to destroy the old methods, but enhance, complement them.

Possibility of dialog, not a monologue: blogs, podcasts, web radio, etc.

Activate the teachers’ peer community, sharing experiences, resources, etc. Available content should ease the updating of own content.

Not just reuse content, but also the tools.

By using Web 2.0 apps, students also learn not only to collaborate but how to use some tools.

Michael Thelwall
How do general social networking sites embed in the Web?

A hyperlink comparison of 20 social networking sites: hyperlinking is an endorsement to a site.

LexiURL Searcher

It looks that the sites with heavy blog component are more linked than you’d expect by their size/traffic. Blog seems to be a key component in the linking nature of Web 2.0.

Flavour: for each site, the flavour is the top-level domain that most frequently links to it, compared to the other sites. e.g. Facebook is linked by more .edu sites than any other kind of top level domain, while MySpace has the .com as the main referrer and Bebo with .uk.

57% of the links come from personal websites, most of them here’s my website and here’s my personal profile in Facebook/MySpace/whatever, 33% from commercial (especially music and film industry), 3% from educational.

LiveJournal and MySpace have, between them, much more shared links than any other platform with any other one.

Two very differentiate kinds of members in MySpace according to days since last entered the site: frequent users vs. created account and never entered back.

Female users more likely to be “here for” friendship and male users more likely to be “here for” dating (but only a minority). Males and females both preferred to have more female friends and Top 8 friends. Fremales preferred a greater proportion of female Top 8 friends. So, especially in the case of guys, does MySpace really reflects (as it’s been said) offline relationships?

Quite a usual use of swearing in youngsters (16 to 19 y.o.) sites on MySpace, more on guys.

David Cummings
Personalised Learning, Foucault and the Web 2.0 Revolution

Shift to student centered learning.

Learning management systems still have the instructor at its center, with the student never really interacting with the teacher nor other students. LMSs lock things out: if you’re not logged, you cannot access. Not meant for community teaching. You can’t have spontaneity, it’s a frozen space.

What do we want for our students? To be creative, flexible, student generated, collaborative, engaged, etc.

Digital identity mapping.

What about the Personal Learning Environment?

• Instant messaging vs. chat
• Collaboration not directed learning
• Online communities that look like real communities
• Students’ ability to create peer groups from other institutions
• Ability to bring information in from the outside world
• Reflective not just demonstrable
• Interpretive rather than repetitive

Students supporting students through wikis, Elgg…

Wilson, S. (2005). “Future VLE – The Visual Vision”

Jane Secker & Gwyneth Price
Libraries, distance learners and social software: providing social spaces to support learning”

The Lassie Project: libraries and social software in education (blog). Trying to find out what the “participatory library” could be about.

Some librarians view social software as a way to enhance services, to innovate and engage library users. Some concepts cause unease in the library community e.g. tagging vs. metadata.

Real examples from libraries:

• User comments & reviews in the catalogue
• Libraries using social networking sites: MySpace and Facebook library accounts; Groups for libraries and librarians; useful for professional networking e.g. Ning and
• LinkedIn
• Library success
• Penn Tags
• Libraries using blogs

Social software presents information literacy issues: new tools, new skills needed

Libraries as social spaces: not work, not home, but a third place.

PREEL Project: developments in information literacy, developments in e-resources and e-learning.

Paz Peña Ochoa
Education for Public Individuals: the possibilities of web 2.0

Web 2.0 as a relationship device.
Has public education something to do with the development of individuals? Is education a pubolic matter?

Hanna Arendt: education as a space into which action takes place, people legitimate themselves, appear in front of others

Learning to be implies the application of knowledge in the development of skills to achieve a role into the society. Under this train of though, Web 2.0 apps. seem to perfectly fit into this purpose, as they are social networking tools per excellence. But can really Web 2.0 help the public development of individuals?

Folksonomies describe my relationship with the world through me tagging same “objects” that other people, thus generating a consensus.

Comments and debate

• David Cummings states that Learning Management Systems where created to manage the massification of education. Hence, the problem is not that shifting to a Personal Learning Environment puts stress in the University system, but in the social arena: how are we going to cope with this raising need for personalization, increasing costs of it, and the highest amount of students (increasing too, ’cause they learn along their lives)?
• It’s true that we have to engage students, make processes flexible, appealing; and it’s true that “power” has not to be retained at all costs, and that power retention strategies have blocked other ways of doing things. But, if we forget about “power retention strategies” it might well be legitimate to try and fix your educative goals and don’t let them be a matter of debate, while the means can. So, is the wisdom of crowds that wise? What if I think this is the best book even if zillions of students tagged as better another one (stress to the librarian)? What if I can debate how to learn things but not give up on you learning integers?

Erkki Sutinen
Can an ICT professional be trained to spark innovation? Background for a contextualized ICT undergraduate program at Tumaini University, Iringa, Tanzania

EdTechΔ research group, focusing on educational technology creation, under these premises:

• Making a difference in action
• Triangulation in research
• Multiple perspective in development
• Bidirectional partnerships

How come does our education system train professionals who can design an architecture to meet the needs written in a specification, for making existing processes more efficient, but not experts who can creatively, critically and supportingly talk with their customers and identify their real needs?

New project in the ICT undergraduate program at Tumaini University, Iringa, Tanzania, to make the students re-link their new skills and knowledge to the needs of that society where they have come from

Principles of the ICT program

• Contextualization, local problems as starting points for projects
• Practical and interdisciplinary orientation
• International recognition
• Continuous research for the program’s formative development

Which color is ICT professional’s collar when mining a problem? Is it blue? Should it be white?

ICT program in the light of ICT4D dialectics

• exogenous vs. endogenous? ethnocomputing.org to culturally discover meaningful entry points to ICT, in the spectrum between practical needs and theoretical models of computaion
• top-down or bottom up? gaining ownership to emerging vs. guaranteeing access to given
• open source or proprietary software? garage mentality
• partnership or delivery? I4D, VISCoS, Knowledge Management journal, Vol 3, No 1: monographic about Stewarding technologies for collaboration, community building and knowledge sharing in development

Marcus Duveskog
Tekkie Kids – A learning laboratory for future engineers

Goal: create an interest in kids for science engineering and technology; and provide researchers with a live lab for distance education

What are the key elements that make a tech club successful in developing positive attitudes towards Science Engineering and Technology?
What is needed to support massification of technology clubs among South African primary schools?

Research method: Action Research

Fun factor is important, and so is competition, but there’s a trade-off between engaging and “creating losers”. Planning is hard, being that some kids are “spoon-fed” one of the possible reasons.

As per massification issues, hub schools and teacher training might be good answers.

How should we asess and evaluate the TekkiKids project?

My reflections

• Markus brings out as a main working tool Lego Mindstorms, but states that though it is a very good learning tool, is is quite expensive and out of reach for most schools’ economies. It is important to notice that the same people that developed Mindstorms also developed Scratch, which is based — more or less — on the same concept of making programming easy and very effective. And being Scratch a web 2.0 project, it’s cost is just the one of the access to the network — which might be, of course, also quite an issue.

Muhammad Atif Ishaq
Usability in e-learning

The usability of a learning system is quite tricky as it involves fuzzy concepts and multiple dimensions and factors.

Indeed, developing countries have added factors that make usability even more complex to define, such as:

• Low DOI
• Basic level operating skills
• Digital Divide
• Heterogenous cultures and languages

Evelyn Kigozi Kahiigi
Exploring the e-learning state of art

Evelyn begins by describing an overview about the fundamentals of e-Learning

Main challenges of e-Learning

• Lack of technical skills
• lack of time management skills
• Credibility of e-learning
• Integration of emerging tech
• Digital Divide
• lack of policies and strategies
• Increasing dropout rate

To explain the why of failures (and successes in e-learning for development), Hypothesis: Applying social presence factors of communication, interactivity and feedback can create successful e-learning experiences

My reflections

• Connectivism, as a new approach beyond Behaviourism, Cognitivism and Constructivism, and really related with the hypothesis of the project, as Connectivism is really about feedback, interaction, co-participation, etc. Same with e-Learning/Education 2.0
• Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
• Connectivism.ca
• Downes, S. (2006). Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge

Annika Andersson
The (jigsaw-) puzzle of e-learning: case study Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

Thesis theme: Inhibiting and facilitating factors for e-learning in developing countries

• which are the nhibiting and facilitating factors for e-learning in developing countries
• which of these factors are of specific importance to developing countries
• Contribution: a conceptual framework on factors that contributes to enrollment and completion of e-learning courses in developing countries: student, teacher, course, technology, support, institution, society.

But, besides the difference in degree of factors, is there a difference in concept between developed and developing countries? Maybe not…

Nevertheless, in academic literature, when analyzing this factors the focus in developed countries is in the individual (the student) while when analyzing developing countries the focus is usually in culture. Isn’t this a prejudice?

Arguing for a holistic approach but still focusing on a few factors.
Categorizing and looking for differences between “developed” and “developing” countries… Extremely unhappy with this terminology.

More Info

• Annika Andersson: What is so special about e-learning in developing countries?