World Bank Experience in Integration of ICT in Schools Lessons learned and recent trends Michael Trucano Sr. ICT & Education Specialist The World Bank 16 September 2009

ICTs in Education

ICTs = information & communication technologies computers Internet phones radio TV devices

mobile phones Handhelds PDAs, GPS Computers Desktops, laptops Networks Internet, LANs, wi-fi Media players MP3, DVD, CD = ICTs Cameras still, video broadcast radio, TV presentation LCD projectors, televisions, printers accessories probeware, peripherals

photo opportunities

or

strategic choices for education reform

?

Michael Trucano Sr. ICT & Education Specialist Education Sector World Bank

ask questions and learn from the experiences of the World Bank and its development partners …

“Get smart”

“Get smarter”

@

appropriate

relevant

effective

and, just as importantly…

inappropriate

irrelevant

ineffective

uses of technologies

to aid a variety of developmental objectives

especially in education!

What do we know about using technology in education in developing countries?

What do we know about using technology effectively in education in developing countries?

Do they help make schools more productive and efficient than they currently are? transform teaching and learning into an engaging and active process connected to real life? prepare the current generation of young people for the future workplace?

how do we know?

If ICTs are the ‘answer’ … what is our question?

If ICTs are the ‘answer’ … what is the question?

solution  problem

problem  solution

Certain realities These sorts of investments are not made solely on economic grounds; treating them as such misses the mark. Decisions to buy PCs are fueled as much by aspiration as by evidence -- and economics. In many cases, prices have fallen to a point where countries are saying “we can finally do this”. (Education Minister: “We used to be out of the game, now we can join”) Technology and infrastructure issues drive the process, at least at the start.

ICT as an icon and engine of innovation

Start work by asking: “How can ICT be done right?” not “Should ICT be done at all?”

infrastructure training content skills pedagogy efficiency M&E policy

“I believe that the Internet is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks. It is possible to touch every branch of human knowledge through the Internet.”

“I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks. It is possible to touch every branch of human knowledge through the motion picture.” -- Thomas Edison 1922

what has changed?

PRICES

(magic price: $100)

secondary student population

innovations

innovations in marketing

(corporate) mindsets

a state of constant change

drawing on …

research initiatives

Critical Review of ICT and Education in the Caribbean & Africa (75 country reports) + South Asia ICT Components in World Bank education projects Monitoring & Evaluation of ICT in Education Initiatives ICTs and Teacher Professional Development ICT & education indicators M&E of NEPAD e-Schools Low cost ICT devices in education (including mobile phones)

ICT in Education Toolkit for Policymakers, Planners & Practitioners infoDev – UNESCO used in 28 countries to date, 200 requests for use since launch

World Bank education projects

The Use and Misuse of Computers in Education: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Colombia World Bank Policy Research Working Paper N Felipe Barrera-Osorio and Leigh Linden (2009)

This paper presents the evaluation of the program Computers for Education. The program aims to integrate computers, donated by the private sector, into the teaching of language in public schools. The authors conducted a two-year randomized evaluation of the program using a sample of 97 schools and 5,201 children.

findings

Lead headline, option #1 Overall, the program seems to have had little effect on students’ test scores and other outcomes. These results are consistent across grade levels, subjects, and gender.

Lead headline, option #2: The main reason for these results seems to be the failure to incorporate the computers into the educational process. Although the program increased the number of computers in the treatment schools and provided training to the teachers on how to use the computers in their classrooms, surveys of both teachers and students suggest that teachers did not incorporate the computers into their curriculum.

need for new assessments

need for new assessment frameworks

need for new indicators

“Technology is revolutionizing education everywhere but in the classroom”

some key findings

impact of ICT use on learning outcomes and future employment is unclear, and open to much debate absence of widely accepted standard methodologies and indicators to assess impact disconnect between the rationales most often put forward to advance the use of ICTs in education and their actual implementation a. impact

very little useful data on the cost of ICT in education initiatives, especially those attempting to assess Total Cost of Ownership, nor guidance on how to conduct cost assessments. b. costs

c. use ICTs are being increasingly used in education, even in the most challenging environments

for better AND for worse

d. lessons learned and best practice emerging best practices and lessons learned in a number of areas, but with a few exceptions (notably on ‘schoolnet’ development and general lessons learned), they have not been widely disseminated nor packaged into formats easily accessible to policy makers in developing countries, and have not been explicitly examined in the context of the education-related MDGs

ICTs are being increasingly used in education, even in the most challenging environments in developing countries

New Phases: From Pilot Projects to Policies to Scale

NGOs and private sector leading the way

Increasing demand from client countries

innovation is coming from developing countries

“The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.” -William Gibson

for better AND for worse

evolution

access



relevance



quality

access  relevance  quality

access  relevance  quality

Will (how can) ICTs help make schools more productive and efficient than they currently are? transform teaching and learning into an engaging and active process connected to real life? prepare the current generation of young people for the future workplace?

GREAT INTEREST in learning from Uruguay, CEIBAL and OLPC

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