Hair Transplants The epidermal derived cells produce the hair fiber and root sheaths. But there is a thin layer called the basement membrane or basement lamina or glassy membrane. It separates the DP cells from the hair fiber/sheath cells. It means that the basement membrane physically divides the cells descendant from embryonic ectoderm (epidermis) and embryonic mesoderm (dermis). This physical barrier plays a role in the human immunological protection. The DP cells are held in place by a capsule. It surrounds the DP cells in a cup and extends the sides of the hair follicle to the epidermis.
Anne, I am trying my best to work on that balance, to me the goal it really to lower the cost of graphics and programming, to be able to focus on the educational content which should be local and developped by native speakers. Time will tell if I have managed the right balance.... It's a fun exercice in any case.... did you get the app by the way?
Hi Isabelle,
This is an excellent point and I think one of the underlying issues of my post. I do think most of us try to balance local context and local relevance with practical application on the ground (it is not just sustainability I guess - working with local teachers and students for months just to develop one tool creates enormous expectations and you simply do not have that time). The question: where is this balance exactly probably cannot be answered as easily as I hoped... :)
Anne
I have read Kam study, and even met him twice at conference. It's a very intellectually appealing approach, however it's not sustainable... and it totally underestimate that kids have a tremendous adaptation capacity.
I believe that if we want to deliver educational digital media tool, in a world with 6000 languages, we need to be able to adapt a good tool to different languages, otherwise it wil not be financially sustainable. If you want to build something specific for each one of them in a world where techonogy is changing at rocket pace, it will never work:(
Hello to you all,
I was wondering if anyone knows of some good repositories of educational games in French, for example to learn fine mouse movement skills, or the proper use of a keyboard, or similar basic skills.
Nice idea much more informative and lots of resource about online education.It is very munch helpful to all people.Any one can collect his or her requered information from here.But I suggest you that your thesis could be more better if you take help form a proffessional Thesis Editing service.
Dear Anne and all,
I found the following article very interesting and thought i should share.
Much current research in the field of games-based learning demonstrates that games can be successfully incorporated into educational contexts to increase student engagement, motivation, and learning. Academic librarians are also using games as an innovative instructional strategy to strengthen students’ research skills and their understanding of information literacy concepts. This article discusses the development and implemen-tation of Quality Counts, a classroom information literacy game designed to teach undergraduate students how to evaluate Internet sources. After a brief overview of the game’s development and rules, the article describes the process of playing Quality Counts in several classes and presents the results of qualitative assessments of student engagement and self-perception of learning, including data from classroom observations and student surveys. Finally, the article offers suggestions for next steps and future research, both for Quality Counts as well as for academic librarians interested in developing or implementing instructional games.
Great input Steve and thanks for the link. I will have a look... I found the following links myself (or they were recommended to me by others). The texts are copied from the websites of the organisations.
If others have experiences with any of the games described I'd love to know more!
Smart4Kids http://ilearn4free.org/?page_id=553
The iLearn4Free reading application, Smart4Kids, is designed to be fun and exciting, and to instill confidence in children around the world as they learn to read. The educational curriculum is comprised of about 30 units, depending on the language, with each unit focusing on a specific phonemic skill. Each unit features games and stories that will be easy for children to navigate independently, yet they are not intended as a surrogate for the teacher.
Elearning for kids http://www.e-learningforkids.org/
Being used in Ghana by 2BWorldwide, games are developed in the Netherlands. All games are online and freely available.
Programs are designed for children ages 5 through 12, developed by leading e-learning vendors and qualified instructional designers, and reviewed by members of our Advisory Board and Quality Assurance teams. Schools can incorporate our tested online courses into their curriculum; teachers can work with their students on specific skills; and children can access the self-paced programs independently. Our programs are designed to engage children at the level where they can perform successfully.
JClic http://clic.xtec.cat/en/jclic/index.htm
JClic is formed by a set of computer applications that are used for carrying out different types of educational activities: puzzles, associations, text exercises, crosswords...The activities are not usually used alone, but packed in projects. A project is formed by a set of activities and one or more sequences, which indicate the order in which they have to be shown. JClic is developed in the Java platform, is a free software project and works in different environments and operating systems. Two ways of accessing the projects JClic are offered in the library of activities in the clicZone:
Playing the activities in an applet
An applet is an object embedded in a web page. The projects that are seen this way do not remain stored in the hard disk: JClic downloads it, uses it and finally deletes it.
If the JClic applet does not start, probably your computer's Java needs to be updated. It's also advisable to take a look at a page on the process of applet downloading.
KhanAcademy http://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard
Note that Khan does not really have games, but they do have interesting exercises in for instance basic maths. They also do nice presentations. Disadvantage is that everything is online…
The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.
Anne, Saskia,
I think that there is a very thin line between who to focus on. As a practitioner, what i find is the fact that most of the time, we tend to concentrate on one side instead of striking a balance. For instance, in Ghana, the government of Ghana is supplying computers (mini laptops) to students when teachers themselves do not have computers of their own and do not also posses the required skills. Question is who then will teach the other? Are we empowering students with tools and content to make the role of the teacher irrelevant?
We should at all times try to make a fair balance on both the teacher and student ends. When we look at appropriate ICT4D projects - educational games, it is very important to look at options that will have both the teacher playing the facilitation role and the student having a better way to learn.
Another issue we need to focus on is Local content. This has always been an issue and in Ghana, this is one of the key challenges projects i have worked with are facing.
A lot of efforts are being put into developing mobile apps for educational purposes. In my context, it will be very difficult to deploy mobile educational games in our basic schools because presently, there is a ban on the use of mobile phones by students in both basic and senior high schools. Students are not allowed to use mobile phones so a deployment of a mobile solution might not work in all contexts; the deployment of any solution for now will have to be country specific. Is it not possible to have a generic prototype that can be adapted to suits ones contexts?
I find http://skoool.com/ very useful. They have localised the content for Ghana, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa. The challenge though is the fact that we presently are unable to have an offline version. I could look up some more of these and share in a later post.
Thank you Saskia (and Mattew) for this very valuable contribution. I have spent some time going over the two papers and it is really very interesting to see the link between traditional games and online educational games. Especially also because most of us tend to focus on teachers rather than students when we think about making educational content more context specific.
I plan to send Mr. Kam a message too, but for now it would be great to reflect on these papers from our experiences as practicioners as well...
Some of the questions that these papers triggered for me:
What does this mean for our work on the ground? Should we focus more on students rather than teachers when we look at appropriate educational games? Or can teachers be good/adequate "translators" of the students' realities? Is it even feasible for us to work with students (or study students as was being done in these papers)?
How specific are these contexts really? For languages, such as in these papers, is is quite clear that some applications are bound to be quite specific. But are children's games very specific to one area too, or is it the case that, once you did a study in one area, this would also apply in schools somewhere else in a similar area? What is the practicioners experience in this regard?
From the papers, it seems that the traditional games are a good start for the development of educational mobile games. But how do you keep the latter interesting for more experienced users? The children in the private school from India already had more experience and understood the "advanced" games more easily than their peers from public schools with no prior knowledge of ICT games. Does this mean that the need of the students (and the exitement) wears off over time?
It would be really good to also hear more about the educational benefits of these games, from both reseach and practice!
I hope that others will jump in and I will ask around for some more views on this too.
Anne
Dear Anne, all,
Your question around designing and using educational games that are suited to a particular context (cultural/geographic/etc.) has kept me searching for valuable answers. In seeking informed opinion on this, I was told to ask Matthew Kam, and he pointed me to two specific research papers which he published related to the subject. The papers are based on research in rural Indian and rural Chinese settings, but I think the approaches, thinking, and findings are very informative for people considering how to design or use educational games in other rural settings.
I hope you find reading the papers useful, and I hope they are inspiring for other iConnect Education members as well who are interested in harnassing the power of ICT-enabled educational games to support education. I'd love to hear what people think, or if there are other experiences and resources out there that we should be looking at!
Just a link to credit the software project (free and open source) which is being used, OpenBTS
http://openbts.sourceforg...
Besides source code and technical insights of the project, you will also find experiences of other people testing GSM base stations with commodity hardware.
Best,
Gael
Gonzalo, i agree with you on this also. I think that sustainability is key to every project.
In implementing Savana Signatures' Integration of ICTs in Education Project (IIEP), we have tried to involved the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) of our partner schools right from the project start. We have actually involved them in almost every project activity and meeting. We do this because we are convinced that one of the key ways of sustaining such a project is the involvement of PTAs as they play key roles in project sustainability in schools.
Thanks, Saskia, for the post on eL Africa 2012.
I should think sustainability is a topic of GREAT INTEREST to all of us.
I particularly like the terms highlighted.
Best to one and all.
The annual event has been one that exposes practitioners to new wways of doing things. I have been lucky to have participated in two of the annual event and i found it very useful. Offered me the opportunity to learn about what others are doing elsewhere and to get an insight into newer ways of doing things. Above all, it provided me with a networking opportunity.
Yese,
Your questions are most interesting. The ICT Exams that were set were not practical. They were theoretical. So, one then could say that there is really no basis for arguing for infrastructure. The point however is that that is not the way we should go. There is a very dangerous but very common phenomenon in the Ghanaian educational system where people go to school just because of the certification. And so, all that is done is for the student to "Chew, pass and forget". As a result of this, we now have several thousands of graduates who finish school with very good grades and yet when they are faced with the practical part of what they supposedly had learnt while they were in school, they are unable to perform.
We cannot afford to bring this kind of mentality into the study of ICT. If we do, we will end up becoming just consumers and not inventing anything. This is the reason why myself and many others are of the view that ICT should be made a very practical subject in our schools and the only way to do this is by the deployment of hardware to the schools.
Dear All,
Greetings from Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)
I am a advocate of ICT4D from 2000 in South Asia. I fully agree with 7 reasons why ICT4D projects fail:
Much of the film was captured at the ICT4D Poverty Reduction Summit and there was consensus that these are the 7 reasons why ICT4D projects fail:
Results not directly tied to improving economic condition of end user
Not relevant to local contexts, strengths, or needs
Not understanding infrastructure capacity
Underestimating maintenance costs and issues
Projects supported only by short-term grants
Solutions are not looking at the whole problem
Projects built on condescending assumptions
With best regards,
Bazlu
_______________________
AHM. Bazlur Rahman-S21BR
Chief Executive Officer
Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)
[NGO in Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council]
&
Head, Community Radio Academy
Anyone interested.
You may want to try FET (free download http://mac.softpedia.com/...) and incorporated in schooltool http://schooltool.org/( which will be edubuntu 11.05 version edubuntu.org/2011-03-12/schooltool-in-ubuntu-1104).
Stephen, Darlington:
in case you can't make it to Atlanta - they usually do good web-coverage of the conference and you can attend some of the workshops online or just follow their twitter stream: http://twitter.com/ictd2012
Thanks Saskia for posting this and special thanks for Benjamin's reflections!
The forum took place from 5-16 December and it is now closed, but for those interested in reviewing and accessing the online discussions, the forum can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/z4TNxJ
There is also another open source software, called project Fedena, which has more features. The basic system of fedena contains modules related to Admission, Student Details, Manage Users, Manage News, Examination, Timetable and Attendance. It can also manage teachers' leave.
Hi Yesse,
Greetings to the People of Kalingalinga!
I totally agree with you on the fact that we need to demonstrate the” link between school or specifically pupils' results and whatever ICT interventions you are proposing”.
We all know that so many factors (ranging from school environment to the quality of teachers/ learners) have a bearing on quality education. It is quite hard to tell that ICT integration has contributed so much to improved student performance for example and this automatically leads us into detailed research to justify the contribution of each of these factors to improved results.
Yese, probably you could share with us some tools that can justify this result if any.
Other than that justification, on many occasions teachers are tasked to cover the syllabus in a given period of time which has been made easy by the use of ICT for teaching as elaborated by a champion teacher “with the use of ICT difficult things can easily be explained using videos, pictures or simulations hence saving a lot of time which can be used to the benefit of the learner and the teacher”.
Recently, a headteacher realized that a big number of teachers have the capacity to use the internet and she requested them to always send their schemes of work by email. Surprisingly all the teachers sent their schemes of work as requested. This is the little creativity and drive we need from school administrators. It implies an assured budget for internet and maintenance!
If schools do not see the link between ICT interventions and results, then why do school committees decide to acquire computers? I hope it is not for marketing purposes!
Hello Steve,
Long time! Hope you doing well all-round. It is very kind of you to share your work- so what else have I missed? Ahah.
Well seriously speaking this subject of sustainability is crucial and more so to educational projects.
I really like the comments Joel made. His/her entire email is full of excellent points and I had to read through few more times over to discover just where the heap is.
And here it is:
“Recently, i have come to realise that PTA is one of the big sources of funds in schools but leadership in a school matters. if the headteacher/principal, department heads do not understand the value of ICT in a school, there will not be a budget allocation for it.
For example at CfSU we are implementing ICT for education project in secondary schools, in one of the schools considered "champion school" the headteacher was transferred to another school and the new headteacher informed the teachers that they were wasting alot of time in the computer lab. the teachers had moved to a level of handling their routine work using ICT which was new to the new headteacher”
Joel concludes by suggesting that “...so all these aspects are achieved by social sustainability”.
And I totally agree with him.
PTA and their Money
This is a well-known fact. But you have to be careful with this statement. PTAs financial muscle and generally their resourcefulness differ across type of school. For instance PTAs for public funded schools are less likely to be as resourceful as those in community, faith based or private schools for obvious reasons. As a result you are more likely to have a supportive and receptive PTA board in projects implemented, in for instance, community schools than in government funded schools. The same applies to budgeting. It is easier to push for and receive approval for additional ICT budget in less bureaucratic institutions such as community schools.
1. Head teacher/Principal not understand value of ICT
To be fair, I don’t think there is any head teacher or principal who does not take delight in better results for his/her pupils. Lets face it, head teachers are employed specifically to produce results. And that is what concerns every head teacher. What I have learnt over the years in change management trainings is that managers are more interested in the ‘What’ and not ‘How’ of a statement. It is WHAT must be done and not HOW to do it. The HOW is only of concern to them if it leads to the WHAT. And admittedly what we (ICT evangelists as they like calling us) do is spend endless time in schools trying to get managers to understand the HOW - that is for a different level of management.
From instance during one of the Change management workshops I conducted for schools heads, one head teacher from a faith based school, and who was having difficulties pushing for adoption of ICT in the schools to a very conservative school board, was very happy to hear that she could (WHAT) introduce a ‘ICT user policy’ than been lectured on (HOW) “installing software” to censor and control access to obscene materials. Of course the two interventions are necessary but only the WHAT question is a management concern while the other is a technical matter.
So to accuse head teachers of not understanding is not just unfair but abdicating our responsibilities. We should take responsibility for failing to make then understand. Many if not all, school managers are qualified people with a much larger stake and interest in the activities of the school than we want to make ourselves believe. All we need is to demonstrate to them the link between school or specifically pupils' results and whatever ICT interventions you proposing. This may sound funny but that’s what I was told once by a school manager – we are paid to get good results for pupils/students and not to train teachers in ICT. This does not mean they don’t want teachers to be trained. No. They are perfectly at peace with that provided it leads to good results and normally that is the weakest link in most projects. Even though most ICT projects include tailored training for teachers, which usually is good and well justified, what we should remember is that training teachers is not a core business of a school. We have seen how trained teachers leave schools the moment they acquire ICt skills. This is not a sustianable approach. Few in any, PTA boards would want to allocate money to such an activity however important it is. because its a risk investment. But PTA are perfectly happy to accept donors pay for such training for their teachers. And this is not surprising! A project foocused on ICT teacher training is only sustainable in a teacher training college. A teacher training college in this case has several variables or factors that fulfil a sustainable model for such a project.
2. Teachers wasting time in computer lab
It is hard for any head teacher to accept that ICTs have been mainstreamed into teachers routine work, when teachers are found in the computer lab most of the time. Relatively speaking, teachers spend much of their learning-time or day-time time teaching than reading or preparing lessons. Researching and Preparing lessons are tasks normally performed outside active day-time periods. Getting ICT in teacher’s routine work is allowing them to use ICT in communicating with students and fellow teachers, researching, and delivering lessons, coaching and supervising lessons- half of which is done outside computer labs and indeed outside active lesson-time. So I would not immediately dismiss the excuse given by a new head teacher in Joel’s example, who decided to stop teachers from ‘camping’ in the lab.
Champion Schools that are not Stable
Again I agree with Joel about the need for ‘champion schools’ as both a reference 'model' and as locus of inspiration. In my country this has really helped to get other schools off the feet. But we should be careful not to confuse transformational leadership (a champion head master), and Institutional Transformation. You will know that it wasn’t Institutional transformation when the change in top management results into a complete abandonment of the changes. A Champion School can only be truly stable when comprehensive changes in systems and procedures have taken place. In short, when institutional transformation has taken place.
Lastly social sustainability and project design
Yes I also agree that social sustainability is key to project sustainability especially for educational project which are intricately linked to society. This is why the comments by Joel about Social Sustainability, is spot on.
Traditional discourse on sustainability based largely on economic and environmental considerations or variables is insufficient for constructing a sustainable model for educational projects. Yet for many educational project that I have reviewed, those ‘soft themes’ of social indicators such as ‘feeling of belonging’ are never seriously considered. So to start with, many projects are fundamentally flawed. I have been reminded several times, by heads of schools, PTA members and indeed school managers about how they feel ‘left out’ in project design but only to be asked to embrace the project just when funding is about to ran dry. Of course this claim is made by even those who were actually consulted. But the truth is most ICT projects have largely been designed and implemented with heavy hand of the ‘tech evangelist’ many of whom are so indifferent to the needs of head teachers or even teachers themselves.
It is important to recognize that different societies have different value systems upon which they evaluate new ideas - and nowhere else other than education institutions is this such a big factor. The social conditions necessary to support a project sustainably may vary from society to society but we need to establish basic framework. So what we need is to invest time in researching and identifying existing social models/framework which are self sustaining and on which we can construct our projects than building/creating new social conditions because there is no project with times and resources to do that.
Good luck Steve.
Dear Colleagues, from one of my discussion groups on Free Software FOSS/Innovation somebody shared this interesting application called UniTime at http://www.unitime.org
On several occassions school managers have asked for applications that address their needs and I think this is a shared need.
UniTime is an open-source enterprise system for automated construction of demand driven course and examination timetables. It also provides event management capabilities and a limited student scheduling capabilities. It is a distributed system that allows multiple university and departmental schedule managers to coordinate efforts to build and modify a schedule that meets their diverse organizational needs while allowing for minimization of student course conflicts.
The new version (UniTime 3.2) of the system includes curriculum-based course timetabling and more student scheduling (e.g., including the new Student Scheduling Assistant) capabilities delivering a complete package covering all the timetabling needs of a university or any other educational institution.
Dear Anne,
Thanks for posting this. I will really love to attend this as it will provide not only the platform to network, but to learn and share knowledge.
Keiko i agree with you especially on having a key people who can drive others at the school as part of involving the target groups. it has worked for us in some schools where "champions" have been stable.
it actually contributes to social sustainability but it is a gragual process just as keiko says. we need to invest time in raising awareness.
Disculpen la tardanza en contestar, justamente el día viernes 09 de diciembre, hemos desarrollado nuestra feria educativa anual, EXPOTIC BOLIVIA 2011, donde los maestros muestran su capacidad para desarrollar materiales digitales educativos con contenidos locales, además de las metodologías de integración efectiva de las TIC en el aula. Por otro lado los estudiantes muestran sus habilidades, destrezas y aprendizaje adquiridos. Les comento esto porque para el tema del cual estamos hablando me parece fundamental sensibilizar y motivar a la sociedad en general.
Retomando la discusión, me parece que Joel lo ha planteado bastante bien. La sostenibilidad no es solo económica, se debe lograr la sostenibilidad social y humana del proyecto. En nuestro caso involucrando desde el inicio a los padres de familia, los maestros, estudiantes, directores, autoridades, comunidad, para que ellos poco a poco se vayan empoderando de los telecentros o gabinetes de computación.
Nosotros trabajamos con escuelitas rurales, donde la mayoría de los padres son agricultores o se dedican a la crianza de animales, y quizás al igual de lo que alguien comento, no se ven muy interesados en la formación académica de sus hijos. Nuestra tarea s buscar las estrategias apropiadas para lograr que se involucren, por ej les comento una experiencia de hace varios años atrás, en una escuelita los padres estaban reacios a aportar económicamente, entonces junto a la directora convocamos a una asamblea de padres, los citamos en el gabinete de computación, los equipos estaban encendidos y tenían materiales interesantes respecto a agricultura, incuso en un equipo pusimos el jueguito del señor papa que utilizamos para enseñar a los niños de kínder para utilizar el ratón. Llegamos tarde a propósito, mientras tanto una mamá sin darse cuenta movió el ratón, entonces se prendió la pantalla, y así intuitivamente en grupos los papás iban investigando con temor en las computadoras, pero les atraía lo que veían. Entonces captamos su interés y ya para la reunión no estaban tan cerrados en sus opiniones. Fue más sencillo!!! Otra estrategia es aliarnos con personas clave, que tengan liderazgo, a través de ellos es más fácil llegar a todos.
Comenzamos esta experiencia hace diez años, fue más complicado esas veces, nos costaba entre 6 meses a un año empoderarlos, pero poco a poco fue más fácil porque utilizamos la experiencia de una escuela, la compartimos con otras y así fue más fácil concientizar a los padres. Ahora es mucho más rápido lograr esto, y justamente actividades como nuestra EXPOTIC, generan conciencia en la sociedad acerca de utilizar las TIC y beneficiar a los estudiantes y a través de ellos a la comunidad en general. Y reitero es importante encontrar una persona o más personas clave, mayormente es el Director quien promueve todo esto, pero a veces se identifican padres o maestros, que impulsan estos procesos.
This is an interesting posting. I just have few logical questions to help me picture the situation better.
1. Was it a practical examination?
2. If it was practical then what facilities did schools alleged not having ICT facilities, use for such examinations?
3. If it wasnt practical does it still justify your argument for ICT facilities?
4. Are the results from the said examination out and what do they say/reveal?
In general, examinations are set based on a curriculum and the exmining body which in most cases is an independent organization, doesnt really bother wether the subject is taught or not. That is the responbility of another organization/agency or section of the education system. I dont think a sensible educationist can examine people on subjects that are not part of the curriculum.
What we need to do is to invest a lot of time to understand how the education system operates. Its this kind of knowledge which will help you direct your questions/concerns.
The fact that education system in virtually every society, especially Africa, is the most problematic area, goes to show how this sector is less understood. Yet this is the sector that employes some of the best brains. I am yet to see a sector with such concentration of Professors and Phd holders as the education sector.
Nonetheless, its great to read about this story and the beautiful reasoning behind it. Keep it up guys.
I am reading your post only today and I wonder if you have already finished your research for this additional information I have to be useful.
I want to share with you some of the information i have regarding the same. Sometime back I visited a school for special need and was touched by what I found. My experience forced me to carry out some research on the use of ICT in special needs. From the information I gathered I also developed a concept which I intended to give to an organization which was very keen to implement the idea.
I am sending the documents to your email, but should you find them useful please share with others too. I am actually attaching the concepts which you could give to anyone with interest to develop it further.
Dear Anne, Keiko, Steve.
Thanks alot for the discussion on the sustainability of ICT projects in schools. Interesting!
Steve, its good you are bringing the PTAs on board at this stage.
Anne, i agree with you asking for parents to make financial contribution straight away doesn't work and i do not think that is how it happened in Bolivia.
I managed to attend a workshop organised by IICD in Bolivia last year where Keiko also participated. During the same time i visited a number of schools (primary and secondary schools) but the achievements in ICT integration were amazing. of course i was eager to know how they are doing it........
on discussing with a number of headteachers, i realize that it all begins with social sustainability.
once the community you intend to work with understands the objective of the project and the value it adds to the target groups, implementation will be a walk over and other sustainability(economic and human) will automatically be achieved. but the only challenge is that achieving social sustainability to a level ready for implementation of a project could take even take half of the project life which may sound unrealistic to the funders.
Recently, i have come to realise that PTA is one of the big sources of funds in schools but leadership in a school matters. if the headteacher/principal, department heads do not understand the value of ICT in a school, there will not be a budget allocation for it.
For example at CfSU we are implementing ICT for education project in secondary schools, in one of the schools considered "champion school" the headteacher was transferred to another school and the new headteacher informed the teachers that they were wasting alot of time in the computer lab. the teachers had moved to a level of handling their routine work using ICT which was new to the new headteacher. So all these aspects are achieved by social sustainability.
In Bolivia, the principal is part of the committee and he/she respects the decisions of the committee because their voice develops the school including construction of buildings etc and some of the projects in Bolivia are implemented in rural communities where you would expect some parents to be stubborn about payment of fees.
May be Keiko could tell us how long it took them to achieve social sustainability.
Hi all,
25 teachers from all parts of Zambia are currently undergoing an Education Management in Global School Partnerships at the National In-Service Teachers College in Chongwe. This involves schools that have Global Partnerships with U.K school and are best practices schools.
The British Council is sponsoring the course which has run in three one week phases that began in October. The training comes to an end this Friday and will be closed by the Minister of Education and the British Council Director. The course content is that vast to include ICTs in Education, Sustainable Development, Child Friendly Schools, Value Systems and Education, Project Management, Continuing Professional Development, Curriculum Innovation, Global Dimension In Education to name but a few.
Anne,
I am not sure which approach we will be taking here in Ghana. For Savana Signatures, we think that for our project; Integration of ICTs into Education Project (IIEP) to be successful, we need it to be sustainable. We think that one way to do this is to get the support of Parent teacher Associations as a major stakeholder. It is to have some blueprint on how PTAs can help sustain these projects that we are organising this workshop to get our way clear. I will be sharing the outcome of the workshop on this platform.
Dear Steve and Keiko,
Thanks a lot for sharing this... this is a subject that certainly deserves some attention. One issue that I was wondering about, for those experienced in this: how do you create this kind of involvement from parents exactly? And when? In Kenya we will be working with pastoralist parents that are reluctant about education as it is, and that have no previous ICT experience. I can imagine that asking them for a contribution right away when the project starts, will not help with acceptance. How was this approached in Bolivia? Or what do you intend to do in Ghana? Do parents get some time to get more understanding of this new technology?
Anne
Hi Keiko,
How are you? its been a very long while. Thank you very much for sharing your thougths on this issue. I think that you have raised very important fundemental points that we will consider when we meet the PTAs on the 8th of December.
I particularly like the models that you have explained; I share in your thoughts on the Economic sustainability issue where all parents make a minimum monthly contribution, which covers the basic operating costs, maintenance costs and materials.
Hi Bernadette,
I will certainly share the outcome of the workshop on this platform. i think that PTAs can play a very good part in our various ICT projects, particulaly when it comes to sustainability.
I ollok forward to you hooing me up with the Malawian Project Partner. I am sure there are some experiences we can both share.
Estimado Stephen, muy buena iniciativa el taller.
Quiero comentarte que en Bolivia hemos tenido una experiencia interesante con la participación de padres de familia para lograr la sostenibilidad de los telecentros en las escuelas. De hecho este modelo implementado hace varios años, considera fundamental la participación de los padres de familia como actores principales del poceso.
Lo que nuestro modelo hace inicialmente es conformar un Comite Local de Gestión, donde participan el director, representantes de profesores, y representantes de padres de familia. Su misión es lograr la sostenibilidad económica, humana y social de los gabinetes de computación.
Cómo lo hacen?
Sostenibilidad económica: Todos los padres de familia realizan un aporte mínimo mensual, que permite cubrir los gastos básicos de funcionamiento, ej. sueldo del profesor de informática o administrador del telecentro, costos de mantenimiento o materiales. Lo que hace este comite, es elaborar un plan financiero anual, en base al cual fijan montos de aportes. De hecho la experiencia nos ha permitido ver que en muchos casos incluso les ha permitido comprar más equipos y mejorar su telecentro. Y hablamos de escuelas rurales de bajos recursos.
Sostenibilidad humana; promoviendo talleres de capacitación para todos los involucrados, profesores, estudiantes, padres de familia, comunidad.
Sostenibilidad social; involucrando a toda la comunidad desde el inicio del proyecto.
La participación de los padres es fundamental porque los líderes promueven que el resto de los padres participen y hagan dinámico el funcionamiento, así tambien es posible acordar criterios entre profesores y padres de familia.
Pienso que la mayor motivación que pueden tener es aportar para que sus hijos tengan mejores oportunidades de formación, en nuestro caso también hemos motivado su participación haciendoles un reconocimiento público en los casos donde la participación es positiva.
Así tambien un reto es encontrarse con padres que buscan algún beneficio personal y más bien quieren utilizar su participación como protagonismo. Algo que nos ha ayudado es que nos han permitido entrar en las escuelas para asesorar, y a la vez ayudarles a crear sus propias metodologias de trabajo. durante los primeros tres años el apoyo nuestro es muy de cerca, participando incluso en las asambleas generales, pero ya despues de haber generado esa cultura son los mismos padres quienes asumen roles y promueven que este modelo siga funcionando.
Saludos y éxitos en el taller.
Keiko Ignacio
EDUCATIC BOLIVIA
This workshop sounds very interesting. I hope you will sharethe outcomes. Can you already share the agenda? In Malawi the PTA's also play a very important part with regard to the quality and retainment in praimary and secondary education. Nice if we can share experiences. With your permission I will soon hook you up with this Malawian project partner.
THANKS FOR YOUR POSTING, ABDUL!
Anyone who knows of practical examples/experiences on the use of
The mobile phone as a learning tool
please, share.
Interested to know more.
The problem of the ban of mobile phones (in schools in Zambia at least) will pose a hurdle.
Gonzalo
ENEDCOMpelembe and Basic Schools Partnership Kitwe-Zambia
I am one person who believes that women and men are equal and what ever innovations should foster and reinforce this statusquo. This seems to be far away from reality to many women on day to day basis. This practice is not only restricted to the illiterate but amazingly among the educated. Relationships and families have gone to the rocks because of suspicions when ladies on women talk on phone to other people or use internet to connect with other people. This has bred animosity against women folk (Domestic Violence) which in most cases go unpunished. The laws are weak and enforced by either the elders in rural areas or the police and the courts that have a mind set of gender insensitivity. The notable and breath taking land scape ICT is meant to change is slowing degenerating into harm giving innovation.
My desire is that every one us should critically see these unfortunate developments which hinder democratization path in our society.
Harry
+256 775 086 456.
Hi Saskia,
Hey, thanks for drawing my attention to this. I has some information the Ghana Parliament had approved some budget for this but i did not have this much information as contained in the link you have shared. Thanks!
Dear Cheryl,
One resource I can point you to is http://www.itrainonline.org
It is a resource site which in turn provides links to ICT and media training/learning resources which have been assessed as being useful for development practioners (i.e. freely accessible, have meta desciptions as to what they contain, who they are useful for, etc.).
The idea behind this resource site is that people don't have to spend a lot of time searching for materials online, downloading, checking if its relevant etc., which can be time consuming and frustrating, especially in low-bandwidth areas.
The site isn't edited/updated as frequently at the moment as it used to be, but it still contains valuable resources I think.
Other useful materials on using ICTs to support development are the IMARK self-learning courses, also available via the web. They are not focused on the ICT skills as itrainonline.org is, but rather on the importance and application of ICTs to support effective information use.
Youc an find the IMARK courses here: http://www.imarkgroup.org/
If other people have useful resources, I'd love to hear them and help spread them further!
Hope this helps Cheryl,
Cheers, saskia
Dear Stephen,
You may have found this already, but I think the Irish National Centre for Technology and Education has some nice advice sheets on how ICTs can be used with students who haev special needs.
Have a look here: http://www.ncte.ie/SpecialNeedsICT/
There is some research with policy advice related to Ghana, but it doesn't seem to go into actual advice on which ICTs or assistive technologies to use in which situation, or what technologies a special needs school an best invest in. If you're interested in the research (from 2003), you can find it on this website: http://www.web.net/~afc/research1.html and then especially the last section of the page.
The research mentions some work that the Ghana Society for the Blind has done with their Computer Learning Centre, perhaps you could contact someone there for more advice or recommendations on who to speak to? This gentleman, Julius Braihma, looks like a good person to contact.
I'm sorry I can't be of more help. I don't have any direct experience with ICT for Special Needs Education, I hope that other iConnect members may have more directly relevant experience and tips to share.
Cheers!
Hi Abdul,
Thanks for posting your comment, I completely agree with what you are saying. Access to ICTs alone can never be enough. Like any other tool, ICTs are only a valuable tool if you are taught how to use it. Otherwise, the road is paved for misuse. What I currently wonder is: how can we empower our teachers (no matter where in the world) to teach their students a skill which they themselves are just learning? A skill which they are struggeling to learn since it is linked to using tools they have only just started to use as opposed to their students who are growing up with them? Tools which dramatically change the way we work and learn and thus question the very skill (teaching) which teachers has acquired during years of studying and practicing?
I wonder if the teacher-student relationship couldn't be turned on its head and if teachers could not learn many things from their students in this case, e.g. how to use crowd-sourcing services on the web. Teachers could then use their meta-teching skills and critically reflect the use (and misuse) of ICTs together with their students.
It is good to hear that student s in Australia can access the internet with their mobile phones. But what is worrying is the fact that school authorities are putting in measures to prevent students from having access to a social network like the facebook. What I think the school authorities should do is to task teachers to help students to appreciate the positive ways they can use the internet to benefit them. This could inform the students of the need to use the internet in ways that would promote their learning.
It has become obvious that the mobile phone is the most accessible ICT tool to students, it is therefore important for teachers to take advantage of this to help students aquire knowledge.
Hello Alexei, yes, such peaceful competition also opens gates of education, since internet is free access to lots of information and self-education in the first place.
Dear Rashid and Macs,
I saw today, this article in the Ghanaian media nd i thought i should share with you. This certainly should rekindle the debate on the use of mobile phones in schools by students:
******************************************
Some school authorities in the Sunyani Municipality have advocated a ban on the use of mobile phones by Junior High School (JHS) students in schools.
The school authorities called on parents to check their children against the misuse of mobile phones and asked students to concentrate on their studies and avoid acts that would jeopardize their future.
Mr. Andrew Andoh, Assistant headteacher in charge academics at St.
Patrick JHS, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani on Tuesday that the usage of mobile phones by students on campuses and in classrooms affected teaching and learning.
He said the school had seized phones from students only to see them with new ones the next day.
Mr Andoh said “When you ask them why they bring the phones to school, they will tell you that their parents are out of town or the country and they easily communicate with their parents on the phones”.
Mr. Takyi Donkor Benjamin, a science teacher at Wesley Preparatory and JHS, advised students to be serious with their studies, and reminded them of their obligation to learn hard to enable them to pass their examinations.
He said the seizure of phones by school authorities had resulted in misunderstanding between teachers and some parents.
Some of the students told GNA that their parents always travel and they (children) needed mobile phones to be in contact with their parents whilst others said the phones were sources of entertainment to them.
Miss Nana Adjoa Amponsah Opoku, a student of Wesley Preparatory and JHS, said students used mobile phones to browse the internet for vital information and for calculating mathematical figures and a ban would pose a problem to students.
I am really interested in finding a way to work with ICT4D. I have worked as project manager in the ICT-industry for 12 years but I have problems finding a way to develop in the field of ICT4D. I think it would be very interesting with courses or seminars for people like me with a solid professional background but lacking the knowledge of working in developing countries.
I think there are many people around there forties that would like to use there skills for doing something good in the world. Courses for this kind of students could start on a higher level and in the end fill the gaps in the ICT4D sector with highly qualified people.
Sampson, Many thanks for your comments. I agree with the points raised by both you and Rachel. Question though is, do we have the resources available? It is good to spread the gospel on the importance of ICTs and an enabler. However, it still remians a fact that many many teachers do not have these tools themselves and so organisations train these teachers and they become redundant because they do not have the tools to practice with.
My opinion is that we place as much emphasis on making the tools readily available as much as we place emphasis on building up their capacity.
I quite agree with Rachel. Apart from the fear of computers, there is the time a teacher will save by using ICT in their lessons, the variety of activities available for the students, the ease of doing things and excellent presentations.
Based on my interaction with academic students in Mozambique, youth do use mobile to keep in touch with their friends, relatives and so on all the time. Moreover, there was no single Mozambican I met who did not have a mobile. So, it is undoubtably an ICT tool with huge potential to boost learning in both high school and university.
However, I also noticed that although youth invest a lot in communications they do not realize how relevant ICT can be to their learning process. Some students even do not use Internet as often as they could to research about issues they are working one. Plus, most of students who study in the public educational system did not afford to charge their mobile quite often.
Based on this idea I have from Mozambique, I think e-mobile is mostly about ensuring that: 1. there are partnerships among the mobile operators and schools so that students have service for free or with reduced price; 2. teacher have ICT integrated in their teaching programme, and; 3. students are aware of the amount reliable information they can promptly access through ICT regardless where it is stored.
More than sharing my point if view I would like to read others opinion, especially based on experiences on the field.
It is a pity that in spite of the numerous interventions by both government and civil society organisations to educate parents about the need to educate the female children, the menace still exists. In my opinion, our African governments need to improve upon their poverty reduction strategies to ensure that children of school going age are really in school. There should also be stringent measures to deal with parents who give up their daugthers for early marriage as well as the men who marry such unfortonate girls.The future of Africa in over coming poverty rests on the shoulders of women empowerment and any attempt to relgeage women education to the background will mean that Uganda and Africa will be toterring on the road to economic freedom and poverty reduction.
Hi ken, all,
thanks for this contribution and giving us an insight into the points brought forward by these women's groups in Ghana.
You might find the following publication of interest as well, as it addresses some of the same issues.
The summary description of the paper is as follows: "The purpose of this paper is to argue for the consideration of gender issues in all research on radio, convergence and development in Africa. It is intended to guide the deliberations at the Butare roundtable (September 2009) discussion on a research agenda and to ensure that gender considerations are given prominence as the research plans for the network are developed."
Hope you find it useful/relevant! Best wishes, saskia
It is rather unfortunate that not all of us see things this way. Most law makers in Africa stilll do not see the harm they cause when they deny their people from using the mobile phone and accessing the radio or television. Poor countries like Africa could actually rely on phones and radios to explain their activities to the populace. Like is been done in Rwanda now, where the government has taken a stands to use ICT for development, wish other African leaders could emulate the Rwandan experience.
Thanks Rashid for your response.I think that it's no use crying over spilled milk,so I think all stakeholders in ICT and Education need to pulll resources to better the lot of most Ghanaian students who still have not got the right ICT equipment to learn,enjoy and appreciate the subject.
Hi Sam,
It's a pitty that the Ghanaian student is the one who would be at the lossing end. You can imagine the plight of a student in the interior part of the northern region as he or she struggles to write the computer science paper.
In one of my visit to one of the Savana Signatures ICT club in Savelugu, some of the club members were not happy that the subject was going to be made examinable. When I asked to know why, they said their school for instance was not connected to electricity and that their ICT lessons have often been theorotical and they did not see how they could pass the subject without practice.
It's rather unfortunate that policy makers have to put innocent students through this frustration.
There is the need therefore for stake holders in education to provide the necessary equipments needed at all schools so as to make the ICT education in Ghana a reality.
It's a pity that after yearss of embracing ICT as a country,Ghana is still tottering on the road for mainstreaming it into all facets of our national economic and social lives. I think that it is high time we got experts in ICT to man our information systems in this country instead of having medical doctors or lawyers or economists as the ministers for information or officers in charge of ICT's in their departments.We need to wake up and put things in their right perspective else our future and that of our unborn children will be bleak.
Thank you so much Janet for sharing such a great experience. Who would have ever known that this existed if you had not shared it here? Such individuals with such creaive minds need to be supported and encouraged to share their knowledge with other people within their communities. Thanks Janet. I am so impressed by this because I had never imagined that this was even possible.
Hi,
I think I agree with you on that. But its not only your country that is still holding to the old form of doing things. Even in Ghana, most government institutions are sill running the paper to paper system. It will take time, but ICT would soon take over.
I totally agree with all of you people, but i think students should not be allowed to use mobile phones while attending lectures. They ought to switch off the phones and turn them on only after the lesson. Disallowing the use of mobile phones can be appropriate in primary schools but not in secondary schools, colleges and universities as people at these institutions are already mature and responsible.
As regard to the ICT enhancement, our country Zambia is still behind. Most of the government institutions are still using the old fashion of record keeping etc . More still needs to be done.
Chimanga Kashale
It's true that it would be chaos during free call period. But I think if students are educated about positive use of the mobile phone and the hazards associated with long telephone calls, it would help.
Take a senario where students money for school is finished and the student can't comunicate with the parents or a situation where male teachers would take advantage of female students because the female students asked to use the teachers phone to reach out to the parents. So its obvious that whether the student is allowed to use the mobile phone in school or not there is still some amount of danger.
Dear Abdul,
It is interesting that you have identified the potential of mobile phones in schools. it is at the same time unfortunate that you cannot implement your idea in schools due to restrictions on the use of the gadget for students.
I somehow agree with the restrictions on use of mobile phones by students but the restriction should not be indefinate.
students should be allocated time to access and use their mobile phones pegged on a project or assignment given by a teacher otherwise the generation of students in the 21st century will misuse the phone to satisfy other motives definately.
For example in Uganda where there is tight competition among telecom companies, there are times when phone calls are absolutely free and people can talk for hours in this case it would be chaos for the students.
as i mentioned above, mobile phones can be used by students but with defining the time of use and setting what to achieve within that time.
hi Rashid, many thanks for this comment. Many times it takes an innovative mind to set things rolling,start with what is available and set the ball rolling. Many innovations started in the backyards.
Janet
Hi Janet,
That is a great way of using what one has to get what one desires. I hope that many people in deprive areas would take a que from this. But let me be quick to add that, such talent should not be allowed to waste.
It rahter very sad that our educational authoritiies are blowing hot and cold on the use of Moblile phones in our schools with the reason that the students will abuse it.But the fact remains that the benefits far outweigh the challenges and more importantly,now that ICT is gradually bein mainstreamed into our education,when will it be 'appropriate' to allow our students to use mobile phones!
Dear all,
On Tursday the 14th of April 2011, the Female ICT Teachers Association (FICTTA) was publicly launched in Tamale. The Launch was at a GINKS organised advocacy seminar on ICTs in Education in Northern Ghana.
The following short video gives a vivid imprseeion of the public launch of FICTTA.
Enjoy!
Hi all,
This is to inform you all that there will be a public launch of FICTTA on Thursday the 14th of April 2011 at the Tamale Sports Stadium Conference Centre in Tamale, Ghana.
For those who can attend this event, you are invited. I sure will share videos and photos of this event.
Its great to see ITU doing this for women. Like once said by one great Ghanaian, "if you educate a man, you educate an individual, but If you educate a woman, you educate a nation". It is in the light of this that I want to to say "ayi Koo" (congratulations) to ITU.
I want to encourage ITU to try to work with other organisations like savana Signatures that are also running female related ICT programs aimed at empowering the female and women at large to be able to take up challenging roles in society.
One such female programs is the Female ICT Teachers Association (FICTTA) which is aimed at building the capacity of Female/women teachers to help them incoporate ICT into teaching and learning in the class room. There would be a launching program for the association on the 14th April, 2011.
Abdul - Rashid Imoro
Program Officer, Education
Savana Signatures www.savsign.org
Thanks for your comments. The site makes "dimes" out of subscriptions. For now the site is open, but soon access to complete tender details will be restricted, unless one is fully subscribed. The rates are approx $10/month or a discounted annual rate of $100.
We have engaged a one-on-one approach, by talking to individual organisations that publish tenders to send advertise their tenders on the site at a fraction of what they would pay to newspapers.
We are planning on placing somde adverts in newspaper, and doing some radio shows, to publicise the platform
Yes they are able to. And so far we have talked to a good number of the ministries. We started with ZPPA (the former Tender Board) and then we started meeting individual ministries.
I am so grateful for sharing this concept. However I have a a few questions
1) How do you source out for all this information, especially the local content?
2) How does the business earn its dime? Is it form the subscribers? And how much in dollars to they pay?
3) How do you make the platform known to by the intersted clients/those who need the services?
it really give inspirations.
personnal i really wich to do something simillar for craft people here in cameroon to help them market their craft.
congratulation
Thanks Lee,
I have gone through and so far it looks good. Is there are way making government and parastetal organizations procurement departments come on board?
That is a very great effort there. I am directly in charge of ICT education in Savana Signatures in Ghana. We have Ict Clubs in some basic and second cycle institutions in the Northern part of Ghana and the organisation have had this idea to organise ICT quiz and debates among the school ICT clubs. To see you already doing in your country is a very great move.
But please could you share some of your experience with me on how you organised it. I would also be very grateful if you could tell me how you got funding for the project and as well recommend some international organisation where you think our organisation could approach for support to also organise ICT quiz for our school clubs in Ghana and northern region to be precise. Keep the good work and hope to hear from you.
Yes, you can subscribe. The fees are aprrox $10 per month, or discounted annual fee of $100. For this you get instant and regular updates, whenever a posting is done, via email (if outside Zambia) and/or SMS (if within Zambia).
"Boot"reminds me of a YouTube video I saw a while ago, all the daily terms that have a different meaning in ICT. Enjoy this story on Blackberries: http://www.youtube.com/wa...
I really think that we all need to beware,because you know whenyou day to "boot" something will come and moreso, we should be honest in what we say about ourselves
Hi Sammy, Some great lessons there for us all.
Why dont you post this same story in the ICT4D Comic Contest (http://iconnect-online.org/blogs/ict4d-comic-contest.) Who knows, Savana Signatures through you could be a proud winner!
Many welcomed the news when the government of Ghana declared its intention to introduce ICT as a subject of study in the basic and second cycle institutions. A lot of Ghanaians were excited because of the new opportunities they hoped to get or enjoy with the new tool.
But the introduction of ICT in schools in Ghana came with challenges such as the absence of electricity in many schools, lack of computers as well as the technical people to effectively handle the subject and lack of facilities like computer laboratories in many schools as a result of inadequate class rooms.
In other to reduce the impact of the problems associated with the implementation of ICTs in the basic and second cycle schools, Savana Signatures visited selected schools in the Tamale Metropolitan and Savelugu Nanton district to form ICT clubs. The ICT clubs were formed in schools that responded to the communiqué sent by Savana Signatures to schools for permission to form the savsign ICT clubs. . The activities of the clubs include;
Knowledge sharing: That is ICT related discussions, quiz and debates.
Excursions to institutions or organizations to see how ICT is been used to achieve results and
ICT training. The organization train students on the basic use of the computer for free.
The organization at the moment has clubs in the following schools in the Tamale Metropolis: Darul Hardis JHS and primary, Miracle International JHS and Bishop JHS and Primary. In the Savelugu district Savana Signatures have clubs in Yoo R/C JHS, Savelugu Experimental JHS, Pong Tamale SHS, Pong Tamale Experimental JHS and primary and Pong Tamale D/A primary and JHS. Membership is however open to all schools with interest and the team of Savana Signatures is working hard to ensure that many schools come on board.
Savana Signatures team or officers/madams’ assists students and teachers with their problems in the learning of ICT and they also share knowledge with them on ICT related issues. For instance, the Savana Signatures team has had discussions with students on topics such as ICTs in education, ICT as a research tool, and effective use of ICT for development.
Member schools are also allowed to use the Savana Signatures computer lab as and when the need arises. Teachers bring their students for lessons especially on the use of the internet. The organization also invites members of the ICT clubs to forums and seminars.
That is a very good work done by Savana Signatures, but I think the low participation of the female and women in general could be avoided if programs such as 'ICT Clinics" could be organised for girls during school holidays. This woiuld help in a great deal to catch them young so that when they grow up they would have an interest in the area of science and technology.
The 'ICT Clinic' could also help to take away the fears in the female student about ICTs and to better infrom them that it is not a male thing. This could also give the female participants in the clinic an opportunity to meet female role models in the area of ICT which could serve as a motivation to the female student to go into the area of science and technology.
Yes, it is worth supporting as mentioned by Gonzaloportal because this will encourage more women to get connected and share more ideas on how they cam improve their livelyhoods by having access to ehealth, education, ecommerce, ebanking and other latest technologies coming on board and they also feel they can be connected to the rest of the world by having ownership to those mentioned facilitities which men are enjoying. I can also sign the GSMA mWomen Charter to help me not to be left behind on what other women are doing in their respective countries.
Yes, it is worth supporting as mentioned by Gonzaloportal because this will encourage more women to get connected and share more ideas on how they cam improve their livelyhoods by having access to ehealth, education, ecommerce, ebanking and other latest technologies coming on board and they also feel they can be connected to the rest of the world by having ownership to those mentioned facilitities which men are enjoying. I can also sign the GSMA mWomen Charter to help me not to be left behind on what other women are doing in their respective countries.
Dear Christine,
Many thanks for your post. I understand that the issue of low female participation in ICT is not just limited to my country Ghana alone, but it is a global issue. Last year, i was in Zambia and i noticed that Zambia was not an exception.
The challenge is more, especially in the face of little or no funding opportunities for such projects. My, organisation, Savana Signatures is making all efforts to get funding to support the activities of FICTTA. So far, we have not been successful.
Lee Muzala, Chairperson of ebrain in Zambia is one of the key persons you should contact. Already, Lee and Joel from Uganda have expressed interest in formaing the Zambian and Ugandan branch of FICTTA. Personally, i think that this is one sure way to go.
We can put our heads together, come out with more innovative ways of maintaining and sustaining such a project.
It has not been an easy task to arouse and sustain the interest of the FICTTA members so far. It will therefore be a brilliant idea to come out with further innovative ways of sustaining such a project, lest their interest dies down.
Any ideas on how we can move forward with this? Christine, Joel, Lee, anyone, please share your thoughts!
In my Country Zambia, during this important day some senior officials from Ministry of Education who were ladies organised IT Specialists to sensitize women during the importance of ICT in their daily activities. Ministry of Education have an eLearning Mobile Lab Bus which was exposed to the women to teach them how ICT can change their lives. It was very wonderful and the response was overwhelming amongst the women. This will make more women to take up such courses that can help them change things with the help of ICT.
I am very motivated and encouraged to be like those ladies mentioned who are doing very well in ICT. This has been my cry every day to spearhead this important tool to so many women out there but lack of financial resources to further myself in this field has been a challenge on my part. I really want to encourage FICTTA to come up with funding that will help many women like me to be equipped with this skill which many women are lacking.FICTTA can design so many tailor made courses that can motivate more women to get equipped with this skill.
She says: "What's the matter?"
He says (scratching his head): "ICT ni nama nshi?" (iciBemba for "What kind of a beast is ICT?")
She says: "Don't be foolish! ICT is the Internet CrossCountry Taskforce, of course!"
He jumps up and down.
They walk away
She says: "What's the matter?"
He says (scratching his head): "I can't seem to get my computer switched on! I have been trying from 8 hours when I reported for work. I am afraid my boss won't spare me. Please I need your help as the in-house techie!"
She says: "There's nothing much I can do. Have you noticed that we have no power in the building since 8?"
He jumps up and down.
They walk away
man: I do not know how to use my phone to SMS. How am i going to do it? woman: Ooh it is very easy! Press the menu button on your phone, select Messages, then select Create message, Text message. Press the keys on your phone keypad to start typing in the message you want. You can use any language you want. man: Thank you very much Mary! Please teach me how to do so the community people do not luagh at me.
===============================
man: I haven't heard from our son in the city for ages. I wonder if he is well. woman: john is ever on the Internet. You can send him an email in our community centre or better still call him on our mobile phone. man: Yes! Am going to call him on our mobile phone.
==============================
man: the examination results of our son have been released by examinations board. The trip to town is very expensive with the current high fuel prices!! woman: Don't worry Papa. It is easy to receive his exam results via mobile phone. In a new message, type: UACE<space>Index number (exam number) and send the message to 6600. man: How much does this message cost? woman: Ooh Papa, the message is only 500 shillings and the results are instantly sent back to you. man: My daughter, quick help me get your brother's results! We must celebrate his good performance.
#################################
man: The food ministry has sent me a message predicting a very long draught with shortages of food, water & pasture. I wonder how we can monitor the situation woman: Your mobile phone has a menu, like "MTN Menu". You can a number of services included in it. There is, for example, Infortainment which has "trade info". Under that you can find out commodity prices and weather reports. man: Thank you very Mary. Please show me how to use it.
Dear Owuahene,
Many thanks for your comments. FICTTA has planned a series of programs to help improve upon female participation in ICTs. The challenge has been funding.
I am glad that the FICTTA president has sent out a challenge to females in the country who are at the forefront of ICT to be more visible in championing the case for women participation in Science and Technology. I was particularly excited when she cited the examples of Dorothy Gordon – Director General, Ghana- India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence, Estelle Akofio Sowah – Country Director, google Ghana, Eva Lokko – Former director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Cooporation as some examples of women who have achieved and are at the forefront of ICTs.
Hopefully, with all of these women coming together to champion this case, we should have a lot more young females taking active part in ICTs.
Great move and it our hope that this wave of female revolution for ICT will permeat all facets of our national lives. I wish FICTTA well and hope they organise more of such interactions with our up and coming students because the youth are not not just the leaders of tomorrow but the partners of today
Hi Tonny -
Unfortunately funding wasn't available to move ahead towards implementation, and a full training plan hasn't been developed. The general idea is that each of the four modules would include a self study component (faciiltated online by an instructor) and a week-long (in person) workshop. Excerpts from a draft of the course structure that I prepared are copied below. I hope that's helpful!
Heidi
Course Structure and Delivery
As mentioned previously, the course has a modular design. This is to allow for significant flexibility in meeting the needs of the learners. While designed to be completed in the order shown, there would be little knowledge lost for the learner who needed to complete the modules out of order. A learner could also skip a module that he or she felt did not meet his or her needs. The process of enrolling and participating in each module is outlined below. Please Note: the steps below refer to Zambia Pacific Trust (ZPT) as the organization that is managing this training course. However, this course could also be adopted and administered by other organizations in Zambia or elsewhere.
Potential students are identified through partner organizations or self-referral to ZPT. These students apply for inclusion in the training program. An application process would determine whether or not the student met the characteristics and prerequisites.
Once students are accepted into the course they are given a username, password and brief tutorial in using the online course management software (such as Moodle). These tasks will be performed by the ZPT manager or a designated intern.
The online course management home page would provide information to guide the new user. This includes recommendations for self-study courses (in office applications, touch typing or English reading and writing), information about the next scheduled face-to-face workshops and instructions on how to use the online modules.
Learners begin online study in the module of their choice. At the same time they also enroll to participate in the week-long face-to-face workshop for that module. Ideally they will have completed the online portion of the module before attending the face-to-face workshop. A percentage of their overall score for the course will be based on their performance on online assignments.
The week-long intensive workshops are scheduled and organized by ZPT or various local partner organizations.
Certificates are granted for each module when the learners have completed all assignments from the online course, successfully completed the workshop, and made all payments. To allow for flexibility in scheduling, students are permitted to be working on two modules simultaneously.
Once a student has completed all four modules, an overall certificate is granted.
Reference to infrastructure. I think there are less highly sophisticated tools that can be used to reach the rural areas. For einstance the application of the Video Bloggerl to capture real life situations/stories -about women/girls and children. This information/content can be made available on CD-ROM and can be made accessible to the women using a simple Personal Computer that is run by a generator.
i absolutely agree with you about importance of social network for women's empowerment. we try to employ social networkings and collaboration to end violence against women. Check out our campaign Take Back The Tech! (www.takebackthetech.net) that calls on all ICT users – especially women and girls – to take control of technology and strategically use any ICT platform at hand (mobile phones, instant messengers, blogs, websites, digital cameras, email, podcasts and more) for activism against gender-based violence. I have also find fascinating this presentation from one of our partners on their approach to technology in addressing violence in post-conflict situation http://www.genderit.org/r... (alternatively you can use this link )
thank you very much for your interesting inputs on transforming effect of ICTs for women. So truth about the value of ICTs and importance of ICTs skills for rural women and their empowerment, however very often they deal with the issue of lack of infrastructure and lack of time to participate in ICT training and use. In 2002, my home organization, the APC (www.apc.org), has developed the Gender, Agriculture and Rural Development in the Information Society (GenARDIS) small grants fund that aims to assist overcome some of these constraints and challenges encountered by rural women particularly. You can be interested to listen to some of the stories of this project participants how their lives are changing thanks to access to technologies http://genardis.apcwomen.org/en/node/146
Dear Christine,
great to hear you are interested in attending the conference. I must appologize: in the original event I posted, there was a problem with the link pointing to the conference website. This is fixed now. If you go to their website, you will find information on the workshops, travel information, accomodation and others. The registration fee is between USD100 and 150 (depending on if you are a student or not). The conference takes place from March 23 to 26. Please get in touch with the conference organisers if you want to know more.
The importance of ICTs in women's activities and Life cannot be overemphasised. What is more than empowering the women in all spheres of human endeavour. As they engage themselves in social networks this will enhance and promote aspects of networking, collaboration, sharing and exchange of ideas. This will enhance awareness creation and access to information on certain cultural (negative ) practices that have plagued our dear and less endowered women.
I agree with Christine that Technology plays a vital role in business, farming, Education name it. Besides cutting down on the time needed to do an activity, Teachers in schools should be enabled and equipped to transfer this technological skills to the younger generation.
Janet
Technology plays a vital role in the lives of women if only they possess the skills of ICT, for exmple women who are in business can carryout their transanctions through the use of Paypal systems where they can order for any services they deal with online, for those women who are farmers, they cn use ICT to market their products to their fellow women who are in other countries. ICT is very cardinal in teaching and learning where female teachers can have discussions online with other teachers who may be very far away from, this can either through the use of facebooks, skype, youtube etc in exchanging ideas that will improve their teaching.
Am a Zambian Lady who has interest with ICT but lacking financial resources to enable me finish my Degree, MA and PH D in IT. Currently, am an ASSOCIATE in Information Systems. Kindly shed more light on when the conference will be held and other requirements to know before the Conference kicks off.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the FICTTA idea!
CfSU has been implementing a one year ICT4E pilot project supported by IICD. the training is aimed at aiding teachers to use the available tools develop ICT enhanced lessons for quality education.
This training has been conducted in 13 secondary schools with each school training atleast 20 teachers.
the training is open to all teachers provided they have basic ICT skills, one of the challenges we have noticed is low representation of female teachers during training. on average female participation is 1/5.
i have some questions about this:
Steve and others, have you tried to find out why there is low female participation in ICT related programs?
how are you motivating women to participate in FICTTA?
It is a splendid idea but will also be interesting if packaging addresses the needs of women.
Thank you very much Godfrey for sharing these recommendations that resulted from the workshop! It really is interesting to read, since there is a lot of overlap with work that is being done on eHealth in Uganda and Tanzania that I know about.
Regarding experience and resulting recommendations for HMIS use at hospital/health clinic level in Tanzania, this publication from 2010 supports and concretises many of the recommendations made in the East African Community E-Health workshop.
Regarding Telemedicine, also one of the key recommendations resulting from the Kigali event, the following would appear to be interesting resources to bring concrete and practical experience from Tanzania into the dialogue.
a detailed report on the iPath Telemedicine system which is already being widely used for Telemedicine in the region
A question that comes to my mind is what are the next steps in moving forward with the recommendations from the Kigali workshop? How can we ensure that all experience that is already available in the region related to the recommendations can be bundled and efforts reinforce eachother? Are you involved with the follow-up trajectory after the Kigali meeting?
Dear Mulima,
I agree with you. I think that when we tag locally made goods and or products as "local", they tend to remain local and even if it does, "local" folks tend not to patronise them.
What i think we need to focus on is to do a very good branding and vigourous marketting. Have the international community in mind while branding. That should work!
Social media has created a big market for mobile and social media application developers. I think its gonna be a great workshop for a full of scope career.
The idea of promoting the African Culture in the picture form was a great one and I think it will help to earn some consideration from the outside world to the people living there in some worst conditions.
Appreciate the work and thanks for informing us.
I have seen many products that have just been developed locally and called "The local version". They never sell. People will generally stick to what they know best and what has never dissapointed them. Innovation and a new product that addresses the majority need is a sure winner.
I do think that the goal for all projects in ICT4D is the use of ICT to improve our daily life. This challenge cannot be performed only if people have acces to ICT devices, electricity and a mean to be in network using Internet or GSM network at an affordable price for final users. The main issues are the availability of electricity and internet at a low price, specially in rural remote areas in developping countries.
Electricity may be furnished by renewable sources (solar energy for exemple). Projects may help to get hardwares and train people to use them. The main problem remains the permanent access to internet and mobile network. That needs a political solution.
If electricity and internet available, people will know how to use ICT to improve their life. Then any project cannot be successfull if it is not initiated or accepted by final users.
When I did research in Uganda, my interview partners pointed out the issue of change management, especially when it comes to e-government solutions.
Do you have any insights/experience in how this change management can be successful?
The increase in the percentage of women in ICT at Makerere University has been a result of many efforts spanning over about two decades.
At the beginning of the 1990s the University instituted an affirmative action programme which provides additional grades to women entering University. This in general increased enrolment of women in many programmes including ICT.
In 1991, the University established the Department of women and gender studies which spearheaded gender training and research in the University.
Later a gender mainstreaming unit was established to do the gender mainstreaming in practical terms throughout the University.
In 2003, the Department of Women and Gender Studies started a training programme that prepared thousands of women to take up ICT training. This was partly done with the CISCO Academy Female Initiative programme plus many internal programmes.
The faculty of computing started training women and put up measures such as fees discounts for women, scholarships and mentorship programmes.
The entire University designed policies that addressed gender mainstreaming in ICT and other programmes. Favourable leadership has also been key.
There was also research, monitoring and feedback drawing lessons and feeding into progress.
In short these are some of the explanations bit the entire environment and willingness to design and implement friendly policies is important.
What is not known is how far this effort will be suatained and how women will fit in the workplace and prosper in industry.
Hi Steve, do share your lessons learnt so that other countries can follow suit.
It is amazing how a decline of women in IT is a global concern. Even in developed countries like USA, that is the same concern (only 18% women have graduated in computer and information science degrees). This month in USA, to address rapid dwindling number of women in IT, a CompTIA Education Foundation has created the Women in Information Technology Council and charged it with convincing those with the right knowledge and skills to make IT their career of choice.
I think that some years back, we had the same concerns in the field of medicine and engineering where there were very few women choosing these careers. These statistics have since changed, and we hardly here any alarms raised in many African countries in these fields.
Therefore, i believe with initiatives like yours and many others, statistics of women in IT will change for the better.
Starting at school level at the point when girls are making career choices is key. With role modelling and profiiling of women in ICT including teachers, thats a good start.
Do share your lessons learnt. Id love to share them in my publication.
Just to do a further follow up on my ealier post, could you please share with us the following information?
1) What was the result from working with the School of Women and Gender Studies to make ICT training more gender-sensitive?
2) What changes to 'regular' ICT training were suggested to be made? In order words, what are a few (top 5?) of the key things to keep in mind when designing or delivering gender sensitive ICT training from their experience?
Thanks for sharing all of these exeriences already!
Very very nice video with several great insights. One of the things I was missing (though it does belong with "local context") is looking at the capital when planning for the rural areas... connectivity, availability of ICT trained staff and needs may differ more between Accra and rural Ghana then between Accra and Amsterdam!
Dear all,
Thanks Anne for joining in with your insights.
The following is a document represents views from some women. It was collated by IICD staff via women dgroup (i am not too sure if this group still exists though).
Though these views were collated a long time ago, i find that some of the issues raised are still very relevant.
IICD systematically has a higher number of men in its training programs. Are women just not interested in training in ICTs or should we organise our trainings differently?
The participants of the Dgroup on women and ICT had the following ideas; they don’t think women are not interested but see the following inhibiting factors:
· The selection methods and timing of training programs
I would say that the method of selection is one factor that inhibit the participation of women in most of these seminars and trainings. Another factor is time, most women have extra schedules of taking care of the house aside their work and sometimes it makes it difficult for the to leave the house for long periods. Is training over a weekend when a lot of women have to be with family? Is it even marketed to women or to men mostly? What is marketing strategy - formal and informal? (Manju Chatanu) Women usually do not have the exact requirements for most of the trainings available so maybe a module should be designed for such ladies (Joyce Jambeidu)
· Women’s attitude towards technology
I also think that women are not very technically savvy. They think 'electronics' is the man's field and so turn to neglect it. For instance if a woman's cell phone is out of order, she is more likely to give it to her husband to troubleshoot than to try to it herself. (Abigail Thompson) There may be reasons why men are more comfortable with gadgets. If we look at video games - there are more boys who have the time or peer support to experiment with video games at i-cafes or with friends so they are comfortable with ICT. Women and girls, on the other hand, don’t have so much disposable leisure time as they have errands. Also many such games are not made with girls in mind and plus these cyber-cafes are not 'easy' places for girls to go to when there are lots of boys playing aggressive games. (Manju Chatanu)
· Technical jargon
ICT training can be classified as very unfriendly, most times the instructors bully you with their technical jargons but these could be made to be gender friendly. I have had the opportunity of sitting in some ICT trainings and my problem has always been that it was full of technical jargons which could be explained to simple everyday English. (Abigail Thompson)
They had the following suggestions for the way forward:
· Female instructors
Try and bring a gender face to most training aimed at women. You can bring women instructors etc.
· Avoid jargon
Technical jargons can be explained using analogies, everyday examples etc. I remember my boss once said laptops are not gender friendly otherwise they would be made to fit into a woman's handbag or even easy to carry! (Abigail Thompson).
· Develop special modules for women
Find an appropriate ICT training module for our women we REALLY need sure trainings. (Joyce Jambeidu) Use appropriate training methodology (experiential vs rote-learning vs shared learning vs team projects vs individual projects)
· Timing of training to suit women’s preferences
Don’t plan your training when women are supposed to be with their families or have other duties.
Steve and others, thanks for sharing this, really interesting thread!
I liked the first post on the female directors. I think that this helps a lot, not just because they may see bottle necks for female participation perqhaps sooner, but more importantly: because they can serve as inspirational role models for other women. Actually, as IICD starts working in Kenya soon, this is something that I have been looking into. I've found a group of tech oriented young ladies, so let see if they, or others, would be interested in becoming trainers... showing other women that technology is not a scary thing! ;-)
I also liked what Lee shared about Twitter and Facebook... I do think getting women on board is largely a framing issue. I studied at a tech uni myself (in the Netherlands) where at the time the male female ratio was abput 85-15, but with huge differences between the different faculties: electronics and computer science used to have virtually no women at all, but architecture and industrial design (while not necessarily less difficult or less "tech") could have up to 40% women. Perhaps presenting courses as "tech" does scare away some people (not just women, but elderly too?), while "communication" may attract a very different crowd!
By the way: I read an article recently that did away with the misconception that girls have less aptitude for maths. All tests that show boys are better equipped for maths have a bias towards a certain way of working or presenting the materials. As soon as you use a different test, girls perform equally well (or even better!).
Dear Madanda,
Many thanks for the drawing our attention to good practice in Makerere University. It is good to read of the successes at your university.
Can you please further share with us some of the practical things that were done to raise female enrolment to over 40%?
Will trained women be accepted in the industry and will they feel accepted? I think that male professionals also have a duty to support female professionals who are in the industry or are aspiring to.
Makerere University School of Computing and Information Technology (Uganda) may have some lessons to learn from. The School managed to raise female enrolment to over 40%. It is currently headed by a woman and in its early times as an Institute, it was headed by a woman, currently Director of ICT Support in the entire Makerere University. Its first PhD graduate is a woman. The school and the entire University has worked with the School of Women and Gender Studies to make ICT training gender sensitive and also taken on board the CISCO female initiative. These could be some of the lessons that one can learn from.
The challenge of course is still if the trained women will get to employment in industry where they feel welcome.
An association for women female teachers a good point to begin. But the work is enormous and will require a lot of stamina involving overcoming many setbacks along the way.
Hi Lee,
I am glad to hear about this. Savana Signatures will be very happy to see this happen. Lets discuss further. This could just be the turning point to have more female participation in ICTs.
Dear Maurizio,
Thanks for your comments. As far as i know, this is the very first of its kind and we at Savana Signatures are happy to be involved in this. We will love to help with setting up other chapters in other countries ( FICTTA - Burkina, FICTTA - Uganda, FICTTA - Zambia, etc) and then move to network them to share knowledge. We are willing to see this come to pass.
I agree with you Maurizio, this can turn out to be a huge continental phenomenon. In Zambia, eBrain is also considering creating such an association, and I am pretty sure that Savanna Signatures will be on hand to share their experiences so far.
I am an advocate of constructive learning. I strongly believe in the philosophy that students learn better when they are allowed to discover knowledge by themselves.We can make this possible when we develop learning packages(CBTS) for students in secondary schools to learn on their own, The challenge now is teachers do not have the requisite skills to develop these learning packages. What I want to know from our brothers and sisters from Burkina is whether or not this is ann issue in their country?
Hi Steve, that is really a great idea! Do you know if there is something like that in other African Countries? It might become a continetal phenomena :)
Hi Steven,
No i don't know. I'd suggest you get in touch directly with the people organising the course, i think there's an email in the above post, right? Let us know what you find out, if sponsorship is available, it may also be of interest to other iConnect Education members. Cheers!
Dear Saskia,
This looks to be a very useful course especially to we those working in the ICTs in Education field. Do you know if there is any sponsorship of schorlarship avenue for this programme?
Dear Collardo, I don't know if it might help you, but at least it could give you some more ideas to investigate further.
I have noticed that this site http://www.studentfinance... offers student loans for resident outside USA following online training in certain universities, you can check the list at this link https://secure.privatestu..., filling up the form.
Another link that might interest you is this one http://www.investinmyeduc... it is a platform for students and investors.
The Ministry of Education has recently made some pronouncements and changes to the school curriculum which they want to effect next year, where a school leaver would have received some entrepreneurship and ICT skills training, that would put them in a position to at least do some minor jobs or even be self-employed.
I will follow this up and share with you. Maybe these are some of the opportunities where those ICT clinics for girls can be squeezed, just to make sure that students dont feel disoriented with these skills training, but rather help them see a bit further in their lives.
Hello Lee,
Many thanks for your post. Your thoughts and ideas are very helpful...it provokes further thought on female participation in ICTs and the gendered divide.
I agree with your strategies;
careful consideration of cultural and social aspects taken into account at project formulation level.
Forge partnerships with women networks and women focused NGOs, to promote and mobilise resources to develop projects that will embrace the use of ICTs,
making follow up on workshops.
The last one...making followups is very important. This is because for most projects, we tend to make them one off things and even when follow ups are made, it takes ages to come.
The other issue that i have identified is that there is very little funding for Gender/Women in ICTs projects. Savana Signatures has developed a concept of undertaking series of Girls ICT clinics (conferences). We have visisted almost every corporate institution that we can think of for support but this is not forth coming.
At FICTTA, we hope to carry on with the support for these female teachers and hope that this support will go a long way to inspire young girls in school to take up active role in ICTs.
This is an issue that we have also identified as eBrain Forum of Zambia. You will not believe the statistics we have - over the last 3 years Management Team (MT) of eBrain comprising 10 members has at any given time had 1 female member. The entire membership of eBrain has less than 10% members. Despite efforts to encourage female members to participate, we have continued seeing the trend. Some of the strategies we have tried is to offer free membership to a certain number of female members on a first-come first-serve basis. We had also planned for a Women in ICT Forum, where we felt we could have influential women using ICTs (eg Ministers of Education and Tourism) to give keynote speeches. Unfortunately, our ICT regulator, whom we had approached to partner with us, hijacked the idea and went on, without involving us, and started arranging for a similar workshop. Very frustrating if you ask me. Way back in 1994, when I was doing my computer studies, I was in a class of 38 and only 2 were female.
Personally, I feel its an issue of interest, much more than any form of segregation. Take for instance the use of social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter, I am pretty sure that if you did an in depth analysis of gender participation by country, you will notice that the gap between male and female "facebookers" is very thin. But when it comes to projects, I think its another issue.
Some of the strategies I can think of as at now are as follows:
At project concept formulation and planning level, careful consideration of cultural and social aspects needs to be addressed adequately.
Forge partnerships with women networks and women focused NGOs, to promote and mobilise resources to develop projects that will embrace the use of ICTs, as well as encourage communication among members and accessing resources through the use of ICTs (eg when renewing membership, no paper-based membership forms will be accepted). Lets try to drive people towards a certain way of doing things, and not waiting on them.
We should also always make it a point and even plan for it - follow up on workshops. As we strive to raise awareness among women on the subject of communication and new technologies, we should also institute mentoring processes so that women's groups and organisations can fully take advantage of the benefits of ICTs, and build capacities, provide follow-up and orientation so that women perceive the possibilities offered by ICTs.
I hope this helps you Steve, despite having to respond to your plea a little late. My apologies, I am so caught up with work, as I am trying to expand my small firm to other regions of Zambia.
Dear Christophe,
Its has been a long time. Since Lusaka, we were unable to get the opportunity to communicate again. I hope your projects are picking up. I am glad that this platform has brought us to communicate again.
Many thanks for your contributions. One thing that i have not thought of is the use of flyers, etc to publicise this association. It is a great idea. Thanks!
The only challenge and fear is that we might get overwhelemed by the numbers when they start pouring in, especially that this service is free.
Je concois avec Benjamin qu'il faut privilégier la formation par les paires pour susciter de l'émulation et accroitre le nombre de femmes.
Je pense qu'il appartient aux femmes au regard des mutations sociales que le monde connait aujourd'hui de trouver le temps et les armes de leurs ambitions. Que veux-je dire? Il s'agit de nous appuyer sur des femmes leaders dans les zones du projet (au Burkina Madame KONE a créé un intérêt des femmes pour les TIC. Elle a même pu antrainer sa directrice à faire la même formation qu'elle et elles viennent toutes les deux de soutenir avec brio leur master2) pour sensibiliser les autres.
Je pense à des conférences dans les établissements et dans les centres de formation des enseignant(e)s. Même si on n'a pas récu une formation pendant sa formation de maitre ou de professeur on aura le gout de la formation continue par soi-même.
Il faut aussi je pense à travers des témoignages susciter l'intérêt c'est à ce prix que les femmes s'engageront.
Il s'agit aussi dans le cadre de votre projet de montrer que vous êtes une possibilité gratuite de rentrer dans le monde des TIC par la distribution de prospectus.
Ben Cher,
Un grand mercipour touslesconseilsbeauté. Ilssontbiennoté. Unedeschoses que jeremarquea étéleexcitationdesenseignantsles plus.......flestraduirece qu'ilsontdéjàappristhéoriquementà l'école. Je reconnais aussi quecertainsd'entre euxont vules jargonstechniquesutilisésdansles TICcomme des obstacles àles embrasserla technologie. J'espèrequecetteambiance convivialeque monorganisationacréépoureux, ilsferontle meilleurusagede celui-ci.
******************************************************************
Dear Ben,
Many thanks for all the beautiful tips. They are well noted. One of the things i noticed was the excitment of the teachers .......most f them translating what they have previously learnt theoretically in school. I also agree that some of them saw the technical jargons used in ICT as barriers to them embracing technology. I am hoping that with this friendly atmosphere that my organisation has created for them, they will make the best use of it.
Hi Saskia,
Many thanks for taking interest in FICTTA. The first meeting went very well. It offered an opportunity to the membership to network among themselves and also to share experiences from their schools. It was highly interactive.
Members also took the opportunity of filling out membership registration forms and also to elect their executives. While Mrs. Angela Boateng of Kamina Junior High School was elected President, Miss Theresa Adabugar of Northern School of Business Senior High School was elected Vice President. Miss Flavia Kwara Nonati of Tampe Kuokuo R/C Primary School was elected Organiser and Miss Helen Dabo of St. Charles Senior High School was elected as Secretary of the Association.
Later on Monday, the members started their ICT capacity building program at the Savana Signatures. The total membership is 37. They have therefore been put into three groups of 10. This is because Savana Signatures has only 10 computers at the ICT Centre. The three groups (Anika, Theodora and Amadora) will take their turns twice a week as follows;
Anika (A Dutch name meaning Very Beautiful) – Monday/Tuesday
Theodora (A Greek name meaning Gift of God) – Tuesday/Wednesday
Amadora (An Italian name meaning Gift of Love) – Thursday/Friday
The last group, Venus, made up of 7 members is on the waiting list.
FICTTA members for now will build their capacity in basic ICT skills. The second stage of the capacity building will involve helping them to design their lessons using a computer that they will have to deliver in their classrooms with the help of a projector. Savana Signatures staff will mentor them on this.
Note that all staff of Savana Signatures have an educational/teaching background and therefore are well positioned to mentor FICTTA members in this regard.
Our key challenges as an organization right now is to be able to secure some more computers and more importantly projectors for the teachers to use in delivering their lessons.
Bonjour,
pour faciliter l'engagement des enseignantes, il faut prendre en compte les facteurs bloquant leur. Il s'agit principalement:
- la technophobie qui est quelque peu propre à la gente feminine
- Aménager un emploi du temps qui tient compte de leurs occupations. En Afrique particulièrement les femmes sont plus chargées que nous les hommes. En plus des occupations liées à leurs emplois, elles doivent s'occuper de la famille (les enfants, la cuisine...)
- Il faut privilégier la formation par les paires, notamment les collègues enseignantes. Ce qui permet de dissiper la peur et de lever certaines barrières.
Hi Stephen,
How did the first meeting go last friday? How did you end up dealing with the large number of female teachers that signed up? What activities do you think FICTTA will be facilitating to engage female teachers to learning about and using ICTs?
I am curious to learn from FICTTA's experiences!
Cheers!
I am about to enter my semester III in PC Maintenance Technology. I am doing an On-line Associate Degree with a USA University but the problem I have faced is lack of sponsorship. Are there avenures one can use to secure some sort of sponsorship or scholarship?
Je vous remercie pour l'appréciation de l'article.
Le LTAC est un établissement dont des enseignants sont membres du groupe TIC-EDUC et qui participent aux activités du groupe.
Dear Anne,
Many thanks for the comments on the FICTTA post.
I have taken note of them and have gone ahead to post in the gender advise forum. I hope that members will respond soon.
Hi Steve,
I was wondering if this wouldn't be great content for the iConnect gender group and also if you were willing to share some project related insights with us? E.g., which are the activities undertaken by the FICTTA to encourage young women in the use and study of ICTs? I see the initiative is still quite new, so maybe you would welcome suggestions by others who have worked in this field before? Why not ask in the gender advise forum and find out if someone has some ideas? Let's see if iConnect has some experience exchange potentials to help you get started!
J'aime bien la manière de conter très personelle du proviseur, ce qui me permet de comprendre la situation du lycée et ses collègues. Je suis certaine que vous avez partager un contenu très interessant pour toute la communauté de iConnect.
Dites-moi, c'est quoi votre relacion avec LTAC, juste pour comprendre un peut le contexte?
Je vous félicite pour la contribution bien réussie.
To read the Learning Brief that was developed in 2009 by the ESnet team and IICD, which discusses the approach, the outcomes on teacher/school level, some challenges, and opportunities for the future, you can find it for download here.
I do quite agree with you. If you have to make a phone call at 10% the price of transportation to negotiate for products the the 90% goes to make you richer and indeed business is transacted faster than when you have to travel with all the added risks.
I think technology can help save time as eliminating poverty, for cause, prior to Mali, toannounce news such as (baptisms, marriages or deaths), we were forced to moveanyone regardless of the distance to announce the said news. now we can use atelephone or Internet to get the message. However, the use of these media are very expensive and very true that it is not accessible to everyone we did anyway! In conclusion, it is almost the same thing! money that was used in transport, it is put incommunication cost!
Merci pour les encouragemeents et les félicitations.
Les leçons apprises sont nombreuses mais je m'adarderai sur les points essentiels.
Nous avons pu comprendre que les choses avancent dans un établissement quand les premiers responsables sont porteurs de projet ou lorsque l'équipe qui conduit le projet le fait avec la bénédiction du chef d'établissement. Il a ensuite aussi été constaté que les projets qui survivent sont ceux qui impliquent à la fois les élèves, les enseignants et l'administration.
Nous comptons avec cette étude d'abord convaincre les établissement qui hésitent à intégrer les TIC à le faire en s'inspirant des exemples montrés. Il s'agira ensuite de mobiliser des partenaires potentiels autour des TICE dans nos établissement afin d'accroitre l'usage du potentiel des TIC pour l'enseignement. Enfin, nous comptons attirer l'attention de nos décideurs politiques( policy maker) sur la généralisation des TIC dans les établissements.
Je suis très heureux ainsi que le groupe TIC-EDUC-Bf de l'intérêt que vous portez à l'étude.
Nous avons effectivement fait face à plusieurs défis dans le partage de l'information.
Le premier défi fut celui de créer un réseau d'échange et de partage dynamique dans laquelle les expériences et les information sont effectivement partagé. Le second, lié au premier fut celui de tenir le groupe toujours dynamique.Le troisième fut ll'identification des besoins des acteurs de l'enseignement secondaire et les supports de partage de contenus adaptés à leur milieu et environnement. Ce qui nous a amené tour à tour de tenir des conférences dans les régions du pays. de partager des liens et des ressources via le dgroup, de concevoir de poster de site web pour les écoles, des CDrom de cours interactifs pour les établissements avec ordinateurs et sans connnexion.
I will ask our Chapter reps to send me the set of questions, and I will forward that to you.
To give you an idea, the schools involved do not have any ICT subjects and so the knowledge was mainly based on their day to day experiences. The questions were elementary, basic and some a bit technical.
Sorry about the silence - end of year activities become so overwhelming. I have been on the road trying to wrap up some projects and business.
The Quiz was organised by the eBrain Forum Livingstone Chapter, and Zain Zambia (now Airtel) sponsored the event by providing t-shirts, wall clocks, pens, key-holders, caps and several other materials. eBrain Forum, courtesy of IICD Knowledge Sharing Officer (Martine Koopman) provided flash disks as part of the prizes.
Comments gathered after the event were on the lines of making the event an annual one, and Zain/Airtel agreed to continue supporting. We are currently trying to see how best other provinces can host similar events.
I like the idea of focusing on teacher training collges, from my observations last month when I visited a few schools that are pioneering the use of ICT in the science classrooms, I realised that where the teachers shwoed keen interest in using these ICT to teach and letting children use them to learn, the children enjoyed their classes and the teachers were slowly winning over other teachers who initially were computer phobics.
I think by training teachers to be less afrain of the computers and embrace them in their teaching right at the beginning. Children will have more enmjoyable classes and tecahers shall deal with class adminstration much faster.
Hello Christophe,
Many thanks for posting this information. I find it very interesting particularly the research to identify best practices in secondary schools. Can you please share a summarised learning points of the reasearch. What was the focus of the research and what do you hope to use the data for?
Hello Saskia,
Many thanks for the links. It makes very interesting arguements. While in Zambia in May this year attending the CCLE organised by IICD some ideas came to mind. These ideas were further boosted with other thoughts and re focusing when at the elearning conference, i listed to a presentation made by a staff of the OLPC program.
My views are that technology is good a great. It can help do a lot of things especially if we adopt the ICT4Me lenses. However, most governments and institutions have mistakenly always focused on the chiled. Hence, all programs are geared towards the learner. Question is: What happens to the one who is to teach?
The teacher plays a very significant role in this chain. The teacher needs to gain the knowledge first. Then, he can use this technology...computer to preapare an interactive lesson which will facilitate the understanding of the students in a particular lesson/subject/topic.
Having the tool or making the tool available to students can not be the end. Then why will we need teachers? The tool should be an interactive facilitating catalyst for the understanding of students.
I still will have to read http://ict4djester.org/blog/?p=242 further so as to appreciate further their line of thoughts.
I am convinced that technology in itself cannot end poverty or take people out of poverty. How people perceive the use of technology for them (ICT4Me) and what the technology is the determining factor. Technology provides such a spring that once used, it can help people get out of poverty faster
Hi Stephen, all
Thanks for sharing what transpired at this event in Tamale! I wonder what the educational authorities present at the seminar responded to Savanannah Signatures' and Boldsteps Foundations' statements?
Regarding the One Laptop Per Child policy, there has been quite some thinking and writing about the programme, and whether it is the right programme or policy to advocate for.
Most recently, the ICT4DJester blog (which i respect a lot for its critical yet constructive thinking), wrote up a post intended for "(1) educational decision-makers who are considering OLPC (or computers for schools) and (2) people working for non-technological basics in schools, and who need ammunition to fight the seductive rhetoric of technology pushers. The points are made primarily for primary and secondary education in international development, though the arguments often apply beyond."
I hope you find it an interesting read, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the issue!
Cheers, saskia
I know how busy you are, Lee.
All the same, any follow up on the interschools quiz competition. As Stephen mentioned there is interest from organizations and schools to organize similar events ... in our case, here in the Copperbelt of Zambia.
Other members of this group might want to share their experiences in other parts of Africa (the world) ... and that would be great.
Best to all
great summary of the the first day and the conclusions of the co-management team. I would agree on the suggestion of working on the 'elevator pitch'. Not sure we will have time now, but something to suggest them to take into account as we round up in teh conclusions tomorrow?
Salut Benjamin,
Merci beaucoup pour votre contribution à la communauté! En ce qui concerne la traduction: comme celle-la est fourni par Google, nous ne possédons aucun influence sur la manière de traduction des mots spécifiques. Pour le moment, je regrette de répondre qu'il nèst pas prévue d'implementer une version française.
Dans l'attente de vos contributions ou commentaires supplémentaires.
Anne
Thanks Stephen for the comments. I will do a follow up on the entry, to give you insight on how the contest was conducted and how partnership was arrived at with Zain.
Thanks Lee for this publication. This has been an interest area particularly for me and my organisation, Savana Signatures. Currently, my organisation is seeking for funding to hold one in the three Northern regions. This we will be organising in partnership with Community Information Centres. Since we still do not have the funding yet, could you please share with us how you got Zain to partly fund this.
Also, could you please share with me the quiz questions after the 25th of October when it is over.
Live Webcast: ”Q&A with John W. McArthur on the Race to Achieve the MDGs”
When
September 16th, 2010
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM EST
Where
Online, from the comfort of your home or office.
How
To attend the seminar online, please follow this link to register. You will be asked to RSVP. Additional instructions will follow including how to submit questions during the event.
Please note: We are using “GoToMeeting” to register and manage online attendees. The download process can take 5-10 minutes.
I hope you will join us for this insider's peak at the MDGs as we prepare for the upcoming MDG Summit at the United Nations. Thank you for your continued interest and support.
Sincerely,
Johnny Falla
Community Manager, Millennium Promise
Relating to Sara's post, it depends on the technology. For example, a kidney dyalasis machine was created at university of (I forget where) using a blender, enabling its price to decreased by several $1000s.
I thought because it was technology (cheap technology nonetheless) about health issues and improving health through ICT (?) that I could post this. Do I have the wrong idea about what ICTs can be?
thanks Sarah for this post. It's good to be aware of the technologies being developed at universities in the US, and their potential appropriateness for addressing challenges face by the health sector in developing country contexts.
I'm not sure i see how this relates to the use of ICTs though - am i missing something?
This is a growing trend in most schools. In most African countries teachers pride themselves for being more knowledge than their pupils. But this status-quo is under threat from pupils that are quickly moving online to access educational content their teachers don't have. This is putting pressure on teachers to move online too. If this is how most teachers are getting online should we be looking at an incentive model that place pupils at the center of any educational content access initiatives?
I think by far the best application of ICT is in the area of adaptation or creating locally relevant content. There is basically two ways of creating content. One is to search online for any near-to-what you want content and edit to suit your situation. The other is to take a suitable application and begin creating from scratch. The first option is almost always preferred if not recommended. This is because construction of knowledge is a a structured discipline i.e you always build on existing and tested knowledge. Many people take time to first investigate what is existing and from there embark on the next process of either extending it or, what most us do, retain the facts and simply add meaning to suite our different situations. Changing Facts is another undertaking and is a scientific process involving research etc. So if you look at this challenging process, gather available content, comparing, editing and reproduction simply fits the ICT bill. Take for instance, a teacher in rural Zambia preparing content in civics about natural endowment, all s/he does is take general text edit few names and possibly add a picture of local river from his/her digital camera. This is what ICT is meant to do; something old forms of technologies could only accomplish when done by highly skilled people and at prohibitive costs.
Good thoughts. I really do not think the teaching process is that complicated. The elements/activities that make up the teaching and learning process curriculum/syllabus, content, assessments etc are very distinct and almost prescriptive in most standard education. What is not prescriptive and therefore an area of creativity is how one (teacher) combines them together in achieving learning objectives. Thats where in my opinion ICT as tool plays a part. It is in fact the non-prescriptive or democratic nature of ICT that it has found use in almost every field including those that are very conservative like education. ICT is simply a tool, like a chalk and board, over head projectors etc that a teacher could opt for taking of course into account the nature of content and learning styles of affected pupils. The issue in my opinion is that when you take a teacher who has been using educational content accumulated over many years, and who is accustomed to a particular presentation method, how could you help them see the new opportunities presented by new technology and equally assist them make that IMPORTANT transition in a way that does leave them any room to compare old from new ways of doing things. In my years working with teachers, this is an important area of focus for any ICT Evangelist. Whatever the answer, I would like to propose, must have teachers as part of the solution. Teachers like anybody else take delight in being recognized in whatever they do and certainly need enjoy some reasonable control over what they do. Indeed this is the means by which civilized societies rewards its people. So its important that when discussing ICT we also look the anonymity of ICT and the preservation of identities when it comes to educational content. I have looked at most educational content online and am encouraged by steps that other communities take to ensure that those that make valuable contribution to the body of knowledge online are sufficiently recognized through many ways including just basic attribution. For this to happen, some form of structure/organisation need to be in place to control and protect vested interest of hard working teacher from abuse. If teachers in Africa, like many that have interacted with appear disinterested to you, part of the reason is that they feel their contributions are simply been thrown away. This is not to suggest that educational content should always be made available at a fee. No. My last comment which actually stresses my earlier point is that we need to constantly evaluate most technologies carefully to ensure that disruptive technologies, technologies that drastically changes everything for it work, is not introduced into schools indiscriminately. This is particularly true with technologies engineered by profit seeking industries. What else..
... interesting topic I would say. One question that pops up in my mind
is to those of you involved in teaching or in the teaching process.... To what extent can a teacher be
creative in using existing educational content? Or, to put it in
another way; to what extend is the national syllabus 'dictating' what
can, and can not be used? Where would you find really useful online
educational content?
This is an excellent point and I think one of the underlying issues of my post. I do think most of us try to balance local context and local relevance with practical application on the ground (it is not just sustainability I guess - working with local teachers and students for months just to develop one tool creates enormous expectations and you simply do not have that time). The question: where is this balance exactly probably cannot be answered as easily as I hoped... :)
Anne
I believe that if we want to deliver educational digital media tool, in a world with 6000 languages, we need to be able to adapt a good tool to different languages, otherwise it wil not be financially sustainable. If you want to build something specific for each one of them in a world where techonogy is changing at rocket pace, it will never work:(
interesting pointers, although I was hoping in materials for higher grades.
the search goes on...
http://www.professeurphif...
http://recitpresco.qc.ca/
http://cp.lakanal.free.fr...
And in 6 months Smart4Kids in French (I am French....)
I was wondering if anyone knows of some good repositories of educational games in French, for example to learn fine mouse movement skills, or the proper use of a keyboard, or similar basic skills.
I'll be grateful if you could point me to them.
thanks
http://pbskids.org/
http://www.starfall.com/
http://www.rif.org/kids/readingplanet/a
and for all sort of resources
http://www.curriki.org/
I found the following article very interesting and thought i should share.
Much current research in the field of games-based learning demonstrates that games can be successfully incorporated into educational contexts to increase student engagement, motivation, and learning. Academic librarians are also using games as an innovative instructional strategy to strengthen students’ research skills and their understanding of information literacy concepts. This article discusses the development and implemen-tation of Quality Counts, a classroom information literacy game designed to teach undergraduate students how to evaluate Internet sources. After a brief overview of the game’s development and rules, the article describes the process of playing Quality Counts in several classes and presents the results of qualitative assessments of student engagement and self-perception of learning, including data from classroom observations and student surveys. Finally, the article offers suggestions for next steps and future research, both for Quality Counts as well as for academic librarians interested in developing or implementing instructional games.
The link to download the entire article is on http://www.libraryinnovation.org/article/view/182/319
Cheers!
If others have experiences with any of the games described I'd love to know more!
Smart4Kids
http://ilearn4free.org/?page_id=553
The iLearn4Free reading application, Smart4Kids, is designed to be fun and exciting, and to instill confidence in children around the world as they learn to read. The educational curriculum is comprised of about 30 units, depending on the language, with each unit focusing on a specific phonemic skill. Each unit features games and stories that will be easy for children to navigate independently, yet they are not intended as a surrogate for the teacher.
Elearning for kids
http://www.e-learningforkids.org/
Being used in Ghana by 2BWorldwide, games are developed in the Netherlands. All games are online and freely available.
Programs are designed for children ages 5 through 12, developed by leading e-learning vendors and qualified instructional designers, and reviewed by members of our Advisory Board and Quality Assurance teams. Schools can incorporate our tested online courses into their curriculum; teachers can work with their students on specific skills; and children can access the self-paced programs independently. Our programs are designed to engage children at the level where they can perform successfully.
JClic
http://clic.xtec.cat/en/jclic/index.htm
JClic is formed by a set of computer applications that are used for carrying out different types of educational activities: puzzles, associations, text exercises, crosswords...The activities are not usually used alone, but packed in projects. A project is formed by a set of activities and one or more sequences, which indicate the order in which they have to be shown. JClic is developed in the Java platform, is a free software project and works in different environments and operating systems. Two ways of accessing the projects JClic are offered in the library of activities in the clicZone:
-
Playing the activities in an applet
An applet is an object embedded in a web page. The projects that are seen this way do not remain stored in the hard disk: JClic downloads it, uses it and finally deletes it.If the JClic applet does not start, probably your computer's Java needs to be updated. It's also advisable to take a look at a page on the process of applet downloading.
-
Installing the activities
JClic has a wizard which allows you to download the activities and put them in the projects library of the computer. The library is created the first time JClic is started, or when you try to do the first installation of a project.To see the projects in the library you will need to download and install JClic.
As in the previous case, if the installer does not start automatically you must checkthe Java system of your computer.
JClic has been used by Educatic (Bolivia) – see: http://iconnect-online.org/blogs/how-achieve-efficiency-digital-educational-content-production-anne-schanz )
KhanAcademy
http://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard
Note that Khan does not really have games, but they do have interesting exercises in for instance basic maths. They also do nice presentations. Disadvantage is that everything is online…
The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.
I think that there is a very thin line between who to focus on. As a practitioner, what i find is the fact that most of the time, we tend to concentrate on one side instead of striking a balance. For instance, in Ghana, the government of Ghana is supplying computers (mini laptops) to students when teachers themselves do not have computers of their own and do not also posses the required skills. Question is who then will teach the other? Are we empowering students with tools and content to make the role of the teacher irrelevant?
We should at all times try to make a fair balance on both the teacher and student ends. When we look at appropriate ICT4D projects - educational games, it is very important to look at options that will have both the teacher playing the facilitation role and the student having a better way to learn.
Another issue we need to focus on is Local content. This has always been an issue and in Ghana, this is one of the key challenges projects i have worked with are facing.
A lot of efforts are being put into developing mobile apps for educational purposes. In my context, it will be very difficult to deploy mobile educational games in our basic schools because presently, there is a ban on the use of mobile phones by students in both basic and senior high schools. Students are not allowed to use mobile phones so a deployment of a mobile solution might not work in all contexts; the deployment of any solution for now will have to be country specific. Is it not possible to have a generic prototype that can be adapted to suits ones contexts?
I find http://skoool.com/ very useful. They have localised the content for Ghana, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa. The challenge though is the fact that we presently are unable to have an offline version. I could look up some more of these and share in a later post.
Just my thoughts!
Thank you Saskia (and Mattew) for this very valuable contribution. I have spent some time going over the two papers and it is really very interesting to see the link between traditional games and online educational games. Especially also because most of us tend to focus on teachers rather than students when we think about making educational content more context specific.
I plan to send Mr. Kam a message too, but for now it would be great to reflect on these papers from our experiences as practicioners as well...
Some of the questions that these papers triggered for me:
-
What does this mean for our work on the ground? Should we focus more on students rather than teachers when we look at appropriate educational games? Or can teachers be good/adequate "translators" of the students' realities? Is it even feasible for us to work with students (or study students as was being done in these papers)?
-
How specific are these contexts really? For languages, such as in these papers, is is quite clear that some applications are bound to be quite specific. But are children's games very specific to one area too, or is it the case that, once you did a study in one area, this would also apply in schools somewhere else in a similar area? What is the practicioners experience in this regard?
-
From the papers, it seems that the traditional games are a good start for the development of educational mobile games. But how do you keep the latter interesting for more experienced users? The children in the private school from India already had more experience and understood the "advanced" games more easily than their peers from public schools with no prior knowledge of ICT games. Does this mean that the need of the students (and the exitement) wears off over time?
-
It would be really good to also hear more about the educational benefits of these games, from both reseach and practice!
I hope that others will jump in and I will ask around for some more views on this too.Anne
Your question around designing and using educational games that are suited to a particular context (cultural/geographic/etc.) has kept me searching for valuable answers. In seeking informed opinion on this, I was told to ask Matthew Kam, and he pointed me to two specific research papers which he published related to the subject. The papers are based on research in rural Indian and rural Chinese settings, but I think the approaches, thinking, and findings are very informative for people considering how to design or use educational games in other rural settings.
I hope you find reading the papers useful, and I hope they are inspiring for other iConnect Education members as well who are interested in harnassing the power of ICT-enabled educational games to support education. I'd love to hear what people think, or if there are other experiences and resources out there that we should be looking at!
All Matthew's papers can be found here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ma...
In implementing Savana Signatures' Integration of ICTs in Education Project (IIEP), we have tried to involved the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) of our partner schools right from the project start. We have actually involved them in almost every project activity and meeting. We do this because we are convinced that one of the key ways of sustaining such a project is the involvement of PTAs as they play key roles in project sustainability in schools.
I should think sustainability is a topic of GREAT INTEREST to all of us.
I particularly like the terms highlighted.
Best to one and all.
The annual event has been one that exposes practitioners to new wways of doing things. I have been lucky to have participated in two of the annual event and i found it very useful. Offered me the opportunity to learn about what others are doing elsewhere and to get an insight into newer ways of doing things. Above all, it provided me with a networking opportunity.
Cheers!
Your questions are most interesting. The ICT Exams that were set were not practical. They were theoretical. So, one then could say that there is really no basis for arguing for infrastructure. The point however is that that is not the way we should go. There is a very dangerous but very common phenomenon in the Ghanaian educational system where people go to school just because of the certification. And so, all that is done is for the student to "Chew, pass and forget". As a result of this, we now have several thousands of graduates who finish school with very good grades and yet when they are faced with the practical part of what they supposedly had learnt while they were in school, they are unable to perform.
We cannot afford to bring this kind of mentality into the study of ICT. If we do, we will end up becoming just consumers and not inventing anything. This is the reason why myself and many others are of the view that ICT should be made a very practical subject in our schools and the only way to do this is by the deployment of hardware to the schools.
Greetings from Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)
I am a advocate of ICT4D from 2000 in South Asia. I fully agree with 7 reasons why ICT4D projects fail:
Much of the film was captured at the ICT4D Poverty Reduction Summit and there was consensus that these are the 7 reasons why ICT4D projects fail:
-
Results not directly tied to improving economic condition of end user
-
Not relevant to local contexts, strengths, or needs
-
Not understanding infrastructure capacity
-
Underestimating maintenance costs and issues
-
Projects supported only by short-term grants
-
Solutions are not looking at the whole problem
-
Projects built on condescending assumptions
With best regards,Bazlu _______________________ AHM. Bazlur Rahman-S21BR
Chief Executive Officer
Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)
[NGO in Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council]
&
Head, Community Radio Academy
House: 13/1, Road: 2, Shaymoli, Dhaka-1207 Bangladesh
Phone: +88-02-9130750, +88-02-9138501, Cell: +88 01711881647
Fax: 88-02-9138501-105, E-mail: ceo@bnnrc.net, bnnrcbd@gmail.com www.bnnrc.net
You may want to try FET (free download http://mac.softpedia.com/...) and incorporated in schooltool http://schooltool.org/( which will be edubuntu 11.05 version edubuntu.org/2011-03-12/schooltool-in-ubuntu-1104).
in case you can't make it to Atlanta - they usually do good web-coverage of the conference and you can attend some of the workshops online or just follow their twitter stream: http://twitter.com/ictd2012
This is the mFarmer Initiative discussion:
http://www.e-agriculture.org/forums/forum-archive/forum-mobile-information-services-november-2011
Thanks again,
Lisa
My reflection is rather on mFarmer Initiative that was held November 21st to December 2nd, not on the World Bank eSourcebook.
Thanks
Benjamin
Thanks Saskia for posting this and special thanks for Benjamin's reflections!
The forum took place from 5-16 December and it is now closed, but for those interested in reviewing and accessing the online discussions, the forum can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/z4TNxJ
Regards,
Lisa M. Cespedes
For more check this link http://projectfedena.org/about
Thanks for the link, it will be useful in our next projects as it directly answers one of the most needed items in a school.
Joel
Greetings to the People of Kalingalinga!
I totally agree with you on the fact that we need to demonstrate the” link between school or specifically pupils' results and whatever ICT interventions you are proposing”.
We all know that so many factors (ranging from school environment to the quality of teachers/ learners) have a bearing on quality education. It is quite hard to tell that ICT integration has contributed so much to improved student performance for example and this automatically leads us into detailed research to justify the contribution of each of these factors to improved results.
Yese, probably you could share with us some tools that can justify this result if any.
Other than that justification, on many occasions teachers are tasked to cover the syllabus in a given period of time which has been made easy by the use of ICT for teaching as elaborated by a champion teacher “with the use of ICT difficult things can easily be explained using videos, pictures or simulations hence saving a lot of time which can be used to the benefit of the learner and the teacher”.
Recently, a headteacher realized that a big number of teachers have the capacity to use the internet and she requested them to always send their schemes of work by email. Surprisingly all the teachers sent their schemes of work as requested. This is the little creativity and drive we need from school administrators. It implies an assured budget for internet and maintenance!
If schools do not see the link between ICT interventions and results, then why do school committees decide to acquire computers? I hope it is not for marketing purposes!
Joel
Long time! Hope you doing well all-round. It is very kind of you to share your work- so what else have I missed? Ahah.
Well seriously speaking this subject of sustainability is crucial and more so to educational projects.
I really like the comments Joel made. His/her entire email is full of excellent points and I had to read through few more times over to discover just where the heap is.
And here it is:
“Recently, i have come to realise that PTA is one of the big sources of funds in schools but leadership in a school matters. if the headteacher/principal, department heads do not understand the value of ICT in a school, there will not be a budget allocation for it.
For example at CfSU we are implementing ICT for education project in secondary schools, in one of the schools considered "champion school" the headteacher was transferred to another school and the new headteacher informed the teachers that they were wasting alot of time in the computer lab. the teachers had moved to a level of handling their routine work using ICT which was new to the new headteacher”
Joel concludes by suggesting that “...so all these aspects are achieved by social sustainability”.
And I totally agree with him.
PTA and their Money
This is a well-known fact. But you have to be careful with this statement. PTAs financial muscle and generally their resourcefulness differ across type of school. For instance PTAs for public funded schools are less likely to be as resourceful as those in community, faith based or private schools for obvious reasons. As a result you are more likely to have a supportive and receptive PTA board in projects implemented, in for instance, community schools than in government funded schools. The same applies to budgeting. It is easier to push for and receive approval for additional ICT budget in less bureaucratic institutions such as community schools.
1. Head teacher/Principal not understand value of ICT
To be fair, I don’t think there is any head teacher or principal who does not take delight in better results for his/her pupils. Lets face it, head teachers are employed specifically to produce results. And that is what concerns every head teacher. What I have learnt over the years in change management trainings is that managers are more interested in the ‘What’ and not ‘How’ of a statement. It is WHAT must be done and not HOW to do it. The HOW is only of concern to them if it leads to the WHAT. And admittedly what we (ICT evangelists as they like calling us) do is spend endless time in schools trying to get managers to understand the HOW - that is for a different level of management.
From instance during one of the Change management workshops I conducted for schools heads, one head teacher from a faith based school, and who was having difficulties pushing for adoption of ICT in the schools to a very conservative school board, was very happy to hear that she could (WHAT) introduce a ‘ICT user policy’ than been lectured on (HOW) “installing software” to censor and control access to obscene materials. Of course the two interventions are necessary but only the WHAT question is a management concern while the other is a technical matter.
So to accuse head teachers of not understanding is not just unfair but abdicating our responsibilities. We should take responsibility for failing to make then understand. Many if not all, school managers are qualified people with a much larger stake and interest in the activities of the school than we want to make ourselves believe. All we need is to demonstrate to them the link between school or specifically pupils' results and whatever ICT interventions you proposing. This may sound funny but that’s what I was told once by a school manager – we are paid to get good results for pupils/students and not to train teachers in ICT. This does not mean they don’t want teachers to be trained. No. They are perfectly at peace with that provided it leads to good results and normally that is the weakest link in most projects. Even though most ICT projects include tailored training for teachers, which usually is good and well justified, what we should remember is that training teachers is not a core business of a school. We have seen how trained teachers leave schools the moment they acquire ICt skills. This is not a sustianable approach. Few in any, PTA boards would want to allocate money to such an activity however important it is. because its a risk investment. But PTA are perfectly happy to accept donors pay for such training for their teachers. And this is not surprising! A project foocused on ICT teacher training is only sustainable in a teacher training college. A teacher training college in this case has several variables or factors that fulfil a sustainable model for such a project.
2. Teachers wasting time in computer lab
It is hard for any head teacher to accept that ICTs have been mainstreamed into teachers routine work, when teachers are found in the computer lab most of the time. Relatively speaking, teachers spend much of their learning-time or day-time time teaching than reading or preparing lessons. Researching and Preparing lessons are tasks normally performed outside active day-time periods. Getting ICT in teacher’s routine work is allowing them to use ICT in communicating with students and fellow teachers, researching, and delivering lessons, coaching and supervising lessons- half of which is done outside computer labs and indeed outside active lesson-time. So I would not immediately dismiss the excuse given by a new head teacher in Joel’s example, who decided to stop teachers from ‘camping’ in the lab.
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Champion Schools that are not Stable
Again I agree with Joel about the need for ‘champion schools’ as both a reference 'model' and as locus of inspiration. In my country this has really helped to get other schools off the feet. But we should be careful not to confuse transformational leadership (a champion head master), and Institutional Transformation. You will know that it wasn’t Institutional transformation when the change in top management results into a complete abandonment of the changes. A Champion School can only be truly stable when comprehensive changes in systems and procedures have taken place. In short, when institutional transformation has taken place.Lastly social sustainability and project design
Yes I also agree that social sustainability is key to project sustainability especially for educational project which are intricately linked to society. This is why the comments by Joel about Social Sustainability, is spot on.
Traditional discourse on sustainability based largely on economic and environmental considerations or variables is insufficient for constructing a sustainable model for educational projects. Yet for many educational project that I have reviewed, those ‘soft themes’ of social indicators such as ‘feeling of belonging’ are never seriously considered. So to start with, many projects are fundamentally flawed. I have been reminded several times, by heads of schools, PTA members and indeed school managers about how they feel ‘left out’ in project design but only to be asked to embrace the project just when funding is about to ran dry. Of course this claim is made by even those who were actually consulted. But the truth is most ICT projects have largely been designed and implemented with heavy hand of the ‘tech evangelist’ many of whom are so indifferent to the needs of head teachers or even teachers themselves.
It is important to recognize that different societies have different value systems upon which they evaluate new ideas - and nowhere else other than education institutions is this such a big factor. The social conditions necessary to support a project sustainably may vary from society to society but we need to establish basic framework. So what we need is to invest time in researching and identifying existing social models/framework which are self sustaining and on which we can construct our projects than building/creating new social conditions because there is no project with times and resources to do that.
Good luck Steve.
On several occassions school managers have asked for applications that address their needs and I think this is a shared need.
UniTime is an open-source enterprise system for automated construction of demand driven course and examination timetables. It also provides event management capabilities and a limited student scheduling capabilities. It is a distributed system that allows multiple university and departmental schedule managers to coordinate efforts to build and modify a schedule that meets their diverse organizational needs while allowing for minimization of student course conflicts.
The new version (UniTime 3.2) of the system includes curriculum-based course timetabling and more student scheduling (e.g., including the new Student Scheduling Assistant) capabilities delivering a complete package covering all the timetabling needs of a university or any other educational institution.
Best
Yese
Thanks for posting this. I will really love to attend this as it will provide not only the platform to network, but to learn and share knowledge.
Cheers!
it actually contributes to social sustainability but it is a gragual process just as keiko says. we need to invest time in raising awareness.
Greetings
Joel
Retomando la discusión, me parece que Joel lo ha planteado bastante bien. La sostenibilidad no es solo económica, se debe lograr la sostenibilidad social y humana del proyecto. En nuestro caso involucrando desde el inicio a los padres de familia, los maestros, estudiantes, directores, autoridades, comunidad, para que ellos poco a poco se vayan empoderando de los telecentros o gabinetes de computación.
Nosotros trabajamos con escuelitas rurales, donde la mayoría de los padres son agricultores o se dedican a la crianza de animales, y quizás al igual de lo que alguien comento, no se ven muy interesados en la formación académica de sus hijos. Nuestra tarea s buscar las estrategias apropiadas para lograr que se involucren, por ej les comento una experiencia de hace varios años atrás, en una escuelita los padres estaban reacios a aportar económicamente, entonces junto a la directora convocamos a una asamblea de padres, los citamos en el gabinete de computación, los equipos estaban encendidos y tenían materiales interesantes respecto a agricultura, incuso en un equipo pusimos el jueguito del señor papa que utilizamos para enseñar a los niños de kínder para utilizar el ratón. Llegamos tarde a propósito, mientras tanto una mamá sin darse cuenta movió el ratón, entonces se prendió la pantalla, y así intuitivamente en grupos los papás iban investigando con temor en las computadoras, pero les atraía lo que veían. Entonces captamos su interés y ya para la reunión no estaban tan cerrados en sus opiniones. Fue más sencillo!!! Otra estrategia es aliarnos con personas clave, que tengan liderazgo, a través de ellos es más fácil llegar a todos.
Comenzamos esta experiencia hace diez años, fue más complicado esas veces, nos costaba entre 6 meses a un año empoderarlos, pero poco a poco fue más fácil porque utilizamos la experiencia de una escuela, la compartimos con otras y así fue más fácil concientizar a los padres. Ahora es mucho más rápido lograr esto, y justamente actividades como nuestra EXPOTIC, generan conciencia en la sociedad acerca de utilizar las TIC y beneficiar a los estudiantes y a través de ellos a la comunidad en general. Y reitero es importante encontrar una persona o más personas clave, mayormente es el Director quien promueve todo esto, pero a veces se identifican padres o maestros, que impulsan estos procesos.
1. Was it a practical examination?
2. If it was practical then what facilities did schools alleged not having ICT facilities, use for such examinations?
3. If it wasnt practical does it still justify your argument for ICT facilities?
4. Are the results from the said examination out and what do they say/reveal?
In general, examinations are set based on a curriculum and the exmining body which in most cases is an independent organization, doesnt really bother wether the subject is taught or not. That is the responbility of another organization/agency or section of the education system. I dont think a sensible educationist can examine people on subjects that are not part of the curriculum.
What we need to do is to invest a lot of time to understand how the education system operates. Its this kind of knowledge which will help you direct your questions/concerns.
The fact that education system in virtually every society, especially Africa, is the most problematic area, goes to show how this sector is less understood. Yet this is the sector that employes some of the best brains. I am yet to see a sector with such concentration of Professors and Phd holders as the education sector.
Nonetheless, its great to read about this story and the beautiful reasoning behind it. Keep it up guys.
I am reading your post only today and I wonder if you have already finished your research for this additional information I have to be useful.
I want to share with you some of the information i have regarding the same. Sometime back I visited a school for special need and was touched by what I found. My experience forced me to carry out some research on the use of ICT in special needs. From the information I gathered I also developed a concept which I intended to give to an organization which was very keen to implement the idea.
I am sending the documents to your email, but should you find them useful please share with others too. I am actually attaching the concepts which you could give to anyone with interest to develop it further.
Best
Yese
Thanks alot for the discussion on the sustainability of ICT projects in schools. Interesting!
Steve, its good you are bringing the PTAs on board at this stage.
Anne, i agree with you asking for parents to make financial contribution straight away doesn't work and i do not think that is how it happened in Bolivia.
I managed to attend a workshop organised by IICD in Bolivia last year where Keiko also participated. During the same time i visited a number of schools (primary and secondary schools) but the achievements in ICT integration were amazing. of course i was eager to know how they are doing it........
on discussing with a number of headteachers, i realize that it all begins with social sustainability.
once the community you intend to work with understands the objective of the project and the value it adds to the target groups, implementation will be a walk over and other sustainability(economic and human) will automatically be achieved. but the only challenge is that achieving social sustainability to a level ready for implementation of a project could take even take half of the project life which may sound unrealistic to the funders.
Recently, i have come to realise that PTA is one of the big sources of funds in schools but leadership in a school matters. if the headteacher/principal, department heads do not understand the value of ICT in a school, there will not be a budget allocation for it.
For example at CfSU we are implementing ICT for education project in secondary schools, in one of the schools considered "champion school" the headteacher was transferred to another school and the new headteacher informed the teachers that they were wasting alot of time in the computer lab. the teachers had moved to a level of handling their routine work using ICT which was new to the new headteacher. So all these aspects are achieved by social sustainability.
In Bolivia, the principal is part of the committee and he/she respects the decisions of the committee because their voice develops the school including construction of buildings etc and some of the projects in Bolivia are implemented in rural communities where you would expect some parents to be stubborn about payment of fees.
May be Keiko could tell us how long it took them to achieve social sustainability.
Regards
Joel
25 teachers from all parts of Zambia are currently undergoing an Education Management in Global School Partnerships at the National In-Service Teachers College in Chongwe. This involves schools that have Global Partnerships with U.K school and are best practices schools.
The British Council is sponsoring the course which has run in three one week phases that began in October. The training comes to an end this Friday and will be closed by the Minister of Education and the British Council Director. The course content is that vast to include ICTs in Education, Sustainable Development, Child Friendly Schools, Value Systems and Education, Project Management, Continuing Professional Development, Curriculum Innovation, Global Dimension In Education to name but a few.
Cheers!!!
I am not sure which approach we will be taking here in Ghana. For Savana Signatures, we think that for our project; Integration of ICTs into Education Project (IIEP) to be successful, we need it to be sustainable. We think that one way to do this is to get the support of Parent teacher Associations as a major stakeholder. It is to have some blueprint on how PTAs can help sustain these projects that we are organising this workshop to get our way clear. I will be sharing the outcome of the workshop on this platform.
Cheers!
Thanks a lot for sharing this... this is a subject that certainly deserves some attention. One issue that I was wondering about, for those experienced in this: how do you create this kind of involvement from parents exactly? And when? In Kenya we will be working with pastoralist parents that are reluctant about education as it is, and that have no previous ICT experience. I can imagine that asking them for a contribution right away when the project starts, will not help with acceptance. How was this approached in Bolivia? Or what do you intend to do in Ghana? Do parents get some time to get more understanding of this new technology?
Anne
How are you? its been a very long while. Thank you very much for sharing your thougths on this issue. I think that you have raised very important fundemental points that we will consider when we meet the PTAs on the 8th of December.
I particularly like the models that you have explained; I share in your thoughts on the Economic sustainability issue where all parents make a minimum monthly contribution, which covers the basic operating costs, maintenance costs and materials.
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts.
I will certainly share the outcome of the workshop on this platform. i think that PTAs can play a very good part in our various ICT projects, particulaly when it comes to sustainability.
I ollok forward to you hooing me up with the Malawian Project Partner. I am sure there are some experiences we can both share.
Cheers!
Quiero comentarte que en Bolivia hemos tenido una experiencia interesante con la participación de padres de familia para lograr la sostenibilidad de los telecentros en las escuelas. De hecho este modelo implementado hace varios años, considera fundamental la participación de los padres de familia como actores principales del poceso.
Lo que nuestro modelo hace inicialmente es conformar un Comite Local de Gestión, donde participan el director, representantes de profesores, y representantes de padres de familia. Su misión es lograr la sostenibilidad económica, humana y social de los gabinetes de computación.
Cómo lo hacen?
Sostenibilidad económica: Todos los padres de familia realizan un aporte mínimo mensual, que permite cubrir los gastos básicos de funcionamiento, ej. sueldo del profesor de informática o administrador del telecentro, costos de mantenimiento o materiales. Lo que hace este comite, es elaborar un plan financiero anual, en base al cual fijan montos de aportes. De hecho la experiencia nos ha permitido ver que en muchos casos incluso les ha permitido comprar más equipos y mejorar su telecentro. Y hablamos de escuelas rurales de bajos recursos.
Sostenibilidad humana; promoviendo talleres de capacitación para todos los involucrados, profesores, estudiantes, padres de familia, comunidad.
Sostenibilidad social; involucrando a toda la comunidad desde el inicio del proyecto.
La participación de los padres es fundamental porque los líderes promueven que el resto de los padres participen y hagan dinámico el funcionamiento, así tambien es posible acordar criterios entre profesores y padres de familia.
Pienso que la mayor motivación que pueden tener es aportar para que sus hijos tengan mejores oportunidades de formación, en nuestro caso también hemos motivado su participación haciendoles un reconocimiento público en los casos donde la participación es positiva.
Así tambien un reto es encontrarse con padres que buscan algún beneficio personal y más bien quieren utilizar su participación como protagonismo. Algo que nos ha ayudado es que nos han permitido entrar en las escuelas para asesorar, y a la vez ayudarles a crear sus propias metodologias de trabajo. durante los primeros tres años el apoyo nuestro es muy de cerca, participando incluso en las asambleas generales, pero ya despues de haber generado esa cultura son los mismos padres quienes asumen roles y promueven que este modelo siga funcionando.
Saludos y éxitos en el taller.
Keiko Ignacio
EDUCATIC BOLIVIA
This workshop sounds very interesting. I hope you will sharethe outcomes. Can you already share the agenda? In Malawi the PTA's also play a very important part with regard to the quality and retainment in praimary and secondary education. Nice if we can share experiences. With your permission I will soon hook you up with this Malawian project partner.
Greets!
Bernadette
Anyone who knows of practical examples/experiences on the use of
The mobile phone as a learning tool please, share.
Interested to know more.
The problem of the ban of mobile phones (in schools in Zambia at least) will pose a hurdle.
Gonzalo
ENEDCOMpelembe and Basic Schools Partnership Kitwe-Zambia
My desire is that every one us should critically see these unfortunate developments which hinder democratization path in our society.
Harry
+256 775 086 456.
Hey, thanks for drawing my attention to this. I has some information the Ghana Parliament had approved some budget for this but i did not have this much information as contained in the link you have shared. Thanks!
have you seen this news item on a new Gov of Ghana programme on ICT for disabled people?
http://biztechafrica.com/section/government/article/ghana-boosts-ict-disabled/1373/
Might be worth getting in touch with and finding out what approaches and tools they advocate in this field.
Fyi, cheers, saskia
One resource I can point you to is http://www.itrainonline.org
It is a resource site which in turn provides links to ICT and media training/learning resources which have been assessed as being useful for development practioners (i.e. freely accessible, have meta desciptions as to what they contain, who they are useful for, etc.).
The idea behind this resource site is that people don't have to spend a lot of time searching for materials online, downloading, checking if its relevant etc., which can be time consuming and frustrating, especially in low-bandwidth areas.
The site isn't edited/updated as frequently at the moment as it used to be, but it still contains valuable resources I think.
Other useful materials on using ICTs to support development are the IMARK self-learning courses, also available via the web. They are not focused on the ICT skills as itrainonline.org is, but rather on the importance and application of ICTs to support effective information use.
Youc an find the IMARK courses here: http://www.imarkgroup.org/
If other people have useful resources, I'd love to hear them and help spread them further!
Hope this helps Cheryl,
Cheers, saskia
I just found this resource from the UNESCO Institute for ICT in Education,
ICTs IN EDUCATION FOR PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
SPECIALIZED TRAINING COURSE
http://iite.unesco.org/pics/publications/en/files/3214644.pdf
That looks promising! Hope it helps!
You may have found this already, but I think the Irish National Centre for Technology and Education has some nice advice sheets on how ICTs can be used with students who haev special needs.
Have a look here: http://www.ncte.ie/SpecialNeedsICT/
There is some research with policy advice related to Ghana, but it doesn't seem to go into actual advice on which ICTs or assistive technologies to use in which situation, or what technologies a special needs school an best invest in. If you're interested in the research (from 2003), you can find it on this website: http://www.web.net/~afc/research1.html and then especially the last section of the page.
The research mentions some work that the Ghana Society for the Blind has done with their Computer Learning Centre, perhaps you could contact someone there for more advice or recommendations on who to speak to? This gentleman, Julius Braihma, looks like a good person to contact.
I'm sorry I can't be of more help. I don't have any direct experience with ICT for Special Needs Education, I hope that other iConnect members may have more directly relevant experience and tips to share.
Cheers!
Thanks for posting your comment, I completely agree with what you are saying. Access to ICTs alone can never be enough. Like any other tool, ICTs are only a valuable tool if you are taught how to use it. Otherwise, the road is paved for misuse. What I currently wonder is: how can we empower our teachers (no matter where in the world) to teach their students a skill which they themselves are just learning? A skill which they are struggeling to learn since it is linked to using tools they have only just started to use as opposed to their students who are growing up with them? Tools which dramatically change the way we work and learn and thus question the very skill (teaching) which teachers has acquired during years of studying and practicing?
I wonder if the teacher-student relationship couldn't be turned on its head and if teachers could not learn many things from their students in this case, e.g. how to use crowd-sourcing services on the web. Teachers could then use their meta-teching skills and critically reflect the use (and misuse) of ICTs together with their students.
It is good to hear that student s in Australia can access the internet with their mobile phones. But what is worrying is the fact that school authorities are putting in measures to prevent students from having access to a social network like the facebook. What I think the school authorities should do is to task teachers to help students to appreciate the positive ways they can use the internet to benefit them. This could inform the students of the need to use the internet in ways that would promote their learning.
It has become obvious that the mobile phone is the most accessible ICT tool to students, it is therefore important for teachers to take advantage of this to help students aquire knowledge.
I saw today, this article in the Ghanaian media nd i thought i should share with you. This certainly should rekindle the debate on the use of mobile phones in schools by students:
******************************************
Some school authorities in the Sunyani Municipality have advocated a ban on the use of mobile phones by Junior High School (JHS) students in schools.
The school authorities called on parents to check their children against the misuse of mobile phones and asked students to concentrate on their studies and avoid acts that would jeopardize their future.
Mr. Andrew Andoh, Assistant headteacher in charge academics at St.
Patrick JHS, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani on Tuesday that the usage of mobile phones by students on campuses and in classrooms affected teaching and learning.
He said the school had seized phones from students only to see them with new ones the next day.
Mr Andoh said “When you ask them why they bring the phones to school, they will tell you that their parents are out of town or the country and they easily communicate with their parents on the phones”.
Mr. Takyi Donkor Benjamin, a science teacher at Wesley Preparatory and JHS, advised students to be serious with their studies, and reminded them of their obligation to learn hard to enable them to pass their examinations.
He said the seizure of phones by school authorities had resulted in misunderstanding between teachers and some parents.
Some of the students told GNA that their parents always travel and they (children) needed mobile phones to be in contact with their parents whilst others said the phones were sources of entertainment to them.
Miss Nana Adjoa Amponsah Opoku, a student of Wesley Preparatory and JHS, said students used mobile phones to browse the internet for vital information and for calculating mathematical figures and a ban would pose a problem to students.
Source: Ghana News Agency
http://www.ghanabusinessn...I think there are many people around there forties that would like to use there skills for doing something good in the world. Courses for this kind of students could start on a higher level and in the end fill the gaps in the ICT4D sector with highly qualified people.
My opinion is that we place as much emphasis on making the tools readily available as much as we place emphasis on building up their capacity.
My thoughts!
Samson Mutemi
However, I also noticed that although youth invest a lot in communications they do not realize how relevant ICT can be to their learning process. Some students even do not use Internet as often as they could to research about issues they are working one. Plus, most of students who study in the public educational system did not afford to charge their mobile quite often.
Based on this idea I have from Mozambique, I think e-mobile is mostly about ensuring that: 1. there are partnerships among the mobile operators and schools so that students have service for free or with reduced price; 2. teacher have ICT integrated in their teaching programme, and; 3. students are aware of the amount reliable information they can promptly access through ICT regardless where it is stored.
More than sharing my point if view I would like to read others opinion, especially based on experiences on the field.
ICT4Dly yours,
macs
thanks for this contribution and giving us an insight into the points brought forward by these women's groups in Ghana.
You might find the following publication of interest as well, as it addresses some of the same issues.
The summary description of the paper is as follows: "The purpose of this paper is to argue for the consideration of gender issues in all research on radio, convergence and development in Africa. It is intended to guide the deliberations at the Butare roundtable (September 2009) discussion on a research agenda and to ensure that gender considerations are given prominence as the research plans for the network are developed."
Hope you find it useful/relevant! Best wishes, saskia
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/r4d/SearchResearchDatabase.asp?OutputID=181856
It is rather unfortunate that not all of us see things this way. Most law makers in Africa stilll do not see the harm they cause when they deny their people from using the mobile phone and accessing the radio or television. Poor countries like Africa could actually rely on phones and radios to explain their activities to the populace. Like is been done in Rwanda now, where the government has taken a stands to use ICT for development, wish other African leaders could emulate the Rwandan experience.
Abdul Rashid
Hi Sam,
It's a pitty that the Ghanaian student is the one who would be at the lossing end. You can imagine the plight of a student in the interior part of the northern region as he or she struggles to write the computer science paper.
In one of my visit to one of the Savana Signatures ICT club in Savelugu, some of the club members were not happy that the subject was going to be made examinable. When I asked to know why, they said their school for instance was not connected to electricity and that their ICT lessons have often been theorotical and they did not see how they could pass the subject without practice.
It's rather unfortunate that policy makers have to put innocent students through this frustration.
There is the need therefore for stake holders in education to provide the necessary equipments needed at all schools so as to make the ICT education in Ghana a reality.
Abdul Rashid
I think I agree with you on that. But its not only your country that is still holding to the old form of doing things. Even in Ghana, most government institutions are sill running the paper to paper system. It will take time, but ICT would soon take over.
Abdul Rashid
www.savsign.org
As regard to the ICT enhancement, our country Zambia is still behind. Most of the government institutions are still using the old fashion of record keeping etc . More still needs to be done.
Chimanga Kashale
Thanks for your comments. I personally think the appropriate time to allow srudents to use mobile phones in school is now.
Abdul Rashid
www.savsign.org
It's true that it would be chaos during free call period. But I think if students are educated about positive use of the mobile phone and the hazards associated with long telephone calls, it would help.
Take a senario where students money for school is finished and the student can't comunicate with the parents or a situation where male teachers would take advantage of female students because the female students asked to use the teachers phone to reach out to the parents. So its obvious that whether the student is allowed to use the mobile phone in school or not there is still some amount of danger.
Abdul Rashid
www.savsign.org
It is interesting that you have identified the potential of mobile phones in schools. it is at the same time unfortunate that you cannot implement your idea in schools due to restrictions on the use of the gadget for students.
I somehow agree with the restrictions on use of mobile phones by students but the restriction should not be indefinate.
students should be allocated time to access and use their mobile phones pegged on a project or assignment given by a teacher otherwise the generation of students in the 21st century will misuse the phone to satisfy other motives definately.
For example in Uganda where there is tight competition among telecom companies, there are times when phone calls are absolutely free and people can talk for hours in this case it would be chaos for the students.
as i mentioned above, mobile phones can be used by students but with defining the time of use and setting what to achieve within that time.
Joel
That is a great way of using what one has to get what one desires. I hope that many people in deprive areas would take a que from this. But let me be quick to add that, such talent should not be allowed to waste.
Rashid
www.savsign.org
On Tursday the 14th of April 2011, the Female ICT Teachers Association (FICTTA) was publicly launched in Tamale. The Launch was at a GINKS organised advocacy seminar on ICTs in Education in Northern Ghana.
The following short video gives a vivid imprseeion of the public launch of FICTTA.
Enjoy!
This is to inform you all that there will be a public launch of FICTTA on Thursday the 14th of April 2011 at the Tamale Sports Stadium Conference Centre in Tamale, Ghana.
For those who can attend this event, you are invited. I sure will share videos and photos of this event.
Cheers!
Its great to see ITU doing this for women. Like once said by one great Ghanaian, "if you educate a man, you educate an individual, but If you educate a woman, you educate a nation". It is in the light of this that I want to to say "ayi Koo" (congratulations) to ITU.
I want to encourage ITU to try to work with other organisations like savana Signatures that are also running female related ICT programs aimed at empowering the female and women at large to be able to take up challenging roles in society.
One such female programs is the Female ICT Teachers Association (FICTTA) which is aimed at building the capacity of Female/women teachers to help them incoporate ICT into teaching and learning in the class room. There would be a launching program for the association on the 14th April, 2011.
Abdul - Rashid Imoro
Program Officer, Education
Savana Signatures
www.savsign.org
Thanks for sharing
I have liked the link.
Danny
Thanks for your comments. The site makes "dimes" out of subscriptions. For now the site is open, but soon access to complete tender details will be restricted, unless one is fully subscribed. The rates are approx $10/month or a discounted annual rate of $100.
We have engaged a one-on-one approach, by talking to individual organisations that publish tenders to send advertise their tenders on the site at a fraction of what they would pay to newspapers.
We are planning on placing somde adverts in newspaper, and doing some radio shows, to publicise the platform
This is a good innovation. I am now trying to explore how this can be used in health survailance.
Thanks for the post of this nifomation.
Danny
I am so grateful for sharing this concept. However I have a a few questions
1) How do you source out for all this information, especially the local content?
2) How does the business earn its dime? Is it form the subscribers? And how much in dollars to they pay?
3) How do you make the platform known to by the intersted clients/those who need the services?
regards
Danny
personnal i really wich to do something simillar for craft people here in cameroon to help them market their craft.
congratulation
I have gone through and so far it looks good. Is there are way making government and parastetal organizations procurement departments come on board?
That is a very great effort there. I am directly in charge of ICT education in Savana Signatures in Ghana. We have Ict Clubs in some basic and second cycle institutions in the Northern part of Ghana and the organisation have had this idea to organise ICT quiz and debates among the school ICT clubs. To see you already doing in your country is a very great move.
But please could you share some of your experience with me on how you organised it. I would also be very grateful if you could tell me how you got funding for the project and as well recommend some international organisation where you think our organisation could approach for support to also organise ICT quiz for our school clubs in Ghana and northern region to be precise. Keep the good work and hope to hear from you.
Thanks for your comments!
I have visited the site and man, it is great! Is there a way of subscribing to it?
Cheers!
http://www.youtube.com/wa...
Why dont you post this same story in the ICT4D Comic Contest (http://iconnect-online.org/blogs/ict4d-comic-contest.) Who knows, Savana Signatures through you could be a proud winner!
Cheers!
Many welcomed the news when the government of Ghana declared its intention to introduce ICT as a subject of study in the basic and second cycle institutions. A lot of Ghanaians were excited because of the new opportunities they hoped to get or enjoy with the new tool.
But the introduction of ICT in schools in Ghana came with challenges such as the absence of electricity in many schools, lack of computers as well as the technical people to effectively handle the subject and lack of facilities like computer laboratories in many schools as a result of inadequate class rooms.
In other to reduce the impact of the problems associated with the implementation of ICTs in the basic and second cycle schools, Savana Signatures visited selected schools in the Tamale Metropolitan and Savelugu Nanton district to form ICT clubs. The ICT clubs were formed in schools that responded to the communiqué sent by Savana Signatures to schools for permission to form the savsign ICT clubs. . The activities of the clubs include;
The organization at the moment has clubs in the following schools in the Tamale Metropolis: Darul Hardis JHS and primary, Miracle International JHS and Bishop JHS and Primary. In the Savelugu district Savana Signatures have clubs in Yoo R/C JHS, Savelugu Experimental JHS, Pong Tamale SHS, Pong Tamale Experimental JHS and primary and Pong Tamale D/A primary and JHS. Membership is however open to all schools with interest and the team of Savana Signatures is working hard to ensure that many schools come on board.
Savana Signatures team or officers/madams’ assists students and teachers with their problems in the learning of ICT and they also share knowledge with them on ICT related issues. For instance, the Savana Signatures team has had discussions with students on topics such as ICTs in education, ICT as a research tool, and effective use of ICT for development.
Member schools are also allowed to use the Savana Signatures computer lab as and when the need arises. Teachers bring their students for lessons especially on the use of the internet. The organization also invites members of the ICT clubs to forums and seminars.
ABDUL – RASHID IMORO
SAVANA SIGNATURES www.savsign.org
The 'ICT Clinic' could also help to take away the fears in the female student about ICTs and to better infrom them that it is not a male thing. This could also give the female participants in the clinic an opportunity to meet female role models in the area of ICT which could serve as a motivation to the female student to go into the area of science and technology.
Thanks
Christine
Thanks
Christine
Many thanks for your post. I understand that the issue of low female participation in ICT is not just limited to my country Ghana alone, but it is a global issue. Last year, i was in Zambia and i noticed that Zambia was not an exception.
The challenge is more, especially in the face of little or no funding opportunities for such projects. My, organisation, Savana Signatures is making all efforts to get funding to support the activities of FICTTA. So far, we have not been successful.
Lee Muzala, Chairperson of ebrain in Zambia is one of the key persons you should contact. Already, Lee and Joel from Uganda have expressed interest in formaing the Zambian and Ugandan branch of FICTTA. Personally, i think that this is one sure way to go.
We can put our heads together, come out with more innovative ways of maintaining and sustaining such a project.
It has not been an easy task to arouse and sustain the interest of the FICTTA members so far. It will therefore be a brilliant idea to come out with further innovative ways of sustaining such a project, lest their interest dies down.
Any ideas on how we can move forward with this? Christine, Joel, Lee, anyone, please share your thoughts!
Cheers!
In my Country Zambia, during this important day some senior officials from Ministry of Education who were ladies organised IT Specialists to sensitize women during the importance of ICT in their daily activities. Ministry of Education have an eLearning Mobile Lab Bus which was exposed to the women to teach them how ICT can change their lives. It was very wonderful and the response was overwhelming amongst the women. This will make more women to take up such courses that can help them change things with the help of ICT.
Thanks
Thanks for that great move
He says (scratching his head): "ICT ni nama nshi?" (iciBemba for "What kind of a beast is ICT?")
She says: "Don't be foolish! ICT is the Internet CrossCountry Taskforce, of course!"
He jumps up and down.
They walk away
He says (scratching his head): "I can't seem to get my computer switched on! I have been trying from 8 hours when I reported for work. I am afraid my boss won't spare me. Please I need your help as the in-house techie!"
She says: "There's nothing much I can do. Have you noticed that we have no power in the building since 8?"
He jumps up and down.
They walk away
woman: Ooh it is very easy! Press the menu button on your phone, select Messages, then select Create message, Text message. Press the keys on your phone keypad to start typing in the message you want. You can use any language you want.
man: Thank you very much Mary! Please teach me how to do so the community people do not luagh at me.
===============================
man: I haven't heard from our son in the city for ages. I wonder if he is well.
woman: john is ever on the Internet. You can send him an email in our community centre or better still call him on our mobile phone.
man: Yes! Am going to call him on our mobile phone.
==============================
man: the examination results of our son have been released by examinations board. The trip to town is very expensive with the current high fuel prices!!
woman: Don't worry Papa. It is easy to receive his exam results via mobile phone. In a new message, type: UACE<space>Index number (exam number) and send the message to 6600.
man: How much does this message cost?
woman: Ooh Papa, the message is only 500 shillings and the results are instantly sent back to you.
man: My daughter, quick help me get your brother's results! We must celebrate his good performance.
#################################
man: The food ministry has sent me a message predicting a very long draught with shortages of food, water & pasture. I wonder how we can monitor the situation
woman: Your mobile phone has a menu, like "MTN Menu". You can a number of services included in it. There is, for example, Infortainment which has "trade info". Under that you can find out commodity prices and weather reports.
man: Thank you very Mary. Please show me how to use it.
Many thanks for your comments. FICTTA has planned a series of programs to help improve upon female participation in ICTs. The challenge has been funding.
I am glad that the FICTTA president has sent out a challenge to females in the country who are at the forefront of ICT to be more visible in championing the case for women participation in Science and Technology. I was particularly excited when she cited the examples of Dorothy Gordon – Director General, Ghana- India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence, Estelle Akofio Sowah – Country Director, google Ghana, Eva Lokko – Former director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Cooporation as some examples of women who have achieved and are at the forefront of ICTs.
Hopefully, with all of these women coming together to champion this case, we should have a lot more young females taking active part in ICTs.
Cheers!
Unfortunately funding wasn't available to move ahead towards implementation, and a full training plan hasn't been developed. The general idea is that each of the four modules would include a self study component (faciiltated online by an instructor) and a week-long (in person) workshop. Excerpts from a draft of the course structure that I prepared are copied below. I hope that's helpful!
Heidi
Course Structure and Delivery
As mentioned previously, the course has a modular design. This is to allow for significant flexibility in meeting the needs of the learners. While designed to be completed in the order shown, there would be little knowledge lost for the learner who needed to complete the modules out of order. A learner could also skip a module that he or she felt did not meet his or her needs. The process of enrolling and participating in each module is outlined below.Please Note: the steps below refer to Zambia Pacific Trust (ZPT) as the organization that is managing this training course. However, this course could also be adopted and administered by other organizations in Zambia or elsewhere.
Reference to infrastructure. I think there are less highly sophisticated tools that can be used to reach the rural areas. For einstance the application of the Video Bloggerl to capture real life situations/stories -about women/girls and children. This information/content can be made available on CD-ROM and can be made accessible to the women using a simple Personal Computer that is run by a generator.
Agnes
i absolutely agree with you about importance of social network for women's empowerment. we try to employ social networkings and collaboration to end violence against women. Check out our campaign Take Back The Tech! (www.takebackthetech.net) that calls on all ICT users – especially women and girls – to take control of technology and strategically use any ICT platform at hand (mobile phones, instant messengers, blogs, websites, digital cameras, email, podcasts and more) for activism against gender-based violence. I have also find fascinating this presentation from one of our partners on their approach to technology in addressing violence in post-conflict situation
http://www.genderit.org/r... (alternatively you can use this link )
Best,
Katerina
Dear Christine and Janet,
thank you very much for your interesting inputs on transforming effect of ICTs for women. So truth about the value of ICTs and importance of ICTs skills for rural women and their empowerment, however very often they deal with the issue of lack of infrastructure and lack of time to participate in ICT training and use. In 2002, my home organization, the APC (www.apc.org), has developed the Gender, Agriculture and Rural Development in the Information Society (GenARDIS) small grants fund that aims to assist overcome some of these constraints and challenges encountered by rural women particularly. You can be interested to listen to some of the stories of this project participants how their lives are changing thanks to access to technologies http://genardis.apcwomen.org/en/node/146
Katerina F.
Dear Christine,
great to hear you are interested in attending the conference. I must appologize: in the original event I posted, there was a problem with the link pointing to the conference website. This is fixed now. If you go to their website, you will find information on the workshops, travel information, accomodation and others. The registration fee is between USD100 and 150 (depending on if you are a student or not). The conference takes place from March 23 to 26. Please get in touch with the conference organisers if you want to know more.
I hope this was helpful.
Kind regards,
Anne
Thanks for now.
Christine
Am a Zambian Lady who has interest with ICT but lacking financial resources to enable me finish my Degree, MA and PH D in IT. Currently, am an ASSOCIATE in Information Systems. Kindly shed more light on when the conference will be held and other requirements to know before the Conference kicks off.
I look forward to hearing from you soonest.
Best regards
Christine Kafulo
as I saw your interests also lie in the area of FOSS, maybe the training modules shared in this post also interest you?
Cheers,
Anne
This is a great module for developing skills for Computer Lab Managers.
Do you have a draft training plan for this module?
Tonny
Thanks for the FICTTA idea!
CfSU has been implementing a one year ICT4E pilot project supported by IICD. the training is aimed at aiding teachers to use the available tools develop ICT enhanced lessons for quality education.
This training has been conducted in 13 secondary schools with each school training atleast 20 teachers.
the training is open to all teachers provided they have basic ICT skills, one of the challenges we have noticed is low representation of female teachers during training. on average female participation is 1/5.
i have some questions about this:
Steve and others, have you tried to find out why there is low female participation in ICT related programs?
how are you motivating women to participate in FICTTA?
It is a splendid idea but will also be interesting if packaging addresses the needs of women.
Greetings
Joel
Regarding experience and resulting recommendations for HMIS use at hospital/health clinic level in Tanzania, this publication from 2010 supports and concretises many of the recommendations made in the East African Community E-Health workshop.
Regarding Telemedicine, also one of the key recommendations resulting from the Kigali event, the following would appear to be interesting resources to bring concrete and practical experience from Tanzania into the dialogue.
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the practical experience gained by the Tanzania Evangelical Lutheran Church Tanzania (ELCT) telemedicine project in this publication can act as input to further planning and strategizing and can provide an insight and advice based on experience (time required, inputs, stakeholder involvement, training, technology solution, challenges, etc.)
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a detailed report on the iPath Telemedicine system which is already being widely used for Telemedicine in the region
A question that comes to my mind is what are the next steps in moving forward with the recommendations from the Kigali workshop? How can we ensure that all experience that is already available in the region related to the recommendations can be bundled and efforts reinforce eachother? Are you involved with the follow-up trajectory after the Kigali meeting?Thanks again for sharing!
Cheers!
I agree with you. I think that when we tag locally made goods and or products as "local", they tend to remain local and even if it does, "local" folks tend not to patronise them.
What i think we need to focus on is to do a very good branding and vigourous marketting. Have the international community in mind while branding. That should work!
Cheers!
Thanks for sharing/
Appreciate the work and thanks for informing us.
Electricity may be furnished by renewable sources (solar energy for exemple). Projects may help to get hardwares and train people to use them. The main problem remains the permanent access to internet and mobile network. That needs a political solution.
If electricity and internet available, people will know how to use ICT to improve their life. Then any project cannot be successfull if it is not initiated or accepted by final users.
Do you have any insights/experience in how this change management can be successful?
The increase in the percentage of women in ICT at Makerere University has been a result of many efforts spanning over about two decades.
At the beginning of the 1990s the University instituted an affirmative action programme which provides additional grades to women entering University. This in general increased enrolment of women in many programmes including ICT.
In 1991, the University established the Department of women and gender studies which spearheaded gender training and research in the University.
Later a gender mainstreaming unit was established to do the gender mainstreaming in practical terms throughout the University.
In 2003, the Department of Women and Gender Studies started a training programme that prepared thousands of women to take up ICT training. This was partly done with the CISCO Academy Female Initiative programme plus many internal programmes.
The faculty of computing started training women and put up measures such as fees discounts for women, scholarships and mentorship programmes.
The entire University designed policies that addressed gender mainstreaming in ICT and other programmes. Favourable leadership has also been key.
There was also research, monitoring and feedback drawing lessons and feeding into progress.
In short these are some of the explanations bit the entire environment and willingness to design and implement friendly policies is important.
What is not known is how far this effort will be suatained and how women will fit in the workplace and prosper in industry.
It is amazing how a decline of women in IT is a global concern. Even in developed countries like USA, that is the same concern (only 18% women have graduated in computer and information science degrees). This month in USA, to address rapid dwindling number of women in IT, a CompTIA Education Foundation has created the Women in Information Technology Council and charged it with convincing those with the right knowledge and skills to make IT their career of choice.
I think that some years back, we had the same concerns in the field of medicine and engineering where there were very few women choosing these careers. These statistics have since changed, and we hardly here any alarms raised in many African countries in these fields.
Therefore, i believe with initiatives like yours and many others, statistics of women in IT will change for the better.
Starting at school level at the point when girls are making career choices is key. With role modelling and profiiling of women in ICT including teachers, thats a good start.
Do share your lessons learnt. Id love to share them in my publication.
Just to do a further follow up on my ealier post, could you please share with us the following information?
1) What was the result from working with the School of Women and Gender Studies to make ICT training more gender-sensitive?
2) What changes to 'regular' ICT training were suggested to be made? In order words, what are a few (top 5?) of the key things to keep in mind when designing or delivering gender sensitive ICT training from their experience?
Thanks for sharing all of these exeriences already!
Cheers!
Thanks Anne for joining in with your insights.
The following is a document represents views from some women. It was collated by IICD staff via women dgroup (i am not too sure if this group still exists though).
Though these views were collated a long time ago, i find that some of the issues raised are still very relevant.
IICD systematically has a higher number of men in its training programs. Are women just not interested in training in ICTs or should we organise our trainings differently?
The participants of the Dgroup on women and ICT had the following ideas; they don’t think women are not interested but see the following inhibiting factors:
· The selection methods and timing of training programs
I would say that the method of selection is one factor that inhibit the participation of women in most of these seminars and trainings. Another factor is time, most women have extra schedules of taking care of the house aside their work and sometimes it makes it difficult for the to leave the house for long periods. Is training over a weekend when a lot of women have to be with family? Is it even marketed to women or to men mostly? What is marketing strategy - formal and informal? (Manju Chatanu) Women usually do not have the exact requirements for most of the trainings available so maybe a module should be designed for such ladies (Joyce Jambeidu)
· Women’s attitude towards technology
I also think that women are not very technically savvy. They think 'electronics' is the man's field and so turn to neglect it. For instance if a woman's cell phone is out of order, she is more likely to give it to her husband to troubleshoot than to try to it herself. (Abigail Thompson) There may be reasons why men are more comfortable with gadgets. If we look at video games - there are more boys who have the time or peer support to experiment with video games at i-cafes or with friends so they are comfortable with ICT. Women and girls, on the other hand, don’t have so much disposable leisure time as they have errands. Also many such games are not made with girls in mind and plus these cyber-cafes are not 'easy' places for girls to go to when there are lots of boys playing aggressive games. (Manju Chatanu)
· Technical jargon
ICT training can be classified as very unfriendly, most times the instructors bully you with their technical jargons but these could be made to be gender friendly. I have had the opportunity of sitting in some ICT trainings and my problem has always been that it was full of technical jargons which could be explained to simple everyday English. (Abigail Thompson)
They had the following suggestions for the way forward:
· Female instructors
Try and bring a gender face to most training aimed at women. You can bring women instructors etc.
· Avoid jargon
Technical jargons can be explained using analogies, everyday examples etc. I remember my boss once said laptops are not gender friendly otherwise they would be made to fit into a woman's handbag or even easy to carry! (Abigail Thompson).
· Develop special modules for women
Find an appropriate ICT training module for our women we REALLY need sure trainings. (Joyce Jambeidu) Use appropriate training methodology (experiential vs rote-learning vs shared learning vs team projects vs individual projects)
· Timing of training to suit women’s preferences
Don’t plan your training when women are supposed to be with their families or have other duties.
Cheers!
I liked the first post on the female directors. I think that this helps a lot, not just because they may see bottle necks for female participation perqhaps sooner, but more importantly: because they can serve as inspirational role models for other women. Actually, as IICD starts working in Kenya soon, this is something that I have been looking into. I've found a group of tech oriented young ladies, so let see if they, or others, would be interested in becoming trainers... showing other women that technology is not a scary thing! ;-)
I also liked what Lee shared about Twitter and Facebook... I do think getting women on board is largely a framing issue. I studied at a tech uni myself (in the Netherlands) where at the time the male female ratio was abput 85-15, but with huge differences between the different faculties: electronics and computer science used to have virtually no women at all, but architecture and industrial design (while not necessarily less difficult or less "tech") could have up to 40% women. Perhaps presenting courses as "tech" does scare away some people (not just women, but elderly too?), while "communication" may attract a very different crowd!
By the way: I read an article recently that did away with the misconception that girls have less aptitude for maths. All tests that show boys are better equipped for maths have a bias towards a certain way of working or presenting the materials. As soon as you use a different test, girls perform equally well (or even better!).
Many thanks for the drawing our attention to good practice in Makerere University. It is good to read of the successes at your university.
Can you please further share with us some of the practical things that were done to raise female enrolment to over 40%?
Will trained women be accepted in the industry and will they feel accepted? I think that male professionals also have a duty to support female professionals who are in the industry or are aspiring to.
My thoughts.
Cheers!
Steve and all
Makerere University School of Computing and Information Technology (Uganda) may have some lessons to learn from. The School managed to raise female enrolment to over 40%. It is currently headed by a woman and in its early times as an Institute, it was headed by a woman, currently Director of ICT Support in the entire Makerere University. Its first PhD graduate is a woman. The school and the entire University has worked with the School of Women and Gender Studies to make ICT training gender sensitive and also taken on board the CISCO female initiative. These could be some of the lessons that one can learn from.
The challenge of course is still if the trained women will get to employment in industry where they feel welcome.
An association for women female teachers a good point to begin. But the work is enormous and will require a lot of stamina involving overcoming many setbacks along the way.
Cheers.
I am glad to hear about this. Savana Signatures will be very happy to see this happen. Lets discuss further. This could just be the turning point to have more female participation in ICTs.
Cheers!
Thanks for your comments. As far as i know, this is the very first of its kind and we at Savana Signatures are happy to be involved in this. We will love to help with setting up other chapters in other countries ( FICTTA - Burkina, FICTTA - Uganda, FICTTA - Zambia, etc) and then move to network them to share knowledge. We are willing to see this come to pass.
Cheers!
So, Steve watch for a Zambian chapter.
Cheers,
Maurizio
Cheers,
Maurizio
No i don't know. I'd suggest you get in touch directly with the people organising the course, i think there's an email in the above post, right? Let us know what you find out, if sponsorship is available, it may also be of interest to other iConnect Education members. Cheers!
This looks to be a very useful course especially to we those working in the ICTs in Education field. Do you know if there is any sponsorship of schorlarship avenue for this programme?
Cheers!
I have noticed that this site http://www.studentfinance... offers student loans for resident outside USA following online training in certain universities, you can check the list at this link https://secure.privatestu..., filling up the form.
Another link that might interest you is this one http://www.investinmyeduc... it is a platform for students and investors.
Cheers,
Maurizio
Good to hear about this development. I will look forward to how far this will go and then pick up on some lessons.
Cheers!
I will follow this up and share with you. Maybe these are some of the opportunities where those ICT clinics for girls can be squeezed, just to make sure that students dont feel disoriented with these skills training, but rather help them see a bit further in their lives.
Will keep in touch on some further developments.
Many thanks for your post. Your thoughts and ideas are very helpful...it provokes further thought on female participation in ICTs and the gendered divide.
I agree with your strategies;
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careful consideration of cultural and social aspects taken into account at project formulation level.
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Forge partnerships with women networks and women focused NGOs, to promote and mobilise resources to develop projects that will embrace the use of ICTs,
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making follow up on workshops.
The last one...making followups is very important. This is because for most projects, we tend to make them one off things and even when follow ups are made, it takes ages to come.The other issue that i have identified is that there is very little funding for Gender/Women in ICTs projects. Savana Signatures has developed a concept of undertaking series of Girls ICT clinics (conferences). We have visisted almost every corporate institution that we can think of for support but this is not forth coming.
At FICTTA, we hope to carry on with the support for these female teachers and hope that this support will go a long way to inspire young girls in school to take up active role in ICTs.
Cheers!
Personally, I feel its an issue of interest, much more than any form of segregation. Take for instance the use of social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter, I am pretty sure that if you did an in depth analysis of gender participation by country, you will notice that the gap between male and female "facebookers" is very thin. But when it comes to projects, I think its another issue.
Some of the strategies I can think of as at now are as follows:
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At project concept formulation and planning level, careful consideration of cultural and social aspects needs to be addressed adequately.
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Forge partnerships with women networks and women focused NGOs, to promote and mobilise resources to develop projects that will embrace the use of ICTs, as well as encourage communication among members and accessing resources through the use of ICTs (eg when renewing membership, no paper-based membership forms will be accepted). Lets try to drive people towards a certain way of doing things, and not waiting on them.
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We should also always make it a point and even plan for it - follow up on workshops. As we strive to raise awareness among women on the subject of communication and new technologies, we should also institute mentoring processes so that women's groups and organisations can fully take advantage of the benefits of ICTs, and build capacities, provide follow-up and orientation so that women perceive the possibilities offered by ICTs.
I hope this helps you Steve, despite having to respond to your plea a little late. My apologies, I am so caught up with work, as I am trying to expand my small firm to other regions of Zambia.Cheers!
Its has been a long time. Since Lusaka, we were unable to get the opportunity to communicate again. I hope your projects are picking up. I am glad that this platform has brought us to communicate again.
Many thanks for your contributions. One thing that i have not thought of is the use of flyers, etc to publicise this association. It is a great idea. Thanks!
The only challenge and fear is that we might get overwhelemed by the numbers when they start pouring in, especially that this service is free.
Thanks for your contribution
Cheers!
Bonsoir,
Je concois avec Benjamin qu'il faut privilégier la formation par les paires pour susciter de l'émulation et accroitre le nombre de femmes.
Je pense qu'il appartient aux femmes au regard des mutations sociales que le monde connait aujourd'hui de trouver le temps et les armes de leurs ambitions. Que veux-je dire? Il s'agit de nous appuyer sur des femmes leaders dans les zones du projet (au Burkina Madame KONE a créé un intérêt des femmes pour les TIC. Elle a même pu antrainer sa directrice à faire la même formation qu'elle et elles viennent toutes les deux de soutenir avec brio leur master2) pour sensibiliser les autres.
Je pense à des conférences dans les établissements et dans les centres de formation des enseignant(e)s. Même si on n'a pas récu une formation pendant sa formation de maitre ou de professeur on aura le gout de la formation continue par soi-même.
Il faut aussi je pense à travers des témoignages susciter l'intérêt c'est à ce prix que les femmes s'engageront.
Il s'agit aussi dans le cadre de votre projet de montrer que vous êtes une possibilité gratuite de rentrer dans le monde des TIC par la distribution de prospectus.
Merci
Christophe HIEN
Un grand mercipour touslesconseilsbeauté. Ilssontbiennoté. Unedeschoses que jeremarquea étéleexcitationdesenseignantsles plus.......flestraduirece qu'ilsontdéjàappristhéoriquementà l'école. Je reconnais aussi quecertainsd'entre euxont vules jargonstechniquesutilisésdansles TICcomme des obstacles àles embrasserla technologie. J'espèrequecetteambiance convivialeque monorganisationacréépoureux, ilsferontle meilleurusagede celui-ci.
******************************************************************
Dear Ben, Many thanks for all the beautiful tips. They are well noted. One of the things i noticed was the excitment of the teachers .......most f them translating what they have previously learnt theoretically in school. I also agree that some of them saw the technical jargons used in ICT as barriers to them embracing technology. I am hoping that with this friendly atmosphere that my organisation has created for them, they will make the best use of it.
Many thanks for taking interest in FICTTA. The first meeting went very well. It offered an opportunity to the membership to network among themselves and also to share experiences from their schools. It was highly interactive.
Members also took the opportunity of filling out membership registration forms and also to elect their executives. While Mrs. Angela Boateng of Kamina Junior High School was elected President, Miss Theresa Adabugar of Northern School of Business Senior High School was elected Vice President. Miss Flavia Kwara Nonati of Tampe Kuokuo R/C Primary School was elected Organiser and Miss Helen Dabo of St. Charles Senior High School was elected as Secretary of the Association.
Later on Monday, the members started their ICT capacity building program at the Savana Signatures. The total membership is 37. They have therefore been put into three groups of 10. This is because Savana Signatures has only 10 computers at the ICT Centre. The three groups (Anika, Theodora and Amadora) will take their turns twice a week as follows;
Anika (A Dutch name meaning Very Beautiful) – Monday/Tuesday
Theodora (A Greek name meaning Gift of God) – Tuesday/Wednesday
Amadora (An Italian name meaning Gift of Love) – Thursday/Friday
The last group, Venus, made up of 7 members is on the waiting list.
FICTTA members for now will build their capacity in basic ICT skills. The second stage of the capacity building will involve helping them to design their lessons using a computer that they will have to deliver in their classrooms with the help of a projector. Savana Signatures staff will mentor them on this.
Note that all staff of Savana Signatures have an educational/teaching background and therefore are well positioned to mentor FICTTA members in this regard.
Our key challenges as an organization right now is to be able to secure some more computers and more importantly projectors for the teachers to use in delivering their lessons.
Cheers!
pour faciliter l'engagement des enseignantes, il faut prendre en compte les facteurs bloquant leur. Il s'agit principalement:
- la technophobie qui est quelque peu propre à la gente feminine
- Aménager un emploi du temps qui tient compte de leurs occupations. En Afrique particulièrement les femmes sont plus chargées que nous les hommes. En plus des occupations liées à leurs emplois, elles doivent s'occuper de la famille (les enfants, la cuisine...)
- Il faut privilégier la formation par les paires, notamment les collègues enseignantes. Ce qui permet de dissiper la peur et de lever certaines barrières.
Voici un lien qui pourrait d'aider:
http://www.tanmia.ma/guid...
A bientôt
How did the first meeting go last friday? How did you end up dealing with the large number of female teachers that signed up? What activities do you think FICTTA will be facilitating to engage female teachers to learning about and using ICTs?
I am curious to learn from FICTTA's experiences!
Cheers!
I am about to enter my semester III in PC Maintenance Technology. I am doing an On-line Associate Degree with a USA University but the problem I have faced is lack of sponsorship. Are there avenures one can use to secure some sort of sponsorship or scholarship?
I have tried the University but with on help.
Yours
Collardo
Bonsoir Anne,
Je vous remercie pour l'appréciation de l'article.
Le LTAC est un établissement dont des enseignants sont membres du groupe TIC-EDUC et qui participent aux activités du groupe.
Merci
Christophe HIEN
Many thanks for the comments on the FICTTA post.
I have taken note of them and have gone ahead to post in the gender advise forum. I hope that members will respond soon.
Cheers!
I was wondering if this wouldn't be great content for the iConnect gender group and also if you were willing to share some project related insights with us? E.g., which are the activities undertaken by the FICTTA to encourage young women in the use and study of ICTs? I see the initiative is still quite new, so maybe you would welcome suggestions by others who have worked in this field before? Why not ask in the gender advise forum and find out if someone has some ideas? Let's see if iConnect has some experience exchange potentials to help you get started!
Dites-moi, c'est quoi votre relacion avec LTAC, juste pour comprendre un peut le contexte?
Je vous félicite pour la contribution bien réussie.
Bonjour steve,
Merci pour les encouragemeents et les félicitations.
Les leçons apprises sont nombreuses mais je m'adarderai sur les points essentiels.
Nous avons pu comprendre que les choses avancent dans un établissement quand les premiers responsables sont porteurs de projet ou lorsque l'équipe qui conduit le projet le fait avec la bénédiction du chef d'établissement. Il a ensuite aussi été constaté que les projets qui survivent sont ceux qui impliquent à la fois les élèves, les enseignants et l'administration.
Nous comptons avec cette étude d'abord convaincre les établissement qui hésitent à intégrer les TIC à le faire en s'inspirant des exemples montrés. Il s'agira ensuite de mobiliser des partenaires potentiels autour des TICE dans nos établissement afin d'accroitre l'usage du potentiel des TIC pour l'enseignement. Enfin, nous comptons attirer l'attention de nos décideurs politiques( policy maker) sur la généralisation des TIC dans les établissements.
Je suis très heureux ainsi que le groupe TIC-EDUC-Bf de l'intérêt que vous portez à l'étude.
Nous avons effectivement fait face à plusieurs défis dans le partage de l'information.
Le premier défi fut celui de créer un réseau d'échange et de partage dynamique dans laquelle les expériences et les information sont effectivement partagé. Le second, lié au premier fut celui de tenir le groupe toujours dynamique.Le troisième fut ll'identification des besoins des acteurs de l'enseignement secondaire et les supports de partage de contenus adaptés à leur milieu et environnement. Ce qui nous a amené tour à tour de tenir des conférences dans les régions du pays. de partager des liens et des ressources via le dgroup, de concevoir de poster de site web pour les écoles, des CDrom de cours interactifs pour les établissements avec ordinateurs et sans connnexion.
Merci!
Christophe HIEn
To give you an idea, the schools involved do not have any ICT subjects and so the knowledge was mainly based on their day to day experiences. The questions were elementary, basic and some a bit technical.
Sorry about the silence - end of year activities become so overwhelming. I have been on the road trying to wrap up some projects and business.
The Quiz was organised by the eBrain Forum Livingstone Chapter, and Zain Zambia (now Airtel) sponsored the event by providing t-shirts, wall clocks, pens, key-holders, caps and several other materials. eBrain Forum, courtesy of IICD Knowledge Sharing Officer (Martine Koopman) provided flash disks as part of the prizes.
Comments gathered after the event were on the lines of making the event an annual one, and Zain/Airtel agreed to continue supporting. We are currently trying to see how best other provinces can host similar events.
Thanks.
Lee
I am interested in knowing the challenges you face in sharing information and how you have overcome these?
I think by training teachers to be less afrain of the computers and embrace them in their teaching right at the beginning. Children will have more enmjoyable classes and tecahers shall deal with class adminstration much faster.
Many thanks for posting this information. I find it very interesting particularly the research to identify best practices in secondary schools. Can you please share a summarised learning points of the reasearch. What was the focus of the research and what do you hope to use the data for?
Cheers!
Many thanks for the links. It makes very interesting arguements. While in Zambia in May this year attending the CCLE organised by IICD some ideas came to mind. These ideas were further boosted with other thoughts and re focusing when at the elearning conference, i listed to a presentation made by a staff of the OLPC program.
My views are that technology is good a great. It can help do a lot of things especially if we adopt the ICT4Me lenses. However, most governments and institutions have mistakenly always focused on the chiled. Hence, all programs are geared towards the learner. Question is: What happens to the one who is to teach?
The teacher plays a very significant role in this chain. The teacher needs to gain the knowledge first. Then, he can use this technology...computer to preapare an interactive lesson which will facilitate the understanding of the students in a particular lesson/subject/topic.
Having the tool or making the tool available to students can not be the end. Then why will we need teachers? The tool should be an interactive facilitating catalyst for the understanding of students.
I still will have to read http://ict4djester.org/blog/?p=242 further so as to appreciate further their line of thoughts.
Thanks for the links.
Cheers!
I agree with Gonzalo. We are anxiously waiting to hear of the lessons of the competition.
Cheers!
Thanks for sharing what transpired at this event in Tamale! I wonder what the educational authorities present at the seminar responded to Savanannah Signatures' and Boldsteps Foundations' statements?
Regarding the One Laptop Per Child policy, there has been quite some thinking and writing about the programme, and whether it is the right programme or policy to advocate for.
Most recently, the ICT4DJester blog (which i respect a lot for its critical yet constructive thinking), wrote up a post intended for "(1) educational decision-makers who are considering OLPC (or computers for schools) and (2) people working for non-technological basics in schools, and who need ammunition to fight the seductive rhetoric of technology pushers. The points are made primarily for primary and secondary education in international development, though the arguments often apply beyond."
I hope you find it an interesting read, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the issue!
Cheers, saskia
The url to the blog post is: http://ict4djester.org/bl...
All the same, any follow up on the interschools quiz competition. As Stephen mentioned there is interest from organizations and schools to organize similar events ... in our case, here in the Copperbelt of Zambia.
Other members of this group might want to share their experiences in other parts of Africa (the world) ... and that would be great.
Best to all
merci pour cette précision.
A bientôt pour la suite!
Merci beaucoup pour votre contribution à la communauté! En ce qui concerne la traduction: comme celle-la est fourni par Google, nous ne possédons aucun influence sur la manière de traduction des mots spécifiques. Pour le moment, je regrette de répondre qu'il nèst pas prévue d'implementer une version française.
Dans l'attente de vos contributions ou commentaires supplémentaires.
Anne
I take it you will be participating yourself?
Looking forward to the presentations and reports coming out!
Kind regards,
Judith
Watch this space!
Also, could you please share with me the quiz questions after the 25th of October when it is over.
Cheers!
Cheers!
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Hi,
Relating to Sara's post, it depends on the technology. For example, a kidney dyalasis machine was created at university of (I forget where) using a blender, enabling its price to decreased by several $1000s.
I thought because it was technology (cheap technology nonetheless) about health issues and improving health through ICT (?) that I could post this. Do I have the wrong idea about what ICTs can be?
thanks Sarah for this post. It's good to be aware of the technologies being developed at universities in the US, and their potential appropriateness for addressing challenges face by the health sector in developing country contexts.
I'm not sure i see how this relates to the use of ICTs though - am i missing something?
Cheers! saskia
I cannot agree with you more Yesse, I think that the days where the teachers are all in all and the sole repository of knowledge are over.
However, the question is' is technology making more and more the teacher irrelevant?
ICT is simply a tool, like a chalk and board, over head projectors etc that a teacher could opt for taking of course into account the nature of content and learning styles of affected pupils.
The issue in my opinion is that when you take a teacher who has been using educational content accumulated over many years, and who is accustomed to a particular presentation method, how could you help them see the new opportunities presented by new technology and equally assist them make that IMPORTANT transition in a way that does leave them any room to compare old from new ways of doing things.
In my years working with teachers, this is an important area of focus for any ICT Evangelist. Whatever the answer, I would like to propose, must have teachers as part of the solution. Teachers like anybody else take delight in being recognized in whatever they do and certainly need enjoy some reasonable control over what they do. Indeed this is the means by which civilized societies rewards its people. So its important that when discussing ICT we also look the anonymity of ICT and the preservation of identities when it comes to educational content. I have looked at most educational content online and am encouraged by steps that other communities take to ensure that those that make valuable contribution to the body of knowledge online are sufficiently recognized through many ways including just basic attribution. For this to happen, some form of structure/organisation need to be in place to control and protect vested interest of hard working teacher from abuse. If teachers in Africa, like many that have interacted with appear disinterested to you, part of the reason is that they feel their contributions are simply been thrown away. This is not to suggest that educational content should always be made available at a fee. No.
My last comment which actually stresses my earlier point is that we need to constantly evaluate most technologies carefully to ensure that disruptive technologies, technologies that drastically changes everything for it work, is not introduced into schools indiscriminately. This is particularly true with technologies engineered by profit seeking industries.
What else..