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Source Evaluation
Digital services for education in Africa

17th edition in the Savoir communs series published by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) in conjunction with Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), Orange, and UNESCO. The contents are comprised of a study by the same organizations into the use of technology for education in Africa, specifically the Sub-Saharan region. It was originally written in French and translated by UNESCO into English.

Potential audiences for this publication could be educators, decision-makers, donors, tech workers and companies, public officials, and anyone else desiring to contribute to this initiative. The main topic of the publication is to inform stakeholders of past, current, and future efforts to improve basic education in Africa through the use of technology. This issue of Savoir communs focuses on providing background information about the initiative up to this point, and discusses the digital revolution and how it ties in to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education.

Article: Information and Communications Technology

This page has been edited quite a bit, but the section relating ICT to education is seriously lacking. It contains one large block quote from a UNESCO publication and a subsequent paragraph detailing all the problems with ICT integration in an ed. setting. I can use content from the above article provide more detail around the concept of ICT in education, with emphasis on the benefits for developing countries (using Sub-Saharan Africa as an example).

Some points of interest include:


 * Mobile devices
 * Widely accessible, with many uses: talk, text, video, web
 * A form of technology already familiar to students and teachers (limits the learning curve)
 * Benefits of e-education
 * Access e-books
 * Learning apps (educational games)
 * Virtual collaboration (brings together near/far)
 * Real-time updates on student progress
 * Test prep via mobile app
 * Distance tutoring
 * Overarching benefits of ICT
 * Access large quantities of content at a much lower cost
 * Doesn't require advanced or complicated tech
 * Promotes and facilitates learner-centered teaching
 * Allows for continuous assessment and feedback
 * Optimal for information sharing
 * Wide-reaching mobile network brings education to rural areas that previously did not have schools or other methods of formal education.
 * Education is part of infrastructure. Improving and expanding education system = improving and expanding infrastructure
 * Text from the article
 * "At the World Conference held in Jomtien (Thailand) in 1990, delegates from 155 countries and representatives of some 150 organizations committed to promoting universal primary education and radically reducing illiteracy before the end of the decade. " p.10
 * "...since 2010 the focus of the discussions has shifted, placing more emphasis on the quality and continuity of education, concentrating on social cohesion, the transition between stages, the post-primary debate and teacher training" p.10
 * "Today, governments in sub-Saharan Africa spend on average 18% of their total budget on education, against 15% in the rest of the world. " p.11
 * "The number of children in primary school in sub-Saharan Africa thus rose from 82 million in 1999 to 136.4 million in 2011. " p.12
 * "...for 2012, there were still 57.8 million children who were not in school. Of these, 29.6 million were in sub-Saharan Africa alone..." p.12
 * "The EFA 2012 report highlights great disparities between the sub-Saharan African countries: the percentage of children excluded from primary school is only 7% in Gabon and 14% in Congo compared to over 55% in Burkina Faso and Niger ..." p.15
 * Reasons for disparity include: political instability, a preponderance of rural areas, the importance of social origins, the social structure, gender inequality
 * Barriers to quality of education: teacher competency, training and preparedness, access to educational materials, lack of information management
 * How ICT factors in
 * wide-spread use of mobile devices: "the African continent today numbers 650 million mobile phone holders, which is more than the United States and Europe (ITU, 2013)" p.30
 * falling prices make it more plausible: "In 2014, the operator Vodacom, a subsidiary of Vodafone, stated that it had reduced the average actual price per minute of voice communication in South Africa for prepaid options – generally speaking the option most widely used by low income groups – by 25% in 2013 and 50% over the last three years, after prices had already fallen markedly throughout the previous decade." p.31
 * "A basic telephone today costs no more than US$10. " p.32
 * "...obstacles in the form of lack of electricity grids and hardware maintenance have been sidestepped. Over 350 million people in sub-Saharan Africa without electricity live in areas covered by the mobile network. " p.33
 * However: "the mobile phone remains out of reach of the poorest populations. In Nigeria, the price of the cheapest mobile phone would feed a family of five for five days (AFD, 2010)" p.34
 * On lowering costs and covering more areas: "Unless there are new advances that revolutionize the current cost structure, public-private cooperation or cooperation between operators will be a necessity in order to extend coverage." p.36
 * "In 2014, according to the ITU, only 19% of Africans had Internet access..." p.37
 * Only 8% of households in sub-saharan africa have a fixed, portable, or tablet or PC p.37
 * But the rate of internet access growth is much higher than in other developing countries: 27% from 2009-2013 against 15% in other parts of the world. p.38
 * high-bandwidth mobile internet has also grown, from 2-19% from 2010-2014. p.38
 * smartphone penetration expected to reach 20% by 2017 p.38
 * Fibre-optics from France brought HSI to 10 countries on the West African coast p.38
 * M-education
 * "The sharing of information has been made much easier, which promotes transparency. " p.48
 * Nomadic tools p.48
 * mobile phones
 * widespread
 * familiar
 * communication (peer-to-peer, student-teacher)
 * listening to recorded resources
 * smart phones
 * watching and making videos & photos
 * reading (SMS, pdf e-pub)
 * apps
 * tablets
 * Supports teacher training (p.51)
 * "In 2011, UNESCO launched Mobile Learning Week, a one-week symposium, while the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was the driving force behind an alliance, the Mobiles for Education Alliance, bringing together various international organ izations, foundations, NGOs and development agencies." p.49
 * Goal: to discuss "role of quality, low-cost mobile technologies in literacy and gender equality in order to improve the quality of the educational system at all levels" p.49
 * "ICT can, first and foremost, allow large-scale access to a great variety of content, individually or collectively, both for the preparation of lessons and for working in or out of the classroom. " p.51
 * Promotes active learning (p.52)
 * geared toward developing skills
 * problem solving, case studies, simulation
 * Promotes assessment and continuous improvement (p.52)
 * mobile devices "facilitate the administration, correction and consultation of results, both internally and externally."
 * apps like Tangerine gather data the students input, checks for correctness and even allows for comparison of student performance.
 * promotes accountability in teachers and involvement of parents and communities (53)
 * ICT began being introduced in schools via educational radio and tv in the 1960's (56). In the 1990's there was a massive effort to distribute computer hardware and software to schools, familiarizing students and teachers with computers in the classroom (60). Since the early 2000's, the efforts have been focused on several projects intending to make sure students had access to information technology, whether independently or in groups. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project was launched in 2005, providing laptops at a highly discounted rate. At the time of this article, nearly 2 million students and teachers were involved with the project and more than 2.4 million laptops had been distributed. (62) A 2012 study showed that students using laptops from OLPC were 4-6 months ahead in cognitive and logical skills. (63-4) At the time of the article, very few other studies on the impact of ICT had been conducted, so further research on the subject is needed.