From baohui.zhang at nie.edu.sg Fri Jun 8 17:21:18 2007 From: baohui.zhang at nie.edu.sg (ZHANG Baohui (LST, LSL)) Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 17:21:18 +0800 Subject: FW: In news - Eschool works Message-ID: <198327529C331D4D95D06C293F66E87B66DCF5@NIESFM3.niestaff.cluster.nie.edu.sg> Dear G1to1 colleagues, My NIE colleague, Dr. Philip Wong, sent around the latest positive news about the efficacy of ICT. Hope to share with all of you. Cheers. BaoHui ************************************* ZHANG, BaoHui (???), PhD, Assistant professor Learning Sciences and Technology (LST) Academic Group Learning Sciences Lab (LSL) National Institute of Education (NIE) Nanyang Technological University 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616 65-6790-3284 (O); 65-6896-8038 (Fax) Emails: BaoHui.Zhang at nie.edu.sg ? BaoHui.Zhang at gmail.com URLs: http://lsl.nie.edu.sg/ ; http://eduweb.nie.edu.sg/LST ________________________________ From: WONG Siew Koon Philip (ACIS, LST) Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 3:44 PM To: SOO Wan Yuen (LST); LST/ACAD Subject: RE: In news - Eschool works Hi folks Saw this in the latest eschool News about effectiveness of ICT in student achievement. I have extracted pages 29 and 30 for you viewing. Cheers! A/P Philip Wong Divisional Director Academic Computing and Information Services National Institute of Education Nanyang Technological University 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616 Tel: 65-6790 - 3086 * e-mail address is: philip.wong at nie.edu.sg National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this email, including any attachments, may contain confidential information. This email is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) listed above. Unauthorized review, dissemination or any other use of the information contained in this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error or have reason to believe that you are not authorized to receive it, please notify the sender by return e-mail and promptly delete this e-mail. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: effectiveness ICT in education.pdf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 182001 bytes Desc: effectiveness ICT in education.pdf URL: From K.Walker at ioe.ac.uk Thu Jun 21 18:23:06 2007 From: K.Walker at ioe.ac.uk (Kevin Walker) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:23:06 +0100 Subject: CFP: Workshop: Designing human centred technologies for the developing world Message-ID: <0CA6909EDE335041AE76D94C1A828B7FD78503@M2.ioead> Call for Participation: Workshop: Designing human centred technologies for the developing world: HCI but not as we know it Tue, 4 Sept. 2007 Lancaster, UK http://hct4d.blogspot.com/ Part of the HCI 2007 conference (http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2007/) Cost: ?80 before 5 Aug. (workshop only) INTRODUCTION With huge investments being made in ICT for development (ICT4D) and education (e.g. "$100 laptop," UN programmes etc.) and high expectations being raised, it is critical to ensure that ICT developments are in fact usable, useful, appropriate and well adapted to the communities and contexts in which they are intended to be used. This requires well designed solutions, which in turn requires appropriate human-centred design methods. However, it is unclear that methods largely developed for and with users in the developed world will prove appropriate in the developing world. This workshop aims to bring together interested parties and strengthen the User-centred design for development (UCS4D) community, as well as contribute to the body of knowledge about designing for and with communities in the developing world. GOALS OF THE WORKSHOP * Share experiences of Human Centred Design in the developing world; * Identify key issues and patterns; * Explore new, alternative and modified methods for human centred and participatory design of Development Technologies; * Develop new partnerships - particularly international partnerships; * Disseminate learning from this workshop through online and and offline publication; and * Strengthen the HCI in Development Technology community. THEMES To participate in this workshop submit a two-page position paper, using the following format: http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2007/organisers/#templates Possible themes are: * Case studies of user-centred design and participatory experiences in the developing world - both successes and failures; * The difficulties of separating development and research objectives; * Design of educational technology for development; * Participatory methods from community action, education, agriculture, technology design, theatre, etc..; * Innovative methods for designing for and with communities with diverse needs; or * Managing expectations in particpatory design projects. BEFORE THE WORKSHOP The workshop organisers invite short position papers. These will be reviewed by committee. Accepted papers will then be made available online on workshop blog. Comments on papers will be enabled and participants will be encouraged to post comments to the blog Key issues arising from papers and comments will be identified prior to the conference. Outcomes from other recent workshop will also be linked from the blog and issues for discussion may also be drawn from there. AT THE WORKSHOP Facilitators will make short presentations around the key issues & challenges identified before the workshop. Participants will then make short presentations, and will be encourgaged to address specific comments from the blog. If appropriate permissions are given we will record the presentations (and/or stream them live using Elluminate if possible) in order to broaden participation beyond those that are able to travel to the conference. This will be followed by discussion. Participants will break in to small groups to discuss a subset of these issues and challenges with a facilitator.. Each group will summarise its discussions to the workshop as a whole. We will produce a poster and presentation to summarise the workshop activity and outcomes. AFTER THE WORKSHOP The blog will act as a record of the workshop, and also the hub for a community in UCD4D. We will collect the output of the workshop and edit into a journal special issue, or book, as appropriate. We will also disseminate our findings in relevant networks, communities and organisations. ORGANISATION Coordinators: Andy Dearden (point of contact for communication) is a participatory designer with a background in human computer interaction. His recent work has investigated tools to support distributed forms of participation in design and the design of ICT systems to support 'social action' in voluntary and community groups, NGOs and 'civil society'. Lynne Dunckley, Ph.D. (Birmingham), is Professor of Information Technology at the Institute for IT at Thames Valley University. Prior to her academic career she worked for central and local government organizations, specialising in database design and project management. In addition she has worked as a usability consultant for cross-cultural design and interoperability. She has carried out consultancy for numerous e-Commerce companies and published work in the Journal of Decision Systems, Interacting with Computers, Interact, International Ergonomics Applications and major international conferences in Europe and USA. She is the author of a textbook on Multimedia Databases (2003) and a book for database practitioners on application development using rich media in Oracle (2007). She has chaired an international conference on the internationalisation of products and services. Rosemary Luckin is Professor of Learner Centred Design at the London Knowledge Lab. Prior to this she was director and co-founder of the Interactive Digital Educational Applications Lab and the Human Centred Technology Research group at Sussex. She is an experienced project manager and has held a range of EU/EPSRC and ESRC grants. She is a member of several journal editorial boards and conference program committees in the area of educational technology, including those of the International Association of Artificial Intelligence in Education. She has numerous peer reviewed journal and conference publications and has acted as a consultant to various organisations including the BBC and the DFES. She has worked with schools in Brazil, has close working relationships with many UK schools and set up the Sussex Education Skills Exchange to foster exchanges of knowledge and skills between with practitioners. Committee: Jose.Abdelnour-Nocera, Thames Valley University Souleymane Camara, Thames Valley University Liz Fearon, Aptivate Cecilia Oyugi, Thames Valley University Joshua Underwood, London Knowledge Lab Tim Mwololo Waema, University of Nairobi Kevin Walker, London Knowledge Lab DATES 18 July 07 - position paper deadline 30 July 07 - notification of acceptance 05 Aug 07 - early bird registration deadline conference 26 Aug 07 - presentation slides deadline 04 Sept 07 - workshop CONTACT Send position papers and all other enquiries to: Kevin Walker k.walker at ioe.ac.uk London Knowledge Lab 23-29 Emerald Street London WC1N 3QS From robert.kozma at sri.com Sat Jun 23 01:35:49 2007 From: robert.kozma at sri.com (Robert Kozma) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 10:35:49 -0700 Subject: OLPC News posting Message-ID: <000801c7b4f3$c6bc99d0$0b00a8c0@BobKozma> I just posted this on OLPC News: http://www.olpcnews.com/ Bob One Laptop Per Child and Education Reform Posted on June 22, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases : Education , People : Negroponte olpc robert kozma Robert Kozma I am Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D., an international consultant on technology in service of developing countries. I have just returned from Kenya where I where I attended the eLearning Africa Conference in Nairobi from May 28-30. The OLPC XO machine was displayed in the vendor area and several presentations referenced it. Having worked in Africa and other developing countries over the past ten years, I was prompted to reflect on the implications that One Laptop Per Child has for education improvement in these countries. The OLPC group has come up with some truly novel features meant to address the specific constraints of users in developing countries, such as the mesh network , the dual-mode display , and a range off-grid power sources, although the latter are yet to be fully developed. This is not surprising, given its MIT Media Lab origins. But Professor Negroponte consistently points out that, "This is an education project, not a laptop project." And this is where my reservations begin. Based on my 35 years of studying educational applications of technology in developed (the U.S. and a range of OECD countries) and developing countries (Thailand , Chile , Jordan, Egypt , Uganda , Tanzania and Kenya ), I have to say that as an "education project" OLPC is fundamentally incomplete. olpc screen b&w Screen technology isn't enough Numerous research studies and my personal experience in many countries suggest that the mere introduction of computers into schools will not bring about educational improvement. Reforming education is hard work that involves making coordinated changes in pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, and teacher training, as well as technology. While any one of these factors - such as technology - can be used as a lever to launch other changes, reform has to be viewed as systemic change. Without coordinating all of the components, it is more likely that change in a single factor - such as technology - will be merely assimilated into the current system unreformed or be rejected altogether. But the OLPC education philosophy does not address the education system at all. The entire OLPC enterprise is based on the premise that if given the proper resources - in this case "appropriately designed" hardware and software - children will learn how to learn on their own. There is no consideration of how this intervention fits or does not fit with the current curriculum, assessment, or pedagogical practices. The goal of the OLPC is laudable but I sincerely doubt that the pervasive use of computers envisioned by OLPC will be realized without addressing these overriding factors in the education system. Let me give two personal experiences that support my conclusion. olpc nigeria Rural school OLPC XO usage Several years ago, I visited a secondary school in rural Uganda while evaluating the World Links for Development program for the World Bank. A teacher was describing how excited his students were about projects they were doing with other students in Canada and South Africa. We were standing in the middle of the computer lab filled with twelve brand new work stations. Yet it was the middle of the school day and the lab was totally empty of students. I pointed this out to the teacher and he said that since computers were not part of the curriculum and were not covered by the examination he could not use them during the school day. In the second case, I was visiting a secondary school in Alexandria, Egypt and a social studies teacher was showing the exciting collaborative projects that students were doing in the computer lab. I happen to be accompanied by an inspector from the Ministry of Education who jumped at the teacher and berated him in front of all his students for deviating from the established curriculum for that day. The dedication of these teachers was sincere and the enthusiasm of their students was clear. But I doubt that either these teachers or their students will be able to sustain their efforts without important changes being made in the system that they confront daily. To bring about education reform in developing countries, curricula need to be changed to move from rote learning to problem solving, creative thinking, and team skills. National examinations need to move from the recall of facts to complex, collaborative tasks that involve the use of technology. And teachers need training in new pedagogical approaches. But Professor Negroponte shows only distain for teachers and the educational system, as evidenced by these quotes: olpc code jam Children learn learning solo? "Teachers teach the kids? Give me a break." (Negroponte, 2006, LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, Boston). "In many countries, school is a treat. Teachers often don't show up." (Negroponte, 2007, UCLA , Los Angeles) "In some countries, which I'll leave unnamed, as many of as one-third of the teachers never show up at school. And some show up drunk" (Negroponte, 2006, NetEvents Conference, Hong Kong). AIDS and malaria are common problems among teachers, as they are among the African population more generally, and they contribute significantly to absenteeism in the workforce. But I have met many teachers in Africa and I have yet to meet one that was drunk. If only Professor Negroponte held the same level of positive regard for teachers and unbounded faith in their human potential as he does for students. Yet in many of his statements, Negroponte's attitude about teachers borders on contempt. It is difficult to see how the OLPC program can bring about positive change in education systems with this kind of cynical attitude at its core. Which raises the question, why it is that OLPC is working with education systems at all? Instead, why are they not working through after-school programs where children can explore their own projects free of the constraints of the established curriculum, much as is done in developing countries with the Computer Clubhouse program? The answer is that the business model demands that they work with the education system. In order to get the desired features of the XO laptop at a low price, OLPC needs the hundreds of millions of customers that can only be delivered by Ministries of Education (Negroponte, 2004, NetEvents European Press Summit). This brings us back to the original question: Is this an education project or merely a laptop project? We know Lee Felsenstein's opinion. What's yours? ____________________ Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D. Emeritus Director and Principal Scientist Center for Technology in Learning SRI International 2151 Filbert St. San Francisco, CA 94123 USA CTL Website: http://ctl.sri.com Personal Website: http://robertkozma.com Phone +1 415 292 2471 Mobile +1 415 623 4340 Fax: +1 415 651 9954 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 37020 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 32925 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 23240 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 9215 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Nicolas.Balacheff at imag.fr Sat Jun 23 19:36:05 2007 From: Nicolas.Balacheff at imag.fr (Nicolas Balacheff) Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 13:36:05 +0200 Subject: Yes, the technology pushes. So what ? Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20070623133504.04756d58@imag.fr> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From H.W.Sligte at uva.nl Sat Jun 23 23:22:54 2007 From: H.W.Sligte at uva.nl (Henk Sligte) Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 17:22:54 +0200 Subject: Yes, the technology pushes. So what ? References: <7.0.1.0.2.20070613074624.04740970@imag.fr> Message-ID: Dear Nicolas, dear all, Thanks for the clear analysis; I guess that this stage in the evolution is necessary, but I also think that the proposal of Nicolas is very interesting. We at the University of Amsterdam would certainly like to contribute, although finding funding for trips to Africa is not easy. If we manage we could present some research and examples of good practice in 'low-technology/high-educational-impact' projects, e.g. as demonstrated by the use of e-Journals in our EU-Asia project (see http://ejournal.eduprojects.net/philippines/) or our CSCL-projects e.g on intercultural language learning (see http://www.europeanschoolsproject.org/image/). But of course we have some research on high-tech as well. By the way: we are member of GDLN and may help. Also mailing one of the coordinators may be useful: Gary J. Fine is (or at least was until recently) coordinator Europe/Central Asia: gfine at worldbank.org Let me know whether this is useful. Henk ------------------------------------ Henk Sligte Universiteit van Amsterdam SCO-Kohnstamm Instituut Postbus 94208 NL-1090 GE Amsterdam t:+31205251374 f:+31205251200 m:+31651382987 www.sco-kohnstamminstituut.uva.nl www.esp.uva.nl Nieuw bezoekadres Gebouw D, Roeterseiland-complex Nieuwe Achtergracht 129 Kamer 018D ------------------------------------ ________________________________ Van: discussion-bounces at g1to1.org namens Nicolas Balacheff Verzonden: za 23-6-2007 13:36 Aan: discussion at g1to1.org Onderwerp: Yes, the technology pushes. So what ? Dear G1:1 I am back from Nairobi where I participated to the second edition of eLearning Africa ( http://www.elearning-africa.com/ ). This is not properly said a research conference, more something midway between business, innovation and science in the line of the now classical On-line Educa Berlin in Europe ( http://www.online-educa.com/ ). During this conference Rosamund Sutherland from Bristol and myself organized a series of events with the objective to build a bridge between EU and African research on TEL (with the support of a "tool" we developed within the Kaleidoscope framework < http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/group/kalafrica/en/ >). What's the lesson learned?... that the technology pushes. Our workshop and presentations met a lot of expectations but were also the occasion to express difficulties faced by researchers on TEL: access to knowledge, access to publishing and sharing research and need for *concrete* results. In contrast to that, there was also a stand with cheap laptops (the OLPC and an Intel machine), and a lot of interest and motivation raised by technological offer (either hard or soft). From this perspective, what we were doing seemed to weight much less than whatever is offered by technology. In the end, it is clear that there was more than a thousand participants because the technology pushes (and the business as well) not because of an educational pull. In this context, educational research seems to have very little to propose. What is not indeed what we think. We did already express this opinion in a collective paper (remember: < http://www.g1on1.org/openletter.php >) So what? A "learning centered" approach will be successful only if there is a joint effort to make tangible our research results, and to enhance our capacity to communicate them. The principles we state in the G1:1 open letter are good, but this is too a high level expression of "good" willing which will stay without effect if we don't organize there implementation. This implementation should go with a deep involvement of the community of African researchers on TEL. This could be our focus for a concrete action. It is for such an action that we are approaching you today. For a Kaleidoscope / G1:1 initiative in Ghana in 2008 We propose to organize a research pre-session jointly to eLearning Africa to be held next year in Ghana. The objective would be to present (i) precise states of the art of the research on scenarii of use of technology to enhance learning, (i) clear cases demonstrating successful implementation of these results. The format could be six talks along two morning sessions. Then afternoons would be devoted to interacting workshop where are discussed research projects or PhDs carried out in Africa. This would be prepared and followed up by collaborations supported by Kalafrica. The morning sessions may be broadcasted if we can establish a partnership with the world bank (ie using the support of the Global Development Learning Network, URL below). This research pre-session could be echoed by an event with the conference programme to be held after. So, now, some questions and invitations to commitment - would you be interested in participating in this research pre-session - could you nominate a research project, result or case that could be used - would you accept to provide a specific expert support to a PhD student or a researcher from an African team, especially... - to write a scientific communication or publication about his/her/their work and results - to shape and write a proposal in the search for funding - would you have time and interest in contributing to kalafrica... - by offering content - by contributing to an editorial board to build an open access series within TeLearn (telearn.org) - by joining the kalafrica group to support the development of a systematic academic cooperation and search for the needed funds http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/GDLNCHILD/0,,menuPK:841931~pagePK:64233373~piPK:64234192~theSitePK:841731,00.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From egaible at natomagroup.com Sat Jun 23 05:31:16 2007 From: egaible at natomagroup.com (Edmond Gaible) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:31:16 -0700 Subject: Mssrs. Negroponte and Pentland at the World Bank Message-ID: http://info.worldbank.org/etools/BSPAN/PresentationView.asp?PID=2070&EID=950 This streaming video captures a panel presentation from May 2007 to World Bank personnel. It's about 1 hour IIRC, with a few "interesting" statements such as those Bob Kozma has already critiqued. Also some trenchant questions asked by Bank personnel as to the cost of ensuring equitable access for all children, TCO, and per-student costs in relation to discretionary education spending rather than total spending per student. Edmond Gaible Ph.D. Principal The Natoma Group www.natomagroup.com -- "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into" -- Jonathan Swift