ICT4Do’s and ICT4Don’ts

Today, Wayan Vota, a big name in the ICT4D world skyped in with us to answer some of our class’s questions about ICT4D. A common theme was whether ICT4D really works.

Examples:

• Can ICTs stand alone as development tools or should they accompany specific development initiatives?  (You should be able to figure this one out on your own if you know anything about One Laptop Per Child.)
• What were the best and worst ICT4D projects? (OLPC seems to have surprisingly blown everything else out of the water for both…)
• What’s more difficult: getting infrastructure to support ICT4D or community buy-in for an ICT4D project? (Most of our class got this one wrong – getting $$ for infrastructure is actually less challenging than having communities accept something that’s being forced upon them. Participatory development is much more effective than development practitioners coming into a community with a “plan for development” that they came up with without the help of any community members.)

But let me get to what I really wanted to talk about in this blogpost. I just saw this great article from The Guardian that gives 15 opinions of “open data evangelists” and “information services professionals” on how to develop countries using “information.”

Surprisingly, the most frequently mentioned information-development-tool is something we touched on once in class – the LIBRARY! Indeed, David Banisar (senior legal counsel of Article 19 in London), Lawrence Gudza (coordinator of Practical Answers/Action in Zimbabwe and South Africa), and  Jelena Rajic (librarian in Jagodina, Serbia) tout the important role libraries can play in development because of their ability to provide information to whole communities in a way that promotes equality and fairness. So DO support the libraries and hook them up with information and communication technology!

On to the don’t list.

Tony Roberts (co-founder of Web Gathering in London) says don’t ignore the political system – it can distribute information and institutionalize it much more quickly than a small, individual-by-individual effort can – and don’t make inequalities worse than they already are - avoid this by having a plan for sustainability to enable the most disadvantaged to be able to fully get out of the hole.

Samuel Lee (open data specialist at the World Bank in D.C.) provides a puzzling don’t. He says “don’t build new communities if you can leverage existing ones“. I’m not really sure what he means by “communities” – I’m assuming something like technologies or projects that facilitate development because he mentions how “leveraging communities that already exist… will also help communities cross the digital divide.” In any case, what I got out of this is don’t pay for something new and flashy when you can upgrade what you already have, dull as it may seem.

You can read the article for more advice these experts have on ICT4D, and I’m sure there are plenty of other articles on the subject. I just thought this was an intriguing article because not all of the experts come from the ICT4D world, or even regular development.

And just for funsies, here’s the most awesome library I’ve ever been to – the Bibliotheek in Amsterdam! It’s got a fancy cafeteria on the top floor and an awesome children’s area (complete with the real-life model of what’s seen in Het Muizenhuis)!

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/42212091@N00/2420523291/

http://www.kidsteepeetent.com/

Can One Laptop Per Child Save the World’s Poor?

This week, we are studying the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program. This program’s mission is to “empower the world’s poorest children through education”. OLPC has developed their own laptop computer, called the XO, along with its own software interface called Sugar, and aims to provide each child in the world with this low-cost and low-power computer. Click here to see a video of the non-profit’s mission.

1) Kids keep the laptops (meaning they must be free to take them home with them)

2) Focus on early education (focus on kids 6-12 years old)

3) No one gets left out (focus on large numbers at once, so they deliver to an entire school at once)

4) Connection to the internet

5) Free to grow and adapt (so the laptop can adapt with the child)

The program’s founder and chairman is Nicholas Negroponte, and argues the computers are a “children’s machine that would empower youth to learn without, or inspite of, their schools and teachers”. He believes that after solely giving a child a laptop, he or she will be able to learn how to use it on their own. This implementation strategy is of much alarm to Mark Warschauer, a professor at UC Irvine, and Morgan Ames, a PhD student at Stanford. Together, they wrote a paper titled “Can One Laptop per Child Save the World’s Poor?”.

They argue that no, it can not. Their first problem with OLPC is its implementation strategy. They believe that Negroponte’s believe that “great benefits will be achieved by simply giving children laptops and getting out of their way reflects naive and technologically determinist views… ICT is more of a sociotechnical network than a tool”. The main problem is that the implementation strategy is a “one-shot” try, and ignores all other factors. They argue that there is a lack of a holistic approach, and that other factors should be considered.

For example, Warschauer and Ames argue that many rural schools don’t have electricity access, let alone internet access and the ability to charge ones computer. Therefore, just because a child has a laptop, doesn’t mean they will be able to use it at school, or for school purposes. Another problem is that the laptops are not affordable. They wrote that Negroponte’s initial plan was to sell the laptop for $100 or less, but that now, it is near $188 plus implementation costs. The authors argue that this money, if allocated differently, could have stronger impacts. They believe that money would be better off “building schools, training teachers, developing curricula, providing books, and subsidizing attendance. They cite many other issues with OLPC, such as software issues, a lack of infrastructural and technical support, a lack of safety bringing computers home, and lastly argue that many students use the computers for entertainment rather than education.

Fortunately, it seems as though OLPC has taken a different approach. The authors write that luckily, Walter Bender (who was the former president of the software and content) returned to the organization, and brought with him a new perspective. He said, in contrast to Negroponte, “The Key to success is to really take a holistic approach to the servers, the infrastructure, the logistics, the software, the preparation and training, the pedagogy, and the community that is using all this stuff”. This is a huge change from Negroponte’s original one-shot implementation strategy, and seems to promise more success. However, Warschauer and Ames still argue that “regrettably, there is no magic laptop that can solve the educational problems of the world’s poor”, but that if they commit to this new implementation strategy, then they will be “better prepared to contribute to this worthwhile long-term endeavor”.

Lessons from the semester

Over the course of this semester, we have looked at ICT4D from many angles. Each framework, case study and sector investigation that we were presented with provided a lesson or prescription for how an ICT4D project should be conducted or, more often, how it should not be conducted. With such a high proportion of ICT4D projects ending in failure, it is important to recognize the value of these failures and try to tease out the lessons to be learned, something that we focused on a lot in this class. One of the lessons that struck me the most from this course was the importance of communicating with the target population. In many cases where ICT projects fail, it seems that closer examination of the realities of day-to-day life in the recipient community would have been beneficial and could perhaps have saved the project. The best example is probably the infamous One Laptop Per Child project. Without implementing a pilot project, Negroponte was unable to get any feedback from the  technology’s end-user. This meant that both the set up of the initiative and the laptops themselves were riddled with problems.

Obviously, hindsight is 20-20, and it can be very easy to look back on projects that have failed and point out what went wrong. However, in my opinion, attempting to provide a service that is either not needed or not applicable to the lives of the people you are trying to help is one of the worst ways to fail, because it is essentially a failure of arrogance. It’s these types of projects that cause some people to view ICT4D as condescending.

In one class we watched a Youtube video called “Top 7 Reasons Why Most ICT4D Fails”. In one part, a man talks about a trend in projects that try to help rural farmers by providing them with market information via text message, the idea being that awareness of price trends will allow the farmers to get the best price for their crops. On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. However, as the man points out, many agricultural products have to be sold exactly when they are ready. A tomato farmer cannot hold on to his tomatoes until the prices improve, he/she has to sell them when they are ripe. This example really stuck out to me, because as first glance I thought the project would really work. I think, more than anything else, this is the lesson that I will take away from the class. Listen to your end user. They know what they want, and they know what works.

Verizon Foundation’s Education Initiative

According to an article from the Sacramento Bee, the Verizon Foundation launched an Education Initiative on October 18^th, 2012, to improve student learning in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) through mobile technologies. This initiative used three main programs, such as the Verizon Innovative App Challenge, Verizon Innovative Learning Schools and the new Thinkfinity platform.

The Innovative App Challenge:

The Innovative App Challenge is a competition that challenges middle and high school students to design ideas for mobile apps that integrate STEM subjects. The theory is that these mobile apps will help solve a problem in the student’s community. The winner’s school will receive a $10,000 cash grant and training to make the app a reality, with training and building support.

Verizon Innovative Learning Schools program:

The Verizon Innovative Learning Schools Program is a training program that is intended to help teachers make the most of technology and incorporate mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, into classroom instruction to improve student achievement in STEM subjects. This plan is very different from the case study on “One Laptop per Child” we spoke about in class because it recognizes the teachers as being a crucial determinant on the effectiveness of using technology in the classroom. Additionally, and most importantly, it provides the teachers with training on how to integrate and most efficiently utilize the provided technology. In partnership, the International Society for Technology in Education and the Verizon Foundation has already launched the program in 12 schools and they have plans on expanding pending success of the program.

Thinkfinity:

This website provides U.S. teachers with free access to new training resources from the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools program and an extensive collection of digital content that were created by leading educational organizations.

After learning more about the sense of moral responsibility that the Verizon Foundation exhibits, I regret not subscribing to their service.  The article closes by saying, “Since 2000, the Verizon Foundation has invested more than half a billion dollars to improve the communities where Verizon employees work and live. Verizon’s employees are generous with their donations and their time, having logged more than 6.2 million hours of service to make a positive difference in their communities” (Sacramento Bee, 2012).

OLPC in Colombia

After reading the Warschauer & Ames article on One Laptop per Child, I was inspired to research Colombia, my country of choice for my paper, to see what kind of progress the program has made there. OLPC has had a presence in Colombia since 2008. I found an interesting video in which Nicholas Negroponte discusses bringing the project to Colombia:

The interesting thing about the way the program was initially implemented is that it was a partnership with the Colombian Ministry of Defense. A big object in the way of development in Colombia is the civil war that has been waged there almost constantly since 1964 between the government and various guerrilla groups. The government has been accused by many of committing human rights violations throughout the conflict. For this reason it is a good sign that the Ministry of Defense would attempt to fight its image problem by redeeming itself with participation in the OLPC program. However, it also raises skepticism at whether or not the Ministry is doing it for the right reasons or rather as a tool for propaganda or other hidden agenda.

Despite arguments on the program’s true impact, Colombia has had great success in terms of numbers of laptops distributed. The local governor in Caldas purchased 65,000 laptops to be distributed through the region. Native star Shakira’s foundation purchased 700 laptops for three schools in different Colombian cities. Most recently 11,000 laptops were distributed to public schoolchildren in the city of Itagüí. Colombia currently has 54 educational institutions across the country that implement the OLPC program independently. While we have learned about the detractions of the OLPC program, it is hard to argue that getting that many laptops in the hand of children and providing them with at least the opportunity to learn and experiment with technology is a bad thing. Education is a huge problem that is holding back development in Colombia and the country is desperate for progress of any kind. At the very least the country currently has a greater capacity for ICT4D than it did before the implementation of the OLPC project.

OLPC: Morocco

Looking at the current and future implementation of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program in Morocco is interesting when you consider the strong digital divide there. There is a great separation between urban and rural areas in terms of access to energy, education, and resources. Furthermore, with the language being split between French and Arabic, it is hard to implement in a countrywide approach, not taking into the account the needs of the different areas. Currently, the program has not been implemented but it is interesting to look at the steps being taken and what factors are influencing the success of it.

This blog created by a contributor to the OLPC program in Morocco encourages people to get involved with the process and offer proposals to be considered when implementing the program. This is an incredible resource for people who start using the laptop as there is a lot of troubleshooting as well as encouraging local support through mailing lists and updates. In December 2009, there was a conference in Rabat, Morocco proposing the implementation of the program and discussing the benefits. While the implementation is still in the works, I think it is important to look at the feelings of the people and the infrastructure in place to see if Morocco is ready for this technology.

This blog post was written by a Moroccan w0man, Asmaa Kabbassi, who feels that the unequal distribution of education between urban and rural areas will make mass implementation of the program too difficult and leave children out of the knowledge sharing, regardless of if they have the laptop. She also acknowledges the language barrier that very few children speak English and the system may not conducive to productive leaning as most of the schools do not have the resources to get their teachers trained with the technology, let alone the students.

A resource that could help solve these problems of  lack of support and rural populations getting left behind is the “OLPC Arabic Forum” that shares ideas, experiences and allows experts to give feedback of the users of OLPC laptops in Middle Eastern countries. It offers XO manuals in Arabic and a way for people to connect all over and share knowledge, which is an incredible step in itself.  I would not be surprised to see OLPC implemented in Morocco in the coming years but more resources such as these need to be in place to bridge the gap.

OLPC: South Africa

In researching One Laptop Per Child in South Africa I came across a video documentary about one OLPC initiative in Soweto, South Africa. The video, entitled “My School, My Community, My Laptop”, focuses on the Kliptown Youth Program in Soweto. The program was established in 2007 as an effort to address the social challenges of the community including unemployment, teen pregnancy and HIV. The program works to create opportunities and activities for community members like tutoring, sports and performing arts. The community leader states in the video that the program wanted to focus efforts toward education in order to help address the communities problems.

In order to foster education within the program, they received XO laptops through One Laptop Per Child. As we see in the video, both the students, teacher and community leader spoke highly of laptops. The teacher liked that students were able to research information online while in class and also able to chat with other XO users about sensitive topics like puberty that the students didn’t like talking to her about. The video also mentions that the laptops have brought the community together in that they have gotten parents and other family members interested in the laptops. Additionally, they had access to a “IT Geek” who came to the school and community center where tutoring took place so that they could be taught how to use the laptop and get tech-related questions answered. This “IT Geek” was also a community member so he was known by the community and accessible to students. This aspect was good because it addressed one of the major problems we see in other OLPC initiatives where technological assistance is not available.

While the video mentioned many benefits of the laptops, there is potential for some problems. Firstly, it seemed as though the interviewed students were very focused on the chatting and gaming aspects, and maybe not necessarily the educational aspects. Also, the community in the video was very rural and does not necessarily suggest electricity or internet access. It seemed as though the location where tutoring was taking place had internet connection, but that does not mean the students homes did, so they may not have constant access. Additionally, the community they are in, Soweto, is very close the Johannesburg, so the technological capacity there may be more than other parts of South Africa. Therefore, we cannot take the OLPC success here and say it will work for other parts of South Africa as a whole. Finally, this video has potential for bias, because the program could be trying to put themselves in a good light, and they may be overplaying the success of the OLPC initiative.

Overall I think the OLPC initiative can do a lot of good for the objectives of the Kliptown Youth Program (KYP). I think OLPC could have more success here because it was being introduced to a preexisting community building program. Since the KYP was already dedicated to improving education for children, the introduction of the laptops was welcomed by the program rather than OLPC just throwing computers at a community or district which has been a problem in other places. The drive of the KYP coupled with the technology of OLPC could create a lot of educational progression for the Soweto community.

An Evaluation of One Laptop Per Child

Click here for report on OLPC in Peru

As we all know, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is perhaps the most prominent-and most polarizing-ICT4D initiative underway today. We ourselves had a lengthy discussion on its pros and cons and, like the ICT4D community writ large, struggled to come to a consensus as to whether it deserves the attention and, by turns, celebration and criticism, it has received. While much of the larger discussion within the development community has been important and well-researched, OLPC’s prominent nature has also led to a great deal of poorly informed opinions, whether for or against it, being put forth regarding its utility. That’s why I was heartened to see the publishing of a recent report seeking to substantively its impact in Peru.

Peru would seem to be a perfect fit for OLPC. It is relatively stable and, while hugely impoverished in many areas, it is far enough along that introducing laptops does not seem to skip more substantive, broader-based steps seeking to ensure children have access to schooling at all or can learn in safety. The report sought to answer some important questions about OLPC and provide an important contribution to a sector of ICT4D that is generally lacking-evaluation.

With that being said, the report was a bit disappointing, especially for anyone looking for a conclusive verdict on OLPC’s quality as an ICT4D program. It drew three main conclusions, one obvious, one damning, and one promising, with regards to OLPC’s impact. First, the obvious: OLPC has dramatically increased access to computers in targeted areas (319 primary schools). The computer to student ratio in these schools has skyrocketed, from .12:1 to 1.18:1, meaning that there are actually more computers than students in the areas targeted by the program. Computer skills have obviously increased with this greater access. Second, and worryingly for proponents of OLPC, this increase in access has shown no impact on math or language skills, making one wonder if OLPC is simply the worst kind of ICT4D program-one that simply drops off hardware with no plan for how it will improve learning conditions for those who receive it. Third, and more promisingly, the program has led to an increase in general cognitive functioning among students. This implies that simply providing access to computers, however incomplete the follow-up, does have a positive impact on how students think and process information.

Naturally, the evaluation itself has been subject to some criticism. Though much of this criticism has been aimed at the methodology employed in the evaluation, some of it also targets the problem that bedevils (and, given the pace at which technology develops, will likely continue to cause problems) ICT4D generally: the shortness of the time horizon. Though fifteen months were allowed to elapse before the evaluation took place, proponents of the program have argued that this is an insufficient amount of time to allow the program to develop. I think fifteen months is enough, and in comparison to many evaluations, is ample time to allow a program to gestate before trying to measure its impact. But the fact remains that long-term studies of ICT4D are simply difficult to do, especially given that, if enough time elapses, the technology being evaluated will simply become obsolete. Though this paper, like almost everything surrounding OLPC, remains inconclusive, it is important in that it sheds light on ICT4D’s most prominent (deservedly or not) program.

 

$100 Solar Powered Tablet in the Works

Although our class has thought Nicholas Negroponte, the project innovator for One Laptop Per Child, to have dubious business methods, the designer behind the project is working towards the completion of multiple innovative projects.  Swiss designer Yves Behar is the visionary behind the Jawbone Jambox sound system, SAYL chairs, Swarovski chandeliers, and New York City’s free condoms.

Yves Behar was approached by Negroponte six years ago with hopes of producing an “inexpensive and impeccably designed laptop for children across the world.”  In class, we discussed countless problems of the laptop and the pros and cons of a government purchasing these laptops and implementing them into school curriculums.  As many of the laptops are delivered to countries who lack the proper infrastructure to have dependable power systems, Behar’s newest design is a huge improvement.

The newest model of OLPC, the XO-3 tablet, is a $100 solar-powered tablet.  It is lighter, has a bendable screen, and solar panels allow the laptop to charge in sunlight.  Negroponte claims that technology is “in some sense more integral than food and water” because “with education, you can actually solve the water problem and energy problems, and, you know, the health problems.”  Although I doubt that this is entirely true, the new models of the laptop make the purchase of laptops a more fiscally responsible purchase for governments, as they do not break as easily, cost less, and do not need a steady power supply in order to function.  There are still a plethora of problems with the OLCP project, but the lower priced, more efficient tablets are a step in the right direction for the expansion of technology availability and knowledge.

In addition to this project, Behar is also currently involved in designing an array of low cost, visually appealing eye glasses for children in Mexico and South America.

Children at Liberty City School Recieve Laptops

There is much potential for ICTs in education. They can improve access to knowledge, promote creation of learning environments, fascilitate communication, equip students for the information age, and allow teachers to improve teaching. One ICT that was created to improve education in underdeveloped countries was a low-cost, low-power computer geared towards helping children in need. This mission was called One Laptop Per Child (OLPC).There mission, is to “provide educational opportunities for the worlds most isolated and poorest children by giving each child a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop; and software tools and content designed for collaborative, joyful, self empowered learning” (OLPC, Class Presentation). Although the idea for OLPC may have worked in underdeveloped countries, it is now also being implemented underdeveloped schools in the United States. Now, more than 525 students at Holmes Elementary in Liberty City are getting their own technology, and are said to cannot wait to use their own technology at home.