Teachers, Technology and Training - ICTD2010

Paper presented by Laura Hosman at ICTD 2010
Technology, Teachers and Training: Combining Theory with Macedonia's Experience. - Laura Hosman, Maja Cvetanoska

Media Connect Project: a USAID led inititative with the motive to have one computer lab per school. Below are notes from this session:

Points

• "Teachers' concerns advance predictably upon a continuum
• Level of use advances upon a continuum
• Concerns should be addressed as they arise/develop over time
• Leaders/change facilitators must intervene appropriately to support and address teachers concerns"

Finding

• There was a high percentage of teachers using the computers
• The teachers using computers for personal use, to prepare lessons and not in the lessons

Takeaway/Recommendations

1. Innovation is not a one time thing, but ongoing: have yearly ICT plan within the school
2. Education and psychology scholars write about this but policy makers not reading these journals so there is oversight: again we are not talking to each other, need to do so
3. Teachers are key change agents, treat them accordingly: Teachers matter, involve them as stakeholders
4. Teachers need to be supported throughout the process of change, we should take into account their needs, concerns etc.
   

ICTD 2010 2nd Keynote - Geoff Walsham

The development of Information Systems
Geoff Walsham - Professor Emeritus (University of Cambridge)
-these notes are taken from Geoff's slides/presentation either verbatim or paraphrased, may not be perfect :)

What is development?

• isn't a property of developed countries
• isnt only basic needs although they matter
• technology is not a silver bullet
• whatever it is, we need to do better: the poor are still poor

• The technology is not the answer, we need to change structure institution, politics
• we need to think about what development is more than we have
  

Concerns about multi-disciplinary work

• need to draw on theory from multiple disciplines
• interaction at conferences
• joint research is challenging, diff ppl have diff methodology approaches
• also publishing issues: have to publish in your field more than others since

African strategic research agenda

• build infrastructure e.g. HISP on health (Braa et al 2007)
• promote social justice e.g 'ss uprising: mobile activism in Africa (Ekrine 2010)
• support economic activity for the poor e.g. M-Pesa in Kenya (Moraczynski 2009)
• if you provide something that is usable, should be no surprise that it is used
• we insult the poor thinking they are unintelligible
• provide acess to global market and resources e.g. Z(Al-Jaghoub
• need to lift the agenda from single focused projects to a broader agenda: economic structure social justice

Development 2.0
- Need new IT-enableld models
- It has the opportunity to transform the way things work.

• correct the excluded e.g. job adverts via sms
• digital production
• social enterprise

African women and ICTs
[Buskens and Webb 2009 - book]

• shows the diversity and complexity of africans women's experiences with ICTs
• mobiles enable women in several ways e.g; enabiling economic activity
• male-dominated hierarchies persist, mobile does not necessarily enhance
• antidote to both technological utopianism and technological dystopianism

Summary

• Focus on the D for development
• multidisciplinary work
• strategic policy oriented research
• new IT-enabled models of development

Questions and Answer session

• need to focus on ICT for Disabilities more
• boring academics, low impact
• practitioners should transform themselves into reflective practitioners, document
• ICT4D has opportunity to question the approach to dull academic publishing model other disciplines like CS have adopted ; we can create different regimes of truth (e.g. one that encourages collaboration with practitioners)