Using Computers in Schools - CiteSeerX

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Education systems around the world face formidablechallenges that are taxing conventional strategies. Freshapproaches are needed to address persistent problems of thepast and provide students with an education appropriate to theneeds of a modern, information-based global economy. Now,after more than two decades of unfulfilled promises torevolutionize education, computer and communicationtechnologies are finally able to offer opportunities tosignificantly improve teaching and learning.

Education and learning are among the most important ofall human activities and always have been the principal meansof creating productive and sustainable societies. Withglobalization and the increasingly dominant role thatinformation and knowledge play in all economies, providingquality education is becoming ever more important. At thesame time, the emergence of information and knowledge ascore assets for development and economic growth is wideningthe gap between the rich and the poor. The gap is growingbetween those who have access to and can manage moderninformation and knowledge systems and those who lack theaccess and ability to actively participate in the information age.As shown in various gender and ICT use studies, this gap isparticularly pronounced for women of developing countries,and strategies must be created to address the gender as well asthe digital divide (Hafkin and Taggart, 2001).

Quality education is fundamental to successfully addressingdevelopment problems and bridging the information gap.Recognizing the fundamental link between education anddevelopment is easy. Creating systems that provide qualityeducation for all, even when demand outstrips human andcapital resources, is an extremely difficult challenge. Yes there

Using Computers in Schools4Eric Rusten

Eric Rusten was the

Senior Program Officer for the

Learning Technologies (LTNet)

project in Brazil.

Model-of-Use

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is an urgent need to provide education that goesbeyond teaching basic literacy and numeracy skills.Education must help to build higher-ordercognitive abilities, strengthen processes of inquiry,enable collaborative problem solving, and preparepeople to compete in global markets and becomeproductive members of democracies. No singlesolution exists to address these immensechallenges. New approaches and strategies forchange are needed, and computers, mediatedcommunication, and related educationaltechnologies are an important part of theseapproaches and strategies.

This paper presents an overview of fourinterrelated models-of-use that show howcomputers and related technologies can be used tohelp developing countries improve educationalquality, increase access to educational resources,and enhance equity. After reviewing criticalchallenges facing developing country educationsystems today, the paper describes how computerscan be used to improve education. This discussionemphasizes the real and potential impact thatcomputers can have in supporting student-focusededucation, which encourages and enables learners’discovery and knowledge creation rather thanconventional teacher-centered delivery of facts.Next, the paper presents strategies for planning,implementing, monitoring, and evaluating projectsthat seek to integrate computers into schools andeducation systems. The paper concludes byconsidering future developments and trends inusing computers in schools.

When used effectively and integrated intoschools, computers can improve teaching andlearning, strengthen teacher professionaldevelopment, support broad educational reform,enhance school-community partnerships, andimprove school management. This paper helps toexplain the potential uses of computers in schoolsand help professionals decide if such projectswould help achieve strategic educational objectivesand address critical learning needs.

Improving Educational Access, Equity,

and Quality

Over the last three decades, much internationaldonor funding for education focused on thecritical issues of strengthening basic education

with an emphasis on increasing educational accessand equity. These investments contributed tosignificant increases in school enrollments for bothboys and girls in most countries, especially at theprimary level. However, growth in enrollmentsamong boys and girls generally has not beenmatched by improvements in the quality ofeducation provided most students. In many cases,educational quality actually has eroded as thenumbers of students increased withoutcorresponding increases in supporting educationalresources.

Labor markets and our global societyincreasingly demand more from school graduatesthan just basic skills. Education in the 21stcentury must continue to do what it has beendoing to educate students and much more.Investments to increase educational opportunitieswill pay dividends in terms of meaningfuldevelopment only if students learn useful, real-world skills, gain appropriate knowledge, develophigher cognitive abilities, and are able to workcollaboratively across cultures and languages.Unfortunately, many schools provide students withgrossly inadequate literacy and numeracy skills, andhigher level thinking skills are often not taught atall (World Bank 1999).

For many nations, meeting educational needs iscomplicated by limited financial, material, andhuman resources, the accelerating demand foreducation at all levels, and persistent poverty andequity concerns. These problems result in amassive challenge for education. As Wadi Haddad(1998) states,“Business as usual will not meet thechallenge. Linear projections will not do. It istime for a radical rethinking of education.”

Rethinking Education and Technology’s Role

For many nations, the basic ways of organizing andpracticing education have changed very little overthe last century or so. Continued efforts areneeded to modernize content, increase schoolresources, enhance teacher training, and improveaccess and equity. As a result of globalization,however, a new paradigm is evolving in theeducational arena and changing how teaching isdelivered and learning is processed. To begin,learning is no longer confined to the physicalschool building or the classroom but can take

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place anytime and anywhere, such as in computerlabs and via the radio, television, or Internet.Additionally, the role of the teacher as soleprovider of knowledge is also evolving to that of afacilitator and tutor. Lastly, learning materials aregreatly expanding, and textbooks and someaudiovisual aids are being supplemented by aplethora of multimedia materials in print, audio,video, and digital form. Through the power ofnetworking, boundaries for learning aredisappearing as both teachers and students are ableto communicate, plan lessons, execute projects,share work, and forge new friendships andunderstanding across school districts, states, andcountries. Computers and multimediatechnologies in schools now offer potentiallearning opportunities and solutions that were notreadily available before.

Critical Educational Issues

No single change or reform can possibly addressall educational challenges, but information andcommunication technology can address a broadrange of changes and improvements. Some areasin which the appropriate use of computers ineducation might make an important difference are:. Learner-centered education: Teachers must take

on new roles as facilitators who empower students to question, experiment, collaborate,inquire, and construct knowledge and understanding.. Higher-order cognitive skills: New curricula,teaching practices, and pedagogies are needed that enable students to develop and refine critical thinking skills.. Enabling reflective learning and creative

expression: Educators need to create learning environments that enable students to acquire and use information that helps them understand their world and experiences and,eventually, generate new information and knowledge.. Lifelong learning: Learning has to take place before, during, and after formal education,beyond the classroom, and through a variety ofmeans.. Active inquiry, research, and analysis: Students must learn to formulate critical questions,identify, acquire, and organize information from

different sources, and analyze and make judgments about collected information.. Collaborative, project-based learning: Students must be able to work cooperatively in groups,on projects that cross disciplines, constructing knowledge using a variety of both electronic and print research and reference materials, just as problems are solved in real-world and work situations.. Technological literacy: Digital technologies have penetrated most work environments, so the lack of technical literacy and skills is a serious handicap in modern economies.. Educational/real world relevance: Education must provide information, skills, and experiences that are relevant to the world in which students will live and work.. Individualized instruction: Differences in individual knowledge, learning abilities, and styles are not usually accommodated in traditional classrooms. As a result, students often demonstrate lower retention rates, poor performance, a dependence on rote learning,and a lack of enthusiasm. Current learning models show that individualized, project-based instruction can reverse these negative effects and contribute to greater student and teacher satisfaction.

Can Computers in School ImproveLearning?Soon after the first personal computers appearedmore than two decades ago, grand claims weremade about how they, and related educationaltechnologies, would accelerate learning, bringeducation to those without them, improveteaching conditions, enhance school and classroommanagement, encourage needed changes inpedagogy, and enrich and individualize learning.In short, computers would revolutionizeeducation. After many promising experiments,numerous failures and near failures, and a fewnotable successes, it is clear that the promisedrevolution has not occurred.

The Rebirth of a Revolution?

New claims are now being made that acombination of cheaper and easier-to-usecomputers, new communications technologies and

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the Internet, and a better understanding of how touse these technologies for education are finallyenabling computers to help improve teaching andlearning.At the same time, some see computers asmeans for developing countries to leapfrogconventional, slow-paced educational reform anddevelopment processes and join the globalinformation economy more quickly. These newpromises and the ubiquitous presence ofcomputers in many sectors of society are drivingan increased interest in bringing computers intoschools and classrooms. Many projects in suchcountries as Brazil, Chile, Jamaica, Costa Rica, theUnited States, and Canada, plus others in Europe,Africa, and Asia, are seeking to make computers anintegral part of education. In addition,international development organizations,including USAID,The World Bank, UNESCO, theInternational Research Development Corporationof Canada, and the Inter-American DevelopmentBank, either already support computers in schoolsprojects or are exploring how best to usecomputers to address education and developmentproblems. Computer use in education is growingas more people realize that students will be ill-equipped to participate in modern economieswithout solid technical and research skills. Moreimportant, however, is the growing understandingthat providing quality education for all will not bepossible without computer technologies playing asignificant role.

Along with this new enthusiasm for usingcomputers in education, serious questions remain.Policy makers, donors, educators, and taxpayers arewondering about the real impact of computers oneducation in general and academic performancespecifically. Planners wonder how the relativelyhigh immediate and long-term costs ofeducational computing, especially fordisadvantaged schools and poorer developingcountries, will be handled. In particular, educatorsand others are concerned about how best to usethese technologies in classrooms and schools andwhat specific strategies, if any, make sense fordeveloping countries.

Answers to these questions are oftenincomplete and anecdotal, and the little empiricalquantitative and qualitative research that has beendone only indicates—but does not prove—that

computer technologies, when focused on specific,measurable objectives and used properly, can havea deep and lasting positive impact on a wholespectrum of educational activities.

Emerging Evidence of Effect

While research on the impact of technology use ineducation is still in its infancy, a number of studiesdemonstrate technology’s potential to transformboth teaching and learning. One hallmarkexample, the 10 year-long Apple Classrooms ofTomorrow (ACOT) research program, examinedthe effect that integrating computers into teachingand learning has on student performance. Thisresearch (ACOT 1996) demonstrated that:Students’ behavior and attendance improved, along withtheir attitude toward themselves and toward learning.Their performance also improved in several ways:. Test scores indicated that, despite time spent learning

to use the technologies, students were performing welland some were clearly performing better than before.. The students wrote more, more effectively, and with greater fluidity.. Some classes finished whole units of study far more quickly than in past years.The researchers found that instead of isolating

students, access to technology actually encouraged them tocollaborate more than in traditional classrooms. Also,instead of becoming monotonous with use, students foundtechnology use even more interesting as time went on.

Independent researchers also learned that, inaddition to performing well on standardized tests,ACOT students developed a variety ofcompetencies that, although usually not measured,are indicative of quality education. ACOT students:. learned to explore and represent information

dynamically and in different forms;. became more socially aware and confident;. were able to communicate effectively about complex processes;. used computers routinely and appropriately;. became self-motivated and independent learners;. mastered content quickly and shared their understanding spontaneously;. gained the ability to work collaboratively; and. developed a positive orientation toward the future.

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Other rigorous studies demonstrated similarfindings. The results of an in-depth researchproject conducted by staff of the EducationalTesting Service (ETS) on the effects of computeruse on performance in math supports several ofthe conclusions from the ACOT study (ETS1998). The ETS study found that “the use ofcomputers to teach higher-order thinking skillswas positively related to both academicachievement in mathematics and the socialenvironment of the school.”

Additionally, longitudinal research results oflarge-scale technology integration in West Virginiacurriculum showed a corresponding rise in testscores across many subjects and disciplines. Morespecifically,West Virginia experienced across theboard increases in all basic skill areas, with elevenpercent of the gain relating to BasicSkills/Computer Education (BS/CE) technologyimplementation eleven years ago. BS/CE alsoproved to be more cost effective and than othereducational intervention programs (Shakeshaft,Becker, and Kotikamp, 1999).

Initial experience from developing countryschools supports findings from the United Statesthat computers can have a significant effect onmany aspects of education. Results from programsin Grenada (Bosch 1994), Chile (Hepp 1998),Jamaica, Costa Rica (Wolff 1998), and LearnLinkprojects in Brazil, Namibia, Morocco, andGuatemala (AED/LearnLink 2002) indicate aspectrum of positive changes, including improvedlearning outcomes, greater teacher satisfaction,enhanced professional development, and improvedschool community collaboration. When newteaching approaches are introduced along withcomputer technologies, the effect on improvedlearning and the continued practice of betterpedagogy is often greater.Additionally, strongerlearning partnerships between students andteachers can occur when computer technologiesare integrated effectively into learning systems.

Computers and related technologies are not apanacea for the problems facing education indeveloped or developing countries. In fact,computer projects may not be the mostappropriate educational intervention for allcountries. This is especially true for schools thatlack the most basic infrastructure—furniture,

electricity, and security. Donor representatives,ministry officials, school staff, and parents need toassess critical educational needs carefully beforedeciding that a computer project may or may notbe the most appropriate.

Computer Technologies as Educational Tools

Computers are often viewed as tools that can beused to achieve diverse educational ends similar tothe way that textbooks, laboratory equipment,curricula, or other educational technologies can beused to enhance education. This perspective ofcomputers as tools is only partly correct. Thelimited view of computers as single-purpose andsingle-user tools often results in computers beingtreated as just another piece of equipment and notas an integral part of teaching and learning. Oneresult of this narrow view of computertechnologies and education is that computer usemay be restricted to select groups of students,often those in computer science classes and thosewho pursue a narrow set of training activities suchas word processing and computer programming.

In fact, computer technologies can be thoughtof as boxes comprised of multiple intelligent toolsthat take on new functions and enable new resultsto suit the needs of different users. As HerbertKohl (1996) explains, computers more closelyapproximate the functioning of the mind than anyother device.

Like the mind, [computers are open] to new use, newconfigurations and rules, new means of representation,and always new applications. In addition, computers areadept at crossing boundaries. Photos, words, sounds, andso on are all common objects that can be organized,manipulated, and joined to one another with the samegeneral technique, but in unlimited combinations. Thismobility has provided previously unimagined power tothe mind to think globally and develop unanticipatedconnections or contrasts. [Computers] can (and mostlikely will) lead to new ways of telling stories, developingnarratives, recording history, and organizing experience.The computer is unique, both a tool and an extension ofthe mind.

Changing the way we think about computersas tools is fundamental to our understanding oftheir potential impact on education and to

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determining how to integrate computertechnologies into all aspects of educationeffectively.

Seeing computer technologies as multi-use andmulti-user tools affects how we consider usingthem and how we evaluate their effect on learningoutcomes and improving educational quality.Studies and evaluations of computer educationprograms often seek to uncover significant causalrelationships between single uses of computers andindividual changes in student learning andbehavior. The very nature of learning andeducation, and the characteristics of computertechnologies generally makes such studiesineffective. It is not surprising, therefore, thatresults from these studies are rarely conclusive.Research, monitoring, and evaluation studiesshould be designed to combine a mix ofqualitative and quantitative methods that examinecomputers’ diverse array of effects on learning,teaching, and broad educational goals.

Models of Computer Use in Education

Because computer technologies are not single-useor single-user tools, they can be used to improveeducation in many ways. When consideringpotential use of computers in education, it ishelpful to create a few models of good use toguide decision making and stimulate creativeapplications. Designing, planning, andimplementing new programs and projectswithout models or examples are extremelydifficult. Kohl (1996) describes this difficulty asthe “paradox of large-scale innovation.”According to Kohl, “[w]ithout models, people areleft anxious and directionless, innovation fades,and things remain unchanged.” On the otherhand, the slapdash use of models can perpetuatepoor practices, constrain the use of computers inschools, and inhibit innovation.

Two common approaches: Two contrastingapproaches are often used to describe howcomputers can be used in education. One is basedon how computer systems are actually installed inschools. This physical or structural approachresults in two general types of school computerarrangements: stand-alone computers andnetworked systems. Similarly, physical models of

computer use can be based on how computers aredeployed in schools, either in classrooms orcomputer labs. The primary benefit of applyingphysical models when designing school computerprojects is that their clear technical focus makesplanning easier. However, using physical modelsto design school computer programs can result intechnology issues directing the project rather thaneducational needs determining how technologyshould be used.An outcome approach is the second and moreappropriate way of determining how computerscan be used to achieve specific objectives and solveproblems. To achieve real and lasting benefits forstudents and teachers, it is essential that genuine,clearly articulated educational needs—not thetechnology—be the foundation and driving forceof computers-in-schools initiatives.

A model of use: To keep education concerns theprincipal focus of computers-in-school initiatives,this paper organizes the educational benefits ofcomputers into four main areas of focus that allsupport one common purpose—student learning.

It is important to realize that the bestcomputers-in-school initiatives involve a mix of allthe areas of focus this model describes. Therefore,the model should not be seen as a set of

Integrated Framework for theComputers-in-Schools Model

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STUDENTLEARNING

TEACHERPROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENT

SCHOOL-COMMUNITYPARTNERSHIPS

BROADEDUCATIONAL

REFORM

SCHOOL &CLASSROOM

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independent separate units but as an interrelatedwhole. Projects, however, will likely be plannedand implemented to concentrate on one or two ofthe areas. In addition, experience shows that asinitiatives mature and evolve, their focus shiftsfrom one or two areas to include the others.

The paper examines the major elements of themodel improving student learning; providingincreased opportunities for teacher professionaldevelopment; improving school and classroommanagement; strengthening school-communitypartnerships; and supporting broad educationreform efforts.

Improving Student Learning The potential for computers to significantlyenhance learning and teaching are the mostimportant reasons for introducing computers intoschools and integrating them into all aspects ofeducation. For this reason, improving studentlearning is the core of this model and is supportedby the four other areas. The many ways in whichcomputers can be used to enhance learning shareone fundamental principle—"individualizedactivity" (Osin 1998)—that makes them differentfrom all other educational technologies.

Unlike other types of educational technologies,computers enable individuals to have unique,

interactive learning experiences. When mixedwith communication technologies, they providehigh levels of interactivity, some of which occurbetween users and the software they are running.For example, a student using a spreadsheet to applymathematics principles quickly can see how agraph changes when the variables in an equationare changed. The student decides which variablesto change, and the computer responds bydisplaying a new graph. The student and thecomputer are interacting at an individual level.Even when groups of learners work collaborativelywith the spreadsheet, the user has both anindividual and a group experience.

At another level, learners can engage ininteractive educational games, which are designedto help them learn deductive and inductivereasoning as they solve entertaining problems.Each time learners apply logic to solve theproblem with their own and game-basedinformation, the scenario changes. Thiscombination of “moves” by the learner creates aunique response from the computer that can testthe student’s thinking and logic skills. Through aprocess of repetition and increasingly moredifficult problems, participants learn logicalreasoning and sharpen their skills. The better thelearning software or the exercises using basic

Box The Internet - More Than Information

In addition to improving mathematical, logical, and analytical thinking, networked computers enable

learners to interact with others across time zones, languages, and cultures, allowing them to develop

better understandings of the world outside their immediate boundaries. The Internet thus serves as a

democratizing tool for information and communication exchange and opens up the world to those

who otherwise may not have the opportunity to venture outside their own villages or towns. From

the words of a female student participating in the World Links program in Mauritania, the internet is

a symbol of liberty,

“We get freedom from the Internet, since in our society girls are not allowed to go wherever we want…

the Internet takes us out to other people, places, and realities…. It is our way of escaping from our closed

society. It is vital to us, it gives us liberty (Carlson, 2002).

Another student from the PROEM school for street children participating in Brazil’s RiverWalk

project described his feelings:

“All negativity from my background and where I come from is erased when I am communicating with my

peers over the Internet. This is the first time in my life I have ever felt like I am making a solid contribution of

my ideas to others. I was equal to them and giving some of my knowledge back!”

(Riverwalk, LTNet Rusten, 2002).

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applications, the more individualized andenriching the interactivity.

Research shows that individualized instructionaccelerates and intensifies learning. Wheninstruction conforms to a student’s learning style,as well as his/her existing knowledge, rate ofprocessing information, unique needs, and innateabilities, the student masters content and skillsmore quickly and completely, and learning is moreenjoyable and rewarding. Computers can makelearning individualized and interactive and enablesstudents to discover patterns of information,experiment with and explore new forms ofexpression, and pursue questions and ideas. Thiscapability of computers, when coupled withcommunications technologies, allows learning tobecome a dynamic social process within andbeyond classrooms and schools. Networks ofcomputers in schools, nations, and around theworld can link students to diverse sources ofinformation and perspectives that extend thehorizons of study and catalyze collaborativelearning.

Computers can improve teaching and learningin six principal ways.

1. Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL)

In this category of use, also called computer-aidedinstruction (CAI), computer-aided learning (CAL),and computer-based training (CBT), computers are

used to tutor students by providing programmedinstructions and information. Students respond toa series of questions, usually in a multiple choice ortrue and false format. At its less sophisticated level,CAI is used for drill and practice to aid inmemorization and self-assessment, most commonlyto support math and foreign language learning.More sophisticated forms of CAL strengthenlogical thinking and problem-solving skills byguiding students through progressively difficultscenarios. These applications often require learnersto combine new information from the programwith existing knowledge to attain new knowledgeand solve problems.

Research shows that when used to support andreinforce quality conventional teaching, CAL canresult in improved learning outcomes. Studentsbenefit from CAL by learning at their own speedand cognitive level, and they experience lessanxiety when making and correcting errors. CALtutorial and problem-solving applications alsoenable students to learn and master new skillsindependently. However, CAL can have a negativeeffect on learning if used as a substitute forteacher-facilitated learning (ETS 1998).

CAL also can supplement and bolster thequality of instruction when teachers are poorlytrained or inexperienced, as in areas where lack ofadequate teacher training results in teachers withboth a poor command of the subject matter and

Latin America’s Response to Improve Math and Science Education

The International Virtual Education Network (IVEN), a cross-country pilot project in Latin America,

is developing simulation programs to aid in teaching complicated concepts in math and science. Using

powerful information and communications tools, IVEN has created a virtual network of electronically

enhanced math and science “learning modules.” The equipment includes a state-of-the-art

development laboratory that is connected to sets of workstations in the participating countries. This

enables students to conduct scientific experiments online, use sophisticated scientific tools such as

an electron microscope and other simulated tools, as well as have access to the most recent

scientific research. In the absence of science labs in many Latin American schools, the IVEN network

most closely matches them and brings a much richer math and science curriculum to the students.

(Haddad, 2001)

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effective teaching practices. When used in suchsituations, as it was in a rural school in Grenada,CAL for math and English education resulted insignificant learning gains and a rise in test scores.Grenada marked the beginnings of measuring thequantitative impact of CAL technologies onlanguage learning. Due to a breakdown of themain server and lack of ability to provide formaintenance, the program came to an early end.As a result, there was a substantial drop in testscores, indicating the technology indeed wasmaking a difference, and its re-introduction intothe schools was necessary (Bosch 1994).

Learning impacts: Two critical lessons emergefrom nearly two decades of experience with CAL,as illustrated by the results of an ETS study of theeffects of computers on student achievement inmath. First, as with all tools, the quality of resultsis often more strongly linked to how teachers useCAL than with the applications themselves.Second, greater impact is achieved when learningproblems and student needs direct decision makingabout what CAL technologies are used and how.

Additional educational benefits emerge whenstudents and teachers create their own CALapplications. This builds high-level technicalcapacity, results in CAL tools being tailored tospecific teacher- and student-defined needs,increases integration of computer use into school

curricula, and strengthens feelings of ownership ofcomputer systems. In the Enlaces project in Chile,for example, teacher and student teams havecreated CAL applications to enhance Spanish andEnglish language learning (Rusten et al 1998).

2. Simulation and Exploration

Using conventional teaching approaches, teachersusually find large, natural, mathematical, economic,or social systems difficult to clearly explain ordemonstrate. Similarly, the time and difficulty ofperforming complex mathematical equations andgraphical functions often prevents teachers andstudents from fully exploring and understandingcomplex principles. Computer simulations, asophisticated form of CAL, make it possible forstudents to experience and experiment with avariety of biological, scientific, weather,mechanical, business, mathematical, social, andpolitical phenomena with less risk, cost, and timethan has ever been possible. More important,however, computer simulations make it possible forstudents to quickly grasp complex concepts andapply their understanding.

In the absence of computer simulations,students usually learn the behavior of complexsystems passively through general descriptions anddefinitions of system elements and primarygoverning rules. However, because most complexsystems involve several levels of positive and

Computer Learning

Many school computer programs focus on teaching students about computers, training them to use

basic applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, databases, and presentation programs. This

approach to computer use in education is fine as long as it is just the first step in enabling students

to use computers to enhance all other areas of learning. Unfortunately, many programs never go

beyond these mundane training activities.

Learning the “how” of computer use is an important and necessary step for teachers and

students, but it is an insufficient reason for introducing computers to schools. Experience shows that

mastery of computer skills is best achieved by using these tools to accomplish other educational

activities. In other words, learning with computers is the best way to learn to use them. In addition,

the “learning about” approach to computer use actually can inhibit the integration of computer

technologies into other spheres of learning. Under such systems, teachers, administrators, and

students can create artificial barriers between computers and core disciplines.

Given the rapid rate of change in the computer industry, it can be futile to invest much effort in

learning any one skill. Students would be better served by developing self-managed learning skills that

they could use to learn new computer skills on their own.

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negative feedback and intricate interrelationships,general descriptions and basic rules are incapableof conveying much understanding.

Learning impact: Computer simulation allowsstudents to observe the behavior of complexsystems and interact with key variables to derivebasic principles and make predictions about theconsequences of changes in such systems. Asimulation of an ecosystem can enable students tocomprehend quickly the delicate balance betweenspecies and the impact that shifts in the populationof one species can have on the entire system. In amatter of a few minutes, several seasons orlifetimes can be simulated as variables are changedand monitored and predications made andverified. As students interact with a simulation,they develop and sharpen their cognitive skills andbegin to construct mental models and newunderstandings of the complex world aroundthem. There are a variety of educationalsimulation games for teaching physics, chemistry,biology, environmental studies, math, politicalscience, economics, history, and geography.

As with other types of CAL applications, it ispossible for students to construct their ownsimulations by defining the elements of a systemand the rules that govern how they interact andfunction. Through such exercises, students attainnew levels of understanding, they often crossdisciplinary boundaries, and skills are reinforcedand made relevant.The process of developing asimulation often requires students to work incollaborative teams, carry out detailed research indifferent fields, and address numerous problemsand challenges. These and other educationalbenefits contribute greatly to creating a qualitylearning experience.

3. Research and Analysis

Living and working in knowledge-rich societiesdemands new abilities. Individuals should be ableto formulate critical questions, identify, acquire,organize, and summarize information from diversesources, and analyze and make judgments aboutthe results. Learning and perfecting these skillsrequires that research and analysis activities beintegrated into learning across disciplines andthroughout schools. In addition to the practical

benefits of developing critical workplace skills,learning that involves research and analysis fostersdevelopment of higher-order cognitive abilitiesand is more enjoyable than rote learning.Research and analysis are powerful learningprocesses through which students actively createtheir own understanding rather than simplyacquiring information passively from teachers.

Computer technologies are not required toenable students to engage in challenging andproductive research and analysis experiences.However, these technologies can remove or lessenbarriers to quality research and analysis, makingthe process easier and less frustrating. Technologyalso can lower the costs of research and analysisand lead to more sophisticated and rewardingresults. In all research and analysis activities, thereare practical trade-offs between labor andintellectual activities.When students spend timeand effort physically seeking information, less timeis spent in higher-order activities such as readingand thinking about their topic, formulating newquestions, or exploring possible relationships andpatterns. Computers also can shift the balancebetween labor and learning in favor of higher-value activities and contribute greatly to producingquality results.

Digital LibrariesIn some situations, computers and reference CD-

ROMs, electronic journals and periodicals, andcommunication tools can provide affordable accessto current research and reference resources thatcannot be obtained from conventional librariesand paper-based systems. It is unlikely that mostcountries can afford to establish and maintainconventional libraries in the hundreds of thousandsof schools that have none. This, coupled with thelong-term social costs of students not havingaccess to reference material or the opportunities tolearn to research and analyze, makes computer-mediated research very cost-effective.

Conventional libraries are the principal sourcesof information for most student research indeveloped countries. Most schools in thedeveloping world, especially those in rural orpoorly served areas, do not have a library. Even amodest school library, with only a few thousandvolumes, a handful of periodicals, desks, shelves,

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and supplies, can be prohibitively expensive to setup and maintain. For a fraction of the cost, it ispossible to create a robust electronic libraryconsisting of one or two computers, and a varietyof CD-ROMs that can provide access to currentand detailed reference information, a collection ofperiodicals, and an assortment of literature. Accessto the Internet, if possible, makes an electroniclibrary global. Electronic reference libraries cannotreplace conventional libraries, but they are superiorto no library at all.

It is useful to note that the same tools thatprovide access to digital information can enablestudents to analyze and digest it, as well as createreports and papers that combine text, graphics, andimages.With a link to the Internet, the universe ofreference sources explodes, and it becomes possiblefor students to engage in collaborative research withstudents in others schools and countries. In short,greater educational benefits can be achieved, atlower cost, through computer-assisted research andanalysis than with conventional manual approaches.

4. Computation and Production

Computers excel at manipulating information,performing complex calculations, graphingrelationships, and accomplishing repetitive tasks.Many of the most important learning activities—reading, writing, mathematics, languages, mappingconcepts and relationships, presenting informationin useful ways, discovering relationships andpatterns, and sharing understanding with others—can be enhanced significantly by the judicious and

creative use of computers. While these benefits arebeing realized, students learn practical skills inusing core computer applications.

As routine work becomes less tedious,enthusiasm and creativity grows, and it becomeseasier for students to focus on core intellectualactivities. This effect of the integrated use ofcomputers in education was clearly demonstratedin Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT 1996).One ACOT participating teacher, Robert Howell,reported that,“The students don’t get tired ofworking on the computer. They actually ask forthings to do. In all my years of teaching, I neverhad anyone ask for another ditto.” 1

Other teachers participating in the onlinecollaborative RiverWalk-Brazil 2001 project2

noted similar positive student reactions to workingwith computers and the Internet,“This projecthad elevated the self-esteem of the studentsbecause they realized they could do the same workas others more fortunate than they. Their picturesand research are on the Internet, so they are“important citizens” who are contributing to thefuture generations. Two other Brazilian teachers,Maria Sakete and Sergio Barreto, reported howthe students were more engaged in learning aswell as how the project tied in with theclassroom’s thematic topics:

“…the students had raised some questionsaround the bridges. In this opportunity, we studied "volume and proportion,” exploring theconcepts of capacity, extent, size, and mass.”

Rio de Janeiro’s Response to Lack of Educational, Research Materials

Recognizing the need for providing state-of-the-art technologies in the schools within the

municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as well as the challenges of providing Internet connectivity in all

schools due to budgetary constraints, education officials created “Geracao Internet,” a regularly

updated CD-ROM containing a collection of the best web sites for use in primary classrooms to

supplement learning in all disciplines. Beginning in 2000, this CD-ROM was distributed to all public

primary teachers within the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Considered another form of a

digital library, the CD contains sites ranging from the Amazon rainforest to the Sao Paulo Zoo, to

sites on world geography, math, language arts, and history, “Geracao Internet” provides the next best

thing to having an actual Internet connection for those schools with computers lacking connectivity.

Additionally, the information on the CD-ROM contains what would be volumes and volumes of

printed information, thus saving valuable shelf space as well. (Rusten, 2002)

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5. Learning Networks and Computer-

Mediated Communication

When computers are linked to create localnetworks in classrooms and schools, it becomespossible for users to communicate across thenetwork and access common resources includinghardware, software, references materials, and textand multimedia files. When many local networksin a city, country, or around the world areinterconnected, as they are through the Internet,the range, diversity, and means of communicationand access to information grows exponentially.Network learning, or the use of computers andnetworks for collaborative learning, research, andcommunication, is rapidly becoming one of themost potent means for applying computertechnologies to improve education. As NeilRudenstine (1997) explains, network learning…

…enhances the vital process of “conversational”learning... People argue and debate, listen and react,and sometimes even discover common solutions todifficult problems. [Computer networks create] an arrayof new electronic forums for such conversational learning.Communication takes place at all hours, across distances,among people on campus, and beyond. Instructors canhold supplementary “electronic office hours” andmoderate on-line discussion groups, unbounded by timeor place. Students, even those who are reticent in theclassroom, can put forward their hypotheses and invitetheir peers’ reactions, or describe a problem they arestruggling to solve and solicit suggestions from others.

Central to all learning networks, computer-mediated communication (CMC) uses a variety ofsoftware that enables synchronous andasynchronous communication. The most commontools include email, listservs, computerconferencing, online discussion forums,newsgroups, and chat rooms. CMC in its differentforms enables people to share information, askquestions, make new friends, collaborate, and learnin ways unimaginable less than five years ago.

At a minimum, CMC can improvecommunication among administrators, teachers,and students within a school. Electronic mail, thesingle most common use of CMC systems, hasbeen shown to lower overall communication costswhile increasing the frequency and quality of

communication. At its most robust, CMC enablesusers to engage in research and collaborativelearning that would be impossible without thisglobal system. CMC’s effect on education andlearning should not be underestimated, andteachers and students are only just starting torealize the benefits of this exciting use ofcomputers in schools.

Learning impact: Engaging students in learningnetworks through deliberate strategies withdefined learning outcomes and assessmentactivities can achieve many of the elements of aquality education. Participating in learningnetworks requires students to be active andengaged learners,“following leads, distinguishingthe substantial from the trivial, synthesizinginsights drawn from different sources, andformulating new questions. Seated before thecomputer, a student is challenged to makesomething happen, to act or pursue, rather thanmerely react or absorb. Such an approach holdsparticular promise in an era when students, morethan ever, will need to sustain the capacity forserious learning throughout their lives andcareers.” (Rudenstine 1997)

Nearly all the information provided to studentsduring the course of their education is heavilyfiltered and processed by teachers, textbookauthors, educational radio and television programs,and curriculum guides. Therefore, it should be nosurprise that students often lack the criticalthinking and analytical skills needed to determineif the raw, unfiltered information that permeatesthe world outside the classroom is true or useful.The best way to learn these skills, as with allhigher-order cognitive abilities, is through activeand collaborative learning processes.

Chile’s Enlaces program, which has built anational learning network to connect all primaryand secondary schools in the country, is one of theoldest and best-known projects seeking to establisha learning network and use CMC. This nationalinitiative is striving to leverage the power of CMCon a wide scale to increase educational access andequity, improve learning, and support a majoreducational reform effort. (Hepp 1998; Rusten etal 1998; Potashnik 1996)

Combining learning networks with computer-

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mediated communication and the Internet has thepotential to radically change education in newways. Similarly, building learning networks, suchas in the Enlaces program, can increase educationalaccess and equity. Via Enlaces, students in Chile’spoorer rural areas now can have access to thelearning resources of their peers in urban regions.Geography and poverty have become less of abarrier to quality teaching and learning. Becauseof the democratic nature of the Internet, learningnetworks are enabling information andknowledge equity. Learning networks are one ofthe only viable strategies available to poorercountries and communities to address one of theworld’s newest forms of poverty,“the poverty ofinformation and knowledge.”

6. Artistic Expression and Creativity

Discussions about educational development andlearning technologies rarely include considerationof artistic expression and creativity. Yet these tworelated but distinct concepts are vitally importantto the ability of all communities and nations tosurvive and prosper. Creativity is critical to thesuccess of some of the most important humanendeavors, including education, learning, the socialand natural sciences, business and commerce,governance and politics, entrepreneurism, and thearts. Creativity and its twin, innovation, may behumankind’s best hopes for addressing the many

challenges we face, and sustainable developmentand global democracy would be all the moredifficult to achieve without the possibility ofhuman creativity.

Whether education and schooling can teachcreativity or induce artistic expression is debated.However, education either can foster and nurturecreativity and provide productive outlets andtraining to refine and direct artistic talent, or it canstifle these precious human qualities. Computerscan be a powerful means of fostering, enabling,and sharpening creativity, as well as providing awhole new set of outlets for it. The computerindustry, and especially the Internet, is consideredone of most creativity-demanding fields of work.Core activities, including software development,chip engineering, marketing, web site design, andthe redefinition of commerce, both demand andenable creativity.

Learning impact: Computers enable and enhancecreativity in four ways:. First, computers and the different new media

that have sprung from this technology are providing new mediums of artistic expression that have expanded definitions of art and music.. Computer technologies, especially the Internet,are providing new ways to produce, publish,and distribute literature and poetry, making it

Creativity and Collaboration Across Continents: iEARN

iEARN is a global network of teachers and students who are using the Internet and email to

implement collaborative projects that exemplify active and creative teaching and learning. iEARN

participants and educators seek to prepare today’s youth for a constantly changing and evolving

multicultural world as new technologies emerge and economies become more interdependent. In the

last decade, iEARN has connected schools from all over the world in more than 90 countries and is

currently working with approximately 350,000 students with representation from 29 different

languages. The projects are based on interactive discussions and sharing of work, as students and

teachers debate, perform research and exchange opinions. The project topics and themes range from

global arts and music to international foods and cultural patterns, world religions, local histories,

indigenous peoples, youth service, and more. The idea behind iEARN is to get students to compare

and contrast their lives with those of their peers in other lands. Through this process, better

communication and cross-cultural understanding, as well as learning, result. By going directly to the

source in dealing with the problems they face—to the real people of another country–problems will

be solved and relationships forged. With the help of ICTs, learning and communicating takes on a

new meaning and dimension.

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possible for nearly anyone to share his or her art, writing, music, and poetry with a global audience.. Computer programming, which demands and cultivates creativity, is one of the fastest-growing areas of employment.. At a more practical level, computers have become a primary means for graphic artists,designers, architects, and a whole new breed of web site designers to create and publish images,develop new products, and design buildings.

It is well known that academic achievementcan be enhanced through participation in creativeand artistic programs. In the US, research showsthat students participating in music educationscore an average of 10 percent higher onScholastic Aptitude Tests (SATs) than those whodo not. Many classroom teachers have discoveredthat positive changes in behavior, performance, andattitudes toward learning occur when artistic andcreative activities are integrated into academicstudies. Computer technologies provide newopportunities to capitalize on the mutuallyreinforcing relationships between creative andacademic achievement while helping studentsstrengthen, refine, and direct innate abilities.Creative writing programs, for example, that usethe combined power of computers and theInternet demonstrate the positive effects of mixingthe creative, computational, and publishingcapability of these technologies.

Teacher Professional Development3

One of the best ways to radically improve thequality of education is to increase educators’knowledge and improve their teaching skills.Conventional professional teacher developmentthrough residential degree programs, conferencesand workshops, and periodic visits from contentexperts or teaching specialists can be effectivemeans of building teaching capacity. However, formost developing countries, such programs are tooexpensive to be used extensively and cannotbegin to meet the demand. When available,radio- and television-delivered professionaldevelopment programs can help fill criticaltraining gaps, but the lack of interactivity andabsence of collaborative learning limits their

effectiveness. Without alternatives, there is littlehope that many nations can significantly andrapidly improve the teaching ability of most oftheir teachers, or even meet the needs ofeducating primary students, especially when thegrowth of school-aged children exceeds thecurrent teacher supply.

The LearnLink’s Connect-ED project wasimplemented to address the growing need forqualified teachers in Uganda. This ICT project,begun in the fall of 2000, helped bolster efforts totrain primary teachers through the use ofcomputer-mediated training. Through Connect-ED, LearnLink worked with its partners todevelop a series of online learning modules drawnfrom the Institute of Teacher Education inKyambogo (ITEK)’s courses in Science and HealthEducation, Social Studies, Foundations ofEducation, Language, Mathematics, and CulturalEducation. Online trainings took place in newlyconstructed educational technology centerslocated in eight Primary Teacher Collegesthroughout Uganda. (Country Report, Uganda2001) Since then, computer technologies,including CD-ROMs, CMC, and hybrid systemscombining computers with traditional distancelearning programs such as radio, television, orvoice-mail telephone programs, have made itpossible to provide quality professionaldevelopment quickly to large numbers of teachers.

The most promising new approach to buildingteacher capacity is computer-mediated professional

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development involving CD-ROMs and theInternet. Such programs can enable groups ofteachers to engage in intellectually challengingprofessional development delivered across theInternet and facilitated by online instructors.When educators participate in online professionaldevelopment while actively teaching, they are ableto use their classrooms as living laboratories to testnew approaches. Results, questions, and concernscan be shared with peers across the country or inother nations for comments and suggestions. Thecollaborative learning aspects of online educationcan provide valuable guidance from moreexperienced teachers, mitigate feelings of isolation,and work to strengthen feelings of professionalismamong teachers.Additionally at a most basic level,curriculum content that may not be readilyavailable from existing textbooks can betransferred to electronic format and utilized inself-paced learning environments.

This transfer from text to electronic format istaking place in the previously mentionedUganda/Connect-ED project. In addition to theteacher training modules, Connect-ED createdThe Digital Resource Library for pre-serviceteachers, which contains electronic resourcematerials to supplement face-to-face training andKyambogo University’s teaching curriculum.(LearnLink Newsline, Uganda 2002)

Computer mediated or online professionaldevelopment can be undertaken at schools usingthe same equipment, software, and connections to

the Internet that are used for other purposes.Because of teachers’ concerns about privacy,computers used for their professional developmentshould be maintained where students cannotbother the teachers. If teachers use professionaldevelopment programs offered through universitiesor other organizations, then little additionalinvestment other than course fees is required. It isimportant, however, for teachers to be givensufficient time off during the school day toparticipate effectively in such programs. Inaddition to helping teachers gain contentknowledge and better teaching skills, onlineprofessional development gives them experienceusing computers and the Internet in aneducational environment. This experience canmake it easier and more likely for teachers tointegrate these technologies into their teaching.

There are a variety of online professionaldevelopment programs available to teachers fromuniversities and other organizations in the UnitedStates, Canada,Australia, and the United Kingdom(Fontaine 2001). In late 1997, UNESCO launchedits innovative Learning Without Frontiers (LWF)program by initiating the first of five learningnetworks for teacher professional development inZimbabwe (Rusten and Verkuilen 1998). This piloteffort linked staff and trainees at Zimbabwe’s fiveteacher training colleges with professionals at theUniversity of Zimbabwe’s Distance EducationDepartment to form a learning network forteacher educators, trainees, and practicing teachers.

Brazil’s Teacher Training Challenge

With the world’s eighth-largest economy and more than 50 percent of Latin America’s high school

students, Brazil faces one of the largest teacher training challenges in the world. Several hundred

thousand uncertified teachers, many with minimal education, staff thousands of remote rural and

small village schools throughout Brazil. A recent law required that by 2003, all of Brazil’s public school

teachers were to receive training equivalent to a bachelor’s degree. At the same time, the growing

demand on schools is forcing them to hire even more uncertified teachers.

Conventional face-to-face approaches to professional development could not begin to train

teachers fast enough to enable the states to comply with the law. Also, the cost of providing

conventional professional training to the many thousands of teachers who need it far exceeded the

education budget of the entire country.

Given this forbidding situation, how did Brazil attempt to meet this self-imposed deadline and build

the teaching capacity of its educators? The country had only one option—educational technology. This

involved a combination of television, radio, and computer mediated-professional development.

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Initial reports from project staff indicated that alack of computers, insufficient teacher technologyskills, and negative institutional and professionalmomentum inhibited progress toward achieving theproject’s ambitious goals. However, as a UNESCOrepresentative involved with the project explainedfour years later,“One of the lessons we can learn isthat people set up their own networks according totheir own specific needs. The web site that wasdesigned [for the Zimbabwe activity] was notaccessible, and the electronic discussion list,monitored by Paris, did not serve the needs.However, people set up their own individual‘distribution lists.’ Frequent exchanges took placebetween individuals at the colleges as well as withpeople outside the colleges, encountered throughother ways than the project. I think one should seethe project more as an activity, a catalyst tointroduce ICTs. Sustainability lies in the fact thatthe colleges continued using the Internet, paid fortheir own connection fee, and increased thenumber of computers. Further, participants becamecreative and designed their own specificprojects/activities. That project activities did nottake place as planned is of less concern.” (February22, 2001 email exchange between Mary Fontaine,LearnLink, and Jeannette Vogelaar, currently at theMinistry of Foreign Affairs,The Hague,The Netherlands.)

This example is illustrative and useful forfuture learning. As of this writing, LWF is nolonger in operation, and proposed plans forexpansion to Namibia have been discarded.Thelessons to be drawn from this are that ICT forteacher training cannot work without carefullythought-out plans and overall support from allinvolved—from policy makers at the top to theteachers on the front lines going through thetrainings. Without building the local capacity ofthose who will be expected to use thetechnologies in their teaching, a project has verylittle chance of surviving past the pilot phase.

With this in mind, the LearnLink Namibiacomputer-assisted teacher training (CATT) projectsuccessfully engaged the support of the Ministry ofBasic Education, Sport, and Culture and partneredwith National Institute for EducationDevelopment (NIED) in a pilot project to expandinformation and communication technologytraining and resources in selected Teacher

Resource Centers in Rundu, Katima Mulilo, andOngwediva and at NIED. Participating teacherswere trained in the most current constructivist,learner-centered teaching strategies, combinedwith comprehensive technology trainings to bestsupport project-based learning. This dual approachallowed teachers to apply and adapt ICTknowledge to all disciplines at the regional,district, and local levels. Thus, technology skillswere embedded into the curriculum and nottaught as a separate subject.

A further example that serves as an exemplarymodel for effectively training teachers to integratetechnology into developing country schoolcurriculums is the World Links program, aninitiative of the World Bank Institute started in1997. World Links is operational in twenty-twodeveloping countries and reaches approximately200,000 teachers and students. In over twenty-fivepartner countries, students collaborate on variousproject-based themes on a wide range of topics,from the environment to AIDS, cultural heritage,biology, and literature. One of the keys to successfor World Links is a modular professionaldevelopment training program, corresponding todifferent levels of teacher experience usingtechnology, which is designed to help teacherslearn to apply ICTs to improve teaching andlearning. The professional development trainingconsists of five phases, including:. Introduction to the Internet for Teaching and

Learning;. Introduction to “Telecollaborative” Learning Projects;. Curriculum and Technology Integration;. Innovations: Pedagogy,Technology, and Professional Development; and. Planning and Management of School-based Telecenters.

Each phase lasts one week and consists of 40hours of training, totaling 200 hours of training inall, taking teachers with no prior experience withcomputers to full competency over a two to threeyear period. (Carlson and Gadio, 2002) Oneteacher who completed the trainings explainedthat,“During my thirty years of teaching, I havecome across many innovations in the field ofteaching and learning: the Internet is a unique

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one. This thing is so amazing to me that I wish Iwas at the beginning of my career today.”(Teacher, Senegal) Yet another remarked,“Thisprogram is a great motivation for students: studentsget more motivated and love working withcomputers to do different kinds of activities. Theteaching is different, and the class is moreinteresting, because the teacher becomes a guide, afacilitator for the students.” (Teacher, Chile)

ProInfo Brazil is a highly successful modelfor not only providing and introducingcomputers into the public schools of Brazil, but,more importantly, for investing strongly intraining their teachers to effectively use andintegrate computer technologies into their dailyteaching practices.4 As one teacher explained,“Itwasn’t necessarily the computers, it was the waycomputers were used to engage both my teachingand my students’ learning. Their enthusiasm forlearning was infectious. Through ProInfo, I’verediscovered the joy of teaching and cannot waitto come to school everyday. Counting the daysto retirement is now in my past,” (Personalcommunication Rusten, 2001)

Improving School and ClassroomManagementComputers excel at managing data, and they canmake it easier for teachers and administrators tomaintain accurate records to improve school andclassroom management. As education systems seekto decentralize services, financial support,management, and responsibilities, it becomesincreasingly important for schools to build thecapacity to maintain financial and personnelrecords. Using computers can increase accuracy,reduce the time and costs involved in enteringdata, and make it possible to quickly retrieve andanalyze information for decision making.

Many schools that seek to introduce computersinto their education and management systemslikely will need to turn to local businesses for fundsto purchase, maintain, and expand the computersystem. Schools that are poorly managed andcannot provide a financial analysis for the computersystem they want will probably be unable toconvince businesses to donate cash or otherresources to a development project. Therefore,computerizing management systems using school

resources may be a necessary first step inimplementing larger computer education projects.

Computers also can make it possible forteachers to maintain accurate student records, trackand analyze performance, and use the resultinginformation to make decisions about how toindividualize instruction. Burdensome and tediousrecord keeping takes time away from moreimportant tasks and inhibits teachers frommaintaining records. Simplifying the process canencourage teachers to keep better records and,more important, make use of the resultinginformation. Before changing the way teachersand schools manage classroom and school records,it is important to evaluate the school’s informationecology5 and the staff ’s perceptions of its currentinformation management system. Thisunderstanding can prove instrumental in makingeffective decisions about knowledge-intensiveprojects and designing new informationmanagement systems.

As with all parts of this model, using computerand communication technologies just to improveschool information management might be aninsufficient justification for using scarce resourcesand would be a poor use of these tools. Greaterbenefits are achieved when 2 or more parts of themodel are combined to form the focus of anintervention. For example, combining animproved school and classroom managementsystem with efforts to integrate computers intoteaching and learning could be mutually

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supportive. By reducing the time it takes tomaintain records and, at the same time, improvingunderstanding of student performance, teacherswould have more time to focus on targetingcomputer use to meet individual student needs.

Strengthening School-CommunityPartnershipsMuch of a school’s initial investment forcomputers often will come from governmentagencies, international donors, or local businesses.After this first investment, schools generally areexpected to maintain and expand their computersystem by generating needed funds from their ownsources and by modifying the school’s budget.Funds will be needed to maintain the computers,buy supplies and additional equipment andsoftware to meet expanding demand, pay formonthly Internet access fees, replace failed oroutdated equipment, and possibly cover the salaryof technical support specialists or instructors.

Some schools use their computers to raiseneeded funds through a mix of revenue-generatingactivities after normal school hours, includingcomputer training courses open to the public,computer time rental programs, desktop publishingbusinesses, and a variety of high-end computerservices offered to local businesses and governmentagencies. Schools that provide communitymembers access to their valuable computerresources on a fee-for-use basis often achieve twoimportant goals. First, they earn essential funds to

maintain the computer system. Second, andpossibly equally important, they strengthen positiverelationships with the community. Strong school,community, and private sector relationships cantranslate into longer-term financial support, accessto needed volunteers, and political support forpolicy changes.This was demonstrated inLearnLink’s Guatemala project, which opened upsome of its technology centers to the communityto provide valuable services to communitymembers as well as generate important funds. Thetechnology center in Nebaj, for example, offeredservices to the population as a whole, includingInternet access, photocopies, scanning, computerrental, printing, desktop publishing, and evencustom-designed courses.

It is not easy to achieve a balance betweenproviding needed community services andearning sufficient money to cover the costs ofnon-school use of the computer system whilegenerating revenue for the school’s core budget.However, there are a variety of examples ofschools, both private and public, rural and urban,that have succeeded in achieving this balance. Aschool in a rural community in Grenada, forexample, ran computer courses for adults andstudents from a local college and providedcomputer use in the evenings and on weekendsfor a fee. Funds generated from these activitieshelped the school pay the computer teacher’ssalary and maintain the equipment (Bosch 1994).Many of the schools participating in the Jamaica2000 project were able to raise their share of thefunds needed to participate in the project fromcommunity members and local businesses. Afterthe computers were installed, some of theseschools started after-school computer activityprograms for local businesses to cover the costs ofongoing maintenance and purchases of supplies(Rusten et al. 1998).

Little research has been done to examine thesustainability of school-run, revenue-generatingprojects that use school computers. However,given the relative scarcity of computer technologiesand skills in many developing countries, it isplausible that such funding strategies will work foryears to come. Ultimately, however, as computersbecome more prevalent and businesses startproviding these services, it will become

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progressively more difficult for schools to engage innon-core activities to raise funds to support coreassets and functions, and other, more sustainablefunding strategies will have to be found.

Building and strengthening community links tothe school may be a much more valuable result ofengaging members of the local community in aschool’s computer initiative. Schools in manycountries have used the promise of a computerproject to get businesses and parents to providegoods, services, and labor to build or remodelcomputer lab facilities, ensure that the electricalsystem is properly installed, and install networkcabling linking the school’s computers. Thiscommunity involvement was clearly demonstratedin the LearnLink Amic@ Telecenter project inParaguay.6 Although not housed in a school butused by school-aged children, one Amic@telecenter was not only built by the communitybut used materials supplied by the community tobuild it as well.

NetDay (www.netday.org) activities aroundthe world demonstrate how community memberscan make a substantial contribution to enhancinga school’s investment in technology whilestrengthening links to the community. NetDaywas started as a grassroots movement in theUnited States to install cabling to link a school’scomputers together to form a local network andmake the network Internet-ready. From 1996-2001, NetDay expanded to 40 states andmobilized over 500,000 volunteers to wire morethan 75,000 classrooms in states across thecountry. Since starting in the United States,NetDay programs have been instituted incountries across the globe, from New Zealand toBrazil. Similar to NetDay, SchoolNet Namibiamobilizes groups of volunteers to install schoolnetworks and provide technical support. Onenotable program,“Kids on the Block” enlists andtrains youth volunteers to provide technicalsupport and mentoring, as well as assistance in theset-up of low-cost local area networks.

The international NGO Schools Online(www.schoolsonline.org) represents another keyexample of the importance of strong school-community relationships to bring computers,connectivity, and training to schools around theworld. In partnerships with World Links and

iEARN as well as many high tech corporations,Schools Online helps bring technology todeveloping countries ranging from Argentina toBulgaria to Zambia. Programs have beendeveloped to provide the most efficient access tothe Internet to as many students as possible. As ofearly 2000, over 400 schools in over 32 countriesreceived the equipment and support necessary toget online. Yet another example of communitysupport for ICT development is World ComputerExchange (WCE), an NGO providing high qualityrefurbished computers and networking equipmentat the lowest possible cost to developing countryschools and NGOs. As community members,business people, and parents become involved inNetDay, Schools Online, and WCE-like activitiesand projects, it is more likely they will continue tosupport the school in other ways in the future.

Supporting Broad Education Reform Efforts7

Just as school computer initiatives can revitalizeand initiate school community partnerships,technology projects can have a positive effect onbroad educational reform efforts. The followingsection explores the synergy between technologyprojects and educational reform.

Comprehensive educational reform is acomplex and challenging undertaking. The easierpart of the process is defining what is wrong withthe current system, what needs to be changed, andwhat new factors need to be introduced into theeducation system. Unfortunately, most reform

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directives are long on the “whats” but short on the“hows” of successfully accomplishing the reform.It is common for reform documents to requireschools and teachers to:. create lifelong learners;. support the development of higher-order

cognitive skills;. foster creativity;. change teaching from a traditionally didactic toa student-centered process;. teach research and analysis;. better prepare students for the workplace;. make education more relevant; and. provide access to current research material.

These are all admirable objectives, but they canbe difficult to achieve. Enacting effective andlasting reform demands a variety of interrelatedapproaches. Unfortunately, when school andeducational reform is discussed, computers andassociated technologies usually are not part of theconversation—and they generally are not viewedas mutually reinforcing allies in the struggle toimprove education.

When schools look for ways to implementreforms and achieve broad objectives, it isunderstandable for them to turn first toconventional, familiar approaches for solutions.Many conventional approaches have been triedwith varying degrees of success- some are tooexpensive to be considered. As schools seekalternative approaches, some may turn, oftenaccidentally, to computer technologies as levers orstimulators of change and as possible means ofenabling and facilitating reform strategies. TheEnlaces project in Chile provides a good exampleof how the needs of a national reform effort andthose of a pilot computer networking projectcoincided. Each initiative provided critical inputsand means to the other, and a near perfectsymbiotic relationship was created that continuesto contribute to the achievement of bothintegrated initiatives. (Rusten and Contreras-Budge et al, 1998)

Many of the characteristics and benefits ofcomputer technologies can become instrumentalfor facilitating active reform programs. Reformefforts can provide the national policy mandate toencourage schools and teachers to try new ways of

doing things and make room for alternatives andchange. This combination of forces can make itpossible for computers-in-school projects to beintegrated into school systems while focusing onthe interests of teachers, administrators, students,and parents.

Educational reform does not always occur as aresult of changes in national policies. Reform,especially in teaching and learning in theclassroom, can occur when teachers haveopportunities to change the way they work withstudents and engage the learning process.Experience shows that such changes often occurwhen teachers are given opportunities to learn tointegrate computers into their teaching.

One example, LearnLink’s Computer AssistedTeacher Training Pilot Project (CATT) inMorocco, drew attention to the issues ofeducation and curriculum reform and thepotential role ICTs can play in the reformprocess. CATT’s development of online learningmodules that integrated computers andmultimedia tools into classroom learning for theMinistry of National Education (MNE) startedsmall and was contracted to provide training to acore group of 50 teachers and 350 studentteachers. Due to teacher enthusiasm and creationof additional technology centers, the programactually trained over 335 teachers and 1600student teachers. At the close of the project inOctober of 2001, the MNE officially approved allseven teacher training modules for usenationwide. There is evidence that reform effortssuch as CATT in Morocco can result in longerterm national policy changes.

Further exemplifying this bottom-up process ofeducational reform is Brazil’s ProInfo project.ProInfo started in 1997 as a national initiative inpartnership with state and local authorities toestablish a network of teacher training andtechnology resource centers across the country. Itsprimary goal was to integrate technology into allaspects of the curriculum. To ensure thatcomputer labs were being installed in publicschools around the country and used to improvelearning, ProInfo invested approximately 40percent of project resources in teacher training.Unlike many other computer training programs,however, ProInfo’s approach focused on

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introducing teachers to new ways of teachingfounded on constructivist principles that makeextensive use of computers. Teachers learn to usethe computers as they learn to create interactiveand collaborative learning environments that fosterinterdisciplinary, active learning. After less than ayear of program activities, observers noticed thatteachers who participated in the computer trainingprogram extended the use of computers forteaching beyond the computer lab. Also, teachersreported that, for the first time in their careers,they started teaching collaboratively with otherteachers and were becoming facilitators of learningrather than presenters of information. It is tooearly to tell whether these changes will reformteaching in Brazil or if student performance willimprove. However, reports from some schoolsshow that teachers are using these new approachesin classes that do not involve the use of computers.

Establishing a school computer program andachieving any of the benefits discussed above is notautomatic. Schools, especially in developingcountries, face formidable challenges to integratingcomputers into education systems. In addition,computer and communication technologies arenot always the best response to meeting the needsof schools or education systems. There may bemore pressing and critical needs to whichtechnology is ill-equipped to respond. If plannersdecide that a computer program is an appropriateresponse to educational needs, then the followingsection may help lessen the difficulty of planningand implementing a school computer program.

Critical Challenges for Computers-in-School InitiativesExperts, educators, politicians, scholars, businesspeople, and parents around the world are makingthe same claim—that computer technologies holdgreat promise for improving educational access,equity, and quality. Castro (1998) writes:

The technological revolution holds great promise foreducation. Technology in communication, image, anddata processing is evolving at lightning speed, while alsobecoming cheaper and more reliable. The consequencesfor education are enormous. Technology has gone frombeing a set of solutions in search of a problem toincreasingly offering precise and well-defined potential for

education. A technological revolution in education isbecoming possible, even though it has not yet happened.

Realizing the promised benefits and turningpotential into action and possibility into reality isnot easy. Even after schools recognize the needfor educational change and reform, conservativeattitudes and behavior make change and reform inschools daunting. A complex mix of financial,technical, policy, process, political, educational,social, and language factors can create formidablebarriers to change that can frustrate the mostardent champion of integrating computers intoschools. It is possible to meet these challenges,however, and build new, stronger educationprograms that apply the best that computertechnologies have to offer to help make learningall it can be.

Strategies for SuccessThere are no prescriptions or recipes forsuccessful school computer projects. Althoughexperience is limited, lessons are emerging thatpoint the way toward improving chances forsuccess. A few of the more important strategiesare discussed briefly:

Focus on education, not technology: First andforemost, school computer projects should beeducational development projects, not technologyprojects. This focus on education demands thatprojects clearly articulate the educationalobjectives of the intervention and that theobjectives define specific learning and educationalgoals that the school seeks to achieve. Plannersand implementers also should define why thesegoals and objectives are important and how theyand others will know when the objectives havebeen achieved. Project participants should identifyspecific indicators of achievement that can be usedto assess progress and evaluate the project.

The educational objectives of a project shouldnot be dictated to schools and teachers fromdistant ministries, universities, or developmentagencies. Rather, they should be developed in aparticipatory process that involves teachers,administrators, government and donorrepresentatives, community members, andtechnical specialists. Strategic planning and

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SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities andthreats) analyses offer good models for this process.

The ProInfo project in Brazil is an example ofthe importance of a participatory process indeveloping and implementing a school computerproject. The national planners for ProInfo set veryfew dictates for the program; rather, they workedcollaboratively with state and municipal educationofficers, school principals, and teachers to definehow the ProInfo project would be implementedin each state, municipality, and school. Commontechnical and pedagogical principles guide howeach ProInfo computer lab is established and used,but all ProInfo schools have their own character,reflected by local decisions made in partnershipwith national ProInfo staff (Salles and Rusten,1999 and 2002).

A participatory process serves as a first step inbuilding a strong sense of ownership among allstakeholders in the project. By continuouslystrengthening these feelings of ownership, projectstaff create a momentum for success that can beused to encourage innovation and ongoingcollaboration.

Experience shows that because of theimportant role computers play in the intervention,there is a tendency for technological issues tosupplant educational needs. Critically evaluatingthe state of education and teaching at a school andcomparing this to alternative practices can be apainful and disquieting process for teachers.

Discomfort about and fear of the evaluation andsuggested changes may encourage some to movethe process away from education and towardtechnology.

Enable transparent, participatory decision-making:

Complex, difficult projects demand continuousand rapid decision-making. Secretive, top-downjudgments can jeopardize feelings of ownershipand make people believe that decisions are beingmade to benefit the few at the expense of themany. Conversely, decisions made by committeecan inhibit prompt action and prevent difficultchoices from being made. Therefore, a balancemust be achieved between making decisionsquickly and moving issues through a process ofconsultation and dialogue, but not necessarilyconsensus. At the same time, it is important thatthis process is as transparent as possible.

Design projects with a critical mass of technology:

One of the central objectives of all schoolcomputer projects is to improve studentachievement. Being able to demonstrateauthentic progress toward this objective quicklycan be instrumental in sustaining interest,funding, political support, and a continuedcommitment to the project by teachers.Achieving even modest gains will be unlikely ifthe number of computers available is so smallthat students and teachers only can use

A School’s Revenue-Earning Plans Scuttled by the Law!

The new principal of a school in a poorer part of a Brazilian city was concerned about sustaining

the school’s new computer lab. To address this problem, she had arranged for a local firm to rent

the lab on weekends for its own training program. The principal had figured that revenue from the

rental would allow the school to purchase computer supplies, buy educational software, cover the

cost of additional electricity needed by the lab, repair equipment, and buy new equipment to expand

the lab. She also had calculated that the revenue would help buy library books and support other

educational programs.

The plan seemed sound, and a contract was offered. The income was desperately needed and

would help the principal build a stronger school and sustain her new lab for the next three years.

Unfortunately, she did not realize that it was against Brazilian law for a “public good,” the

computer lab, to be used to earn profit by a private firm. When she learned this, she was devastated

and all the more concerned about the future of the new lab.

Fortunately, ProInfo program staff are developing a set of legal revenue-earning strategies that

principals can use to help sustain their labs.

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computers a few minutes each week. There is nomagic number of computers that can guaranteesuccess, and decisions more often depend onfunding than on what is best for education. Ifonly a few computers are affordable, then studentuse needs to be carefully orchestrated to enable acore group to use the computers enough to beable to demonstrate achievement.

This principle applies to establishing centralcomputer labs in schools and to placing computersin classrooms. In both situations, an insufficientnumber of computers can significantly reduceimpact.There is an emerging bias againstestablishing centralized computer labs in favor ofplacing computers in classrooms. Among theadvantages to classroom computers are easierintegration into routine teaching and learningactivities for teachers and easier access for students.In contrast, using computer labs can be a superiorstrategy when funding and support for computerssystems is scarce and when infrastructure, security,and space in schools are limited. Decisions aboutwhich deployment strategy is best should be basedon a careful assessment of a school’s capacity tosupport computers, funds that are available,objectives of the effort, the skills and attitudes ofteachers with respect to using computers in theirteaching, and a clear awareness of infrastructureand security needs.

Integrate and infuse technology into the curriculum;

do not treat technology as a separate subject to be

taught: One of the most important decisions to bemade by teachers and administrators early in aproject are how computers should be used tosupplement existing resources, who should havepriority access, and how access should bescheduled and controlled. As demonstrated in theJamaica 2000 project, there is often a tendency forschool computer projects to focus on the needs ofcomputer science students and to use computersprimarily to teach students about basic softwareapplications and programming. A common resultof this is to seriously inhibit the integration ofcomputers into teaching and learning into allcurricular areas. Another impact of a computerscience focus is that it tends to alienate mostteachers and students, causing their interest in theproject to fade quickly.

Projects that succeed in demonstrating positivegains in student achievement and strong,committed ownership among teachers concentrateon targeting computer use for basic education skillssuch as language arts, science, and math. Furthergains are achieved by tightly integrating computeruse with conventional classroom instruction,allowing each to complement the other.

Brazil’s ProInfo project exemplifies this principle.From the start of this ambitious initiative, allteacher trainers and teachers received extensivetraining focusing on integrating computers intocore teaching activities. For example, teacherswere not taught immediately to use any standardcomputer software applications. After a briefintroduction to computers, teachers helpeddevelop an educational project related to whatthey were teaching that involved the use of severalsoftware applications.As they worked on theirprojects, they learned to use the computer and thesoftware.Thus, learning about and using thecomputer and respective software places theprimary focus on the teachers’ educational interestsand needs, not on the technology. Moreimportantly, the teachers demonstrated throughtheir learning how computers can be integratedinto routine subject matter teaching. Initial resultsfrom the ProInfo project indicate that thisapproach is working; teachers are seen practicingwhat they have learned weeks after their training.

Build teachers’ computer ability and confidence:

Teachers cannot use tools and applications they donot understand, and they cannot practice newapproaches to teaching without new skills.Providing teachers with the time and trainingneeded to familiarize them with computers and tolearn to use core educational applications in theirclasses is proving to be one of the most importantfactors in project success.

Pedro Hepp (1998), founder and coordinatorof the Enlaces project in Chile, explains that one ofEnlaces’ “greatest strength[s] has been itsrecognition that a significant impact on educationby using computer technology will only bepossible if teachers are capable of integrating itadequately into academic life. [Its] greatestweakness is that teachers do not have enough timeduring their work day to adequately familiarize

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themselves with the educational potential of theseinstruments.” Similarly, UNESCO’s LearningWithout Frontiers project in Zimbabwe cites thelack of teachers’ skills and familiarity withcomputers as the primary reason for the low levelof teacher participation in project activities, and asa result, suspension of the project for the future.(Rusten and Verkuilen 1998, 2002).

Project experience in many countries showsthat teachers are often reluctant to participate incomputer training programs because of fears aboutlearning to use computers. These fears can rangefrom believing that using a computer is toodifficult for them to learn to concerns that thecomputer mouse will give them electric shocks(Rusten and Arias 1999). Recognizing andovercoming these fears should be an importantpart of any training effort. One effective strategyis to train teachers to be computer trainers ratherthan using computer specialists. Using trainerswho are also classroom teachers and whounderstand the challenges faced by their peers andthe realities of the classroom can improve trainingresults. Teachers who are trainers can use real-world examples, making teacher trainees muchmore comfortable about asking questions.

As mentioned earlier, however, it is importantto balance teacher training with practicalexperience using computers in classrooms intraditional learning activities. The computer-mediated communication capability of computersand learning networks can be used to help achievethis second objective. Linking teachers via alearning network, as in the Enlaces project, canenable them to share ideas about using computersin their classrooms, ask questions of their peers inother schools, and devise collaborative strategiesfor using computers in the classroom. At the sametime, the medium of communication also buildscapacity and skills that later can translate into theinnovative use of computers.

A single training experience, whether 2 days or2 weeks, is rarely sufficient to provide teacherswith the broad range of skills they need to use thetools, feel confident enough to create new lessonplans that incorporate computers into theirteaching, or continue learning on their own.Successful projects show that training must beprovided gradually, over time, to allow teachers to

learn progressively and have an opportunity to testideas, use their new skills, and then return to atraining situation to ask questions and learn whatothers are doing.

Create teachers’ user groups: Creating andsupporting teachers’ user groups can be animportant and inexpensive way to strengthenfeelings of project ownership, spread innovationsand skills, and enable sustainability. User groupscan be started by creating teacher-led projectadvisory committees to advise on project designand serve as liaisons between the other teachersand the project. Once established, teachers’ usersgroups also can be used to strengthencommunication among teachers, administrators,project staff, and the larger community. Thesupport for innovative teaching and usingtechnology was evident through the user groupsthat the Learning Technologies Network (LTNet)created in Brazil8. Teachers utilized the variouson-line discussion boards, chat rooms, and face-to-face meetings held throughout LTNet’sduration to share ideas, provide technicalassistance, and meet like-minded educators fromaround the country.

The CATT project in Morocco provides afurther example of the many networkingopportunities made possible electronically. Linkedtogether through the Internet, a virtualcommunity of educators was established thatallowed teachers to communicate their ideas andreceive assistance from one another in technicaland pedagogical matters relating to the applicationof project-based, constructivist teachings.

Cultivate community support: Active participationof parent groups, businesses, and other members ofthe local community can improve the initialsuccess and sustainability of school computerprojects. The issue of maintaining such projectscan be divided into 2 parts: financial sustainability,or the ability to pay for consumables and replaceaging equipment, and political sustainability, or theability to maintain political support for the project.

Computer projects in schools often are imple-mented using special funding, and the excitementof the new program sometimes overshadowsrecognizing the need for ongoing support. Core

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school budgets often are not modified to accountfor support needs or changes in staffing, and newrevenue streams usually are not developed to meetnew needs. As a result, as start-up fundingdwindles and costs mount, it becomes increasinglydifficult for the educational benefits of computersto be realized as equipment breaks down, suppliesdisappear, and use is constrained. Schools in manycountries often turn to parents, local businesses,and community organizations to help provide aportion of the funding needed to sustain the useof computers in schools. This can range fromdonations of equipment and supplies to theimposition of a special computer fee. Regardlessof what specific support is needed, the key iscultivating community participation from the startof a program. Community members need to feela sense of ownership for the program and tounderstand how they, and the community as awhole, benefit from their involvement.

Similarly, strong community involvement in aprogram from the very start often will generatebroad public support for making computers animportant part of education. When parents andbusinesses feel it is in their interest to maintain andexpand computer use in schools, then politiciansand decision-makers will be inclined to supportsuch programs. Also, strong communityparticipation in the program will encourageprincipals and teachers to seek ways to integratecomputers into daily teaching and learning. Thecombination of these factors will contributegreatly to the ultimate sustainability of computerschool programs.

Plan for sustainability from the start: Schoolcomputer systems are expensive to maintain andsupport over the long term. The thrill of buyingand setting up a project can deter schools fromplanning and making the difficult decisions neededto provide long-term budget support for projects.However, sustainability questions should be askedfrom the very start. Strategies for achievingfinancial sustainability need to be evaluated in thelight of realities.

The prospects of starting and running arevenue-generating scheme to maintain andsustain a computer facility and fund newequipment may seem easy on paper.

Unfortunately, such plans often prove difficult inpractice. Few principals or teachers have the skillsneeded to organize and run a business enterprisein their schools. In addition, maintaining thepublic needs of a school can be a challenge whilepursuing a business venture because the lure ofrevenue for cash-strapped schools can pulladministrators and teachers away from their coreresponsibilities. Successfully sustaining acomputer project generally will demand a strategythat includes a mix of approaches.

Examples, which have been tried in manyprograms throughout the developing world, areprovided below:. Schools and government can modify budgets

so that recurrent and periodic expenses associated with maintaining computers in the school are covered.. In some cases, user fees may be charged students to cover the costs of paper ink and other consumables.. Partnerships may be formed with community organizations and businesses to raise funds for large purchases, such as software and new equipment to expand and update the school’s computer facilities.. Some type of revenue-generating activity, such as opening the labs up during the evening and on weekends for fee-paying use, training activities, email accounts, etc., can be instituted.. Students and/or teachers provide computer-related services to local businesses, possibly as part of computer education classes.. Foundations and other donors support special training for teachers and to purchase equipment.

One of the most difficult challenges facingmost schools trying to sustain a computer facilityis providing ongoing technical support whenproject funds end. Several strategies may be used,including:. hiring a previous student or teacher with the

needed skills to provide these services;. contracting with a local polytechnic college so that higher-level students can receive practical experiences by providing the school with technical support services; or. finding local firms to donate support services

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in exchange for using the equipment during low-use periods or for advertising.

In LearnLink’s Namibia activity, technologycenter equipment and use is maintained by localPTA organizations and out-of-work youth. Theseindividuals are specifically trained to manage thecenters as well as provide the necessary techsupport. Because the pay level is below a teacher’ssalary, the educational system can afford theirvaluable services, proving that by devising creativeways to address sustainability, equipmentmaintenance is possible as well as affordable.

Use participatory monitoring activities: Involvingteachers and administrators in project-monitoringactivities can result in several important benefits.First, teachers and administrators will learn first-hand about a project’s progress, difficulties, andachievements. With guidance, they can translatethis information into changes in project activitiesto overcome problems. Teachers can becomeexcellent sources for solutions to project problemsand a means to share lessons with a wide audience.

When planning and implementingmonitoring activities, it is important to considerusing a mix of qualitative and quantitative toolsto collect different types of information. It is alsoimportant to keep track of basic logistical andquantitative information about a project toensure that funds are used wisely and criticalactivities are completed.

Demonstrate applications and new uses:

Encouraging teachers to use computers and newapplications in their classrooms can be a slowprocess, but demonstrating new applications forteachers and students in different situations canaccelerate their adoption. Simply makingapplications available to teachers rarely works.Fostering an environment of experimentation,however, and developing programs that reward theinnovative use of computers in schools can extendthe benefits of demonstrating software applications.

Assessing, Planning, and Implementing aSchool Computer Project After deciding to invest in a computer project, thedifficult task of implementation begins. Many

elements need to be considered to implement aproject successfully. Project design should startwith a carefully planned assessment of the school’sreadiness for the intervention, the largerdevelopment environment in the community, andthe technical infrastructure environment withinthe school and surrounding community. Theassessment not only provides information essentialto designing and implementing the effort, but italso should provide baseline information and aframework for monitoring and evaluating theintervention. Ultimately, the success of a schoolcomputer project is determined by the project’slong-term sustainability.

Assessing the EnvironmentThroughout planning, implementing, evaluating,and institutionalizing a project, there arenumerous problems, pitfalls, and potholes. Beingaware of some of these at the start can helpminimize the effect of these difficulties. Thefollowing sections review important parts of theprocess to implement and institutionalize a schoolcomputer project.

Infrastructural and technical assessment: Theinfrastructural and technical assessment is, in manyways, the easiest to undertake. It focuses onphysical and human technical resources and isconcerned with their presence and costs. Thefollowing areas need to be addressed in carryingout infrastructural assessments:

Assessing telecommunications: If the proposedcomputer system needs to be connected to theInternet or a local or national network, it will benecessary to assess local telecommunicationservices. To do this, the following questions mustbe asked:. Is telephone service available locally? If not,

what alternatives exist to secure telephone service? If yes, are additional telephone lines available, and what do they cost?. Is the telephone system digital or analog?. How reliable is telephone service?. Is there an Internet service provider (ISP) within the local calling radius of the school? Ifyes, what types of Internet services are available, and how much do they cost?

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. Does the ISP offer educational discounts? Would it be interested in a partnership relationship?. What speed of Internet access is possible and usual?. How many clients does the ISP have?. How do other organizations access the Internet? . Would any other organizations be interested in collaborating with the school for ISP services?. Are there local or national plans to deregulate telecommunications services?. Are there any special regulations controlling the use of telephone lines for Internet access?. Does the computer’s modem need to be licensed?

Assessing the electrical supply: All schoolcomputer projects depend on a reliable, cleansupply of electricity to power the computers andtelecommunications equipment. To assess theelectrical supply for the project, the followingquestions should be addressed:. What is the voltage of the local electrical

supply?. How reliable is the electrical supply?. Does the electricity supply vary more than 10 percent?. How costly is electricity?. Is the electrical wiring in the room housing the computers properly grounded?. Can the school’s electrical wiring handle the additional load caused by the computer system?

Assessing facilities and furniture: Computers inschools are established either as clusters incomputer labs or in small numbers in classrooms.In either case, they can exist as stand-alonesystems, or they can be networked. In assessingthe physical facilities needed to house thecomputer system properly, the following questionsshould be addressed:. Will the computers be clustered in one or

more computer labs or distributed throughout the school?. Will a new room need to be built, or will existing space be used?. Can the rooms housing the computers be locked to prevent theft?

. Are the rooms air-conditioned (heated or cooled)? Will air conditioning be needed? Can the electrical system handle the demands of an air conditioner?. Is there a dust problem in the school? . Will the computers be connected to form a network?. Do the computer rooms have sufficient natural or electric light?. Are there suitable and sufficient tables and chairs for the computers?. Would rolling or portable tables improve computer access and use?

Assessing the presence of technical expertise,

computer vendors, and maintenance: Purchasing,configuring, installing, and maintaining computerequipment are critical factors to a successful ICTproject.The presence or absence of skilled localpeople and the availability of equipment andmaintenance service locally can have a significantimpact on the cost of the system and can influencedecisions about hiring and/or training staff tohandle maintenance and support needs. The local,regional, and national computer business sectorneeds to be assessed to determine its diversity,availability, quality, and cost.

Monitoring and EvaluationMonitoring and evaluation activities are usuallyrequired elements of donor-funded initiatives.They often serve external needs, and projectparticipants may perceive monitoring andevaluation as primarily a means of finding faultwhen projects do not proceed as planned. Thisperception of monitoring and evaluation isdestructive and unfortunate. Nonetheless, howevermonitoring and evaluation components areperceived, they are absolutely fundamental toproject success, sustainability, and expansion ofICT use in educational systems.

Monitoring and evaluation activities for schoolcomputer projects can be organized into twoparts.The first, which is easier to carry out, focuseson monitoring and evaluating projectimplementation.The second focuses onmonitoring and evaluating project impacts.

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Monitoring and Evaluating ProjectImplementationThis type of monitoring and evaluation seeks toanswer a series of practical questions about theimplementation of a school computer project.Project planning and design is an imprecise artthat combines making informed predictions,hypotheses, best bets, and, at times, bad guesses.Foretelling the future is prone to error, and a well-designed monitoring activity permits staff toidentify errors early in a project, make neededadjustments, and continue activities. Thesemonitoring and evaluation activities also enablestaff to capture valuable information and lessonsthat can be used to improve future interventions,and they can be studied by researchers to betterunderstand processes of change.

Much of this type of monitoring andevaluation focuses on addressing quantitativequestions about the number of computersinstalled, the numbers of teachers trained, and thenumbers of students using computers. In this typeof monitoring and evaluation, those undertakingthe process also examine the financial aspects ofcomputer projects and seek to determine theextent to which project funds are being spent andmanaged properly.

Below are sample questions that may be usedto monitor and evaluate project implementation:. Are teachers, principals, and key members of

the community involved in planning the implementation of the project?. Have the schools’ physical infrastructural needs been assessed prior to implementing the project?. Were the schools’ computer facilities, electrical supply, network cabling, security measures,furniture, and Internet access properly preparedwhen the computer equipment was delivered?. How were teachers selected for computer training activities?. How many trainees participated in training programs?. How many hours of training were delivered to teachers?. How long did it take for computer facilities to be developed?. What installation problems occurred, and how were they addressed?

. What training difficulties were experienced,and how were they addressed?. How was the vendor bidding process carried out and administered?. How much did it cost to prepare schools to receive the computers?. What aspects of the project’s design and plan had to be changed after start-up?. What assumptions about the project were found to be correct and incorrect?. How many computers arrived at the schools inworking order?. Did equipment vendors meet the terms of their contract?. What types of problems with maintaining the computers and facilities occurred during the first year of the project?. Were teachers and principals provided with on-going professional development opportunities in using computers and integrating them into teaching and learning?. How many schools have access to the Internet? . Of the schools with Internet access, how manyteachers and principals have personal e-mail addresses?. How many schools have developed web sites tohighlight their school computer project?

Keeping track of how a project is progressing,including documenting the problems that areencountered and how they are addressed is animportant part of successfully implementing aproject. It is also an important part of makingthe project process transparent so thatparticipants, donors, and general citizens can beassured that project funds are being used properlyand project objectives are being accomplished ina timely fashion. However, monitoring andevaluating project implementation cannot tell usif the school computer project is having animpact on education or what other kinds ofimpact may be occurring as a result of theproject.This is a much more challenging anddemanding task that must go far beyond simplequantitative data.

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Monitoring and Evaluating Project ImpactAt a basic level, monitoring and evaluating theimpact of school computer projects seeks toanswer three questions. One, are the computersand Internet technologies having a positive impacton teaching and learning? Two, what types anddegree of impacts are occurring? Three, how costeffective is the use of computer and Internettechnologies in achieving these impacts comparedto other educational inputs and interventions?Unfortunately, providing conclusive answers to allof these questions is not easy and, in fact, may notalways be possible

Monitoring and evaluating intricate systemssuch as education is a complex and difficultprocess. Integrating computers into educationshould not be thought of as a simple input-output system, as shown above (see figure 2),where a single input—technology—is added to alearning environment to produce a simpleoutput—better learning.

There are several problems with this simplisticapproach to evaluating the impact of computerand Internet technologies on education. Each ofthe main parts of the above education changeequation—the starting state of the system,technology inputs, interactive processes, and outputstate of the system—are discussed below to betterunderstand why this simplistic approach toevaluating the impact of technology on educationis insufficient.

First, education systems comprise a complexweb of relationships among people, with differentabilities, learning styles, backgrounds, motivations,perceptions, and experiences.The goals andobjectives of education are multiple, interrelated,and difficult to define.At its simplest, the goal ofeducation is to enable and facilitate learning, acomplex process of change where people interactwith each other and explore problems,

information, and knowledge within a complexmenagerie of environmental variables.Throughthis process, they may develop and increase theirskills, knowledge, and understanding of themselvesand the world. Even though a variety of theoriesseek to explain learning, our understanding of thiscomplex process is incomplete.Within the contextof this imperfect understanding, it is not surprisingthat evaluating the impact that computers and theInternet have on education is extremely difficult.

Second, computer and Internet technologiesare not simple inputs like fertilizer on a field ofmaize. In the case of fertilizer, we have a nearlycomplete understanding of how each element ofnitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium interacts withplant systems to enhance growth andphotosynthesis to increase the output of valuableproducts. In contrast, computer and Internettechnologies have many hundreds, if notthousands, of elements that can be combined innumerous ways and interact with complexlearning systems to produce multiple outputs andresults. We have a very limited understanding ofthe different elements comprising thesedeceptively simple technologies.And as newsoftware and technologies are developed and newuses created, the complex mix of elements andtheir interrelationships grows.

Third, in projects, computer and Internettechnologies are introduced into interactivelearning systems and used by different educatorswith diverse approaches, methods, and abilities toachieve a variety of immediate and long-termobjectives. At the same time, each group ofstudents that makes up the interactive system willrespond to the introduction and use of computerand Internet technologies in different ways.Also,the ways that teachers and students use computersand the Internet in learning systems will have asignificant impact on the type of intellectual and

Better Learning: More Than Technology

2Figure

BETTER STATE OF EDUCATIONCURRENT STATE OF EDUCATION

TECHNOLOGY

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cognitive interactivity that occurs and, in turn, theimpact and results that emerge.

A 1999 study by the Educational TestingService (ETS) showed that when computers wereused in drill and practice math exercises, studentabilities, assessed by standardized tests, eitherremained the same or declined. In contrast, whenthe same technologies were used in discover andproblem-solving exercises, students showed asignificant improvement in math skills.

Fourth, the outputs of education and learningsystems are as complex and difficult to define andunderstand as the interaction that occurs amonggroups of learners, content, facilitating elements,and diverse environmental variables. Outputs alsoemerge at different time intervals along acontinuum, some immediate and others in thedistant future. Furthermore, most educationaloutputs are not discrete but rather the results ofcumulative processes where minute changesgradually accumulate over time and emerge asrecognizable differences in abilities, understanding,or personal character.

Approaches to Impact EvaluationBasically, evaluating the impact of technologyprojects on education seeks to identify changes inthe variables that the program seeks to influence.Since it is extremely difficult to evaluateeducational impact directly, evaluation effortsmust try to measure indirect indicators of changein teaching and learning. Also, since no singleindicator of change can account for the totalityof possible impacts on education or explain themultitude of causal relationships, it is importantto use clusters of change indicators in anyevaluation effort.

The following lists some of the indicators andmeasures of change that can be used in differentcombinations to attempt to monitor and evaluatethe impact of school computer programs:. Before and after measurements;. With and without measurements;. Standardized tests to measure changes in

learning achievements;. Measuring changes in attitudes and behavior toward teaching and learning;. Measuring changes in school attendance,retention, and repetition rates;. Measuring changes in student perceptions about their futures;. Measuring changes in the rates of learning complex concepts;. Measuring changes in problem solving skills,creativity, and happiness;. Measuring changes in the frequency of interdisciplinary teaching and learning activities;. Measuring changes in writing skills, the richness of vocabulary, and the frequency,length, and complexity of written work; and. Measuring changes in team work skills.

Even though education change systems arecomplex and imperfectly understood, there isoften a tendency to use simple techniques todetermine if technology inputs have an impact onlearning and, if so, what the character of thoseimpacts might be. One of the more common andsimpler approaches to evaluating school computerprojects is to compare standardized test scoresbefore and after computer and Internettechnologies have been introduced.The ETS studyis an example of this type of evaluation. This

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approach may demonstrate that changes occurredand may hint at the reasons for these changes, butit only will show a very narrow set of impacts.

Standardized tests usually seek to assess only adiscrete set of academic and cognitive skills in amultiple-choice format.These tests also tend toassess the test taking skills of students and favor anarrow set of learning styles. In contrast, manyschool computer projects are introduced to expanda broad range of educational and learningobjectives, not just improve a single group of skillssuch as math or reading. As a result, thestandardized test approach to measuring theimpact of technology projects will not be able toevaluate a majority of these desired impacts. Infact, it can be argued that the multifaceted natureof education change projects, such as many schoolcomputer initiatives, demands that much morediverse approaches to evaluation be used.

Brazil’s ProInfo program is an example of howusing clusters of indicators can help overcome thelimits of a simplistic approach to evaluating thecomplexities of program impact. Examples ofsome of the initial indicators of change that wereobserved and measured in this innovative programare listed.. There is an increase in the level of

interdisciplinary teaching and learning.. The programs multipliers (teacher trainers and technology resource specialists) are observed practicing what they learned a year after their training programs.. Learning became more active after teachers started integrating the use of computers in their teaching. This was measured by comparing student-to-student and student-to-teacher interactions before and after teachers

participated in technology training programs and after computers were introduced into the schools.. Multipliers were seen to become more entrepreneurial in the way they organized educational activities, training workshops, and school-community activities related to the school computer program.. Private schools started recruiting the teachers and multipliers who received ProInfo’s technology education training.. Teacher demand for ProInfo training increased as they observed what teachers who had received the training were doing.. Teachers reported greater job satisfaction after starting to integrate the use of computers in their teaching.. Portuguese language teachers reported that student interests in writing and their writing skills improved after computers were used in composition classes.. Parents of children in classes making routine use of computers reported greater satisfaction with the education their children were receiving.. Enrollment demand at schools with computers grew faster than at schools without computer education programs.. Community participation in schools with computers was greater than in schools without computer education programs.

By using a cluster of diverse indicators ofchange, the ProInfo program is gaining a morecomplete understanding of the different types ofimpacts that the program is having on teachingand learning. It is also possible to conclude that,

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for those teachers who are integrating computersinto routine learning activities, there are positiveand important changes in student learning.

A study in the United States carried out by theCenter for Applied Special Technology with 500students in seven states also demonstrates how acluster of indicators was used to evaluate theimpact of using computers and on-linecommunication tools on learning performance. Inthis study, half of the students had access to on-linecommunication tools, and half had no access. Bothgroups of students were assigned a project on CivilRights in the United States.The following ninelearning measures were used to evaluate theprojects produced by the students:. Effective presentation of the material in the

report;. Effectiveness of stating a civil rights issue;. Accuracy of information in relation to the selected issue;. Presentation of a full picture of the issues with details;. Demonstration of insight into civil rights;. Effectiveness in bringing together different points of view;. Completeness in presenting the issue;. Well-organized content in the report; and. Demonstration of “best work” (e.g., well planned, neat, showing initiative, etc.).

Based on these measurements, the studyconcluded the following about the impact of usingcomputers and on-line communication tools inlearning:. Students with access to these tools had

significantly higher scores on their assignments based on the nine measures of information management, communication, and presentationof their ideas.. Using the tools and access to on-line resources helped students become independent critical thinkers, able to find, organize, and evaluate information and effectively express their new knowledge in creative and compelling ways.

An example of monitoring and evaluation (M& E) in practice, which showed how computersand information technologies were impactingeducation in schools, was the report done for the

World Links program in its second year ofoperation, from July 1999 to June 2000. Preparedby the Center for Technology in Learning at SRIInternational in Menlo Park, California, the reportsought to accomplish four goals:1) Describe the implementation process of the

World program as well as barriers to implementation in various participating countries.

2) Identify differences between World and Non-World schools in terms of teaching practices,computer use, and ICT impacts on learning.

3) Determine other contextual factors that affect teacher practices, ICT use, and assessment.

4) Identify existing challenges and offer recommendations to improve the program.

The method for gathering the data consisted ofsurveying a sample of teachers in both World andNon-World schools in 12 of the 15 countriesparticipating. Data was collected from more than500 teachers in 140 schools in the areas oflearning activities, computer use in support oflearning, learning impacts, and challenges toimplementation. The results show that the Worldprogram was making a great deal of progress toimprove student learning and re-invigorateteaching. Prominent findings include:. 78% of World teachers surveyed stated that

student knowledge about computer use increased a great deal as a result of working with computers.. 68% of World teachers stated that computers helped them design collaborative student projects.. More than 79% felt the program had greatly improved their ability to use computers and the Internet.. More than 80% of teachers indicated participation in the program improved their attitudes about technology and their teaching.

Key comparative findings include thefollowing:. World teachers are more likely to collaborate

with colleagues.. World students use ICTs more often thannon-World peers.. World students are more likely to have

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improved attitudes toward different cultures and countries.. Female participation is higher in World Schools.

Lastly, the report highlighted barriers to successand recommendations for future improvement.Some of the barriers included: lack of appropriatecomputer hardware and software; unreliableInternet access; inadequate tech support; and lackof planning time. Key recommendations included:more professional development for teachers; morestrategic planning; and the creation of nationalpolicies to align with education practices tofurther support for ICT use in schools. (McGheeand Kozma, 2000)

These examples illustrate that while evaluatingthe impact of computer and Internet technologieson education is a difficult process, it is possible togain insights into how their use is affectingteaching and learning. They also demonstrate thatmeasuring this impact cannot be done using thesimple input-output evaluation model describedearlier. Strategies for monitoring and evaluatingimpact must be developed as a project is beingdesigned and planned, and monitoring andevaluation efforts must start as implementation getsunderway. Most importantly, monitoring andevaluation helps to guide programs if they aregetting off course and re-direct them to make thenecessary adjustments to effectively impact thelearning process.

Sustaining School Computer ProgramsDevelopment projects and reform efforts are notinstitutionalized automatically or easy to sustain.Achieving this requires active strategies andpolicies to ensure that initial investments ininfrastructure, technology, training, and integratingthe use of computers in teaching and learning aresustained and encouraged to grow. This will notoccur without sufficient support from essentialstaff, especially principals and teachers. One of themost important strategies to sustain and expandprojects is to involve teachers and principals, aswell as members of the community from the verybeginning in all decision-making andimplementation processes. A continuous effort isneeded to engage staff in meaningful planningactivities, including:

. carrying out and interpreting assessments;. planning and designing the system;. determining how the computers will be used to support teaching and learning;. choosing software;. deciding how professional development and training activities will be managed;. determining how computer use will be allocated among teachers and students and across grades and subjects;. devising monitoring and evaluation processes;and . deciding how the school budget may need to be modified to expand and support the system.

The more meaningful and authentic teacherand principal involvement is in planning andmanaging a project, the greater the chance that theschool and staff will take ownership of the systemand apply the time and resources needed to ensurethat it grows.

Staff engagement alone is insufficient to ensuresustainability of expensive interventions such asschool computer projects. Since outside fundingusually covers most of the initial investment for aproject, staff often do not grasp the real long-termcosts needed to keep a system running, replacefailed and outdated equipment, and expand tomeet growing demand. Most school budgets areover-expended and have little capacity to meetadditional demand, especially from expensivecapital projects. Under these conditions,sustainability of a school computer project often isdependent on the ability of the school to devise aneffective financial strategy for this purpose. Makingschool computer initiatives sustainable can bedivided into two distinct areas of concern—physicalsustainability and pedagogical sustainability.9

Physical Sustainability

This type of sustainability focuses on sustaining theinfrastructure for connectivity and housing thecomputers and the software. Computers andcomputer labs that are used by large numbers ofpeople, especially in demanding physical environ-ments, can suffer from a variety of technicalproblems.Without sufficient maintenance, systemswill fail, frustrating teachers and students andpreventing use.

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Infrastructure maintenance and security: Computerfacilities, which may include air conditioning,lights, desks, chairs, and electricity, need to bemaintained and funded to keep the computersrunning and to provide an effective learningenvironment for the students and teachers.

Routine maintenance: One of the most commoncauses for the failure of school computer projectsis that resources and funding were not provided tomaintain the computers and the lab. It is essentialthat schools and projects establish specific budgetsto cover these costs. At the same time, it isimportant that purchase contracts for equipmentinclude a maintenance contract from the vendorto cover repair and replacement.

Connectivity:10 This includes both Internet serviceprovider (ISP) fees and the costs fortelecommunications. Most countries outside of theUS and Canada apply meter rates for usingtelephone lines, and connecting to an ISP can lastup to eight hours a day. The minimum level ofconnectivity is to provide part-time access for oneor two computers to a phone line to connect to anISP. Free software exists that will allow severalcomputers to share one connection via a local areanetwork. However, the rate of Internet accessbecomes increasingly slow as the numbers ofcomputers connected to a single phone lineincreases. Faster access may be available viadedicated high-speed lines. The costs of this fasterconnectivity, however, can be prohibitive.11

Software: In addition to covering basicmaintenance, it is also important that budgetscover the cost of upgrading and purchasing newsoftware to enhance the use of computers ineducation. Much software is available free fromapplication suites that are compatible withMicrosoft Office—utilities, anti-virus software,educational games, graphics applications, webdevelopment tools, etc.—and with careful research,it is possible for schools to obtain and updatenumerous software package without cost.

Replacing and expanding systems: Computers havea useful life span of 3 to 5 years, and it isimportant that schools establish a budget that will

grow over the life of the equipment to enable thepurchase of new computers to replace agingsystems and to increase the numbers of computersfor students and teachers to use.

Funding physical sustainability: One of the mostdifficult challenges that face schools establishingcomputer labs or installing computers inclassrooms is covering the costs of physicalsustainability. Existing school budgets usually haveno surplus funds to cover these recurrent andfutures expenses. If supplemental funding is notavailable from state or federal educational bodies,schools may need to turn to one or more of thefollowing alternative funding strategies:. Small annual user fees that all students pay;. School community partnerships with the

school’s parents’ and teachers’ association and/or local companies to sponsor the maintenance and expansion of the school’s computers;. Fee-for-use programs for members of the local community to use computer facilities during the evenings and weekends when students and teachers are not using them;. Use of student, teacher, parent, or community volunteers to provide maintenance services andsupervise computer facilities.. Special fundraising events such as school dances and carnivals. Such events are often a good way to raise the funds needed to buy new computers, software, or pay annual connectivity fees.

Physical sustainability, which is essentially aplanning, managing, and budgeting issue, is mucheasier to achieve than pedagogical sustainability.No matter how well maintained equipment andfacilities are, if teachers and students do notcontinually use computers as an important part ofteaching and learning, then school-computerprojects will fail.

Pedagogical Sustainability

This area of sustainability focuses on enabling andcontinuing the integration of computers and theInternet into on-going teaching and learningprograms. Most teachers who have access tocomputers, either in labs or classrooms, do not

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make routine use of computers and the Internetas an integral part of their teaching. Also, initialenthusiasm for using computers, whichaccompanies the installation of computers in theschool, often dwindles over time. There aremany causes for this unfortunate situation,including a lack of:. training in how to integrate technology into

their daily teaching;. access to computers and the Internet;. on-going pedagogical and technical support to guide the use of computers;. on-going training to integrate computers into curricula;. professional incentives to encourage teachers tointegrate technology into their programs; and. programs that enable interested teachers to share their experiences, exchange ideas, and plan activities with other teachers both locally and at a distance.

Teachers must make continuous and integrateduse of computers and the Internet before thisinvestment can have a significant, positive, andongoing impact on teaching and learning.Theintegrated use of computers in education will notoccur automatically simply by providingequipment and initial training. Well thought outand managed strategies that support and encourageteachers to make effective use of technology mustbe used to enable teachers to learn how tointegrate these tools into their teaching and helpthem make routine use of computers. Thefollowing are critical elements of any strategy forpedagogical sustainability:

Initial training: Initial training programs need tofocus on the pedagogical use of computers andprovide teachers with basic skills in usingcomputers, the Internet, and main softwareapplications.

Ongoing professional development: Teachers needto be provided with different types of learningopportunities, including periodic workshops,peer-to-peer training, mentoring, on-line or CD-ROM training programs, and conferences. Aswith initial training, ongoing professionaldevelopment should focus on the pedagogical use

of computers and provide essential ‘how-to’information. The World Links program, forexample, which trains teachers to use ICTs in theclassroom in over 20 developing countries,suggests that a minimum of 80 hours ofprofessional development is required before theirteachers can begin to integrate technology intotheir teaching practices. The complete WorldLinks Teacher Professional DevelopmentProgram, however, includes 200 hours of training,equivalent to five 40-hour weeks. (Carlson andGadio, 2002)

Easily available technical support: Teachers,especially those who are new to using computersas part of their teaching, will be more likely tomake ready use of technology if they have easyaccess to technical and pedagogical support.Teachers have little time to spend being frustratedover annoying technical problems.Without reliabletechnical support, either in their school or via thephone, most teachers will not bother usingcomputers in their teaching.

Ongoing pedagogical support: Even whenteachers have needed technical skills to usecomputers and software, few integrate the use ofcomputers into routine teaching without ongoingpedagogical support. Initial training programsmay help teachers start experimenting withintegrating computers into their teaching, butcontinuous use requires more. This ofteninvolves staff, either in the school or in a localresource center serving several schools, who workwith individuals and groups of teachers to planand organize educational projects that integratethe use of computers. Such support staff alsoorganize periodic workshops and meetings wherenew approaches and examples of integratingcomputers in teaching are presented. Supportstaff also may find or create and distributeinformation on computer education projects toteachers either as paper flyers or e-mail messages.Pedagogical support staff also highlight andpublicize ways in which teachers are integratingcomputers into their teaching.

Professional networking: It is common for only afew teachers in a school to start making active and

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continuous use of computers in their teaching.One of the best ways to encourage these teachersto continue using technology is to provideopportunities for them to share their experienceswith other teachers. Periodic conferences andworkshops can recognize and reward early adoptersand provide essential ongoing professionaldevelopment opportunities. Unfortunately, face-to-face meetings are expensive and occur infrequently.A less costly and effective means of providingongoing professional development opportunities isto establish one or more listservs to enable teachersto send and receive e-mail messages from eachother about using computers in their teaching. Itis usually essential that such a listserv be moderatedand facilitated by someone who is both veryknowledgeable and respected by the members ofthe discussion list. If resources and support areavailable, a collaborative web site and on-linediscussion forum or web folio, as shown on thefollowing page, also can provide teachers who areusing computers with different means of sharingwhat they are doing and encouraging late adoptersto start making use of computers in their teaching.The web folio, a component of LTNet in Brazil,allows administrators, teachers, and trainers to posttheir project ideas, successes, and challenges, as wellas obtain additional ideas and advice via postingsfrom other educators, trainers or administrators andthrough real-time communication in various chatrooms linked to the site.

Involve principals and the community: There aremany ways to encourage teachers to learn how touse computers in education. One of the moreimportant is to mobilize the interests of principalsand parents in making computers and the Internetan important part of routine teaching andlearning. Enthusiastic principals and parents canmotivate teachers to do the extra work needed toexperiment and learn how to integrate technologyinto their teaching. Involving Principals into thetechnology integration equation was especiallyimportant in Brazil’s ProInfo/LTNet project.Teacher trainers, also known as ‘multipliers,’received training one day on technologyintegration into the curriculum, and the next daymultipliers trained the principals.This process thenwas repeated at three different sites within Brazil.Due to the training’s success with participatingprincipals, a more comprehensive training programwas created for an even larger, statewide group ofprincipals. (LearnLink Newsline, Spring 2001)

Curriculum reform and policy change: Enablinglarge scale and continuous integration ofcomputer use in teaching and learning mayrequire changes in curriculum and educationalpolicies. For example, adding sections to most ifnot all curricula about integrating the use ofcomputers in teaching each subject, withconcrete examples of how to do this, will supportefforts to encourage all teachers to start using

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computers as a routine educational tool.Similarly, including computer literacy and theintegration of technology into teaching as part ofpre-service teacher training programs, routineperformance appraisal systems, and certificationrequirements will provide additional incentives toteachers to learn how to make effective use oftechnology and to actually use computers in theirteaching programs.

No single strategy will be sufficient to ensurethe sustainability of a school computer program. Acombination of physical and pedagogical strategieswill need to be used to prevent the costly initialinvestments in computers, infrastructure, andteacher training from being wasted and to make itpossible for computers to have the level of impacton education that is possible.

Looking AheadWhen considering issues related to usingcomputers in school settings, questions aboutwhether they will make a difference in increasingaccess, equity, and quality arerarely asked anymore.Now, most planners, administrators, and teachersare asking when the computers will reach theschool and the classroom. Not all efforts tointroduce and integrate computers into schoolsand education will be equally successful. Someinitiatives will fail, while others will succeed andbecome models of good use and practice.However, there is no turning back the tide of the

information age. Computers have permeated mostareas of modern life and are rapidly becomingcommodities for use in the classroom and beyond.

Continued innovation in computer andcommunication technologies, coupled with fallingprices and costs of connectivity around the world,will make it progressively easier for schools andcommunities to afford to make robust use of thesetechnologies in education.

Effective adoption of computers into educationdoes not depend solely on technical orinfrastructural matters. Rather, it dependsprimarily on a complex mix of financial andhuman factors, including sociological,psychological, institutional, political, and culturalconcerns. It is far easier to address technical andinfrastructural problems than to even begin tounderstand the complex social issues surroundingcomputerization of learning and change, let aloneaddress these factors.

One of the most persistent and critical issuesplaguing development in general, and the use oftechnology in education specifically, is equity.Differences among people and societies continueto grow, affecting not only economic disparitiesbut also health, environmental, educational, andinformation disparities. The challenge for manygovernments and organizations continues to be theneed to devise better ways to bridge this gap. It isclear that education, in all sectors, is the singlemost important means available for addressing

Webfolio used by Brazilian teachers.

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poverty and equity issues. Realizing the potentialof education to bring about sustainable changerequires that the power of education be magnifiedand intensified. One potent means for achievingthis is through the deliberate and considered use ofcomputer technologies.

Computers have the capacity to leverage, focus,and intensify the effect of human efforts.Thus,when judiciously and thoughtfully used, computertechnologies offer unprecedented opportunities toimprove the access, equity, and quality ofeducation for all, especially those who have yet tounleash technology’s power for learning.

What will classrooms of the future look like,and what types of technologies are we most likelyto see both students and teachers using to supportlearning? Will computers and Internetconnectivity reach all students across the globe, orwill it die out? These questions are difficult toanswer, but one thing for certain is thattechnology will not be going away. We are merelyat the beginning of the road to technologyintegration in education. In our new globaleconomy, new global education is needed, and keyto this is learning how to incorporate the besttools to educate our children and prepare them tobe productive and caring, global citizens. Thus,continuing educational reforms such as theimplementation of constructivist, project-based,interdisciplinary curriculum must go hand-in-hand with ICTs if they are to make a difference.

Trends that will most likely continueregarding ICTs and schools are:. Use of web-based/e-learning as a viable platform for

instructional delivery: Web-based instruction thatis simple and easy to navigate is gaining popularity. It also is necessary in areas where there are teacher training shortages or where access to training is inadequate.. Emergence of educational portals within regions and countries: Portals are increasingly emerging and serving as excellent resources and communication networks to improve teacher practice and reduce feelings of teacher isolation.. Growth of distance education programs: In countries lacking resources for non-formal andnon-degree educational institutions, distance education will increase via online platforms and video based learning.

. Sharing resources online: When teachers and students share resources online, levels of both teacher satisfaction and learning rise. Such sharing is especially useful for school districts that do not have the means to create all of their own materials for teaching and for veteran educators to share successes with those newer to the field.. Increased inter-school exchanges and collaborations:Online projects among students from different schools and countries are proving very successful and effective for learning. The variety of projects makes such collaborations applicable for students of all ages and all subjectdisciplines.. Use of strategic plans for sustainability, including funds for upgrading, replacing, and expanding computer/ICT equipment: Many evaluation reports and lessons learned from existing ICT projects in schools confirm the need for plans to include funding specifically for the upgrading and replacement of tech equipment.. Increased establishment of digital libraries in under-resourced areas: In many developing countries,universities that are constrained by funding,physical space, and overall intellectual resources are served well by digital libraries with the latest electronic journals and research in fields such as science and medicine.. Increased pressure on educational policymakers to put ICTs at the top of the education agenda: Educational policymakers must put ICTs at the top of their agendas if computer use is to continue and expand. To ensure increased funding for training in effective technology integration in the classroom,policymakers must be made well-informed of ICTs’ potential for enhancing learning in the knowledge economy.

Developing countries and their educationalinstitutions vary in their access, readiness, andpolitical will to become part of the wired, globalinformation society. Nonetheless, almost alldeveloping countries have some level ofinformation technology capacity. Past and currentICT education projects and initiatives included inthis volume and in other literature serve to guideand instruct how best to take advantage of

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1 A ditto is a colloquialism that refers to duplicated exercise

papers given to the students.2 RiverWalk-Brazil 2001 is a collaborative project funded by

Japan’s Ministry of Land,Transport, and Infrastructure, in which

students and teachers from six countries research and share

information about rivers in their communities to foster cross-

disciplinary learning about world rivers and the people who live

near them. This project is described more fully in the individual

case study of this volume, pp…..3 Another paper in this LearnLink series, Computer-Mediated

Professional Development, addresses this topic in greater detail.4 See the case studies in this volume from LearnLink projects in

Morocco, Namibia, and Guatemala for more in-depth coverage

regarding the issue of ICTs for educator development.5 A school’s information ecology is the total information

environment within a school and includes all systems and

processes for acquiring, managing, storing, analyzing, disseminating,

and organizing data and information.6 See AED/LearnLink web site for additional information about

this project: http://www.aed.org/learnlink7 Educational reform is often seen as a top-down national or

state-level process of policy changes in the basic structure and

functions of an education system. Reform also can be viewed as a

bottom-up process that enables and supports teachers to discover

new ways of teaching. Reform as used in this paper includes both

of these perspectives.8 LTNet, part of the USAID-funded LearnLink project at the

Academy for Educational Development, helped develop a web-

based collaborative learning environment. As the project came to

an end in December of 2001, it was converted to NGO status in

Brazil to continue to sustain LTNet for future use.9 Sustainability and ICT projects are further discussed in Steve

Cisler’s article, "Planning for Sustainability: How to Keep Your ICT

Project Running." He discusses four areas (the "Four Pillars of

Sustainability") to consider for ICT project success: social, political,

technological, and economic sustainability.10 Connectivity usually refers to maintaining a connection to the

Internet and the World Wide Web. However, when Internet

access is not available, it may be possible to use store-and-forward

e-mail by making short long-distance phone calls to remote

computers that have Internet access.

11 For connectivity options and pros and cons of each, see

article, "Infrastructure: Hardware, Networking, Software, and

Connectivity," by Rusten and Hudson in Technologies for Education;

Potentials, Parameters and Prospects.

Footnotes

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