A good friend shared this document with me and given the need for strategic planning of ICT in our schools I felt that this should be shared more widely:

SEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR SMART USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION

An extract from:

A NEW FACE OF EDUCATION: BRINGING TECHNOLOGY INTO THE CLASSROOM IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD. Rebecca Winthrop and Marshal S Smith. January 2012

Reviewing the array of critiques in the literature and assessing the ways in which they have been addressed reveals a set of guiding principles that should inform technology programming in the developing world. These are meant to be a very easy-to-follow set of seven basic principles that can help guide educators and education policy-makers in developing countries, as well as the external actors that support them, such as foundations and bilateral donors, in smartly and strategically designing and implementing technology interventions.

1. Educational problem first

First, identify the educational problem that needs to be addressed, and then assess which, if any, is the best technology to do the job. Start with the problem, not the technology.

Too many projects attempt to integrate technology into education before they decide what problem they want the particular technology to address. As a result, a project can fail to successfully solve the problem in question, sometimes because deploying technology is not in fact the best or most cost-effective solution. Ensuring that both front-office and back-office education barriers are equally considered in relation to technological solutions will expand the set of issues that can potentially benefit from technology interventions. Addressing the problem first ensures that all necessary actions will be considered prior to establishing the desired technology.

2. Added value

If technology is to be deployed to address an educational problem, make sure that the technology will add value to other existing solutions. There are a number of different dimensions in which technology can add value, including expanding educational access and opportunity; improving student-, teacher-, and school-level outcomes; and a variety of back-office activities. Using the general rule of thumb discussed above is an important first step in assessing the usefulness of deploying a technology. Unfortunately finding the necessary comparative information on technology interventions, especially in developing-country contexts, can sometimes be difficult. This, among other knowledge gaps in the status of technology in education in developing countries, suggests that on-going research and evaluation is urgently needed.

3.Sustainability

Carefully considering the full range of enabling conditions is essential to design and implement an intervention that will last over time. This includes factoring in the total cost of ownership, the ultimate relevance of the technology to the particular location, access to appropriate infrastructure, and human resource capacity. Teachers and school administrators, so often forgotten in the roll-out of technology interventions, are essential for sustaining the use of technology. Also significant is the issue of scalability. Is the intervention specific enough to adequately address local problems and general enough to be scaled up to a provincial, or regional level, or scaled out to other sectors such as health? Will the project be relevant and accessible with the passage of time, or will external factors or lack of relevance eventually lead those involved to abandon it?

4.Multiple uses

Where possible, select a technology and design an intervention so that the technology can be used for multiple purposes. This will enable a greater number of individuals to benefit from the technology, but it can also justify the high start-up costs for such interventions if it is utilized for a variety of purposes. For example, a computer lab in a school should not only be reserved for learning ICT skills but also be at the disposal of the math and science classes for enriching their work, and/or available to teachers for their own professional development, or opened for use after school hours by the community for informal education, or for other such uses.

5. Lowest Cost

While there may be many different types of technologies that can provide the assistance sought, other things being equal, it is best to select the least expensive option for the job(s) desired. Very little is gained by opting for the more expensive option, especially if there is a reliable and cheaper option available. This is not to indicate that quality should be sacrificed for the sake of lower cost; obviously a more expensive model of technology that is high-quality will last longer and cost less in the long run than a low-quality, low-cost model that needs more frequent upgrades and repairs. On the other hand, there are many instances in which lower-cost devices achieve the same results as more expensive ones. For example, in many rural regions in developing countries, radio now is much more cost-effective than computers for improving student learning. If a lower-cost technology is available to solve a particular problem, even though it might be less “politically sexy,” it should be used.

6. Reliability

Before deploying a technology, ensure it is reliable and will not rapidly break down. Nothing slows a project down more than unresolved problems. Part of assessing the reliability of a technology includes making sure that associated and necessary elements, such as access to electricity or internet connectivity, adequately skilled staff and maintenance personnel, options to update or upgrade technology, and others, are in place. The technology should also be adequately and appropriately vetted before it is established: Was the technology used successfully in a similar environment or location? What were the challenges associated with it? How were they resolved? Did the technology break down or did it stand up to its constant use? These questions should be answered before a technology is deployed.

7.Ease of Use

Finally, in educational interventions, technology should be easy to use. Perceived ease of use has in fact been cited for many years as among the three most important determining factors for technology uptake, according to the Technology Acceptance Model. Excessively complicated technologies can present barriers to implementation and the ultimate success of the intervention, especially if extensive training is required to learn how to operate the particular technology. As indicated above, some database applications require the use of advanced knowledge, skills and training to operate. This is not to say that such applications should be completely left out; when used appropriately they can be extremely useful for education management purposes. On the other hand, the relative ease of use should be considered before a project is implemented to determine whether or not, or what kind of, training is required. This process will help to ensure that the technology is effectively and efficiently utilized.

If followed, these seven guiding principles can help avoid many future problems and, more importantly, can help leverage the power of technology in educating young people in some of the poorest regions of the world.

Given the rapid pace of technological change, it is unlikely that the issue of technology in education will go away. Instead, we are likely to see a blossoming of new and creative ways for harnessing what technology has to offer. In the next several years a range of strategies that we can only dream of today may become common place, and the developing world may well be the source of some of the most cutting-edge uses of technology within the education sector. Perhaps teachers will all be paid directly through mobile banking on their cell phones, cutting expensive back-office management costs, diminishing corruption, and helping ensure teachers receive timely salaries in full. In Afghanistan, the Ministry of Education, together with USAID, is already beginning to explore this possibility. Perhaps teachers of secondary school science or other specialized subject matter will simultaneously teach students physically present in their classrooms and students at remote rural schools joining the lesson by video or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), like SKYPE, thereby helping to address the shortage of secondary-school teachers, especially in low-density and poor regions. In Tanzania, the Ministry of Education and Accenture are beginning to explore just this strategy for expanding access to quality secondary learning for rural communities. Perhaps a bright, young woman who has graduated from secondary school, with excellent intellectual potential but little money and with family responsibilities, will attend college online, getting important accredited training that will allow her to contribute to her country and community. The Open University program in the UK is providing precisely this opportunity for a number of enterprising young people from Jordan to Bangladesh. Given the power of this future vision, it is important that the path to get there not be riddled with poorly conceived and poorly-structured applications that would only serve to discredit the promise of technology and to dissuade policy-makers from investing in its potential. Following these seven principles is an initial step for ensuring this does not happen.