How can IT help improve education system in developing countries?

[rattana]

Hi all,
I'm doing a master degree in the area of Information Management and Systems by which I have planned to use my knowledge in the said field to help improve the education system of my home country after I graduate. (I come from Thailand, one of the developing countries.) So far I've learnt some about using IT as a tool of teaching and learning such as online learning, teaching through satellite, etc. These ideas inspire me to achieve my goal as I mentioned above , but I need to do more research and gather more information in every aspect, benefits, downsides, difficulties, possibilities.
Therefore, I do want to know that is there anybody concerned in this area of learning and teaching? What do you think or have any idea about IT and education? Any comments would be appreciated.

Regards,
Jiraporn Theppattra

 

[Jira]

At first, your idea 's great. To apply your knowledge from what you have learned so far in your own country, I think first of all funds is the first thing we have to realize. As I have learned from my major field, economic, the developing countries still encounter with lack of fund to follow theirs policies to lift up quality of lives.

Another thing is fundamental education in those developing countries, which are certainly stay under average of developed countries. I believe that basic education is a main obstacle that you have to tackle before you go through the IT learning in your own country.

wish these points of view can help you
Jira

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi there,

My name is Sittichai. For the past two years I have been working as web master and most of my work has been invloved with university online subject web site and using Multimedia as a tool aids for online learning.

Your idea is great and quite interesting to use IT as a learning and teaching tool in the developing countries. IT especially Multimedia will increase the ability of students to learn and understand the concept/theory becuase the student can actually interact with the program rather than just sitting in the lecture room and listening. Students can play the Multimedia file when they want and where they want to revise ther study unlike the lecture for this subject only held once a week.

However, I don't think this idea will work at the moment due to the lack of money support. IT learning and teaching tool required a lot of money to set up and maintenance and in developing coutries, most of the funds from the government will try to lift up their life quality.

Also people who would like to use IT learning and teaching tool need to be able to afford to buy IT technology but most people in developing country cannot afford that. Most of them just working and living as day by day.

However, as technology advances becomes cheaper, you will find that more of IT learning and teaching tool. The use of synchronous and asynchronous delivery will allow instructors and students to interact just as if they were in the classroom and that's when your idea will work and become very useful.

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi,

My name is Apichat, a master student in the Environmental Engineering. First of all I would like to comment that your idea is great and fantastic!!!. I definitely agree with you to enhance an education system by using IT as a tool because, as we can see, nowadays most of the information can be easily found in the electronic files. For example, in my study, I always spent most of my time to find out the information relevant to my study field by using computer, it's a very easy and comfort method to obtain those information. Therefore it will be very useful if this idea become true.

However in my point of view as one of Thai citizen, I do believe that it's quite a tough project for you to do so, because as all of us clearly know, IT equipment is quite an expensive things!!! Moreover, IT facility or equipment is changed quite fast or rapidly. Since we're the develop country, thus I think, the first and most difficult problem for this idea to become true is FUND. How can most of Thai people afford the IT technology? (since most of the "rich people" in Thailand is only the 10% of the whole country) How can you make sure that you can find a supported money to do so, is a challenging job for you.

"Why my computer is so slow?" or "I need to upgrade my computer" These are the normal sentences we always hear. Also, as I mentioned before changing of IT is quite fast. Therefore I do believe that, this will be another problem for you to deal with in order to make sure that you can improve the computer as fast as it change (or as suitable as it necessary). This will link back to the economic problem, which is "FUND" again!!

I wish my opinion should be a useful comment for you.
bankbk

 

[phirst]

Hi,
IT equipment is expensive and changes to quickly, so the computer you bought $1000 today is worth $500 two months later (these are not real figures, but I want to make a point). I would hate to calculate the value of my home computer which I upgraded almost 3 years ago (I spent $600 to upgrade, add CD burner, DVD player, now I'm sure I could not sell it for more than $500).
BUT my home computer runs most of the latest software available.
You can cut costs by buying second hand computers from high flying companies in "developped" countries.
This means, of course, that the IT educational programs used cannot use the "latest" technologies, but who cares.
I have friends who are still running Pentium (I) 233 with much success, all depends on your needs.
So fast computer = mega $$$
Runnable computer = affordable ?
I believe that there are companies specialised in selling second hand computers to developing countries (I saw a program on the TV about this).
Hope this encourages you on your brave mission.
Cheers,
Paul.

 

[pivan]

Money for equipment and infrastructure is always an obstacle in developing countries.

I am assuming two things.
One, that you are talking about improving the educational level of the masses of people and not just the wealthy few that have access to capital and infrastructure (pivan is a Marxist ;-) ) .
Two that access to information on Internet is of good value to learning

If my assumptions are correct, then it seems to me that you would want to get the students, at all grade levels on line.

Since resources and infrastructure may be scarce you may want to consider centralizing these resources as in a school or classroom(s).

Funding of resources is your biggest challenge. Many of the schools here in the US have funded their computer labs by going to companies and asking for their old PC's, conducting bake sales - selling cookies, etc. Basically you may have to go out into the community to solicate donations.

You then will be able to take classes via internet offered by many major universities throughout the world.

If you want to roll your own educational sites, they are not that hard to develop.

IMHO you first need to ensure that basic reading, writing and arithmatic skills are in place.

Hope this helps.

pivan In not now, when?
If not here, where?
If not us, who?

Just do it!!

 

[carp]

Certainly IT makes providing multimedia presentations available to many people on an on-demand basis (as previously mentioned).

Also, given a camera, a PC, and a projector that interfaces with the PC, you can have live, interactive presentations simultaneously in multiple locations. This means that a professor at a university hundreds of miles away (even in another country) can be presenting to multiple campuses and take questions from the audience at any of them.

Additionally, IT makes for a powerful research tool. While many libraries around the world making information available online for free, many corporations make their information available for public consumption. Consequently, not only are reference materials that would otherwise be impossible to access made available at no additional cost, but also dynamic, new advances are also explained by the people who are making them - absolutely impossible to do with books (by the time they're published, the topic is often old or superseded!).

Yes, IT equipment is expensive and not available to everyone around the world. Nor is the network always available where you need it. But I believe the original question was not "How can I buy IT equipment for my country?", but "If I can get IT equipment for my country, how can I make the best use of it?".

 

[carp]

I forgot to mention the fact that IT makes worldwide communication available on a near instantaneous and inexpensive basis. Between instant messaging and "web-phones", people can confer on projects, ask/answer questions, and keep in touch with experts in realtime no matter where they are, as long as they can get online. Also, email and file transfers allow us to keep in touch even when we are "out of the office". So professors, students, experts, and researchers can all share knowledge.

 

[rattana]

Hi,
First of all, I would like to say thank you very much for all of your opinions. The ways that you advised me about the types of using information technology in education systems both from your experiences and knowledge are so interesting. Those made me want to learn more about the various ways of bringing IT to improve teaching and learning system in my country.

As for the monetary factor that has been raised to be the most important obstacle for acquiring IT equipment in developing countries, yes...I do agree with you that it's the big task to afford those kinds of tools in developing countries. The money seems to be the biggest problem of those countries in any way . However, some of you might have seen and suggested the possibility to accomplish this mission if we know how to suitably allocate the money in hand in order to afford those kinds of tools.

Well, it seems like we are on the stage of discussion about the difficulties of IT implementation in education system of developing countries. And since it's one of the important part of considering using IT to achieve my original goal. So may I take this opportunity to ask for your opinions about the other potential obstacles or factors that are also relevant to this mission.

Recently, I found the interesting web site providing information about education, technology, and change. It's

http://www.tltgroup.org/gilbert/QuakerQueriesIWswg2-19-01.htm.

This site has lists of some problems by using IT in education system such as how can we tell if educational uses of information technology can improve the quality of education within an institution? Do these uses of technology provide an advantages over-or replacement for other methods? How can educational uses of information technology enhance or support the variety of teaching/learning styles?

What do you think about these questions? Please suggest.


Regards,
Jiraporn T.
MIMS student, Monash University

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi,

Certainly IT can improve the quality of education within an institution.

I strongly believed that the uses of IT provide an advantages over traditional educational when IT has been used as the complementary tool for traditional system. If you think that IT in education will replace the traditional system, this is wrong.

Based on my work, I believe that face-to-face system (lecture and tutorial) will be around forever, then after lecture or tutorial, student can use IT to help increase their ablity to learn.

Online lecture (recorded lecture) can be viewed many times for the students who need revision or catch up on missing concept.

Online quiz or tutorial will give students immediately feedback on their learning.

This online material will give opportunity for disability people who have difficulty in attending class or urgent situation to miss class.

Discussion group will help you explore your idea with the lecturer, tutor or other fellow students.

These are sort of things that the use of IT can enhace and improve our ability to learn.

 

[mcconmw]

http://www.unesco.org

could be a good resource also.

 

[Guest_imported]

Well, I know that this might be too late feedback but it would be good anyway if I can express my opint of view as it might be different from those above. More is better, right? It has been totally clear for me to show how powerful is IT to drive the education system. The easy thing, most people may notice is that tons of information easily acces and available at very low cost. This impacts much more in poor country or developing country (like us !!). Weave information and knowledge has been devloping and going on still. This gives student more opportunities to gain knowledge and think creative. The traditional eductaion system was in a frame of somewhat for long but IT has changed it forever. Student will learn how to think themselves instead of recognition learning. Anyway there are always 2 sides of sword. On the other hand, IT can easily bring us to some wrong way and some time too far to turn back. Have you ever been trapped in the Internet? You had intended to look at something and do research on something but you got lost and headed to a wrong source. That wastes more time and some time no result. IT also has changed our education activity for example you might have to go out look for information in real world outside but nowsaday people may just sit and look for everything from the Net instead of facing something real. IT some time makes people forget some thing simple or basic since we have gone so far until we forget that what actually is behind the scene and when we face problem and we don't have tool then we don't know how to figure it ourt even though it is just a very easy problem. In developing country, it seems like to be a hope to get to the same line as others developed country, It's like a chance to take shortcut for those developing countries but at the same time if they never make a hit and cannot get over then they will always be a target. My conclusion would become to the faster, more information, less price, new culture, more opportunities, risk to get lost, unreliable information (sometime), less interactive with human, etc. As that all said, we should manipulate it as a tool but you can live without it.

 

[pl12987]

Let me just add a couple of points:

First of all, IT implementation goes hand-in-hand with other economic development. If there is some small sector that already uses computers in business or the community, and even perhaps in education, a country can point to that as incentive for more foreign direct investment.

In Africa, several poor countries have telekiosks in central cities. These telekiosks are sort of community post/phone/fax/Internet centers that enable communities to link to the outside world.

For learning about direct computer use in education, you may want to learn about U.S. programs. Try Education Week,

http://www.edweek.org.

They have an online library of hot topics, which includes computers in the classroom, I think.