One thing leads to another

Everyday(well maybe not every day) I struggle with my crusade for technology implementation in developing countries. Studying in the United States and being exposed to all the wonderful technologies available in the schools, I can't help but be "amped" about possible implementation in my home land. At one point, I had forgotten about the underlying infrastructure that needed to be in place for implementation of these technologies to be successful. This is a very dangerous place to be because there have been individuals that leave the United States(and other industralised nations) and rush to developing economies like mine and embark on this technology implementation journey and it falls flat because adequate infrastructure is not available to support their efforts. Many developing economies are investing in infrastructural developments to support technology implementation but their progress is slower than most will like. My question is how can these countries work towards bridging the digital divide(gap between people/countries with adequate technology and those without) that exists between them and the developed nations, so they can reap the fruits of globalization. This might be where implementing appropriate technologies comes in.

An appropriate technology is simply technology that fits (http://journeytoforever.org/at.html). Wikipedia defined it as technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social and economical aspects of the community it is intended. I like Wikipedia's definition because it appealed to me better than the others I found. A few weeks ago, I found myself in the middle of an informal round table discussion with people also interested in technology integration and someone pointed out that appropriate technologies do nothing to enhance growth in a society and will do nothing in helping developing economies bridge the digital divide. His comment was immediately shut down by the rest of the table, everyone else seemed to agree that the rush to introduce modern technologies(without considering its appropriateness) especially in education just creates a greater gap. The gigantic expenses incured from implementing these technologies leaves little investment for the other important aspects of implementation such as initial training, ongoing support(in terms of technology support and teaching and learning support) for students and teachers. These aspects are often ignored and resistance occurs causing the newly implemented technologies to fail and all that money is wasted and the digital divide still exists and might get wider.

Once the discussion/debate was over, I realised one thing; appropriate technology or not, innovations by way of technology implementation fail because of the way they are introduced into a society. If I think about my country, and the ongoing advancements in technology infrastructure...I start to make sense of why certain things are not "catching on". Lecturers are asked to used WebCT for example, they get a one day workshop and are sent on their merry way to teach with this tool. No one is going to use it because a one day workshop without ongoing support and development opportunities.

Going back to one of my first thoughts, the necessary infrastructure needs to be in place for any technology to be successful. Implementers think of infrastructure(the basic, underlying framework or features of a system or organization) mainly in terms of electricity, hardware..etc but forget that alleviating users fears by providing proper support can make or break any innovation.

**Today's blog was me "thinking out loud" in preparation for a paper I am putting together and my thoughts might be all over the place :)**

Catching up

I've been having "blogger's block". There have been so many interesting things going on in the world of learning technologies but the block got the best of me. I know we have talked about this issue time over but I am beginning to think of effective and appropriate learning technologies that should be made available to our classrooms. I think of everything from technologies that students bring into class like personal computers to the overhead projector etc. I will focus on "student-provided" technology.

I always think of learning technologies and its application or diffusion into developing or emerging communities (I don't know what we are referred to these days). I think of my future classroom in my home country, we are having class in one of the computer labs or all my students have their own laptops (as in becoming the case today)...how do I keep my students focused on the activities happening in class? It is one thing to send your student out of the class when you catch them texting or reading the newspaper (my blood boils over when I think of someone doing that) but how do you control the student doing everything but paying attention? What are your experiences? Is there a technology that lets the instructor/facilitator control the computers in the classroom or monitor personal computer activity (and this monitoring only happens during classtime so technically I would not be invading anyone's privacy). What can we do?