Our goal is to provide a broad overview of some of the common education challenges facing the developing world and the range of different technologies that are available to help address them. We look closely at the different enabling conditions that frequently shape the success or failure of technology interventions in education and derive a set of seven basic principles for effective technology use. These principles can provide guidance to decision-makers designing, implementing or investing in education initiatives. In doing so, we look both at the primary and secondary, as well as at the higher levels, of education systems.
Using the World Bank classification of low-income and lower-middle-income countries we focus our attention on the world’s poorest countries from Sub-Saharan Africa to South and West Asia to the Caribbean. We conclude ultimately that, if smartly and strategically deployed, modern information and communications technology holds great promise in helping bring quality learning to some of the world’s poorest and hardest-to-reach communities. The strategy for doing so need not emulate the trajectory of educational technology use in wealthier developed nations. Indeed, in some of the most remote regions of the globe, mobile phones and other forms of technology are being used in ways barely envisioned in the United States or Europe. Necessity is truly the mother of invention in these contexts and often leads to creative and promising ends for teachers and learners.
Our goal is to provide a broad overview of some of the common education challenges facing the developing world and the range of different technologies that are available to help address them. We look closely at the different enabling conditions that frequently shape the success or failure of technology interventions in education and derive a set of seven basic principles for effective technology use. These principles can provide guidance to decision-makers designing, implementing or investing in education initiatives. In doing so, we look both at the primary and secondary, as well as at the higher levels, of education systems.
Using the World Bank classification of low-income and lower-middle-income countries we focus our attention on the world’s poorest countries from Sub-Saharan Africa to South and West Asia to the Caribbean. We conclude ultimately that, if smartly and strategically deployed, modern information and communications technology holds great promise in helping bring quality learning to some of the world’s poorest and hardest-to-reach communities. The strategy for doing so need not emulate the trajectory of educational technology use in wealthier developed nations. Indeed, in some of the most remote regions of the globe, mobile phones and other forms of technology are being used in ways barely envisioned in the United States or Europe. Necessity is truly the mother of invention in these contexts and often leads to creative and promising ends for teachers and learners.
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