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Crowdsourcing, collaborative learning or cheating?

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Wed, 05/04/2011 - 13:30
On EduTech - ICT & Education


Challenges for educators in the Internet age

Wherever there are rules, there are almost inevitably people looking to break them, especially where a compelling incentive exists for those willing to risk getting caught. When I was a classroom teacher in Czechoslovakia and the United States, I often found that some of the most 'innovative' practices I witnessed over the course of a school year fell under the heading of what I (and the school) considered 'cheating'.


What Coke teaches us about disasters (and development)

Submitted by Abhas Jha on Wed, 01/26/2011 - 13:24
On East Asia & Pacific on the rise
Photo courtesy of chidanands through a Creative Commons license.

Coke sells 1.6 billion servings per day. You can find Coke in the remotest, poorest and most unlikely parts of the planet. I recently came across this fascinating video of a talk by Melinda Gates. She asks: For those of us working on development, what are the lessons to take away from Coke’s enormous reach (and success)? According to Ms. Gates, there are three:

1. Invest in real-time data that feeds back into the product. If you're running Namibia for Coca-Cola, and you have 107 constituencies, you know where every can versus bottle of Sprite, Fanta or Coke was sold, whether it was a corner store, a supermarket or a pushcart. So if sales start to drop, then the person can identify the problem and address the issue.

Learning from national ICT/education agencies

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 10:30
On EduTech - ICT & Education

KERIS -- at the cutting edgeOver 100 education policymakers from 32 countries gathered last week in Seoul to share lessons, experiences and opinions in response to the following question:

How should an education system structure itself to meet new challenges and take advantage of new opportunities related to the use of information and communication technologies, and what roles and responsibilities could/should a dedicated ICT/education agency or unit play?

This was the theme of the fourth global symposium on ICT and education, an annual event that the World Bank has co-sponsored with the Korean Education & Research and Information Service (KERIS) and the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) and other partners, including UNESCO Bangkok, Intel and the IDB. (Proceedings from previous symposia are available here, here, here and here.)

Waiting for School Autonomy

Submitted by Harry A. Patrinos on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 14:19
On Education for Global Development

Alternatives to the traditional public school system are actively being sought and radical approaches for expanding school accountability are being widely touted.  For example, in the award-winning documentary, Waiting for Superman.

While radical approaches are needed – given the desperate state of most public education systems; just see the poor results of most middle income countries in international assessments such as PISA and TIMSS – there are more mundane approaches, already in practice, that could be made to offer so much more.  Giving public schools adequate resources, the right to make appropriate decisions, and holding them accountable through the publication of school results – in short, school autonomy – has been used in countries around the world since the mid-1960s.  The school autonomy approach – be it known as school-based management, whole school development, comprehensive school reform, or parental and community participation – has been tried, evaluated, and proven successful at achieving a range of education goals in many different contexts.

Crisis Camp: another face of humanitarian relief

Submitted by Aleta Moriarty on Tue, 09/07/2010 - 10:20
On East Asia & Pacific on the rise

The room was deathly quiet apart from the tap-tap-tap of volunteers diligently clacking away at their keyboards. It could have been a library or students studying for exams but appearances are deceptive. It was a Crisis Camp—a gathering of volunteer tech heads who had pulled together for the weekend to build critical mapping data to help Pakistani flood victims.

Usually, when we think of humanitarian relief, images of food drops or internally displaced persons (IDP) camps first come to mind but there is a whole world of altruism that has emerged which is helping behind the scenes in times of crises. Detailed maps are critical to delivering humanitarian relief to the millions of Pakistanis that have been affected by flooding.

Media Events for Development Campaigns

Submitted by Anne-Katrin Arnold on Mon, 08/16/2010 - 10:49
On People, Spaces, Deliberation

Using large international events to get attention for a development objective is a pretty good idea. Events like the Soccer World Cup are so called media events - events that capture the attention of a large audience, that break our routines, and unify a large scattered audience. Whatever team you were cheering for, you weren't the only one cheering for it, and didn't you feel like your team's friends were also your friends? This kind of mood - attention and a feeling of community - provides a great environment for campaigns that want to raise awareness about certain issues or that want to change norms and behaviors.

The Goal is Sacred Space

Submitted by Naniette Coleman on Thu, 06/17/2010 - 10:28
On People, Spaces, Deliberation
When Siphiwe Tshabalala scored the first goal of the World Cup, that beautiful, upper right hand corner net buster, just minutes into the second half, I fell in love. I took to my suburban balcony, danced with wild abandon, and screamed “GOAL SOUTH AFRICA, GOAL BAFANA BAFANA” at the top of my lungs. I celebrated because during the 55th minute, of the first game, of the first World Cup on African soil, we all accomplished something great. No, I did not fall in love with Tshabala or South Africa or Bafana, Bafana per se in those moments. I actually fell in love with the idea of world collaboration all over again.   I fell in love with the idea that if we are all present in one room/stadium and devoted to the same initiative, magic can happen. It was ethereal, and I, I was committed and in love and on top of the world for about 24 hours before reality brought me and all that idealism back to earth. Actually, it was the words escaping the mouths of my fellow Americans during the US vs. England game.

The Last Ones To Understand Water Are The Fish

Submitted by Naniette Coleman on Thu, 05/06/2010 - 11:42
On People, Spaces, Deliberation
My norms and values are not subtle.  They are time tested, “fact” based and I grip them with the strength of a vice.  I am no different from others; we all value some things, look haltingly at others, and better still refuse to consider the norms and values of some.   We all want to be open, malleable to others views but do not always know how to do it.  Norms and values take on particular importance when we are working to build coalitions with others who do not share our way of looking at things. Minor differences suddenly seem larger than they actually are when we face compromise battles with others.   

1-to-1 educational computing initiatives around the world

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Thu, 02/25/2010 - 10:11
On EduTech - ICT & Education

replicating one-to-one, to one, to one ... | image atribution at bottomThe One Laptop Per Child program has brought much attention to issues related to '1-to-1 computing' (each child has her/his own personal computing device).  While perhaps the most prominent initiative of this sort in public consciousness, OLPC is just one of many such programs around the world.  At a recent event in Vienna, the OECD, the Inter-american Development Bank and the World Bank brought together representatives from these programs, the first such face-to-face global gathering of leaders in this area to share information and insights about their experiences. 

In putting together this event, it was clear that there was no consolidated list of leading '1-to-1 educational computing initiatives'.  Here's a first attempt at such a list, based on participants in this event (links are meant as pointers to more related information; not all lead to the specific project sites):

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