DEEP News

Late last month, the DEEP team, in particular our South African colleagues, presented to a conference given by Imbewu - a DFID-funded NGO in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. In addition to a review of DEEP’s early work, educators talked about their more recent experiences, and early outcomes of the Mobile Multimedia Classroom were discussed:

The presentation set out the context and concept of the mobile multimedia classroom research, including the recent prototyping of two prototype vehicles (equipped with laptops, digital cameras, digital video cameras, and digital projection / PA equipment) to author multi-media, short films and photo-journals.

Response to this new dimension of providing local ICT support along with equipment to rural educators and their communities was positive, and we feel that it provides further refinement in understanding rural education, international development and innovative ICT.

Late last month, the DEEP team were able to take the first prototype mobile classroom out in to the field and work with educators and learners in a rural school in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

With continued support from OU students and staff via the OU Development Office, and working with co-funders eRanger, 2 motorbikes have been equipped to convey ICT equipment, support and training to hard-to-reach areas. eRanger have a number of innovative solutions to increase rural access for key services, using a sidecar and an all-terrain motorcycle unit. DEEP have requested enhancements to this model and also a ’solo’ unit to enable efficient on and off-road use.

UPDATED: The DEEP website has updates and resources available, showing results of early work, available under the Projects & Proposals > Mobile Multimedia Classroom area.

This week, the DEEP Team were invited to participate in a symposium on ICT for Development, Disruption and Debate as part of the Computer Assisted Learning conference in Dublin on 26-28th March.

The symposium revolved around case studies of practice in projects related to the ICT for Development strand, all three presentations outlined work in Sub-Saharan Africa, addressing different research questions and using a mixture of available hardware and mobile solutions in both rural and peri-urban areas.

http://www.cal-conference.elsevier.com/oral.htm#6.4

Earlier this month, the DEEP team were able to combine work with the Eastern Cape Department of Education and the University of Fort Hare alongside further work with some of the DEEP schools.

As a result of generous donation from OU students and staff, and an ongoing relationship with the eRanger Company, DEEP have initiated the latest research and development exercise to provide a mobile ICT kit on a motorbike.

The funds have secured audiovisual recording equipment and laptops for educators and learners to capture and create their own resources, with ongoing ICT support from a trained rider and ICT specialist.

In a separate activity, DEEP are also working with two cluster schools to assist in their exploration of interactive whiteboards in teaching and learning, and using videoconferencing to support UK-SA collaboration.

Jenny Leach and John Traxler (University of Wolverhampton) will be presenting a paper at the 4th IEEE workshop of WMUTE in Athens, Greece on 16-17th November.

Their paper is to be presented in Session 6, entitled Innovative and Sustainable Mobile Learning in Africa

http://futurelab.org.uk/

Spaces, Places and Future Learning: Using innovative technology and practice to re-imagine learning spaces
1-2 November 2006, Rich Mix, London

http://beraconference.clarocada.com/

The DEEP team have taken part in two Special Interest Group sessions on Comparative and International Education and New Technologies in Education:

Paper 1: Is there a role for information and communication technologies in rural schools and their communities? Findings from the digital education enhancement project (DEEP)
Paper 2: Using suites of ‘free’ refurbished computers may cost over four times more than buying and using ’state of the art’ elearning technologies
Paper 3: Mobile technologies: new directions for teacher learning and development
Paper 4: mLearning: the classroom in your pocket?

http://www.elearning-africa.com/

832 participants from 80 countries were gathered at the first eLearning Africa conference from May 24 – 26, 2006 in the United Nations Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, making it the largest event on educational technologies and development ever to have taken place on the continent.

13 pre-conference workshops, five parallel topic strands with over 250 speakers and prominent keynotes, as well as an exhibition with major vendors and service providers covered all aspects of e-Learning and ICT Supported Education and Training in the African context. Over 70% of the participants came from African countries – a figure that shows the vital interest in e-Learning on the continent and made E-Learning Africa a real African conference.

DEEP IMPACT published March 2006

Does technology enhance teaching and learning in resource poor environments?

This is the question that the research report DEEP IMPACT, an investigation of the use of information and communication technologies for teacher education in the global south, published this month by the Department for International Development (DFID) sets out to explore. This research study was carried out with 50 teachers and over 2,000 pupils in primary schools in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province and in Cairo, Egypt. The findings shows that ICT can transform educational opportunities for teachers and pupils and that digital devices such as lap tops and hand held computers, so far aimed mostly at the business market, can be used by schools for a range of professional and learning experiences.

The research suggests that politicians and education planners need to:

• acknowledge the potentially key role of ICT for increasing access and improving quality learning
• ensure teacher development is not isolated from other ICT development such as those focusing on students and curriculum
• recognize that ICT policy and practice must be closely matched to local context and needs with a particular focus on classroom relevance and learner achievement
• understand that existing cost analyses are likely to be based upon outmoded ICT models and use.

In addition educational planners need to:

• recognize that personal or extended ICT use, together with peer and team learning, is what enables confidence and the integration of ICT into daily classroom and community practices
• understand the importance of  user evaluations of both ICT hardware and software
• realise that the lack of software in teachers and children’s first language (such as Xhosa and Arabic) limits the effective uses of ICT, relevant content should also be produced in local languages
• encourage the development of local and international professional e-networks so that school communities can share experiences
• build links between teacher education and agriculture, healthcare and other government services in their uses of and policies on ICT.

The study concludes that the use of ICT in some of the poorest parts of the world, if well planned and implemented, can have a significant impact on the confidence, self-esteem and professional knowledge of teachers. In this way, ICT offers the potential to redefine and enhance the status of teachers within communities and more broadly across the communities they work with.

Relevant links:
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/casestudies/files/research/deep-impact.asp
http://www.thersa.org/acrobat/p40-41_One%20World.pdf