A few caveats at the onset here. This reads a bit more like an academic piece which it largely is. It is drawn from something larger I wrote a bit ago for another paper. It might also read like an attack on the SDGs, which is not my point. The point here is that the SDGs have generated some incredible results and I sincerely support them, but we must be mindful of what is being mobilised in our pursuit of them. My focus is education and I suggest that the provisions of the SDGs related specifically to that field suggest particular scaled interventions (or at least make those approaches particularly attractive). Scale exacts pressure on particular types of education.
Read MoreStudents and schools: imports, exports, and some flattening of context
Returning to a favorite (re: only) theme of mine, education, I was struck recently by the uptick in the number of foreign universities setting up branch campuses in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and presumably throughout the continent, ideally bolstering domestic capacity for graduates who can push forward development agendas requiring greater and greater access to skilled labor. The schools and university sectors are just strands of a larger neoliberal loosening of public control over what was once the exclusive purview of the public sector, but no need to get too big picture for the time being.
Read MoreCo-creating Content to Combat Gender Based Violence (and Other tongue twisters)
One of the hardest things to get right when it comes to M4Dev, is content. This is especially true when working on complex and sensitive topics such as gender based violence, where even mentioning the subject can be considered taboo.
Read MoreGender Inequality in Education: Datasets and Sources
Returning to the subject of education and gender, this post is a bit more about using the data available to you to make informed decisions when running ICT4D projects. For some, these will be painfully apparent; for others, perhaps a little less so, so I am essentially writing this post for the latter group. Experts and data-savvy types, avert your eyes.It is probably best to frame this around a particular question or conjecture, so I am going to assume that one of the potential pathways for greater employability for women in some countries and in particular greater employability in "innovative" fields is research.
Read MoreDigital divides and accumulated advantage: Huawei Global Connectivity Index and the Business of Education in Africa
I have been spending some time with two reports recently that have me thinking a bit about the outcomes we in the ICT4D and digital education fields are looking for in our work. Both challenge some of my perhaps idealistic beliefs that the technology could enable positive impact (which in some cases it has) in resource deprived environments. I can point to enough evidence there to suggest that is the case, but it isn't evidence that scales very well. A success story here or there tied to a regional context. Some data to suggest increased literacy levels or greater access to health care. Overall, a tick upwards towards meeting SDGs, a small triumph in and of itself.
Read MoreThe Myopia of Student Surveillance: Lazy Edtech and Lax Data Protection
The world of educational technology is clearly a favorite subject of mine, particularly as it applies to developing contexts. We have seen an almost litany of attempts, some seemingly well-intentioned and others not so much, to avoid the dirty work of teacher training in favor of automation or some sort of teach by numbers approach (see any number of posts we have done on this). We have seen some naive approaches to student surveillance and lax approaches to protecting the data that emerges as a result. All of this is, more or less, an effect of neoliberal policy designed, overtly or not, to pull back or disinvest from commitments to the public sector at the national level, in favor of privatization or whatever the market will bear. In some communities, this means a repurposing of education towards a more market orientation. In other communities, particularly developing nations, this is a process a bit more fraught with danger.
Read MoreSteer clear of the bridge: Bridge International Academies in Kenya, neoliberalism, and lazy shortcuts to meaningful education
Returning to a favorite subject of mine, discussed here and here in past posts, is the ongoing Bridge Academy debacle throughout the continent, but particularly in Kenya, which has now turned legal.
“Lawyers for the for-profit chain secured a temporary court order preventing Wilson Sossion, General Secretary of the Kenyan National Union of Teachers (KNUT), and the union or its “agents,” from publicly criticizing Bridge “pending” a court hearing. Bridge accuses Sossion of putting a “malicious post on twitter about the institution.” Sosson accused Bridge of recruiting the “richest of the poor at great cost of those families.”
Read MoreTo monitor, evaluate, and communicate in Kathmandu: training on ICT for Women's Business Associations in Nepal
Panoply Digital is busy with developing a training curriculum for upcoming workshops for our partner the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and their partner network afield. We are doing several such two-day training events in the upcoming months with the first one being Kathmandu, Nepal in a few weeks with subsequent trainings in Argentina, Kenya, Jordan, and more.
Read MoreWhat Panoply Digital is Reading: Bridge International vs. Kenyan Teachers; Ericsson Mobility Report, and Opera State of the Mobile Web in Africa
As we approach the end of the year, we at Panoply Digital are working our projects and spending some time in research, reading, and reflection. In the interests of sharing, I wanted to share the reading and research part as it affects many of us working in international education and ICT4D.
Read MoreTracking, Monitoring, Surveilling: Context Matters with ICT for Children in Asia
Reading a recent UNICEF post from Suman Khadka titled Star Wars: Force For Change supports digital monitoring systems in Cambodia, I found myself reflecting a bit on visibility in terms of tracking, monitoring, and surveillance. The project that Khadka describes involves “the technology for a digital tracking system which converts the paper-based method to an Inspection App. The app can complete the equivalent of a 20-page form — a process that previously took multiple days — in just one day.”
Read MoreMobile takeaways from non-tech projects: from gers in Mongolia to migrants in Thailand
In this post, I wanted to highlight a few projects in development, some foregrounding and some backgrounding technology, in the Asia Pacific region and discuss some takeaways from these projects that are applicable to almost all development projects. If you are looking for projects in the Asia Pacific region, I generally recommend some of the content being generated by the UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education office out of Bangkok, particularly the ICT in Education group, as they give a good snapshot of activity in the region. So much so that the projects I am discussing here are taken directly from their newsletter.
Read MoreFrom Jubilation to Condemnation: Kenya's Digital Literacy Programme - Top Tips for Success
In April 2013, the Uhuru Kenyatta government, also referred to as the Jubilee Coalition, announced plans to realize a campaign promise to provide every Kenyan child with a solar laptop. The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) promise was initially met with “jubilation.” Yet, by the time the Uhuru government marked 100 days in office, a growing chorus of condemnation directed at the initiative had emerged in the blogosphere, and in online and print newspapers. Fast forward three years and multiple failed tenders later and the laptops have been turned into tablets and they have finally arrived after being manufactured in China. Hooray?!
Read MoreBaking the divide into the (mobile) design: South Korea and Tanzania and home-grown technology
A rather belated post for the week but I just returned from the UK where I defended my thesis at University College London on mobile learning in higher education. In that defense, I was critiqued on a whole range of issues but one question that particularly stuck was how would I know (mobile) learning if I were to see it. What does it look like, particularly in a mobile context? How do we know it when we see it and how does it render differently in different regions? How do we design for it?
Read MoreCareer Post: Transitioning to Tech - How It Worked for Me
When I tell most people that my first profession was in the field of education, I am often greeted with disbelief. Questions such as “How did you go from teaching to technology?” often follow the initial shock, and increasingly I am beginning to understand why this happens. Before I discuss these reasons, I will first give a brief overview of my professional background.
Read MoreAdolescent Girls’ Access to Education in Conflict-Affected Settings: Report and Takeaways
In this post, I wanted to pick up on some of the excellent review offered by Melanne Verveer and draw some further attention to the recent report titled “Closing the Gap: Adolescent Girls’ Access to Education in Conflict-Affected Settings” from the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. The report itself is well worth a read as it provides a necessary context for truly understanding the scale of the problem and why current efforts are falling short.
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