Session 2 - The Use of Technology in Education
Back to workshop homepage
Recommendations Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is not the panacea for education that it is often purported to be. It can serve as a beneficial tool for improving learning outcomes, but the details of the implementation significantly affect the success of the programme. If technology is going to be integrated into any learning programme, the programme should take into account the following guidelines:
Room for Innovation
Back to workshop homepage
Recommendations Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is not the panacea for education that it is often purported to be. It can serve as a beneficial tool for improving learning outcomes, but the details of the implementation significantly affect the success of the programme. If technology is going to be integrated into any learning programme, the programme should take into account the following guidelines:
- Technology should be fully integrated into the subject matter instruction, and teachers need to be given sufficient training, both in how to use the technology and in how to teach students to use it.
- It is important to consider the relative productivity of the current learning environment. ICT programmes may be more beneficial in situations where the current quality of teaching is low. When the quality of teaching is high, replacing teaching time with computers may actually be detrimental to student learning.
- ICT can be an effective tool to help students learn at their own pace.
Room for Innovation
- How can the above evidence for what works in ICT for education generally be translated into early grade reading-specific programmes?
- Are ICT programmes more effective during school hours or outside of school? If they are more effective outside of school, is it because of the technology or the extra hours of instruction (and could the same or better impacts be achieved with other extra-curricular innovations)?
- Is it more effective to train existing teachers or to implement ICT programmes externally?
- Should ICT instruction focus on students at a certain level? Do different subsets of students benefit differently from ICT?
- Computers can be expensive. How can we reduce the cost of ICT programmes so they may be implemented at scale? Are there different types of technology devices (projectors, pictalks, etc.) that may be more easily used on a large-scale basis?
Back to workshop homepage