ICT in Education. The Missing Link

Why are there so few examples of successful ICT initiatives in education?

There is little doubt that ICT offers great opportunity to improve the quality and access to education. Advancement in technologies especially the Internet and mobile telephony has the potential of connecting people and resources(or linking knowledge in educational terms). New software and hardware is also making it possible for people with elementary skills to create, adapt and present content in a variety of ways. The combined capabilities and flexibility of today's technology therefore means that educational processes, content and access can be improved at low cost. Yet despite the ever increasing investments in education in form of ICT initiatives we still struggle to find good examples of where such technologies have been used successfully.

The myriad of educational technologies on the market is mind boggling. During the last e-learning Africa conference that took place in Lusaka Zambia, one could see the stretch of these solutions from sleek to plain simple solutions. But as one participant, a head teacher, remarked "ICT in education wont come soon enough as long as 'wrong' people remain in the drivers seat. The suggestion is that we have people who do not, or least understand the educational process, peddling technology solutions for a sector in way that clearly ignores the opinion of educators. But that is not the only problem. A lot of educators are strongly against commercialization of education and seeing commercial people or indeed technical in the fore front of educational solutions, however good, simply doesn't help. Indeed talking to heads of schools in many of my workshops, its clear that the missing link is having educators taking a leading role in promoting educational solutions.

Then there is question that another ICT in Education advocate posed to me during the same conference "...why has technology failed deliver the same results it delivered to the media?". I will attempt to answer this after my next workshop with heads of schools scheduled to take place this month.

Using ICT to support children with Special Educational Needs.

In recent past I have been investigating and exploring was in which mordern technology can be used in supporting pupils with special educational Needs. My motivation came from the fact that in the last 10 years, I have been working in the Edication sector developing and implementing innovative ICT projects aimed at improving the standards of teaching and learning in schools. I have seen from these projects the potentail ICT has in increasing learning opportunities for maginalised and poorly resourced schools.

It is because of this experience that when a friend narrated the difficulties pupils with special educational needs face in Zambia,I decided to investigate further the nature and scope of these problems and whether opportunities exist for using ICT to address them. The result of my investigations; chatting with practitioners, visiting institutions dealing with disabilities, educationist, reading books,is that opportuinties indeed exist to support such groups. I was particularly encouraged by similar initiatives in other parts of the world. I therefore decided that I should use my previous experience in ICT in Education projects to initiate a foundation to try and assist such groups. The name of the foundation is Special Educational Needs Sopport and Engagement (SENSE ICT Initiative). The primary aim is to incraese learning opportunities for children with special needs by engaging stakeholders in innovative ICT initiatives while supporting those working with such groups with appropriate ICT knowledge. This is a new initiative and I am inviting all those with ideas and experience working in such projects to please come forward, to be part of this noble effort to give these pupils the same learning opportunities as their peers in mainstream schools.

Should you be interested please contact me on the email below and I will be pleased tosend you a detailed project description and other programme activities.

'The next generation of leaders will be judged not on how they lead others but on how they empower others'Bill Gates.


yesebill@yahoo.com