Reflections on this week’s readings...

One of the readings in Moodle this week was quite interesting.  The mLearning: a Platform for Educational Opportunities at the Base of the Pyramid, focused on the work the telecom industry is doing in the developing world to help promote education and learning.  It was interesting to read through the projects that these telecom companies were implementing to help promote learning in rural locations or in cultures where it was not accepted that girls should go to school and be educationed.  Providing access through mobile networks for learning opportunities can have great benefits for those who have limited or no opportunities, but a few thoughts ran through my head as I was reading about the work of these telecom companies.

My initial thought regarding this article was: these telecom equipment companies and operators are being very generous in offering these services.  However, my next thought was: wow, they have a test bed to work with, they can test new technologies “in the field” and at the same time promote these projects as being good corporate citizens and maybe even write the projects off their books.  I understand that this document was created by the telecom industry to promote its charitable work, but these projects however well intended they are, have large costs associated with them.  It is important to step back and ask, what are these companies gaining from participating in such projects?  Most likely it is more than just good public relations. 

Many of these projects seem to be subsidized in one form or another by the telecom company, the government – which typically owns the telecom company, or by an NGO.  If communities, schools and learners become dependent upon mobile networks for their learning, what happens if this subsidization seizes?  All of the resources students depend upon could become prohibitively expensive to access or not accessible at all.  This would be frustrating and demoralizing for learners as they begin to feel empowered by their learning activities.  What would happen to these subsidies if the telcom company has a couple of bad quarters of financial results or if the government can no longer afford subsidies due to a financial crisis?  The risk is that learners would be dependent upon these subsidies and that their learning could stop due to a lack of access.  

Another thought that popped into my head about the risks associated with telecom providers in developing countries is that governments can have authoritarian control over the mobile networks.  This year provides a striking example when looking through the spectrum of the Arab Spring.  Many authoritarian regimes initial response to the protests was to forcefully try to stop them.  One of the first tools these regimes used to “control” its citizens was to monitor or outright block telecommunications networks and turn off access to social networking websites.  As I was reading about these mobile projects, I thought about how frustrating it would be if learning ceased at the whim of the government when it felt threatened by its citizens. 

One Laptop per Child

I started researching this week’s mobile tool of the week: one laptop per child by exploring one of my favorite sites, the Chronicle of Higher Education and searched on the topic.  Many articles reference the 2006 timeframe when Nicholas Negroponte from MIT’s Media Lab was introducing his rugged $100 laptop, which at the time cost him about $176 to produce.  The benefits for providing students in developing countries with some form of a laptop would on the surface of the discussion seem like an important cause to support.  Providing students with access to electronic instructional materials, materials that they would not have access to in their school due to its remote location or if the local community could not afford laptops due to more urgent needs for basic services such as health, sanitation, housing, and electricity, would seem like an important goal for governments in the developing world, NGOs and governments in the developed world to support and help expand educational opportunities.  As with most educational policy initiatives, one laptop per child has its own set of politics both in the developing world and the developed world, which takes a noble goal and muddles it through the politics of the interest groups involved. 

From the technical development standard, Negroponte focused on building a rugged laptop that can be used in various environments where electricity may not exist or is inconsistent.  He built his laptop using open source software such as Linux to keep costs down and used AMD processors.  Bill Gates has said: “geez, get a decent computer, where you can actually read the text and you’re not sitting there cranking the thing”.  Part of the reason Gates and Intel have criticized Negroponte’s project is that it does not support their platform and products.  Intel and Microsoft have a low cost laptop alternative called the Classmate PC utilizing Intel processors and Windows XP, but this platform costs a bit more, even when subsidized it costs $220 to $300.  Maybe competition for building a platform for low income schools and schools in developing countries will ultimately benefit the end user with a low cost computer with the greatest resources available?  Both the Negroponte and Intel/Microsoft arguments for their platforms have validity. Negroponte’s open platform will provide access at a minimal cost to schools, the end user experience may not be great, but going from no resource to some resource may provide a step in the right direction.  While the Classmate PC may be more expensive, it does provide students with access to the most commonly used operating system and if economic development is a key goal to providing laptops in the classroom, experience with Windows may ultimately be more beneficial to students. 

When thinking through the issues with providing the laptop, there are many more issues that must be addressed; many are political issues that at both the national and local levels.  These include:      

• Priorities.  Local communities will need to decide what is more important and what help do they want from outside their local communities.  Maybe a laptop in a school is a luxury a community cannot afford?  Maybe it is more important to address basic needs for living.  Politicians may loose their power if they invest in projects that the public find wasteful or unneeded.  India initially rejected Negroponte’s project calling it too expensive and they could not justify the investment, a few years later they ultimately purchased 250,000 laptops.  But other countries have also looked into Negroponte’s project and rejected it as other priorities or political situations took precedence over providing laptops in schools.

• Support infrastructure.  Before investing in such a project, a holistic approach to implementation must be organized by local community leaders, school leaders, teachers and parents.  A cost analysis will be needed to assess if this project is feasible.  An analysis of the electrical grid to support laptops will be needed.  Brining laptops into a classroom will have an effect on the curriculum and adjustments or reforms to the curriculum will be needed to ensure that the computers are being used to their potential – as politicians will be on the hook for such a large investment, there will be pressures placed on the schools to show successes with these new tools.  In countries with authoritarian regimes, much of the analysis and preparation work will not likely occur; schools will be told to implement the project. 

• Support for teachers.  Providing laptops does not necessarily mean they will be used.  If the teacher does not know how to use the laptop and does not have training for how to use it in their classes, one laptop per child will become an expensive mistake.  I have visited many universities in the developed and developing world where computers sit in boxes in professor’s offices because they have no desire to use a computer or no idea how they will use it within their classrooms.

• Localized teaching materials.  As many teachers will be new to using laptops and learning how to use them in the classroom on the fly, a question must be asked about what materials will be available?  Is it too much to ask teachers to learn how to use a computer and develop teaching materials?  Remember there will be political pressures to show success of these projects.  If localized teaching materials do not exist and teachers do not have time to develop these materials, what benefit can a computer have?  Publishers are not likely to invest in developing localized materials unless they find it profitable.  National and local governments may be slow to develop localized materials.  Colonial language materials (English, French, Spanish and Dutch) may not suffice for developing countries anymore? 

• Technical support.  Computers break, the rugged environments may prove too much for hardware.  Or students may download a virus on their laptop.  Who is going to provide support to fix these issues?  A manufacturer who is selling a computer for less than $300 is not going to provide a high level of service to fix their computers; if it is a remote location the only option may be to replace the computer.  Will teachers become the IT help desk?  What happens to the learning process when the computer no longer works and it will take weeks or months to fix the problem?

I do not want to sound negative towards such noble initiatives, providing access to computers and the internet is a worthy cause for all learners around the world.  But we must be realistic in terms of the costs associated with such endeavors and the personal tolls such an innovation will have on teachers.  From curriculum reform to political pressures to becoming IT support, this innovation will be disruptive for teachers, but the benefits for students an incredibly powerful. 

Security and Policy Related to Lecture Capture

For a number of years I worked for a company selling lecture capture solutions to universities on a global basis and some of the hurdles we faced was related to the policies and security for the recorded lectures.  Beyond lecture capture solutions being challenging to setup, configure and manage, universities had to create new policies around many issues related to the recordings.  Since the content was “portable” – it could be downloaded to mobile devices, faculty had questions about the trade-offs of student benefits versus their intellectual property.  This weeks topics related to privacy, security and policy was like a walk down memory lane. 

The concept of recording lectures seems as though it would provide great benefit to students for remedial purposes and if for whatever reasons they could not attend class, students could review their course content at their own pace.  Students have been recording lectures for a number of years with tape recorders or digital recorders, so it is not a new phenomena, but for a university to centrally support lecture capture systems become disruptive for faculty, students and administrators. 

Faculty had series concerns about the security of their lectures, their intellectual property.  It was interesting to have discussions with professors who felt as those their importance was depleted by implementing a lecture capture solution; I would commonly be asked: if the university records my lecture why will they need me the next semester?  I heard similar questions when universities were implementing learning management systems in the late 1990s.  Questions about intellectual property were very common as it is important that content was secured so that it was not used inappropriately or rebranded as someone else’s lecture.  For these types of inquiries there were technical solutions that added layers of security to the recorded lecture so it was less “portable”. 

Another policy question that commonly arose was around who “owned” the recorded lecture, that question depended upon the country, the university and the contract the professor signed.  In many instances the lecture was the professor’s, but in some cases the lecture was a possession of the university.  This new technology raised many questions faculty and administrators needed to answer on the fly, yet policies did not exist. From a privacy perspective, many faculty felt as though an intruder had entered their lecture hall with the recording technology capturing their lecture.  There were concerns that the recordings would be used for tenure and promotional considerations, yet for many universities this was never an intended consequence for implementing these systems and policies were need to ensure that the lectures were used for instructional purposes.  Additionally, many institutions implemented an opt-in policy for recording lectures so that professors would choose to have their lectures recorded, however students did not always like this option since having accesses to recorded lectures in one or a few courses and not in all of their courses reduced their satisfaction with their student experience. 

As the primary beneficiary of lecture capture systems were students, policies were commonly needed to make sure that this service was used properly and as universities intended.  First and foremost was the concern about the recording itself and how it was to be used; in fact some universities made students sign academic use policies ensuring that they did not redistribute lectures to other students or other web sites.  A secondary concern was related to student attendance in the classroom, would face-to-face classes remain relevant?  For the most part this was not a significant concern versus the benefit realized for students, but this disruptive technology provided an opportunity for faculty to use the class time with students differently; instead of lecturing for the entire class period, students could review a previous semester’s lecture prior to coming to class and more group activities were utilized. 

Working with many universities as they implemented lecture capture solutions was an interesting experience given that this new technology had significant policy and security implications that many universities were just beginning to grapple with as they implemented this service for their students.