Changing Lives Through Education

     The topic of libraries around the world is a new area of exploration for me!  I found it to be quite insightful and super interesting.    When I first read this new topic, I immediately thought of two school trips that my husband, Cliff, was a chaperone for.  As a highschool teacher he has helped make Me to We  trips possible for his school to China and Ghana. 

retrieved by:
 https://www.metowe.com/

Two of the five main themes of Me to We is to help create and ensure a sustainable future for rural children by providing access to and removing obstacles to a quality education and another is to create nutrition programs at schools. 

     Cliff traveled to Asemkow, Ghana with 15 students to help build an additional room to the community school.  Asemkow had one school in the village for about 100 children from the surrounding area.  The school went up to grade 8 and was of no cost to students.  Only those that could afford highschool continued on past grade 8, which this village sent about 5-6 children per year.  The highschool was about an hour walk away. 

Those that did not go to highschool became street vendors, fisherman (boys) and helped to cook/house chores (women).  This school had three teachers that commuted daily to the village.  The school had tablets…..CHALK tablets.  There were no books or technology, just a blackboard…in fact there was no electricity in the village save one light post.  What my husband couldn’t figure out is that the highschool kids all had cellphones, but where did they charge them without power? (He assumed at the highschool, but never saw it).  It was only an hour’s drive (no cars in the village however) to a bigger city with a westernized university, but there was such a difference from grade school to highschool and university.  Moving forward to best meet the needs of Asemkow, Me to We is helping to train the teachers in the school plus build rooms and teacher accommodations complete with furnishings and toilets.  There is no one working at expanding access to the internet at this point in Asemkow, but this is an area deserving some thought. 

     Cliff’s trip to China involved building a school garden and chicken farm in Gufubao (2 hour drive Northwest of Beijing).  The idea was to help this smaller village become sustainable with better nutrition.  There was such a stark difference between the bustling city of Beijing and a poverty stricken Gufubao.  This school had more than that of Asemkow.  Gufubao has 12 classrooms up to grade 5, electricity, and books in each classroom.  There was no library and the classrooms had no internet access.  The teacher rooms, however, did have access 

to the internet.  Teachers taught students from a learning package provided to them by the government.  Cliff’s trip was in 2016, so maybe in the past three years students in Gufubao now are connected to the internet?  It seems if the teacher accommodations had internet that it is plausible to have the internet in the hands of students, as well.  Only teachers had cellphones.

     My exploration this week followed my earlier thinking about Asemkow with no electricity and that of Gufubao being so close to being connected to the world and how can they best move forward.  There is so much out there!  I came across an article, Availability and Use of Digital Technologies in P-12Classrooms of Selected Countries  that discussed the enormous difference of access to technology between developing countries and developed countries.  Developed countries had similar technology available, but developing countries had a huge range of different digital technologies available.  An interesting takeaway for me was that funds were found to have digital technology in schools in both developed and developing countries, but there was not money to have proper training on the use of the technology.  This study by Khan, Hasan, and Clement (2012) focused on Bangladesh, but outlined barriers for developing countries acquiring ICT: lack of equipment, lack of technical support, lack of funds, political views of the country, social and cultural factors, teacher shortage, lack of skill.  That is a lot of barriers to overcome with Asemkow not even having electricity!  I focused my search on how to overcome these barriers in developing nations and found this article by Steven Livingston, Classroom Technologies Narrow Education Gap in Developing Countries.  The discussion debates the idea of putting funds towards laptops and not adequately training teachers and employing enough teachers. 

retrieved from: https://www.varkeyfoundation.org/

However, I was excited to find a link to the Varkey Foundation on how help is being given to Ghana!  The belief of this organization is that every child deserves a good teacher and access to a good education.  They are not necessarily at the point of putting a laptop in the hands of every student, but instead investing in training teachers for remote areas.  Dubai Cares  is also training teachers for tomorrow and working on helping with nutrition in Ghana. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DqGjsMAGbk

     I also came across an Edu Tech, A World Bank Blog on ICT Use inEducation and found it to be an interesting read talking about the electricity divide, not the digital divide!  Also the ‘second digital divide’ is discussed in regards to skills and abilities of people benefiting from technology.  There were interesting concepts that make financial sense helping communities with little funds, such as a school having only one computer but 50 students benefiting from its use, each with their own mouse.  Another idea is the use of a mobile phone connecting a teacher in a remote area to education content.

     It seems that some organizations want to train teachers in developing countries and other organizations want to put a computer in the hands of every child, such as One Laptop Per Child .  

retrieved from: http://one.laptop.org/

One Laptop Per Child's aim is to have every child have " a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop" called the XO Laptop 4.0 pictured here on the left, which  students can take home even without electricity in their home.  Which is the best way to provide greater access to information that best meets the needs of a particular community?  Training teachers, XO, or perhaps it is the simple mobile phone that is the best option for these remote villages?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-M77C2ejTw

     Just quickly, as I have gone on too long about the vast amount of information out there about technology in all nations, I wanted to share my thoughts about developing nations relying on donations and weeded books from developed nations.  I am okay with quality books being donated, however serious thought needs to be taken to ensure the books are appropriate both in regards to language and culture of the country.  Plus, books must be in good condition and newer. I do not feel weeded books from my library should go there.  If they are garbage to me, why give outdated or poor fitted books for others to deal with.  Giving an outdated atlas with countries that no longer exist, border changes, or without a new territory in it means the teachers and students need to figure out which part of the book is up to date and which is not.  They deserve better.

References

Cares, D. (2018). Dubai Cares. Retrieved from http://www.dubaicares.ae/en

Ghana Starts Africa's First High-tech Interactive Distance Learning. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.voanews.com/a/ghana-africa-first-high-tech-interactive-distance-learning/3179512.html

Khan, S., hasan, m., & clement, c. (2012). Barriers to the Introduction of ICT into Education in Developing Countries: The Example of Bangladesh. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED533790

Livingston, S. (2016). Classroom technologies narrow education gap in developing countries. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2016/08/23/classroom-technologies-narrow-education-gap-in-developing-countries/

ME to WE | Products & Experiences that Make an Impact. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.metowe.com/

One Laptop per Child. (2018). Retrieved from http://one.laptop.org/

The Varkey Foundation. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.varkeyfoundation.org/

Trucano, m. (2014). Promising uses of technology in education in poor, rural and isolated communities around the world. Retrieved from https://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/education-technology-poor-rural

Vu, P. (2014). Availability and Use of Digital Technologies in P-12 Classrooms of Selected Countries. Retrieved from https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/itet/article/view/17933/17904