Education for the Electronic Age
I found a neat little story at the BBC about how one school in Kenya is trying to combat the costs of textbooks that many poor families struggle with.
Of course, other problems arise such as the fact that many of these students do not have access to electricity needed to continually recharge batteries, not to mention the lack of durability associated with travel across such strenuous terrain, but it most certainly is a novel idea, and I am confident that there will be solutions.
I wonder how such an educational medium would fare in the industrialized world, where electricity is plentiful. In the United States, state governments could subsidize the handhelds, which could ultimately save it money as textbook costs are replaced as software updates are more frequent than the state would be willing to pay for the books themselves. Of course, similar experiments have taken place in Western countries , but what were the findings and results of such studies? I mean, it is already true that today's teenagers are more technologically savvy than ever. How immersed were the students and teachers in using such devices for educational purposes? The 21st century brings many possibilities.
However, in Class Five, things are just a little bit different. Fifty-four 11-year-old students are willing guinea pigs in an extraordinary experiment aimed at using technology to deliver education across the continent.
In the Eduvision pilot project, textbooks are out, customised Pocket PCs, referred to as e-slates, are very much in.
They are wi-fi enabled and run on licence-free open source software to keep costs down.
"The e-slates contain all the sorts of information you'd find in a textbook and a lot more," said Eduvision co-founder Maciej Sudra.
"They contain textual information, visual information and questions. Within visual information we can have audio files, we can have video clips, we can have animations.
"At the moment the e-slates only contain digitised textbooks, but we're hoping that in the future the students will be able to complete their assignments on these books and send them to the teacher, and the teacher will be able to grade them and send them back to the student."
Pocket PCs were chosen in place of desktops because they are more portable, so the children can take them home at night, and also because they're also cheaper, making them cost-effective alternatives to traditional methods of learning.
Of course, other problems arise such as the fact that many of these students do not have access to electricity needed to continually recharge batteries, not to mention the lack of durability associated with travel across such strenuous terrain, but it most certainly is a novel idea, and I am confident that there will be solutions.
I wonder how such an educational medium would fare in the industrialized world, where electricity is plentiful. In the United States, state governments could subsidize the handhelds, which could ultimately save it money as textbook costs are replaced as software updates are more frequent than the state would be willing to pay for the books themselves. Of course, similar experiments have taken place in Western countries , but what were the findings and results of such studies? I mean, it is already true that today's teenagers are more technologically savvy than ever. How immersed were the students and teachers in using such devices for educational purposes? The 21st century brings many possibilities.
posted by Jason Dozier at
12:27 PM
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