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Chapter 4: Critical success factors for moving towards digital equity

International Handbook of Information Technology in Education

Running Head: Chapter IV

Critical success factors in moving towards digital equity

Author Information

Joyce Pittman, Ph.D.

Abu Dhabi University

Abu Dhabi, UAE

Robert T. McLaughlin, Ph.D.

National Institute for Community Innovations

Bonnie Bracey-Sutton

The Thornburg Center, USA

Narrative: 6,279 Manuscript only (7500+ with references)

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to focus on critical success factors for moving education towards digital equity to support learning opportunities worldwide. The limited access and use of Information Technologies (IT) are widely regarded as a global challenge that exclude individuals, schools, educational systems and communities from opportunities to experience powerful learning chances made possible with information technologies. This chapter is focused on understanding the factors that are embedded in successful efforts to move toward digital equity in different contexts. Dimensions for digital equity (Resta & Laferrière, 2008) are used for identifying success factors to foster widespread awareness about the potential value of learning technologies. The chapter discusses several exemplary efforts to help bridge the digital divide and the factors that appear to have contributed to their success. The examples from different parts of the world illustrate how advanced information technologies can enhance teacher effectiveness and learner achievement in culturally and socio-economically diverse contexts.

Keywords

IT success factors; Digital divide; Cultural relevant content; Cultural diversity; Teacher support;

Critical success factors in moving towards digital equity

1.Introduction

Understanding critical success factors for the access and use of information technologies to improve learning is crucial to move towards digital equity in education. According to the National Institute for Community Innovations ( and the Educational Reform Network ( , the goal of Digital Equity (DE) is to provide equitable access to learning technology resources and opportunities for all learners. More specifically, achieving digital equity involves the following critical factors: providing educators and learners with access to technology resources; culturally responsive content and high quality content; preparing and upgrading skills of educators to assure they are skilled in using these resources; and providing opportunities for students and educators to create their own content (McLaughlin, 2003).

Before digital equity can evolve, basic access to information technology must flow to or be diffused into educational systems and communities within poorer societies. Besides access to technology Resta and Laferrière (2008) discuss other dimensions of digital equity which need to be in place for moving towards digital equity. They distinguish the following five dimensions:

  • Access to hardware, software and connectivity to the Internet.
  • Access to meaningful, high quality, culturally relevant content in local languages.
  • Access to creating, sharing, and exchanging digital content.
  • Access to educators who know how to use digital tools and resources.
  • Access to high quality research on the application of digital technologies to enhance learning.

These dimensions are used in this chapter to develop a better understanding of the factors and strategies that are evidenced in a number of exemplary efforts to move toward digital equity in diverse contexts.

2. Example cases: Initiatives that have made progress in moving toward digital equity in different global contexts

In many countries, technology is simply not available. Norris (2000) in The Worldwide Digital Divide: Information Poverty, the Internet and Development, places emphasis on the “global dimension and the diffusion of the new technology worldwide from Azerbaijan to Zambia (p.1)”. Although the Internet offers the potential to revolutionize education and the quality of life for developing societies and especially for reducing the familiar North-South divide, that potential has not yet been realized. There is, however, a growing number of governmental, private sector and non-governmental initiatives that are focused on helping to bridge the global digital divide, reducing information poverty, and the growing inequalities between the information-haves and have-nots (Norris, 2000).

In this section, four examples of educational technology initiatives and partnerships are presented to help identify factors that have contributed to the success of the efforts in moving toward digital equity. At the heart of each story is the human element that demonstrates how learners’ performance was enhanced through the application of IT in different contexts around the world. Each case was selected because it is supported by significant attention to evaluation of the initiative including documentation of the challenges faced by each initiative and the strategies that enabled them to overcome the barriers to achieve value-added integration of IT to improve education.

2.1 Literacy and technology: Developing nations move toward literacy to lift learning through storybooks

Organizations: Sunshine Online, READ (Rural Education and Development - South Africa), World Conference on Literacy

In South Africa a reading program, Sunshine Online, was designed to create a positive impact on reading and language skills of primary school children in disadvantaged schools with the help of IT. Staff members from READ, a South African NGO (Non-governmental organization) closely involved in literacy programs, were trained to use the program. This ongoing project was created in the African Union as part of the movement toward the use of African languages. The development of the year of African languages supported in some ways by the World Bank in dissemination of the information for the year of African Languages. The initiative involved the development and dissemination of a combination of online resources, books, software, and teacher instruction for involved and interactive reading. In instances where there is limited or no connectivity, teachers are able to use the books and software. In instances where teachers have online access, they are able to use online resources as well. The little books produced by the project were translated into 11 South African languages. This initiative responds to a critical need, as Africa is one of the most linguistically diverse continents in the world. According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the project exemplified the statement by the United Nations Secretary-General that "The time has come to move beyond broad discussions of the “digital divide” – the gap in communications technology between rich and poor – to outlining a specific plan to give people access to the technologies they need and the education to use them effectively” (United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 6 November 2005). In using their own languages, people can add content that is meaningful to them, as well as their own literature (Bracey & Culver, 2003).

Evaluation

The focus of evaluation within this initiative was on the impact of the books on student learning. Eight months after the project started, both quantitative and qualitative measures were used to measure the results for pupils in the eight Book Flood schools. The learners were thoroughly assessed with tests of reading, writing, listening comprehension, speaking and use of English structures, and the results were compared with those of pupils in the control group schools on the same tests. Twelve months later, all groups were again administered a comprehensive set of language tests, to establish whether the changes observed in the first year were persistent. Testing was carried out by a team of assessors, recruited mainly from the Ministry of Education and the University of the South Pacific, and trained by the researchers. The whole set of research findings can be found in Elley et al. (1996). [please add a summary of the major findings]

Success factors

The following features of the initiative contributed to increasing access to meaningful high quality content, cultural relevant content:

Culturally relevant content. This initiative represents an exemplary approach to provide high quality, culturally relevant content in local languages to teachers and students through the use of traditional media such as books as well at through computer software and online resources. The initiative also provided the materials and resources needed to enable teachers to effectively used the books in their instruction.Access to creating, sharing, and exchanging digital content.

Early intervention. The project also underscored the importance of helping developing early literacy as a foundation for further educational development. In the world of global communications, it is critical to ensure that we bridge the Digital Divide between developing and developed countries through the introduction of IT into elementary school systems where early learning begins (Papert, 1980; Fuehne & Phillips, 2004). Research shows that the new direction in early education is to help teachers become skilled in teaching in new ways that will ensure all children have the opportunity to learn with the integration of technology. However, to reach this goal in the 21st century, teacher educators, teachers, and opinion leaders must be clear on the importance of helping schools and teachers to use new learning tools and strategies and to understand what constitutes developmentally appropriate education for young children, especially when it comes to technology in early childhood education classrooms (Pittman, 2003; van Scoter, 2008).

Large-scale curriculum linkage. The Sunshine program represented large-scale curriculum effort designed to address the needs of learners across cultures and a wide geographic region. In thousands of Third World schools across the globe, pupils are required to learn in a language different from that of their homes. In other words, they were expected to learn to read and write in a second or third language. For such children, the usual problem of lack of resources and lack of competent teachers are compounded by a lack of exposure to the target language (Elley, 1992; Haddad et al. 1990). The Sunshine Online project provides an example of an approach that may be used in other parts of the world facing similar challenges.

In addition the initiative assured access to educators who know how to use digital tools by explicitly providing teacher training for teachers to use the materials and resources in their educational practice. The introduction of print and technology linked together, with professional training for teachers proved very successful and is now used in many countries as the basic method for teaching literacy[add ref]. In particular, this approach has proven to be very successful with learners for whom English is a second or foreign language.

2.2 Jordan uses IT to integrate water concepts in the national curriculum

Organizations: Water Efficiency and Public Information for Action, the Jordan Ministry of Water and Irrigation, the Academy for Educational Development launched with funding from United States Agency for International Development, and a number of international corporations.

The Jordan Education Initiative introduces teachers and students in Jordan to the digital age through an ambitious e-learning and Internet education program. It represented an example of the ways that public and private partnerships can create lifelong learning opportunities for people around world. The Jordan Education Initiative (JEI) is an ambitious e-learning project developed through a partnership between the Kingdom of Jordan and Cisco Systems that is poised to be an educational model that may be adopted by many other nations.

JEI got its start in 2003 at the World Economic Forum ( when Cisco CEO John Chambers challenged companies to work with government and non-profit organizations to create a focused educational program in one country. As the 2005 World Economic Forum convened in Davos Switzerland, News@Cisco asked Cisco vice president of corporate affairs, Tae Yoo, for a progress report on JEI and about her views on the next phase of the program. Subsequently, the Jordan Education Initiative (JEI) was created through the innovative development of partnerships with a large number of organizations, including international companies, local companies and government ministries, international donors, and nongovernmental organizations. The initiative supports Jordan's “Educational Reform for a Knowledge Economy” program ( Among the objectives are curriculum reform, teacher training, adoption of IT as an enabler of learning, and the improvement of IT infrastructure in schools.One of the key goals of the initiative is the empowerment of local communities through the use of IT as a powerful instrument for the dissemination of skills, knowledge, and capabilities required for economic and social advancement. The project is focused on the need to tackle water issues in the Jordanian school curriculum based on the national need to protect diminishing water resources in a semi-arid region of the world. With the present level of resource consumption, Jordan's fragile environment has reached the limits of its carrying capacity.The goals for teacher training under the JEI are to enable discovery learning in Jordanian schools, to serve as a seedbed for innovation and change and to support educational reform efforts. Moreover, there is a desire to change attitudes, beliefs, and the understanding of education through the introduction and appropriate use of IT. The goals are action and result oriented and the primary focus and point of intervention is the teacher.

Evaluation

The Jordan Education Initiative (JEI) involved a public-private partnership that aimed to improve education in Jordan through effective use of IT, while at the same time building local IT industry capacity and creating a model of reform for other countries.(McKinsey & Company & Razor View, 2005).

As stated earlier, objectives of this project included curriculum reform, teacher training, adoption of IT as an enabler of learning, and the improvement of IT infrastructure in schools. Data collection included both quantitative and qualitative data to measure the results using benchmarks directly linked to the objectives of this highly successfully project (McKinsey & Company & Razor View, 2005). The results of the evaluation reported that over 30 global and local partners from public and private sectors actively engaged in this project to create a comprehensive e-curriculum in Math for grades 1-2 now in use in schools. To support this change in the delivery culture of mathematics, full deployment of technology and training to six Discovery Schools (initial start-up schools in pilot), and 44 schools will be added in the future. This project has widespread impact that was evidenced by the World Economic Forum, which sponsored similar initiatives in three countries. Discussions continue with more than 12 countries in the region that are interested in an expansion of the model.

Success factors

In the JEI initiative the following dimensions proposed by Resta and Laferrière (2008) were taken into account:

  • Access to meaningful, high quality and cultural relevant content:

Broad -based community support. Jordan is a water poor country with the lowest rate of water consumption per capita in the world. Demand for water far exceeds the supply and the country has continuously sought to increase its water supply to meet the rising demand. Yet a bigger responsibility lies with the Jordanian citizen to conserve water. By educating the young, one third of the country’s population could be reached, but it was first necessary to provide teachers with the tools and professional development opportunities.

Collaboration. Environmental education in Jordan schools started through the ambitious initiatives of the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN Environmental education was implemented in the national Jordanian curriculum. The Ministry of Education, in collaboration with UNDP and partners developed an environment conceptual framework.

  • Access to educators who know how to use digital content and tools

Professional development linked to curriculum goals. The objectives of the curriculum were based on “Teach-Explore” Stages. Teachers were furnished information technology training and resources in workshops on water at the appropriate curriculum levels using a train-the-trainer model.

Broad-based support to develop basic technology skills. According to the McKinsey & Company & Razor View evaluation reports (2005), broad-based support for the project included the ministry of education, community groups, schools, individuals and organizations. A group of 111 teachers were trained on the use of IT and the new e-curricula in the classroom. Scopes of work for the lifelong learning track and local IT assessment were developed and a program management office was created. In 2005, the Jordan Pilot Expansion Program launched in cooperation with the Jordanian Ministry of Education, trained 1,000 teachers in using technology to provide quality learning in classrooms.

Scalability and timing. Scalability refers to expanding the Jordan Pilot initiative to a larger audience following the initial rollout. After successful implementation of a smaller project, a team of "master trainers" was formed in the Ministry of Education. The Intel and Worldlinks programs were rolled out to all teachers in the JEI schools (Discovery Schools). Specialized training on e-curricula and change management was also provided to teachers and principals in many schools. However, further time is required to rollout appropriate training to all teachers, principals and administrators involved with the Discovery Schools.

  • Access to hardware, software and connectivity to the Internet

Large-scale implementation. The JEI water project represents one example of the effective use IT to address an urgent national need while also making a large-scale effort to move toward digital equity by taking steps towards connecting all of the country’s public schools, developing an e-learning platform, and implementing an ambitious e-government plan to connect to a larger society. These efforts are part of Jordan's goal to build a knowledge-based economy enabling its citizens to become entrepreneurs and participate in industry and the global economy.

2.3 Global teenager project creates virtual network of over 250 secondary schools in the developing and developed world

Organizations: The Global Teenager Project, Mindset, The International Institute for Communication and Development. New Partnership for African Development.