Daniel Menchik

Education is expected to operationalize the ideals represented at the World Summit on the Information Society. Projects showcasing the transformative potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education to facilitate 'leapfrogging' and 'empowerment' were ubiquitous, bound by optimism. But operational possibilities for ICT use in education remain blurry at best. Given the lofty expectations assigned to ICTs in social change, there remained an absence of clear articulation of how people will acquire the skills necessary to (re)create the world envisioned there. In this essay I consider themes associated with education and ICT at WSIS, problematize several dominant conceptions of value presented there, and extend what seem to be promising openings for future educational initiatives involving ICT. My analysis examines the educational possibilities for developing countries, the primary focus of the conference.[1]

Correlations are frequently made between education levels of individuals in a country and its economic development, irrespective of the lack of empirical research to confirm the connection (Chabbott 2000). Discourse around the so-called Digital divide has centered on a new hope for developing countries. An abundance of money and faith has been linked to possibility that ICT use in education might usher third world countries into the so-called information age (Menchik 2002). This attitude was represented at the WSIS, where there were a surfeit of presentations, projects, and businesses conducting activities related to ICT and education. For example, approximately 25% of the 240 stands at the ICT for Development platform were related to education.[2] On each day of the Summit and the related events, one had no trouble finding related sessions, such as 'Empowerment through Knowledge/Education', 'Using IT in Formal Education Programs', 'Bangladesh Open University', 'Education and Knowledge Societies', 'E-learning: A Practical Guide', 'Using E-Learning for Sustainable Development'. These sessions were organized by a farrago of hosts: Microsoft, the World Electronic Media Forum, Earth Council, UNESCO.

A more comprehensive, nuanced ICT 'digital divide' was represented at WSIS. In addition to the ICT-access-based stratification said to exist between countries with differing levels of economic austerity, the 'digital divide' at WSIS included men and women, rural and urban communities, and importantly, the skilled and non-skilled. Education was a domain in which most of the ICT-facilitated ideals propounded at WSIS might be realized, where hopes such as open source programming, gender parity, and multicultural tolerance would become institutionalized.

I. Great Expectations

ICT use in education was seen at WSIS to be a vehicle for significant social change. Photographs of students positioned at computers were used by governmental officials, civil society members, and businesses to convey four values associated with ICT and education in development:

Economic change. Higher education training in ICT is seen as a means for creation of new industries. For instance, Cuban officials interviewed at WSIS were uniformly optimistic about the potential of the recently opened 'University of Informatics Sciences', repeatedly asserting its capacity to 'modernize' the country. Yet linkages with national and international political institutions were not mentioned. Nonetheless, the university expects to "constitute a new alternative for the formation of human capital in informatics and the accelerated development of products and services based on a flexible process of teaching and production..." (Universidad de las Ciencias Informaticas 2003).

Governance. Computer literacy was valued as a means for easing access to governments. Representatives of the Lithuanian commission on ICT shared sentiments with a number of governments in considering that "teaching citizens the ability to access governmental documents is of extreme importance". For example, rural populations were especially targeted to receive computer training that might ameliorate logistical difficulties endemic to the land permit application process. Officials considered exposing people to previously unconsidered communication possibilities to be their biggest challenge.

Collaboration. Various projects involved international collaboration among students in formal education systems. Participants used synchronous and asynchronous technologies to develop presentations and write essays on issues such as water regulation and sustainable agricultural development. Noting the difficulties of immediately launching into curriculum shared between students on two continents, several professors mentioned the need for establishing trust through exchanges of student images and biographies.

Curricular options. By facilitating access to diverse curricular materials, ICTs have served to widen knowledge available to schools with internet access. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) open course initiative has made syllabi and class materials freely available on the web. Representatives from several for- and non-profit organizations on several WSIS panels expressed plans to follow the university's example.

These dominant perceptions of the value of ICT in education briefly illuminate the high utilitarian ambitions represented at WSIS. ICTs were envisioned to provide a broad range of possible educational options available to all learners.

II. Getting grounded

Expectations assigned to education and ICT are immense. Although most WSIS speeches on the subject included "... ICT(s) are/is not a panacea for education", they invariably betrayed this sentiment. In this section I sketch some of the reservations that might be leveled towards their associated visions.

Education as content transmission. Education was frequently framed as the transmission of decontextualized packages of content for development. Courses for 'computer literacy' and 'workforce development' were often categorized by language and offered through a subscription-based online service or through cd-roms.[3] When curriculum is commoditized and exchanged on international markets, checks on quality and local relevance may begin to disappear. Buyers determine value. While a normative valuation of knowledge quality may not exist, factual accuracy can and should be of considerable concern in these domains.

Distance learning and specialization. Placement of curriculum online conceptually facilitates distribution of educational materials between providers, students and teachers. Some countries have used domestic university lecturers for their distance education initiatives, attempting to use the web for some subjects -- physical and biological sciences especially -- in lieu of lecturers. Yet, countries such as the Ukraine have received considerable resistance from the professorship. Not all will accept the notion that they should modify their roles as teachers to become distance education facilitators. Threats to job loss powerfully motivate; resistance to these changes represents far more than a lack of national communitarian concerns for Ukrainian higher education.

Pedagogy A perhaps surprising absence was discussion of the pedagogical significance of ICT use in education. This may be because such concerns in developing countries may seem secondary to those around resource access.[4] Among representatives of industrialized countries, there were references in passing to "constructivism", but no specifics.[5] It may be because a field of research addressing classroom ICT use is only starting to emerge (Menchik 2004). The secondary status of pedagogy can also be seen in absence of officials' statements recognizing the importance of teachers in the education process, and the need for details regarding how educational content representing diverse cultures and languages would be created.

III. New domains

Several ideas at WSIS moved beyond the utopic portrayals of ICT valuation in education, hinting at the potentialities for significant change.

-There were open source projects in which students learn how to program around Open Source Software and contribute to the countries.[6] An integration of OSS code programming training into education programs might begin to overcome obvious hindrances in moving away from proprietary formats. Government support of such educational initiatives can make development of an OSS culture a reality for the next generation of computer professionals.

-UNESCO's Bangkok office is working to develop performance indicators for measuring the impact of ICT use in education.[7] Until there are more instruments for evaluating the particular value-added of ICTs in education, they are likely to continue to be, as Stanford education professor Larry Cuban (2001) puts it, 'oversold and underused'. If a consequence of the US's recent reentrance into UNESCO is a diffusion of the country's current affinity for standardized testing, the necessity for standards for ICT measurement will likely increase. One could foresee a heightened need for numbers as an international consequence.

-According to Harold Holt, president of the United Nations Global Virtual University, the Internet will level barriers in social relations around education. "Middle Eastern students can freely discuss issues with Africans, the voices of unheard women may be recognized." The project of developing a space for students from 10 universities on 5 continents to discuss supra-national issues is exciting.[8] But it's not self-evident that faceless communication necessarily facilitates collaboration. Students may not engage with those who reside in places with which their countries conflict. Gender markers may surface online, resulting in friction. Differing writing styles may limit unfettered engagement with diverse ideas. Expertise with the dominant language may be more important than the ideas conveyed. In the years leading to WSIS '03, research into the 'presentation of the self' in online life would be immensely valuable.

-There is currently surprisingly little knowledge on how computers are used in education in development. Anecdotal case studies prevail. Yet, longitudinal data is necessary to develop correlations between ICT use in education and socio-economic growth, for instance. The recent collaboration between World Bank and Harvard researchers to build a database of empirical attitudinal and usage data is an important step in the process of cumulating knowledge about ICT effects in education.[9] As importantly, there is a need for research on the connections between government ICT policy initiatives and educational change. Far more rhetoric than evidence exists on how industries, opportunities, and national infrastructures are produced and supported by educational interventions.

Conclusion

The 'leapfrogging' metaphor has oft been appropriated to describe outcomes of ICT use in education. At the multilateral level, for instance, UNESCO's commentaries on the capacities for ICTs to infuse education with a new capacity to provide 'short cuts' around developmental constraints has not changed with the pace of technology in the last 56 years:

Normally, we expect education to produce its effects over a few generations rather than a few years. Now, however these scientific instruments have reduced the time-allowance within which education can perform its salutary function. The media of mass communication offer potential "short cuts" to influencing social attitudes for the betterment of the human race. (Unesco, 1946: 54-55)

In many cases, a kind of technological "short cut" could be envisaged: there is no need for developing countries to go through all the successive stages that the industrialized countries have been through and they would often be well advised to go for the most advanced technologies from the outset. (Unesco, 1996: 174)

WSIS participants largely swapped the 'short cuts' euphemism with 'leapfrogging', but more interestingly, ICTs that were once important to 'education for tolerance' are now being represented as vital in 'education for modernization.' 56 years later the ideal outcome for ICT use in education has changed. The catalyst, however, has not. WSIS '03 offered a valuable space for sharing promising initiatives. WSIS '05 should demonstrate what is working.

Works Cited

Cuban, L. (2001) Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom,

(Cambridge, Harvard University Press).

Duffy, T. & Jonassen, D. (1992) Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction, (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).

Chabbott, C., Ramirez, F. (2000) "Development and Education," in Hallinan, M (Ed) Handbook of the Sociology of Education, (New York, Klewer).

Menchik, D. (2004) "Placing cybereducation in the UK classroom," British Journal of the Sociology of Education, 25.

-----. (2002) Politics vs. Pedagogy: UNESCO's Approach to Education, ICTs, and Development. University of Cambridge Department of Education. (Cambridge, England).

Papert, S. (1993) The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer. (New York, Basic Books).

Piaget, J. (1973) To Understand is to Invent, (New York, Grossman).

Unesco (1996) Learning: The Treasure Within, (Paris, Unesco).

-----. (1946) 'Report on the programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation' in: UNESCO C/2, (London, Fredrick Printing).

Universidad de las Ciencias Informaticas (2003), Pamphlet

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[1] WSIS research was conducted from Dec 9-12, through approximately two dozen semi-structured interviews with representatives of CSOs, governments, and businesses, document collection, and participant observation. These data are supplemented by similar discursive analytic research conducted at the UNESCO international headquarters between March-May 2002.

[2] The platform is 'the largest ever gathering on ICT for development. Its aim is to raise the awareness among decision-makers from all sectors of society for the extraordinary potential of ICT for development, to draw the key lessons learnt in concrete implementation, and to act as a catalyst for building action-oriented partnerships that deliver tangible results' (ICT4D 2003)

[3] During the course of an interview with a self-described educational 'vendor', I was repeatedly asked what content my university and I had to sell to the company. I have since received numerous email requests.

[4] However, conversations with those from the U.S. and W. European countries demonstrated that pedagogical concerns were only slightly more prevalent there.

[5] The theory originates in the work of Piaget (1973), who argued "individuals are to be formed who are capable of production and creativity and not simply repetition" (15). Many proponents of ICT use in education argue the tools embody ideals of constructivism (Papert 1993, Duffy & Jonassen 1992).

[6] See the World Bank's Information for Development Program (http://www.infodev.org).

[7] See UNESCO's Bangkok Office (http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict).

[8] See the United Nations' Global Virtual University (http://www.gvu.unu.edu).

[9] See the Harvard/World Bank Global Survey and Guide to ICT Planning in Education (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/itg/projects/current_projects.html)

Daniel Menchik
University of Chicago