Tablets for Canberra High School Students

Canberra goes to the polls in a few weeks time to elect a local government. If reelected, the governing Labor Party has promised a tablet computer for each of 6,000 Canberra high school students, at a cost of AU $17.2 M, over four years. There are better alternatives.

The tablet proposal works out to about AU $2,800 per student, which appears expensive. There are now folding touchscreen laptops about the size of an A4 pad, for under $500. These are suitable for older students.

However, is issuing standard devices to students educationally useful? There was a previous Australian national program to provide a computer for every high school student and have been laptop and tablet programs for students in other countries. The best known of these programs was the One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC). Such programs have not been shown to significantly benefit education and may have done some harm, by diverting resources from other educational initiatives.

An alternative strategy for Canberra would be to ensure that educational resources are available on the range of devices students have at home and school. A small fund could provide for disadvantaged students who cannot afford a $500 device. More could  could then be spent on training teachers for the Australian Digital Technologies Curriculum, using the CSER Digital Technologies Courses and the Inspire Center.

Funds could also be used to allow some of Canberra's teachers to work on new materials for both Technologies curricular, for senior students.

Build it and they won't come

What is surprising about the "Indian" Aakash education tablet computer is not the failure of the project, but the continued attempts to build a low cost educational computer. Before the Aakash, there was the OLPC. More recently there has been the Infinity Kids Laptop/Tablet from Sydney and the "Udaan" tablet announced by an Indian government minister ("No date of expiry", by Anubhuti Vishnoi, India Today, January 9, 2015). Mudliar and Pal (p. 1, 2015) explain this optimism over reality in terms of "... the cult of a technocratic leadership, the discourse of indigenous technology, the re-creation of the Silicon Valley dream, and the face of the marginal user". This seems to apply equally well in Australia and the USA, as in India.

The failure of the Aakash and OLPC contrasts with the success of the Raspberry Pi educational computer, several million of which have been produced. The Raspberry Pi has succeeded perhaps because it did not depend on endorsement by a government minister and aimed to simply help teach IT. However, this does not stop people trying: Ali, Vlaskamp, Eddin, Falconer and Oram (2013) describe a project to produce an educational computer for Uganda, based on the Raspberry Pi.

References

Mudliar, P., & Pal, J. (2015). ICTD in the Popular Press: Media Discourse Around Aakash, the “World’s Cheapest Tablet”. Information Technologies & International Development, 11(1), pp-41. Retrieved from http://itidjournal.org/index.php/itid/article/viewFile/1361/509

Ali, M., Vlaskamp, J. H. A., Eddin, N. N., Falconer, B., & Oram, C. (2013, September). Technical development and socioeconomic implications of the Raspberry Pi as a learning tool in developing countries. In Computer Science and Electronic Engineering Conference (CEEC), 2013 5th (pp. 103-108). IEEE. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Murat_Ali/publication/260742353_Technical_development_and_socioeconomic_implications_of_the_Raspberry_Pi_as_a_learning_tool_in_developing_countries/links/54ef53ac0cf25f74d721f707.pdf

Digital Dividend from Analogue Investment

The World Bank (2016) released their "World Development Report" on 12 January. The Report concludes that maximizing the benefits of ICT requires "analogue" measures of accountability, support business, good governance and investment in education and health. Here I focus on the education aspects of the report.

Sector 2  of the report is headed "Education" but this is mentioned through the report (World Bank, p. 146, 2016). Sector 2 starts by pointing out that there was little evidence to show that providing laptops to children improves education:

"The One Laptop per Child project in Peru provided hundreds of thousands of pieces of low-cost computing equipment to students in rural schools. But early research found no evidence of increased learning in math or language. 1 This is one high-profile example of the difficulties faced in introducing hardware-centric educational technology projects conceived in highly developed environments into less developed places without sufficient attention to local contexts." (World Bank, p. 146, 2016)

While I agree that there is little evidence that the OLPC project improved children's literacy or math skills, this was not the aim of the project:

"The mission of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child." From: OLPC Mission.

While OLPC claimed to be an education project, it really was not: it was a technical hardware project, to design a low cost rugged computer, deliver it to children and hope somehow this would "empower" their learning. Not surprisingly, like other such "build it and they will come" hardware projects, the project failed to deliver improved education. What perhaps is surprising is that One Education, a Sydney based organization is now attempting to repeat this process: building a low cost laptop computer called the Infinity Kids Laptop/Tablet.

The report cites more positively an "SMS Story" project in
Papua New Guinea (World Bank, p. 146, 2016). This sent short text messages with teaching tips for teachers. In my reading of the literature about "open" and on-line education for developing nations, I notice that many of the success stories involve in-service teacher training. This could be partly because teachers provide a literate, motivated and easy to teach, cohort of students. Also teacher training is seen as a worthwhile investment for national development and a way to leverage investment in education. This is supported by OECD research, indicating the most effective way to improve education is with better trained (and paid) teachers.

raising teacher quality is a more effective measure to improve student outcomes - See more at: http://oecdeducationtoday.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/how-does-class-size-vary-around-world.html#sthash.q29IqeFm.dpuf

A major failing of the Report is that it sees on-line education as outside the formal system. There is no mention of e-learning or distance education as part of of formal education, just "online education" and MOOCs as a informal supplement.
It is suggested "Training in advanced ICT skills can also be provided less systematically, and outside of the formal education system. ... through accredited massive open online courses (MOOCs)" (World Bank, p. 268, 2016).

The Khan Academy is highlighted as a "A supplemental educational resource in and outside the classroom" (World Bank, p. 263, 2016). Khan Academy was seen as useful for basic procedural skills, not deeper learning.

The terms "e-learning",  "distance education" and "open university" do not appear at all in this Report. The result could be that digital education initiatives will fail, for the same reason as the OLPC did: they do not fit with the infrastructure, goals and objectives of the education system. It is possible that a digital education revolution will overtake existing education systems, but such revolutions have so far failed. On-line education evolved from old paper based distance education, and run by existing educational institutions, is not as exciting as new startups, but may have more of a future.

The report is 359 pages (10.6 Mbytes PDF) and clearly is not intended to be read by those on low bandwidth links with small hand-held devices. ;-)

References

World Bank. (2016). World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0671-1. Relieved from http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2016

One Education Infinity Kids Laptop

One Education is a Sydney based organization planning to build a low cost laptop computer called the Infinity Kids Laptop/Tablet for education, costing US $249 to US $299. As One Education point out, this is not a new idea and is essentially a reboot of the One Laptop per Child Project (OLPC) concept, but with newer technology. Like the OLPC XO-1, "Children's Machine", the Infinity is has a brightly colored case designated to appeal to kids and be robust for them to use.

The Infinity has a conventional 8.9" LCD screen. The XO-1 had a 7.5 inch dual-mode screen which was designed to be readable in monochrome mode outdoors and color indoors, but always looked dull and hard to see. The Infinity is a tablet device which docs with a keyboard. The XO-1 had a permanently  attached keyboard, but with a screen which could rotate and fold over the keyboard to make it an e-book.

Specifications

Display: 8.9 inch Resolution: 2560 x 1600

Storage: 8GB Processor:1.4GHz Quad Core

Memory:1GB

Size & Weight: Height: 188.5mm Width: 264.5mm Length: 245mm Thickness: 40.8mm Weight: 1.5kg

Camera: VGA Front & 2MP Rear

Audio: Dual Mode Audio In/Out (External)

Touch Technology: Multitouch Capacitive

Operating System: Android Lollipop,

Windows & Linux Coming Soon

Battery & Power: 7000MAh USB-C Connector

The Infinity uses USB-C to connect together hardware modules, allowing upgrading. I have owned several computers which had a modular upgrade feature. But I have never purchased an upgrade for any of these. There either were no upgrades available, or they were so expensive that it was cheaper to buy a whole new computer. Perhaps the Infinity will be different. Exactly what modules the Infitiy has I have not been able to work out, as the highly "responsive" web page for the project keeps jumping about.

Another aspect of the project I have been unable to work out is if this is a for-profit, or not-for-profit project. I suggest it would be better as a for-profit project as this would impose some commercial disciplines on the team. But in either case, it would be good if One Eduction's legal status was clearly and prominently displayed on the web site.

The biggest question for One Education is how this device help children's education. Research shows that the OLPC made minimal improvements in children's education in developing nations. The OLPC well have been harmful, by diverting resource from more useful conventional educational facilities, such as books and teachers.

Having spent the last seven years as a student of on-line pedagogy, one clear finding from the literature is that hardware makes very little difference to education. What is important is educational content relevant to the needs of the student, peers for them to study with and, ideally, a teacher. My preference would be to create educational content which uses web based formats and can be provided as responsive web pages, as off-line e-books (call them "apps" if you want), and can also be delivered on paper and used in a conventional classroom.

What it might be useful for One Education to do is consider modular educational content to complement their modular hardware. One group to target would be students in remote Australia. This could include both remote indigenous communities and students on remote cattle stations. Currently these students are supported (or not supported) by a plethora of uncoordinated state and federal schemes. One Education could aim to deliver a consistent student experience for all Australia students. At the same time this could be used to overcome problems with the NBN Interim Salivate Service.

Blended Learning Model for Remote Indigenous Education

The NT Department of Education has released a Draft Review of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory ( Bruce Wilson, 6 February 2014). The report proposes not teaching indigenous languages in schools and makes no mention of the use of computers for remote education. I suggest that use of blended learning, combining classroom and computer education, could allow for better education and support multiple languages at low cost, with educational and cultural benefits for the students.

Teaching Only English 

The report finds that "Indigenous students in very remote schools in the Northern Territory are already two years of schooling behind Indigenous students in very remote schools in the rest of Australia in their writing results".  The report notes that many NT Indigenous children enter school with little or no English. The report therefore focuses on English language skills. The logic for this appears flawed, in that the report says "English language skills and knowledge that underpin success in the western education system". This assertion is clearly false: western countries carry out their primary schooling in the primary language of the country, not necessarily English. The report does not support bi-literacy approaches to education, but fails to mention that it is common to teach both a national language and a local language in many countries, as well as multiple languages being provided in schools in other Australian states. The report does not address the cultural and human rights issues in proposing not to teach students their own language at school. Such an approach may be considered unlawful discrimination.

Distance education

The Report Overview says "Distance education will be an important element of this set of solutions: the current arrangements should be reviewed to ensure they meet the need" and makes one recommendation (15 e.) on DE:

examine the three-school distance education arrangement and current practice to determine how well they are suited to the changed secondary schooling arrangements proposed in this report.

However, the report does not appear to make mention of blended learning, that is using a combination of classroom and on-line learning. Nor does the report mention the One Laptop Per Child Program (OLPC), which has provided specially designed learning computers for students in some remote schools. The Australian OLPC program takes a different approach from countries where the computers are centrally issued by the education department, instead emphasising support for teachers (Howard & Rennie, 2013).

References

Howard, S., & Rennie, E. (2013). Free for All: A Case Study Examining Implementation Factors of One-to-One Device Programs. Computers In The Schools, 30(4), 359-377. doi:10.1080/07380569.2013.847316