<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>+1 @Rigia,</span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_93" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br><span></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_190" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>I
know it is still "honeymoon" time for the new government and anyone
"opposing" their policy is easily seen as a spoiler/disgruntled element
as it were during the KANU days. I have tried to keep quiet since I
also dont like playing the role of telling the King "he is naked when he
is". It is easier, perhaps even fashionable and beneficial to cheer him on and so my apologies for the long post reiterating why the King is naked.</span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_193" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br><span></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_471" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>I
have read and appreciated points shared regarding my submission on
Curriculum, Training of Trainers, Security & Maintenance and entry
point (Form1 or Std1) and am afraid am still not convinced. Most
submissions say we do not need curriculum because Kids can self-teach
and even hack the laptops/tabalets in 5mnths @Karanja?. OK fine, then what after the 5mnth? do we want to produce 1million hackers with this initiative? What happens next after the five months
Folks, we MUST have a long-term projection/objective for this initiative
that includes what is taught, when it is taught, who teaches it and
possibly when and what to examine. I liked the point that said content
should go beyond IT and include say Kiswahili or English units being
accessed on the laptop. This is very good, but it only reinforces the
point about thinking through an e-curriculum because a simplistic
scanning of say an English text-book and saving it as a "PDF" on a
laptop has little</span> pedagogical <span>value
and is not what e-Learning is about. Learning has multiple
facets/ecosystem that includes content, its delivery, assessment,
feedback and a simple PDF cannot begin to deliver these fronts.
Throwing in one component (a laptop) of the ecosystem while wishing away
the other components is really flashing down billions of very scarce
Kenya Shillings. <br></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_409" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_680" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>But
what am saying here is NOT secret knowledge. Kenya Institute of
Education (KIE, i think it has new name now?) has been doing a
comprehensive job around this concept for high school e-curriculum over
for the last 10years. Why dont we just leverage on this by connecting
the two initiatives and minimizing the risks/problems? Yes, there are
political promises to Standard1s but was it former VP, Micheal Wamalwa
who said that a good idea (Std1) must yield or give in to a better idea
(form1)? Even Obama promised the Americans to close some prisons and end
the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan but failed to do so - he still won a 2nd
term. Politicians simply need to explain the rationale behind the
change in policy rather than get fixed on an idea that will require a miracle to have positive returns. That reminds me, @Ikua said Goverments are not in the business of short term positive gain/returns - I just hope they are not in the business of long-term losses or failures either :-)</span><span> <br></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_685" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_667" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>There was the point I agree about early exposure having advantages. Very fine,
but this can only apply once you have addressed the above ecosystem
around digital education. Early exposure at Std1, Form1 or even late
exposure at University level within a poor digital ecosystem will take
us nowhere. Yes, I did see the MIT research showing Kids doing excellent
staff - including hacking without a mature supporting ecosystem in
terms of teachers,curriculum, security etc. But we need to interrogate
this research objective further because from where I sit, it only proves
our kids are bright (which is not in dispute) but does not provide evidence to show that
we DO NOT need the supporting digital ecosystem. A better experiment
would be to compare this group of kids (without the digital ecosystem)
against those with the ecosystem and then draw conclusions after
comparing both outcomes. <br></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_764" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br><span></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_532" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Infact, I got a more relevant research example - </span><span><a href="http://http//www.iadb.org/en/research-and-data/publication-details,3169.html?pub_id=IDB-WP-304">Technology and Child Development: Evidence from the One Laptop per Child Program</a> or found at</span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_532" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style:
normal;"><span>http://www.iadb.org/en/research-and-data/publication-details,3169.html?pub_id=IDB-WP-304</span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_532" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>It says in its abstract:</span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_532" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>>>><br></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_532" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Although many countries are aggressively implementing the One Laptop per
Child (OLPC) program, there is a lack of empirical evidence on its
effects. This paper presents the impact of the first large-scale
randomized evaluation of the OLPC program, using data collected after 15
months of implementation in 319 primary schools in rural Peru. The
results indicate that the program increased the ratio of computers per
student from 0.12 to 1.18 in treatment schools. This expansion in access
translated into substantial increases in use both at school and at
home. No evidence is found of effects on enrollment and test scores in
Math and Language. Some positive effects are found, however, in general
cognitive skills as measured by Raven’s Progressive Matrices, a verbal
fluency test and a Coding test.</span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_285" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>>>></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_285" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>You
can read the whole publication but my take is that the digital
investment at Primary level gave less than average returns in terms of
improving only verbal fluency but had no impact on Maths and Language (grammer)...which may support @Rigia's submission that lets get the Kids to develop their manual writing, reading and numeric skills before moving this to the digital platform.<br></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_285" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_377" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span></span><span>Finally on Security, I was surprised to read a contribution @Savver? saying security of the laptops is the easiest to sort out - using technology. Yes, I do understand the
technology and even have it on my Galaxy (not I-tab :-). But halloo,
it requires INTERNET! Are we saying these gadgets are going to be
internet enabled (the easier bit) and they will have internet access
paid for (the harder bit). Internet access remains "costly" even for
our university level where it is government subsidized, we still have
many university falling behind their internet payment schedules. So
unless I missed it, I still need to understand how we shall address
the safety of these gadgets (from both the outsiders insiders within the school).</span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_377" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br><span></span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_377" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>walu.</span></div><div class="yui_3_7_2_18_1365947457565_377" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>NB: @Mark- I like your example because they targets high school and throws in Public-Private Partnership (i.e share risk). Maybe do another visit to a rural public and primary/elementary school in SA and share the
experience.</span></div><span>NB: I know we all hold different views and can never fully agree. But we do need a face-2-face to thrash these out and so whether Min of IT, Min of Education, KITOS, CSK, Kenya ICT Federation, KICTAnet or whatever; I think it would be nice to interrogate this policy further in a face-2-face set up.</span><div><span></span></div><div><br></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <hr size="1"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Warigia Bowman <warigia@gmail.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> jwalu@yahoo.com <br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sunday,
April 14, 2013 1:58 AM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [kictanet] Opinion split on whether laptops are a priority in schools<br> </font> </div> <div class="y_msg_container"><br>
<div id="yiv1480393803"><div dir="ltr">Personally, I believe it is more important to get the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic down. If there is a small computer lab, that is fine. But until every child in Kenya has a free secondary school education, I argue that this is an example of misplaced priorities. </div>
<div class="yiv1480393803gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="yiv1480393803gmail_quote">On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 3:13 PM, Grace Githaiga <span dir="ltr"><<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:ggithaiga@hotmail.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:ggithaiga@hotmail.com">ggithaiga@hotmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="yiv1480393803gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div><div dir="ltr"><div style="margin-bottom:5px;padding-left:13px;line-height:1.5em;text-transform:uppercase;font-weight:bold;color:rgb(51,51,51);background-image:url(http://www.nation.co.ke/image/view/-/766/data/85/-/148af6az/-/ico_file.png);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;background-repeat:no-repeat no-repeat;">
<font>IN SUMMARY</font></div><div style="margin:0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(68,68,68);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><ul style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-left:0px;line-height:1.5em;"><li style="margin:0px 0px 0px 1.5em;padding:0px;line-height:1.5em;">
<font>Critics say the idea is noble but many schools lack basics and laptops are a mere luxury</font></li><li style="margin:0px 0px 0px 1.5em;padding:0px;line-height:1.5em;"><font>Report shows that as high as 90 per cent of teachers are computer illiterate; who will aid pupils?</font></li>
</ul></div>http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Opinion-split-on-whether-laptops-are-a-priority-in-schools/-/1056/1747588/-/item/1/-/sxhoh3/-/index.html </div>
</div>
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The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div>Dr. Warigia Bowman</div>
<div>Assistant Professor </div><div>Clinton School of Public Service</div><div>University of Arkansas</div><div><a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:wbowman@clintonschool.uasys.edu" target="_blank" href="mailto:wbowman@clintonschool.uasys.edu">wbowman@clintonschool.uasys.edu</a></div>-------------------------------------------------
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