How is educational technology useful




















Instead, to realize the potential of education technology to accelerate student learning, decisionmakers should focus on four potential uses of technology that play to its comparative advantages and complement the work of educators to accelerate student learning Figure 2. These comparative advantages include:. When discussing specific studies, we report the magnitude of the effects of interventions using standard deviations SDs. SDs are a widely used metric in research to express the effect of a program or policy with respect to a business-as-usual condition e.

There are several ways to make sense of them. One is to categorize the magnitude of the effects based on the results of impact evaluations. In developing countries, effects below 0. Then, we tracked the studies cited by the ones we had previously read and reviewed those, as well.

In identifying studies for inclusion, we focused on experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of education technology interventions from pre-school to secondary school in low- and middle-income countries that were released between and We only included interventions that sought to improve student learning directly i.

This process yielded 37 studies in 20 countries see the full list of studies in Appendix B. One of the ways in which technology may improve the quality of education is through its capacity to deliver standardized quality content at scale.

Technology could address this problem by: a disseminating lessons delivered by qualified educators to a large number of learners e. Technology seems to be well placed to amplify the impact of effective educators by disseminating their lessons.

Evidence on the impact of prerecorded lessons is encouraging, but not conclusive. Some initiatives that have used short instructional videos to complement regular instruction, in conjunction with other learning materials, have raised student learning on independent assessments.

For example, Beg et al. After six months, the intervention improved the performance of learners on independent tests of math and science by 0. One study suggests that approaches that are far less technologically sophisticated can also improve learning outcomes—especially, if the business-as-usual instruction is of low quality.

For example, Naslund-Hadley, Parker, and Hernandez-Agramonte evaluated a preschool math program in Cordillera, Paraguay that used audio segments and written materials four days per week for an hour per day during the school day. After five months, the intervention improved math scores by 0.

Yet, the integration of prerecorded material into regular instruction has not always been successful. For example, de Barros evaluated an intervention that combined instructional videos for math and science with infrastructure upgrades e.

After 11 months, the intervention negatively impacted math achievement by 0. It reduced the share of lesson time that educators devoted to instruction and negatively impacted an index of instructional quality. Chiplunkar, Dhar, and Nagesh evaluated an initiative in Chennai the capital city of the state of Tamil Nadu, India delivered by the same organization as above that combined short videos that explained key concepts in math and science with worksheets, facilitator-led instruction, small groups for peer-to-peer learning, and occasional career counseling and guidance for grade 9 students.

These lessons took place after school for one hour, five times a week. Drawing general lessons from this body of research is challenging for at least two reasons. First, all of the studies above have evaluated the impact of prerecorded lessons combined with several other components e. Second, while these studies evaluate some type of prerecorded lessons, none examines the content of such lessons.

Thus, it seems entirely plausible that the direction and magnitude of the effects depends largely on the quality of the recordings e. These studies also raise three important questions worth exploring in future research.

One of them is why none of the interventions discussed above had effects on high-stakes exams, even if their materials are typically mapped onto the official curriculum. Another question is whether these interventions have long-term effects on teaching practices. It seems plausible that, if these interventions are deployed in contexts with low teaching quality, educators may learn something from watching the videos or listening to the recordings with learners. Yet another question is whether these interventions make it easier for schools to deliver instruction to learners whose native language is other than the official medium of instruction.

Technology can also allow learners living in remote areas to access education. The evidence on these initiatives is encouraging. For example, Johnston and Ksoll evaluated a program that broadcasted live instruction via satellite to rural primary school students in the Volta and Greater Accra regions of Ghana. For this purpose, the program also equipped classrooms with the technology needed to connect to a studio in Accra, including solar panels, a satellite modem, a projector, a webcam, microphones, and a computer with interactive software.

After two years, the intervention improved the numeracy scores of students in grades 2 through 4, and some foundational literacy tasks, but it had no effect on attendance or classroom time devoted to instruction, as captured by school visits.

The authors interpreted these results as suggesting that the gains in achievement may be due to improving the quality of instruction that children received as opposed to increased instructional time. Naik, Chitre, Bhalla, and Rajan evaluated a similar program in the Indian state of Karnataka and also found positive effects on learning outcomes, but it is not clear whether those effects are due to the program or due to differences in the groups of students they compared to estimate the impact of the initiative.

In one context Mexico , this type of distance education had positive long-term effects. Navarro-Sola took advantage of the staggered rollout of the telesecundarias i. It also had a long-term influence on the educational and employment trajectory of its graduates. Each additional year of education induced by the policy increased average income by nearly 18 percent. This effect was attributable to more graduates entering the labor force and shifting from agriculture and the informal sector.

Similarly, Fabregas leveraged a later expansion of this policy in and found that each additional telesecundaria per 1, adolescents led to an average increase of 0. It is crucial to interpret these results keeping in mind the settings where the interventions were implemented. School systems interested in taking up similar interventions should assess the extent to which their learners or parts of their learner population find themselves in similar conditions to the subjects of the studies above.

This illustrates the importance of assessing the needs of a system before reviewing the evidence. Technology also seems well positioned to disseminate educational materials. Specifically, hardware e. In theory, these materials could not only undergo a quality assurance review e.

In practice, however, most initiatives that have provided learners with free computers, laptops, and netbooks do not leverage any of the opportunities mentioned above. Instead, they install a standard set of educational materials and hope that learners find them helpful enough to take them up on their own. Students rarely do so, and instead use the laptops for recreational purposes—often, to the detriment of their learning see, e. In fact, free netbook initiatives have not only consistently failed to improve academic achievement in math or language e.

Some of these initiatives have had small impacts on cognitive skills, but the mechanisms through which those effects occurred remains unclear. To our knowledge, the only successful deployment of a free laptop initiative was one in which a team of researchers equipped the computers with remedial software.

Mo et al. After nine months, the program improved math achievement by 0. If a school system decides to invest in free laptops, this study suggests that the quality of the software on the laptops is crucial.

To date, however, the evidence suggests that children do not learn more from interacting with laptops than they do from textbooks. For example, Bando, Gallego, Gertler, and Romero compared the effect of free laptop and textbook provision in elementary schools in disadvantaged areas of Honduras.

After seven months, students in grades 3 and 6 who had received the laptops performed on par with those who had received the textbooks in math and language. Further, even if textbooks essentially become obsolete at the end of each school year, whereas laptops can be reloaded with new materials for each year, the costs of laptop provision not just the hardware, but also the technical assistance, Internet, and training associated with it are not yet low enough to make them a more cost-effective way of delivering content to learners.

Evidence on the provision of tablets equipped with software is encouraging but limited. For example, de Hoop et al. After 14 months, the intervention had improved student early-grade reading by 0. The multifaceted nature of the program, however, makes it challenging to identify the components that are driving the positive effects. The evaluation found positive impacts in math achievement, but the main study limitation is that it was conducted in a single school. Another way in which technology may improve educational outcomes is by facilitating the delivery of differentiated or individualized instruction.

Most developing countries massively expanded access to schooling in recent decades by building new schools and making education more affordable, both by defraying direct costs, as well as compensating for opportunity costs Duflo, ; World Bank, Consequently, a large number of learners perform well below grade-based curricular expectations see, e. In this respect, technology is uniquely positioned to complement traditional teaching. This use of technology could help learners master basic skills and help them get more out of schooling.

Although many software products evaluated in recent years have been categorized as CAL, many rely on a relatively coarse level of differentiation at an initial stage e. CAL initiatives complement an initial diagnostic with dynamic adaptation i. A geology professor takes her students on a virtual tour of Grand Canyon National Park. A history teacher walks his students through the corridors and history of the White House. Technology allows educators to remove the physical barriers of the classroom, offering students a way to connect the curriculum with the real world.

To thrive in the 21st-century workplace, students need to have more than a working knowledge of certain technological tools electronic calendars, web pages, teleconferencing, electronic whiteboards, etc. By integrating these technologies into the regular curriculum, institutions are ensuring that their students are prepared for the modern office. Many educational tools offer a variety of functionalities that promote collaboration.

For example, Skype provides a way for students to hold virtual meetings with classmates from anywhere in the world. With Google Drive , students can easily share and edit projects with each other. No two students learn the same way, but with technology, educators can address diversity in learning styles. An engagement network like Bluepulse helps instructors discover which teaching styles work best by identifying student needs based on real-time feedback. Bluepulse can adapt to any learning scenario, including remote learning, by allowing instructors to connect and engage with every student no matter where they are.

Technology makes it easier for students to find information quickly and accurately. Search engines and e-books are replacing traditional textbooks. Instead of personal tutors, students can get one-on-one help through educational videos — anytime and anywhere — and massive open online courses MOOCs. With social media sites galore, most students are already digital citizens. However, by incorporating technology into the classroom, students can begin to learn how to be responsible in the digital world.

The class becomes a microcosm of the broader digital landscape where students can practice how to communicate , search, and engage with other digital citizens. Outside the classroom, students use technology in all aspects of their lives. Within the classroom, technology will make learning more fun and exciting. Teaching methods such as game-based learning GBL allows instructors to deliver lesson via interactive games.

Using a tool like Bluepulse will teach students about feedback literacy and engage them in learning inside and outside the physical classroom. Get Bluepulse demo now.

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All such email communications from Explorance will offer the option to opt-out of any similar notifications. Many teachers with access to e-content, for instance, use it like any another textbook to read from in class.

Some adjustments include shorter and more modular content, more engaging content such as edutainment, continuous feedback, smaller group on-line discussions on more open-ended questions. Education at its heart is about human connections and relationships. While we can never replace the magic that happens between great teachers and students in an in-person environment, we should focus on the social aspects of technology to enhance connections from a distance.

Much more attention must be directed on how technology will enhance teaching and learning in a blended learning environment reaching students, both in school and at home. World Bank EdTech Strategy. As education systems invest in EdTech, the World Bank advocates these five principles for how to design and implement technology to re-imagine education:. ASK WHY: EdTech policies need to be developed with a clear purpose, strategy and vision of the intended education change to address the learning crisis.

If technology is the answer, what is the question? Before investing in and deploying EdTech, policymakers must ask what education challenges need to be addressed and what resulting change is desired. Policies must be holistic to account for teacher capacity and incentives, appropriate digital learning resources linked to the curriculum, and formative assessments that capture learning.

Education at its core is a human-centered socially intensive endeavor. Technology is a means to these goals. Design for scale begins with proactive engagement and empathy for all possible end-users -- students, teachers, administrators, parents, etc. Engagement with different users will reveal different needs. Understanding these needs will lead to inclusive and flexible designs that will be equitable and hence scalable.

Today, the use of EdTech has demonstrated and is exacerbating inequities in education systems. This need not be the case. Beginning the design process with how technology can be utilized for all will lead to initiatives that are equitable and adaptable to specific contexts and thereby sustainable at scale.

EdTech cannot replace teachers, it can only augment teaching. Evidence from around the world shows that, over time, the role of teachers become more central, and not peripheral, as the result of the effective use of EdTech.

Technology will replace some of what teachers currently do, while at the same time supporting teachers as they take on new, often more sophisticated duties and responsibilities as a result of technological change. Teachers can be facilitators of learning, part of a learning team, a collaborator with outside expert mentors, a team leader on a project-based learning activity, etc. At the same time, in those circumstances where there is a scarcity of teachers or low-capacity teachers, technology can play an important role in assisting learners to, in part, overcome this absence.

Where teachers lack content or pedagogical knowledge, technology can support structured lesson plans or text-based nudges to build this capacity. Ministries of Education should leverage all stakeholders in the education system when developing and implementing EdTech programs and policies. The best content, software, applications, algorithms and edutainment will be spread across many innovators in the country and around the world.

Ministries of Education should actively identify ways to find, incentive, integrate and sustain the creators in their country. This content can be delivered over the most appropriate channel — radio, TV, mobile, web — and bundled with data on learning and feedback to support continuous learning. This ecosystem includes key stakeholders such as students, teachers, school leaders, parents, NGOs, donors and the private sector including app developers, publishers, equipment manufacturers, telecommunication companies and cloud service providers.

Technology can and should be used to easily collect data from educational institutions, analyze this data and support decision making. Technology is currently available to measure outcomes, track student performance, manage student retention, track book distribution, manage teacher recruitment, track education system spending, etc.

Without these, countries will not be as efficient in supporting schools, students and teachers. This data however is diffused through various systems in Ministries of Education and other parts of government. To operationalize this principle, Ministries of Education should promote transparent standards that facilitate interoperability of systems, data and content and remove barriers to competition in order to promote a data-driven decision-making culture.

Many times, learnings from this data is not fed back into the system. With the pace of technological change, evidence quickly becomes stale. The culture of data-driven decision making must be strengthened. In order to operationalize these principles, the World Bank focuses on the discovery, diffusion and deployment of new technologies. Discover, document, generate and analyze evidence-based technology solutions in education attuned to developing countries.

The World Bank supports the EdTech community across countries to discover new innovations, build the evidence base and facilitate the transformation of ministries of education into learning organizations. In some sense, policy makers are supported to think like a system, but act like entrepreneurs. Diffuse this knowledge widely across policy makers in our client countries and support capacity development to better use this new knowledge. The World Bank promotes multi-stakeholder approaches, including partnerships beyond the traditional education sector, to support the effective, appropriate and impactful use of EdTech.

The World Bank works in partnership with governments, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, private companies, civil society and communities worldwide to support innovative projects, timely research, and knowledge-sharing about EdTech with the ultimate goal of improving teaching and learning.

To do this, it invests in the capabilities of its staff to identify and lead partnerships, drawing on relevant experience and expertise.



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