ICT for sustentable development: Defining a global research agenda (Chapter 2)
- Information and Communications Technology and Development
- ICT is viewed as both, a means and an end for development.
Why?
- ICT has an increasing role to play. This because during 1995 to 2002 the US had an impressive overall growth…one third of this growth was attributable to ICT.
- Experts have sought a means for ICTs to find a way to help developing countries
WSIS
- The World Summit on the Information Society
The main
problem
- Based on the ITU report, an estimated one-third of the world has never made a phone call and only one tenht have used the internet!!
Continual
March ICT
- In 1965 Gordon Moore (of Intel) predicted that computing power would double every 18 months
- Dramatically briging down the costs.
- We need just to wait to make ICT affordable
ICT
Challenges
AccessgInformationgKnowledgenOPPORTUNITY
- Access is a several bottleneck for increased ICT use. But we all know that telecommunication cost are the largest component
- Hardware, software and connectivity costs
- Affordability is a prime factor in the digital divide.
Robustness
•
Telecommunications
equipment is designed to have “five 9s” of realiability, 99.999% uptime, or
just 5 minutes of downtime per year.
Content
•
Much
of the content today is not in local languages, or directly useful for most
people.
Security is a concern even for uninformed or unaware
end-users. It places an implicit cost on all transactions
Internet
control, architecture and addressing.
•
Internet
Governance is closed linked to what we want the Internet to do.
•
Some
changes may be required to make it more inclusive, reliable, and responsive to
users needs.
Regulation and Policy
•
Government
policies drive technology adoption, innovation and investements.
•
Countries
with fewer restrictions often find higher levels of ICT adoption.
Wireless: access technologies hold great promise for
developing regions given low usage densities and limited legacy (wireline) deployment.
Energy and
Power
•
Availability
of electricity is a critical pre-requisite for ICT; the alternative of
standalone solutions are very expensive.
Economic
models, markets and role of ICT
•
Market-driven
models alone will not push ICT into developing regions.
•
Leapfrogging
into advanced technologies offers strong potential for cost-effective
deployment.
•
Developing
regions are a large but untapped market…but their needs are not neccesarily the
same as in developed regions.
Factor affecting teacher´s use of ICT
Conclusion
ICT can add to the quality of the training of expert linguists in a time when such specialists are in great demand. The variety of pedagogical tools provided by these new technologies facilitate the production of authentic materials, enabling a valuable situated learning approach. ICT also offer flexibility, and the means to adapt the learning process to suit different types of learning patterns so that learners can all engage with the process. These technologies also foster collaborative work, making students aware of the various roles around their future profession, and they provide the means to accompany and support learners in a constructive way throughout the acquisition of techniques and skills, allowing also for the assimilation of a critical attitude which empowers them and enables them to become independent professionals.
Factor affecting teacher´s use of ICT
Information and communication technologies: Can change, simulate, gather, transmit.
Teacher: Should become effective agent to be able to make use of technology in the classroom.
Training program: Technology should be used as a tool to support the educational objectives.
Factors of use ICT
Objectives (Plomp, 1996)
- As object of study: Learning about ICT for daily life.
- As aspect of a discipline: The development of ICT skills for professional purposes.
- As medium for teaching and learning: Focuses on the use.
Factors
- Manipulative: Attitudes of teachers
- Non manipulative: Factors that can not be influenced directly by the school such as age and teaching experience.
Personal Characteristics of Teachers
◦ Personal characteristics of teachers are an important influence on how easily they take up an innovation.
◦ There are two groups of adopters: earlier adopters and later adopters.
◦ Earlier adopters: differ from later ones in tending to show greater emphaty, less dogmatism, ability to deal with abstractions, greater rationality, less fatalism anf higher aspirations.
◦ Later adopeters: more realistic, steadier in their judgments, less willig to take unnecessary chances, having preference for being guided by experience and whith a more realistic appreciation of possibilities than earlier adopters.
Parent and Community Support
◦ Instead of taking innovative ICT-based learning to the student, the students are taken to the innovative learning
◦ When parents are encouraged to participate in and contribute to change management activities whitin a school’s ICT master plan, change occurs more quickly.
Manipulative School and Teacher Factors
Availability of Vision and Plan about the Contribution of ICT to Education
◦ “A vision gives us a place to start, a goal to reach for, as well as a guidepost along the way” (Ertmer, 1999)
◦ Users of technology must have a fundamental belief in the value of innovation or the innovation is dommed to failure
◦ It is crucial to involve those who hace a stake in the outcomes, including teachers, parents, students and the community, and allow them to positive attitudes.
Accessibility
◦ Computer acces has often been one of the most important obstacles to technology adoption and integration worldwide.
◦ The lack of funds to obtain the necessary hardware and software is one of te reasons teachers do not use technology in their clases. (Mumtaz, 2000
◦ Teachers who had computers were more likely to use them in instruction than teachers who did not; more than 50% of teachers who had computers used them for research and activities related to lesson preparation.
Availability (National Center for Education Statistics)
- time
- Experiment
- Reflect
- Interact
Available Support & Computer Attributes
- Teachers did not want to use computers because they were not sure where to turn for help when something went wrong while using computers.
- Appointing an ICT coordinator or head of the ICT departmentin each school helps to assure administrative and pedagogical support for the teachers.
- Lack of on-site support is one of the reasons that teachers do not use technology in their classes.
School Culture
◦ <The basic assumptions, norms and values, and cultural artifacts that are shared by school members>
◦ One of the major challenges facing developing countries is to make technology an essential part of the culture of people
◦ A new technology in a society depends on how well the proposed innovation fits the existing culture.
◦ If the technology is not receiver well by teachers, there must be a mismatch og values between the culture of schools and the technology
Evaluation:Guskey (1998)
◦ Preformative evaluation: Assesses educators. Intended goals are clarifies and strategies for gathering data about reaching them are set
◦ Formative evaluation: is conducted during the professional development activity. Provides feedback and changes that can be made to make it more valuable to participating educators.
◦ One of the major challenges facing developing countries is to make technology an essential part of the culture of people
◦ A new technology in a society depends on how well the proposed innovation fits the existing culture.
◦ If the technology is not receiver well by teachers, there must be a mismatch og values between the culture of schools and the technology
Evaluation:Guskey (1998)
◦ Preformative evaluation: Assesses educators. Intended goals are clarifies and strategies for gathering data about reaching them are set
◦ Formative evaluation: is conducted during the professional development activity. Provides feedback and changes that can be made to make it more valuable to participating educators.
Efaw (2015)
◦ Learning
◦ Practice
◦ Feedback
Introduction
Expert linguists are more and more in demand in an increasingly globalised society, yet there is a growing shortage of competent, trained language experts.
This worrying situation has been highlighted recently in the Paris Declaration: the participants to the International Annual Meeting on Language Arrangements, Documentation and Publications released a statement, condoned by the UN, in which they highlighted the “global shortage of qualified linguists” and warned that if the situation wasn’t addressed, “international organisations will be unable to perform their vital tasks”.
The latest recruitment competition for EU translators and interpreters was launched shortly after with a similar message ; European institutions anticipate a similar shortage in the next ten years, as between 40% and 50% of the current Directorate General for Interpreting staff are due to retire.
A critical analysis of the way ICT are used in translation and interpreting courses at Heriot-Watt University, by considering how they support different stages of the learning process.
Using ICT for expert linguists training resources : production and accessibility
As Dewey (1938), Gibbs (1988) and Kolb (2005) have stressed, experience is essential in the learning process: learners “learn by doing”. But for the experience to be valid, it is essential that they learn “in context” (McLellan, 1994) and the context and activities need to be authentic.
While traineeships and “legitimate peripheral participation” (Lave and Wenger, 1991) are commonly integrated in other skill-based professions, it is however much more difficult to set up internship schemes for interpreting students: there are practical issues.
ICT can however help overcome this issue, as Herrington and Oliver suggest: “Many of the researchers and teachers exploring the model of situated learning have accepted that the computer can provide an alternative to real-life setting, and that such technology can be used without sacrificing the authentic context which is a critical element of the model” Course material design at Heriot-Watt University is based on lecturers’ professional experience as interpreters and also on the research they carry out with interpreting users.
ICT have considerably improved training possibilities for expert language students here: access to practice resources used to be limited (practice materials for interpreting could only be used in specific labs on campus) but the VLE overcomes these limitations by becoming, in effect, a purpose-made media-library accessible at all times and from anywhere.
Empowering students and fostering team-work and professional skills
Kolb (1984) identified a dichotomy in learning styles, between learner who apprehend the process as “active doers” and those who are “reflective watchers”.
Expert linguist training needs to be designed to ensure that all types of learners can engage with the tasks, something which ICT facilitates. To illustrate that, let us consider the case of translation classes for final year MA students, and see how the use of the VLE, and in particular of the wiki tool, enables a situated-learning approach, as explained by Herrington and Oliver (1995). Firstly, it can support a collaborative construction of knowledge: groups can be created on the VLE, and then be assigned a page on the wiki, where they exchange and annotate their joint translation.
Having a virtual common work-page enables each type of learner to intervene at the stage which corresponds to their learning process.
Enabling a reflexive and critical learning experience
For the learning process to be complete, it is important that the observation and practice of the tasks be followed by an analytical process and an evaluation. This is the reflection, articulation and integrated assessment which Herrington and Oliver (1995) refer to. ICT can contribute to this process too: as explained, the wiki tool of a VLE facilitates an analytical reading of the translations through the editing/proof-reading task. Students fulfilling that role have naturally taken upon themselves to not just correct but also annotate the changes they make to the text.
Similarly, assessment can be integrated in this exercise with the intervention of the lecturer. In this case, it will be a formative assessment, which again is consistent with the need for coaching and scaffolding identified as part of the situated learning experience.
The reflexive and critical dimension, which will foster flexibility and an awareness of professional skills in expert linguists, can be further enhanced by ICT, in particular for interpreting. By guiding learners through the different stages of the learning cycle (Kolb, 1984), the process and its benefits are made explicit and learners then consider the online resources as a source of experience rather than as an experiment, thus taking ownership of their further personal skills development.
◦ Learning
◦ Practice
◦ Feedback
ICT for Translation and Interpreting: The relevance of New technologies for the training of expert linguists
Introduction
Expert linguists are more and more in demand in an increasingly globalised society, yet there is a growing shortage of competent, trained language experts.
This worrying situation has been highlighted recently in the Paris Declaration: the participants to the International Annual Meeting on Language Arrangements, Documentation and Publications released a statement, condoned by the UN, in which they highlighted the “global shortage of qualified linguists” and warned that if the situation wasn’t addressed, “international organisations will be unable to perform their vital tasks”.
The latest recruitment competition for EU translators and interpreters was launched shortly after with a similar message ; European institutions anticipate a similar shortage in the next ten years, as between 40% and 50% of the current Directorate General for Interpreting staff are due to retire.
A critical analysis of the way ICT are used in translation and interpreting courses at Heriot-Watt University, by considering how they support different stages of the learning process.
Using ICT for expert linguists training resources : production and accessibility
As Dewey (1938), Gibbs (1988) and Kolb (2005) have stressed, experience is essential in the learning process: learners “learn by doing”. But for the experience to be valid, it is essential that they learn “in context” (McLellan, 1994) and the context and activities need to be authentic.
While traineeships and “legitimate peripheral participation” (Lave and Wenger, 1991) are commonly integrated in other skill-based professions, it is however much more difficult to set up internship schemes for interpreting students: there are practical issues.
ICT can however help overcome this issue, as Herrington and Oliver suggest: “Many of the researchers and teachers exploring the model of situated learning have accepted that the computer can provide an alternative to real-life setting, and that such technology can be used without sacrificing the authentic context which is a critical element of the model” Course material design at Heriot-Watt University is based on lecturers’ professional experience as interpreters and also on the research they carry out with interpreting users.
ICT have considerably improved training possibilities for expert language students here: access to practice resources used to be limited (practice materials for interpreting could only be used in specific labs on campus) but the VLE overcomes these limitations by becoming, in effect, a purpose-made media-library accessible at all times and from anywhere.
Empowering students and fostering team-work and professional skills
Kolb (1984) identified a dichotomy in learning styles, between learner who apprehend the process as “active doers” and those who are “reflective watchers”.
Expert linguist training needs to be designed to ensure that all types of learners can engage with the tasks, something which ICT facilitates. To illustrate that, let us consider the case of translation classes for final year MA students, and see how the use of the VLE, and in particular of the wiki tool, enables a situated-learning approach, as explained by Herrington and Oliver (1995). Firstly, it can support a collaborative construction of knowledge: groups can be created on the VLE, and then be assigned a page on the wiki, where they exchange and annotate their joint translation.
Having a virtual common work-page enables each type of learner to intervene at the stage which corresponds to their learning process.
Enabling a reflexive and critical learning experience
For the learning process to be complete, it is important that the observation and practice of the tasks be followed by an analytical process and an evaluation. This is the reflection, articulation and integrated assessment which Herrington and Oliver (1995) refer to. ICT can contribute to this process too: as explained, the wiki tool of a VLE facilitates an analytical reading of the translations through the editing/proof-reading task. Students fulfilling that role have naturally taken upon themselves to not just correct but also annotate the changes they make to the text.
Similarly, assessment can be integrated in this exercise with the intervention of the lecturer. In this case, it will be a formative assessment, which again is consistent with the need for coaching and scaffolding identified as part of the situated learning experience.
The reflexive and critical dimension, which will foster flexibility and an awareness of professional skills in expert linguists, can be further enhanced by ICT, in particular for interpreting. By guiding learners through the different stages of the learning cycle (Kolb, 1984), the process and its benefits are made explicit and learners then consider the online resources as a source of experience rather than as an experiment, thus taking ownership of their further personal skills development.
Conclusion
ICT can add to the quality of the training of expert linguists in a time when such specialists are in great demand. The variety of pedagogical tools provided by these new technologies facilitate the production of authentic materials, enabling a valuable situated learning approach. ICT also offer flexibility, and the means to adapt the learning process to suit different types of learning patterns so that learners can all engage with the process. These technologies also foster collaborative work, making students aware of the various roles around their future profession, and they provide the means to accompany and support learners in a constructive way throughout the acquisition of techniques and skills, allowing also for the assimilation of a critical attitude which empowers them and enables them to become independent professionals.
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