Adapting Technology for School Improvement: A Global Perspective

This book presents a compilation of articles based on the premise that the move to advanced technology use in primary and secondary schools offers great hope for improving the access, quality, and efficiency of basic education. The aim of the book is to identify and examine how information technologies can be, and are being, used to strengthen the quality of primary and secondary education. The articles take a global focus, drawing on examples from a wide range of countries. The book analyzes the challenges that teachers and educational planners face as they make this move, and shares how those challenges are being met in some of the countries now engaged in this effort. Several major themes are explored: the role of technology in school improvement, top-down versus bottom-up approaches, interactive radio instruction in schools, computers in the classroom, technology in teacher education, and adopting and implementing technology. The conclusions of the book examine strategies such as the cross-national sharing of curriculum development and instructional materials, and the training and support of teachers and administrators. The need for new partnerships, such as public-private and central-local, to make continued developments in technology sustainable, are also examined. The book divides into 14 chapters: (1) The Role of Technology in School Improvement (David W. Chapman, Amy Garrett, and Lars O. Mahlck); (2) Are New Technologies Better Technologies? For Whom? (Claudio de Moura Castro); (3) International Uses of Education Technology Threats and Opportunities (Stephen P. Heyneman and Katherine Taylor Haynes); (4) Using Instructional Technology as a Bridge to the Future: Palau's Story (Gregory C. Sales and Masa-Aki N. Emesiochl); (5) The Introduction of Computers in Secondary Schools in Jamaica: A Case of Bottom-Up Reform (Errol Miller); (6) Distance Education in Ethiopia (Teshome Nekatibeb and Thomas Tilson); (7) Sustainability and Interactive Radio Instruction: Why Some Projects Last (Andrea Bosch); (8) Is Constructivism Universal? In Search of Meaningful Technology in Morocco and Namibia (Jeffrey Coupe, Jeffrey Goveia, Houcine El Haichour, and Alfred Ilukena); (9) Technology and Educational Change at the Local Level: The Case of the Campana Schools Network in Argentina (Cecilia Braslavsky and Laura Fumagalli); (10) The Pedagogical Uses of Web-Based Chat: The Brazilian Experience (Vera Atsuko Suguri, Maria de Lourdes Matos, Noara M. de Resende e Castro, Ro