Other programs and events

WITSA Global ICT Excellence Awards

The WITSA Global ICT Excellence Awards honor exceptional achievements in the application of information technology around the globe. Winners of these prestigious awards have exhibited excellence within one of three categories: Public Sector Excellence, Private Sector Excellence, and Digital Opportunity. In addition, a special Chairman's Award is presented to a nominee selected from the entire pool of candidates from all three awards categories. The award ceremonies are a signature event of the proceedings at the World Congress on Information Technology. In honoring the best users of ICT, the awards enable member companies to showcase their customers' innovation.

Global Public Policy Conference

WITSA's Global Public Policy Conference enhances the international dialogue and global cooperation on key public policy issues including electronic commerce, privacy, education, and ICT in developing countries. The conferences are held every two years, on alternate years from the World Congress on Information Technology. GPPC 2007 was held in Cairo, Egypt, on November 4–6, 2007. It will next be held in Bermuda on November 1–3, 2009.

Digital Planet

Produced by WITSA, the biennial Digital Planet report provides current, comprehensive data documenting the size and shape of the ICT marketplace around the globe. The report highlights major trends in global ICT spending while telling the story of global expansion in Internet usage, e-commerce penetration, and use of ICT equipment and services. WITSA publishes this guide to help policymakers, technology developers, and the general public to understand the ICT trends shaping society today. A 2008 edition will be published in conjunction with the 2008 World Congress on IT in Kuala Lumpur, May 18–22, 2008.

WITSA Public Policy Report

This policy book, published annually and available on the WITSA website, is a summary of the positions taken by WITSA on global ICT issues. These papers have been used by the industry in its dialogue with governments and multilateral institutions in their decision-making process with regard to important issues of concern to the ICT industry, including e-commerce, information security and privacy, taxation, e-government, and workforce issues.

WITSA Newsletter

WITSA's quarterly newsletter provides timely information on industry activities and policy developments at the global and national levels, including an overview of WITSA member activities, WITSA programs and events. The WITSA newsletter, available on the WITSA website, is announced by e-mail to WITSA members and other subscribers.

ICT Growth and Development

WITSA undertakes partnerships and initiates industry-wide efforts for the overall benefit of the global ICT community and its beneficiaries worldwide. The fruit of these efforts is growing steadily as young ICT organizations develop and join the global ICT community in confronting challenges and seizing opportunities.

source: wikipedia

Learning From GeSCI's Report On ICT In Education

The recent meta-reviews (Phase 1 and Phase 2)of ICT in Education produced for GeSCI (Global e-School and Communities Initiative) provide very instructive and sobering reading. The purpose of this post is to review a few of the highlights from it.

First, it is clear that contemporary experience provides frustratingly poor guidance for the difficult choices that must be made in developing countries to improve educational outcomes by means of ICTs, notably when the aim is to go to scale. Here are some points of reflection:

Educational paradigms
It is commonplace to claim that reform must take place in the context of a general rethinking of the overall educational process, and implementation of ICTs is not an exception. The reviews return to this point repeatedly. However, educational systems and many individuals within them are highly resistant to change, not always for bad reasons. Attempting to ignore this reality is to put belief ahead of evidence, and to court failure of innovation.

The value of research
Much research is so specific and limited in reach and scale that it does not provde good guidance for action in different contexts. Classroom practice does not easily lend itself to “pure” research that can single out a particular set of factors influencing educational outcomes. Sometimes initial objectives are not clearly articulated, which enables satisfaction for a variety of outcomes.

The cost of reform
A variety of policy changes are suggested to improve results (e.g., better harmonization of initiatives, more training, better and more focused curriculum development). However, it is pointed out that “…credible measures for calculating costs and assessing benefits of ICT are yet to be developed” (p. 6). This is a key finding: total cost of ownership is rarely if ever calculated for ICT implementation, either initially or even post-implementation. While costs are important to assess in every context, they are crucially important in poor countries. Mistakes come with a higher relative cost.

Infrastructure
The clearest infrastructural conclusion emerging from the texts is that one-to-one computer infusion for students is not cost-effective, and in most cases not particularly effective at all. Some observers even question the validity of classroom computer use in resource-poor countries, either preferring older, less-expensive technologies (radio, for example) or assuming that handheld technologies will be the communication tools of choice in the future, bypassing laptop use. Furthermore, schools are conservative environments, not widely likely to embrace unfamiliar technology across the board.

Educational outcomes
“The link between educational practice, particularly for ICT integration, and background theory is weak” (p. 25). This is very important statement, and one that bears deep thought. Whatever the enthusiasm for some technologies, it seems more preparation needs to be done to define expected outcomes of implementation and then monitor whether or not these are being achieved.

Teacher preparedness
Lack of teacher preparedness for using ICTs for learning, as well as insufficient attention to teacher preparation are companion themes that recur throughout the report. Yet, the actual research on what constitutes adequate teacher preparedness, on what kinds of training actually influence behaviour, and how innovation finds its way into classroom practice, is wanting. The report notes “research focusing on the particular needs of teacher education in the developing world seems to be particularly scant” (p. 33).

Conclusions
Many of the conclusions in these very carefully-crafted reports are those one can find in general concerning overall educational reform. There are excellent summaries of good practice and tantalizing pointers to what works and what does not work.

Teacher practice is highly related to the interconnected factors of self-esteem and work conditions. School leadership is a key to success or failure of ICT initiatives, as it is in other areas. The belief in the need for major transformations of schooling is extremely widespread, as is the belief that ICTs can successfully accompany such transformations. The realization that education personnel have to be on board for such transformations is also shared, although solutions for achieving this are often ad hoc, and cause-effect relationships difficult to determine. The need for careful and prudent analysis of costs that goes beyond initial outlay to include other infrastructural requirements, human resources, maintenance, replacement, and displacement, is a recurring theme.

These two reports are well worth reading, both for the information they contain and for the refreshingly unideological synthesis of a very large body of research. A small regret is that they don’t include therecent study by Farrell and Isaacs commissioned by the World Bank, covering ICT in education in 53 countries in Africa.

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source: http://www.glp.net/blog/gesci-report-ict-education-01-22-2010

Global Trends in ICT and Education

GLOBAL TRENDS IN ICT AND EDUCATION 

Source: yahoo images

 In Our first time on how to blog. We explain more about the Global Trends to students and ICT, education. So We(students) should be alarm what are the Trends in ICT that could affect Our World.

We give you the top 10 global trends in the ICT and for the education of every youth citizen. We got these source from Worldbank. We think that we can change this world. Change this from restless to a comfortable living place. As we all know, More of us are suffering form POVERTY, MONEY, POLLUTION, AND THE GLOBAL  WARNING,  and as a student, We give you a\our own opinions, suggestions and our feelings on how we build up our own country, place and our beloved Mother Earth.

These are the top 10 Global Trends In Ict and Education:

1. Mobile Learning. New advances in hardware and software are making mobile “smart phones” indispensible tools. Just as cell phones have leapfrogged fixed line technology in the telecommunications industry, it is likely that mobile devices with internet access and computing capabilities will soon overtake personal computers as the information appliance of choice in the classroom.

1. Cloud computing. Applications are increasingly moving off of the stand alone desk top computer and increasingly onto server farms accessible through the Internet. The implications of this trend for education systems are huge; they will make cheaper information appliances available which do not require the processing power or size of the PC. 

1. One-to-One computing.  The trend in classrooms around the world is to provide an information appliance to every learner and create learning environments that assume universal access to the technology. Whether the hardware involved is one laptop per child (OLPC), or – increasingly -- a net computer, smart phone, or the re-emergence of the tablet, classrooms should prepare for the universal availability of personal learning devices.

1. Ubiquitous learning. With the emergence of increasingly robust connectivity infrastructure and cheaper computers, school systems around the world are developing the ability to provide learning opportunities to students “anytime, anywhere”.  This trend requires a rethinking of the traditional 40 minute lesson.  In addition to hardware and Internet access, it requires the availability of virtual mentors or teachers, and/or opportunities for peer to peer and self-paced, deeper learning.

1. Gaming. A recent survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project per the Horizon Report found that massively multiplayer and other online game experience is extremely common among young people and that games offer an opportunity for increased social interaction and civic engagement among youth. The phenomenal success of games with a focus on active participation, built in incentives and interaction suggests that current educational methods are not falling short and that educational games could more effectively attract the interest and attention of learners.

1. Personalized learning. Education systems are increasingly investigating the use of technology to better understand a student’s knowledge base from prior learning and to tailor teaching to both address learning gaps as well as learning styles. This focus transforms a classroom from one that teaches to the middle to one that adjusts content and pedagogy based on individual student needs – both strong and weak.

1. Redefinition of learning spaces. The ordered classroom of 30 desks in rows of 5 may quickly become a relic of the industrial age as schools around the world are re-thinking the most appropriate learning environments to foster collaborative, cross-disciplinary, students centered learning. Concepts such as greater use of light, colors, circular tables, individual spaces for students and teachers, and smaller open learning spaces for project-based learning are increasingly emphasized.

1. Teacher-generated open content. OECD school systems are increasingly empowering teachers and networks of teachers to both identify and create the learning resources that they find most effective in the classroom. Many online texts allow teachers to edit, add to, or otherwise customize material for their own purposes, so that their students receive a tailored copy that exactly suits the style and pace of the course. These resources in many cases complement the official textbook and may, in the years to come, supplant the textbook as the primary learning source for students. Such activities often challenge traditional notions of intellectual property and copyright. 

1. Smart portfolio assessment. The collection, management, sorting, and retrieving of data related to learning will help teachers to better understand learning gaps and customize content and pedagogical approaches. Also, assessment is increasingly moving toward frequent formative assessments which lend itself to real-time data and less on high-pressure exams as the mark of excellence.  

1. Teacher managers/mentors. The role of the teacher in the classroom is being transformed from that of the font of knowledge to an instructional manager helping to guide students through individualized learning pathways, identifying relevant learning resources, creating collaborative learning opportunities, and providing insight and support both during formal class time and outside of the designated 40 minute instruction period.  This shift is easier said than done and ultimately the success or failure of technology projects in the classroom hinge on the human factor and the willingness of a teacher to step into unchartered territory.  

SOURCE : http://worldbank.org/edutech/10-global-trends-in-ict-and-education

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