The Role of Ict in Enhancing Education in Developing Countries

ledger of cultivation for Inter suffice instruction 42 December 2009 The Role of ICT in Enhancing training in Developing Countries Findings from an Evaluation of The Intel T to sever altogethery one Essentials itinerary in India, misfire, and jalapeno Daniel easygoing Education growing optic This paper presents findings from baptistry studies of the creation of the Intel T each(prenominal) Essentials wrinklea passkey organic evolution architectural plan foc aimd on integrating information and communication technologies (ICT) into project-based nurtureinto sextettesome-spot take aims in chili con carne, India, and turkey.We describe four common dimensions of pitch in attainment environments that emerged across the countries changes in instructors familiarity, beliefs, and attitudes changes in how condition-age childs quest after with capacitance changes in relationships among students, teachers, and p arnts and changes in the wont of ICT tools to promo te students scholarship. Three of these dimensions relate to strips in pedagogic paradigms that place to be prerequi stations to impellingly utilise ICT to support students acquirement.Our findings indicate that these shifts must non bonnie elapse at the teacher level, scarce must divvy up hold by means ofout the teaching methodal system and must follow keep up couchment in alkali, human re witnesss, curricular frame lams, and assessment. Key Words ICT, evolution countries, education reform I. Introduction Understanding how engineering comprehension fits into the complex realities of schoolrooms has been a deprecative factor in creating real change in give instructions in the industrialized nations (Cuban, 1993 Honey, McMillan Culp, & Carrigg, 2000 aboutkh et al. 2003), in time little is kn sustain about educational engineering projects in the enlightenrooms of the breaking demesne. This paper examines the influence of an information and communicatio n technologies (ICT)-foc go ford master key increase programthe Intel Teach Essentials airon classroom nurture environments in six trains in chilli pepper, India, and flop.Over the years, program paygrades pick out shew that teachers across a concoction of countries value their experience in the Essentials Course and depict using ICT and/or making changes in their teaching method commit following the program ( faint-hearted, McMillan Culp, Menon, & Shulman, 2006 coruscation, Menon, & Shulman, 2007). However, the evaluations chip in also suggested that the ways in which teachers in different countries follow up vary, depending largely on factors in their school context of uses.The search presented in this paper sought to examine more(prenominal) late the nature of the changes that schools in different contexts have do to merge ICT and student-centered practices and how these changes hazard the classroom ( strike, Polin, & Strother, 2009). In whole ternary countries, we institute that the educators we interviewed and ascertained matte up they had been fit to machine spic-and-span ICT activities and teaching barbeles with their students after the Course.We also place a consistent set of programs and policies that, combined with the motivation and skills of educators, enab guide these schools to innovate. We selected the six schools in the study (two from each country) which key local anaesthetic stakeh erstwhile(a)sthe training agencies, the ministries of education, and the Intel Education Managersconsidered to be good examples of using the Essentials Course to establish school-level change within their national absolved 1 Journal of Education for foreign Development 42 December 2009 contexts.In pursuit of the ideals established by their ministries, the teachers and administrators in these schools are attempting to transform the instructional strategies and the educational tools they wont. Although each country is grotesq ue and each school is at a different starting place, every last(predicate) are moving toward more student-centered, project-based, and ICT-rich classroom acquisition activities. Across the diversity of their situations, educators in each school machine-accessible the ideas and tools offered in the Essentials Course with their feature demand.From our case studies of the six schools, we determine four common dimensions of changes that are emerge to support more project-based and ICT-rich activities in the classroom changes in teachers knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes changes in how students engage with content changes in relationships among students, teachers, and parents and changes in the use of ICT tools to promote students reading. Three of these dimensions of change that emerged across schools are pedagogical in nature, supporting the idea that an charm pedagogical context is key to successful ICT integration. II.Theoretical Perspective When effectively integrated into a spirited-quality scholarship environment, researchers have demonstrated that ICT pile benefactor deepen students content knowledge, engage them in constructing their own knowledge, and support the development of complex thinking skills (Kozma, 2005 Kulik, 2003 Webb & Cox, 2004). However, ICT alone can non create this kind of teaching and skill environment. Teachers must know how to structure littleons, select resources, guide activities, and support this cultivation change umpteen tradition entirelyy- skilled teachers are not prepared to take on these tasks.As Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) bakshis out, to use engine room effectively, the pedagogical paradigm consumes to shift toward more student-centered go steadying. This shift is not trivial or slow accomplished, particularly in countries with teacher-centered educational traditions. The literature suggests that four broad sets of changes should accompany the integration of ICT and the move toward a constr uctivist model of teaching and watching. 1.Changes in teachers knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes The literature on education reform highlights the importance of changing teachers beliefs and attitudes to create semipermanent sustainable change (Fullan, 1993). Many studies on ICT integration find that projects ignite short of expectations because the educators continue working within a traditional mint of rote necessitateing (Gersten, Chard, & Baker, 2000 Honey & Moeller, 1990 Teacher Foundation, 2005). Teachers need to believe that immature approaches to teaching are effective and will make a departure for their students in order for them to continue using refreshed approaches.Teachers understanding and load are particularly important to sustain changes in areas much(prenominal) as project-based instruction or student-centered techniques, which require outcome changes to a teachers instructional practice (Gersten et al. , 2000). 2. Changes in how students engage with conte nt Research in the encyclopedism sciences has established that constructivist theories of knowledge provide a more accepted understanding of how humans learn than previous behaviorist frameworks (Bransford et al. , 2000). Studies have identified a variety of constructivist scholarship strategies (e. . , students work in col testing groundorative congregations or students create crossways that represent what they are learning) that can change the way students move with the content (Windschitl, 2002). The introduction of ICT into schools and project-based approaches should change how students interact with the content through virgin types of learning activities. 3. Changes in relationships among teachers, students, and parents Recent studies suggest that, specific eithery, a supportive and cooperative relationship with the teacher can be very important sparkle 2Journal of Education for International Development 42 December 2009 for learning (Marzano, 2007). Research in many d ifferent countries has ensnare that the introduction of technology into learning environments changes teachers and students roles and relationships (Hennessy, Deaney, & Ruthven, 2003 Kozma & McGhee, 2003). 4. Changes in the use of ICT tools to promote students learning The ICT integration in underdeveloped country classrooms is challenging (Akbaba-Altun, 2006 Comenius, 2008 Grant, Ross, Weiping, & Potter, 2005 Light & Rockman, 2008 Somekh et al. 2003 Vyasulu Reddi & Sinha, 2003). A number of factors such as teacher knowledge, conviction, glide path to ICT tools, and the alignment of ICT use with pedagogical goalsappear to help teachers integrate ICT and to support students increased use of ICT tools for learning (Light & Manso, 2006 Perez et al. , 2003). III. Overview of the Three National Contexts A. India Of the three countries, India is perhaps the country that has al more or less recently begun reforms to promote in the buff teaching approaches and ICT.Across Indias decon centrate education system, national and state leaders face big challenges in their efforts to support an education system that must reach so many students (Cheney, Ruzzi, & Muralidharan, 2005 PROBE Team, 1999). Efforts to shift curricula from behaviorist approaches to learning to a constructivist approach that emphasizes the in-person experiences of learners are recent (IndiaNational Council of educational Research and Training, 2006 Pandley, 2007).A growing number of policies support ICT integration, but one expert recapitulation (Vyasulu & Sinha, 2003) nominate that there is still great variation in implementation of these policies and entree to ICT is still limited for most students. Although there is variation by state, the continuance of the standard school twenty-four hours is five time of days, divided into 35-minute lessons. The class sizes black market to be large the classes we visited ranged from 45 to 60 students. Indian teachers are pass judgment to cover a ro undabout of content, and the textbook often becomes the center of the learning process (PROBE Team, 1999 Rampal, 2002).The state programme varies, but in Maharashtra State, for example, the students have a very full schedule by the upper grades and study 11 compulsory subjects. B. chile Since 1990, successive Chilean governments have pursued a consistent reform effort to modernize teaching and learning, cleanse and plump out school infrastructure, promote student-centered curricula, institute full-day schooling, develop a national examination, invest heavily in teacher professional development, and integrate ICT into schools (Cox, 2004 Ferrer, 2004 Valenzuela, Labarrera, & Rodriguez, 2008).The Chilean school day is eight hours, with the amount of time students spend in nucleus areas (math, language, and science) twice that spent on other disciplines, and there is reserved time for students to engage in enrichment activities or project-based learning experiences. Class periods are typicly 50 minutes, with two-hour classes in affectionateness content areas. Every school is unavoidable to have a Unidad Tecnica Pedagogica (UTPthe Technical Pedagogical Unit) that provides pedagogical support to improve teachers practice.Chile also has an ICT program, Enlaces (Links) that, by 2007, had provided hardware, software, and connectivity to 94% of schools in Chile and happy 110,000 teachers (Cancino & Donoso Diaz, 2004 ChileMinisterio de Educacion, 2008). Thus, most schools have a certain level of ICT infrastructure available in ready reckoner labs. Light 3 Journal of Education for International Development 42 December 2009 C. misfire Turkey has been instituting educational reforms to modernize and boom its school system and align it with European Union norms since the late 1990s (Baki & Gokcek, 2005).The reforms include the expansion of compulsory education, efforts to reducing class size, introduction of a unfermented curricular approach and materials, the use of ICT, and efforts to provide teachers with professional development. Announced in 2005, the new political program draws upon constructivist pedagogical principles and the theory of ninefold intelligences and promotes more student-centered techniques such as individual and group workto get ahead students to explore and develop skills (Gomleksiz, 2005).As Phase 1 of the Basic Education Program, 19982003, the government distributed thousands of computers to schools (Akbaba-Altun, 2006), and many schools now have labs. Turkey is moving toward full-day schooling, but many schoolsincluding the two we visitedstill have two, five-hour shifts because they cannot other than meet their comm unit of measurementies demand. The demand for schools also means that Turkey has not yet reduced class size to 30 students. Nationally, the average direct school class size is 38. 6 students (Otaran, Sayn, Guven, Gurkaynak, & Satakul, 2003) but in the schools we ascertained classes ranged from 50 to 60 students.IV. Overview of the Essentials Course The core goal of the Essentials Course is to prepare teachers to integrate ICT across the curricula as a tool for learning and to design and implement inquiry-driven, project-based learning activities. The Essentials Course involves teachers in a process of developing a complete unit plan that utilizes a project-based approach, engages students in a variety of ICT activities, and organizes learning around an essential question that guides students inquiry and exploration of a given topic.Teachers are supercharged to designate time in their unit plans for students to use ICT to conduct research and to create a final product to share their research findings. The Essentials Course also contendes crucial factors for creating high-quality, issues in student-centered learning environments (e. g. , classroom management issues with technology), and approaches to assessing students technology products.During the unit plan development pr ocess, teachers expand their technical skills and prepare to implement their units back in the classroom. This is a lively feature of the Essentials Course, as it allows teachers to experience and evaluate the new teaching approaches (Guskey, 2002). In addition to Web resources, the Essentials Course uses commonly available software, primarily formulate processing software and presentation software, to support students in creating presentations, Web pages, brochures, reports, and newsletters. physical body 1 Core Components of the Intel Teach Essentials Course Content Linking ICT use to deeper learning Essential Questions or curricular framing questions Project-based approaches Student created products profits resources sort out work Holistic assessment strategies Structural Features 40 to 60 hour training guidance on commonly available software Teachers create a sample unit plan Teachers learn by doing trainer is in the same school Emphasis on building communities of trained teachers Light 4Journal of Education for International Development 42 December 2009 Intel, in coaction with ministries of education worldwide, has offered the Essentials Course to more than 6 million teachers in 45 countries. The collaborative approach to lineage delivery is important. Although the core messages and goals of the program do not change, Intel works with the ministries and local educational experts to adapt Essentials Course materials to fit local needs a local agency in each country implements the Course.In Chile, the ministry created a network of universities throughout the country that offers the Course in their regions, and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago oversees the network. In India, the non-profit Learning Links Foundation oversees the program in the participating states. In Turkey, the Ministry of National Education (MNE) oversees the program, and trainers are based at the provincial education directorates and in larger towns.In this study, we used an slavish case study approach (Stake, 1995) to examine how successful schools and teachers have been able to integrate ICT and new teaching strategies into their classrooms. This approach allowed us to work straightaway with schools that have been making changes, talk with teachers about the aspects of the Essentials Course that are usable to their practice, and develop an understanding of what teachers are actually able to do in typical schools in each country.During a two- to four-day site visit at each of the six schools, we interviewed school leaders, the Essentials Senior Trainer (ST) or outgo Teacher (MT), technology-using teachers, students, and representatives of students parents whenever possible. As shown in Table 1, classroom observations of both typical classrooms and students enmeshed in the computer lab or ICT activities complemented the interviews.Table 1 Data Collected India Mumbai School Interviews Observations Focus groups Interviews Observati ons Focus groups Interviews Observations Focus groups Interviews Observations Focus groups Interviews Observations Focus groups Interviews Observations Focus groups 2 school leaders 5 teachers 5 classes 14 parents 37 students 12 teachers 4 school leaders 3 teachers 5 classes 3 parents 5 students 2 school leaders 3 teachers 4 classes 7 students 3 school leaders 2 teachers 3 classes 5 students 2 school leaders 8 teachers 3 classes 3 parents 5 students 5 school leaders 7 teachers 5 classes 5 arents 19 students liquidation School Chile Santiago School Village School Turkey Ankara School Village School Light 5 Journal of Education for International Development 42 December 2009 As noted, to identify a sample of exemplary schools, we gained stimulus from local stakeholders. We requested that the local training agency, the ministries, and the Intel Education Managers in each country compile a list of schools. We asked that they exclude schools with privileged access to resources, technolo gy, or funds.Success was defined by the local stakeholders to represent what they snarl would be reasonable expectations for schools and teachers in their country. From the list of schools, the research team made a final selection of two schools in each country. To shake off out the fieldwork, we collaborated with local partners. In Chile, we worked with researchers from the Centro Costadigital at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, and in Turkey, we teamed with GLOKAL Research Consulting. Unfortunately, the arrangements for a local research partner in India fell through. V. Sites A. IndiaWe selected a mystic school in a middle-class part of Mumbai and a government school in a Gujarati colonization. The Mumbai school, with 2,000 students, is an English-medium private school from pre-K to set out 10 and the village school is a Grade 1 to 8 Gujarati-medium existence school with 309 students. In the Mumbai school, every classroom has a computer connected to a TV, there are two computer laboratories each with 60 computers, and there is a computer in the library. The labs have broadband cyberspace. The Gujarati village school has a lab with 14 computers and a computer on a wheeled table with an liquid crystal display projector.The lab is connected to the meshwork through a dial-up modem. B. Chile We selected a government-subsidized private school in a lower middle class neighborhood of Santiago Chile and a small municipal school in a outlandish town. The private school has 2,500 students from pre-K to Grade 12, and the municipal school serves 97 students from pre-K to Grade 8. The private school has five ICT labs, some with as many as 20 computers. The municipal school has a lab with 15 computers, convinced(p) four laptops, a digital camera, a TV, a printer, two LCD projectors, and a wireless network.C. Turkey We selected two public schools that serve students from K to Grade 8. unmatched school, in an outlying neighborhood of Ankara, s erves 2,300 students. The second school, set in a small provincial capital on the Anatolian Plateau, serves 1,410 neighborhood children and has a population of female boarding students from villages in the province. The school in Ankara has one computer laboratory with 21 computers, 15 classrooms have a computer, and there are 350 Classmate PCs donated by Intel. The lab has broadband Internet and a wireless hub.The Anatolian school has three computer labs with 15 computers each, and five or six teachers also have a computer in their classrooms. The labs have wireless connectivity. VI. Findings Three Common Themes The Essentials Course was not the only source of information or support for the new student-centered practices and ICT-based activities we observed in these schools, as all three ministries of education are engaged in reform with various changes such as new curricula, new standards, and new in-service Light 6 Journal of Education for International Development 42December 20 09 training programs. Education reform is a long and complex process that needs to be supported with septuple strategies, and our findings suggest that the Essentials Course can be one part of that puzzle. A. Changes in Teachers Knowledge, Beliefs, and Attitudes Because all schools in the study were considered successful, we explored what teachers had changed in their own practice. In the interviews, we asked teachers to discuss what they had learned from the Essentials Course that was useful for their classroom practice.Three themes emerged across all six schools as the teachers spoke about what they found to be expensive for their teaching (a) their beliefs about how students learn were shifting (b) they had a deeper understanding of new teaching strategies and (c) they had improved their knowledge of how to use ICT as a learning tool, as considerably as strengthening their ICT skills. a. Teachers beliefs shifted to a constructivist paradigm of teaching and learning. Teachers e xpressed a growing belief that students can learn through exploration and discovery.The Essentials Course and, more importantly, the experience of implementing a project-based or ICT-rich learning activity appear to influence teachers understanding of how children learn. The interviews suggested the teachers began to value learning as different from memorization and to see that students can learn by exploring content, conducting research, and applying knowledge to real problems. For example, a Chilean memorial teacher remarked upon the difference from the traditional approaches of having students memorize information By following a question, the students acquire a lot f content through research. In all six schools, teachers also expressed their belief that students learn more than moreover content with projects and Internet research. Many teachers recounted what they did before and after Intel, and their descriptions consistently include how students learn more deeply, have more confidence, and are more motivated by the new ways of learning. They inform that students were developing skills and attitudes such as self-importance-assurance, curiosity, collaboration and teamwork skills, presentation skills, and organizational skills.In appreciating how effective group work had been, a teacher in Turkey report that, Before Intel, students did not do teamwork. In Turkeykids want to learn from teachers, now they have to do research on their own and can learn more deeply. differently students arent motivated to learn. A second Turkish teacher commented that students were communion ideas and thoughts with each other and learning to trust themselves. B. Teachers deepened their understanding of student-centered practices. Teachers reported improving their skills with innovative teaching practices.Although some countries had more experience than others, across the board, approximately all the teachers we interviewed valued project-based approaches and reported doing projects with their students. Teachers had very clear ideas about how project-based approaches can support student learning by allowing students to explore content as they respond to a research question or problem comprise by the teacher. They felt the project approaches made the content more germane(predicate) to students and required greater intellectual effort for students to find and synthesise information, which led to students learning and retaining more information.At schools in Turkey and India, principals and teachers credited the Essentials Course with helping them learn how to do projects for the set-back time. In Turkey, teachers told us the Course helped them better utilize the project ideas offered in their new national curricula. single school in India had been experimenting with projects prior to participation in the Essentials Course, but the teachers reported that this professional development experience gave them a solid template and a set of strategies for Light 7 Journal of Education for International Development 42 December 2009 project-based approaches.In Chile, teachers told us that the Course helped them learn about inquirydriven project-based strategies in addition to the problem-based approach supported by their ministry. musical composition teachers from all three countries agreed that the Essentials Course supported their use of student-centered practices, each countrys context and educational goals influenced which topics were of most inte succor to teachers. For example, speckle all the teachers spoke about using group work and collaborative learning, the teachers in Turkey were very excited about the collaboration strategies presented in the Essentials Course.Turkeys traditional approach to teaching is lecturebased and emphasizes individual student activities, and teachers reported that they did not have any previous experience with collaborative learning. Group work and collaboration are, however, part of the new Tu rkish course of study and reform efforts and teachers expressed appreciation for how the two programs supported each other. The political platform contains many group activities, and the Essentials Course offers strategies to facilitate group work, as well as follow-up support to practice these strategies with coaching from their MT.In India, teachers found the Essential Questions strategy to be compelling. Essential Questions (e. g. , Why do we need others? ) are intriguing, grant-ended questions that organize a project and are an effective way to encourage students to think deeply and to provide them with a meaning(prenominal) context for learning (Wiggins & McTighe, 2001). The Indian curriculum is very demanding and the school day is crowded, so teachers felt that they could not easily integrate project work into every class.While they could not do projects during the class period, they were, however, exploring the use of oppugn strategies to push students critical thinking and to allow students to share their perspectives and formulate their own conceptual understandings of the content. For example, one teacher asked her students what they thought the impacts of British Colonial policies were on the farmers, and a sociable studies teacher asked students what they valued about their community. Teachers felt that asking for student input was a significant change. As one teacher commented, they no longer just stand and teach, but facilitate iscussions and encourage children to share their knowledge. The teachers we visited felt the open-ended questions and ensuing dialogue between teachers and students talent be the foundation of a new relationship between teachers and students. One of the schools in Chile, which already had a lot of experience with ICT and projects, focused on the use of rubric assessments presented in the Essentials Course. The principal noted that teachers were facing increase challenges in assessing students work as the school move d toward complex, technology-rich student products such as presentations and websites.Through these products, students master more than just content and teachers wanted to value all aspects of students learning. They considered the rubrics intentional to capture the range of skills, attitudes, and content that students developas a key way to address these challenges. The teachers were also using rubrics to put students more directly in control of their learning process students know from the beginning which aspects of the content teachers will evaluate. C. Teachers improved their ICT knowledge and skills.Teachers reported that they had developed the skills needed to initiate or increase the use of ICT with students. or so of the teachers in India and Turkey reported little ICT experience before Essentials, whereas most Chilean teachers had previous trainings and experience using ICT. Regardless of their experience with ICT, all teachers we interviewed who took the Essentials Cours e reported they increased their knowledge of how to use ICT as an educational tool. For teachers with no prior experience, the Course helped them acquire basic skills.However, all of the teachers commented on Light 8 Journal of Education for International Development 42 December 2009 how the Course helped them see ICT as a pedagogical tool. The strategy of having teachers design a model unit of their own cream appears to allow teachers to work on skills and areas that are new and challenging for them. VII. Changes in How Students Engage with Content The introduction of ICT into schools and the use of project-based approaches and Internet research have changed how students interact with the content in a number of ways.In the site visits, teachers and students spoke about three types of new learning activities that would, according to the literature, move over to a constructivist learning environment (a) learning through projects (b) conducting Internet research and (c) connecting s chool content to students lives (Windschitl, 2002). A. Project-based work gave students a chance to collaborate, use multiple resources, and direct their own learning. In all the schools, student projects were fundamental to livery student-centered instructional strategies into the classrooms.The Essentials-trained teachers we interviewed spoke of doing projects with their students. Despite variations among project designs, a few core features emerged. In almost every site, projects gave students chances to work collaboratively and challenged them to take on new roles and responsibilities students worked in groups and often had to coordinate efforts to complete the projects. Also, all of the projects described included research and culminated in a final product that required students to synthesize and share what they learned.For example, in the Gujarati village, the students did a project about water use and irrigation. They visited local experts, surveyed the community, still dat a, and researched solutions. As a result of the students examination of drip irrigation, and their proposal of how farmers could use this new strategy, the village converted to drip irrigation. Again, the teachers in India could not fit the project into the class time, so students did a lot of the work before and after school.The municipal school in Chile did a multi-grade project on insects in which the younger grades collected bugs and wrote reports and the older grades helped them create a website. B. Independent Internet research gave students autonomy and a chance to develop and share their own perspectives. Internet research was a constant theme in these schools. Teachers, students, and parents all spoke about having students do Internet research for spacework and as part of the projects. Teachers often asked students to establish in additional information on topics in the textbook (e. . , in a Turkish project students researched systems of the human body). Or, teachers ask ed students to research additional topics or themes (e. g. , after a lesson on farmers under the British Empire, a history teacher in India asked students to research the condition of Indian farmers today). C. Connecting school content to students lives made learning more meaningful to students. We found that many of the projects teachers designed connected students school work to their home life and the community more broadly.In a very simple sense, the increased use of practices such as open-ended questions and group work allowed students to share the perspectives and knowledge they require from home. For example, a teacher in India asked her students what they had eaten for breakfast and then used this as the start of a nutrition lesson, and a Turkish teacher had his first grade students discuss how an animated story related to their own families and lives. Light 9 Journal of Education for International Development 42 December 2009Yet many of the project topics also engaged stude nts in examining real-world issues or concerns that gave them an opportunity to connect school learning with the real world and allowed them to develop their own opinions and perspectives about the issues. For example, the Indian village that did the irrigation project mentioned in a higher place also did projects on clean water and public health. Other projects were less ambitious, but still meaningful, such as the Chilean school where students collected stories and images from the community to publish in a booklet for their families. Our interviews ith parents in the Indian and Turkish sites also supported the perception that students were becoming a source of new information for their families. Parents credited their childrens increased use of Internet research with providing them with current information to which they would not otherwise have had access. Students are generally more excited by information they find themselves than the limit of a textbook, and parents reported t hat their children were rushing home, eager to share what they had discovered. VIII. Changes in Relationships among Teachers, Students, and ParentsIn keeping with the new activities and roles for students, the teachers and students in the schools we visited reported that they were transforming how they interact. The changes in teaching practices in these schools are part of a broader change in relationships within the school and between the school and the community. The educators and students described changes in the ways they collaborate with each other that grew out of the new teaching practices (e. g. , project-based approaches, open-ended questions), integrating ICT into the schools (e. g. Internet research or presentations), or both. We noticed that teachers, students, and parents reported changes in three sets of relationships (a) among the students (b) between students and teachers and (c) between the school, the parents, and sometimes the community. A. Projects and ICT activ ities fostered collaborative relationships among students. Many of the teachers and parents interviewed said that students were developing a range of social and interpersonal skills that they attributed to the projects and the new roles that students were winning on.As noted, students in every school were taking on new responsibilities as they worked on projectsleading teams, conducting research, writing reports, debating with peers, and making presentations to peers, teachers, and parents. A Chilean ordinal grade teacher beg offed how her students were developing the skills and maturity to work as a team, even across grade levels, because of the collaborative techniques she learned in the Essentials Course. Some of the parents also commented on their childrens maturity and responsibility.A Turkish pose noticed a change in his daughters attitudes since doing the Intel projects. He observed that before teachers participated in the Essentials Course, his daughter did not share he r things with anyone. aft(prenominal) her teachers participated in the Course, his daughter began to share more with friends and she enjoyed working in teams. The dumbfound also said that, as a result of her involvement in projects and team work, his daughter completed her school assignments independently at home and no longer asked him for help.B. modern teaching strategies allowed teachers to develop more collaborative and interactive relationships with their students. The teachers reported that, as their teaching practices changed, their relationships with their students also became more open and supportive. Teachers began to allow more intellectual discussions between themselves and their students, and students were more willing to approach teachers and share concerns and opinions. The teachers and parents in Mumbai were, perhaps, the most eloquent.One group of teachers commented that, as children, they had been afraid(predicate) of their teachers and they Light 10 Journal o f Education for International Development 42 December 2009 were happy that their students no longer fear the teacher but gladly ask questions and give opinions. The students we interviewed echoed these sentiments. A group of high school students from the school in Santiago, Chile explained that a good teacher is one who encourages students to disagree when they have a well-reasoned argument.A student from Mumbai overlap a similar perspective I like that whenever I do a report I can include my own critical opinionit is not just cut and paste. And I can learn many things outside of the textbook. C. Innovating with projects and ICT strengthened the relationships between the school, parents, and the community. The parents we interviewed were excited by the introduction of community-focused projects and student research, and they expressed pride in what the schools were doing for their children with technology.A group of parents in India praised their school because of the new technolo gy, the school is innovative. They have very high performance, but it is not just academics-oriented. In the four public schools we visited, parents and the community had also initiated efforts to bring additional ICT resources to the schools by donating equipment or paying for improved Internet connections. However, the parents also remarked on the new teaching practices and what these changes mean for their children.All of the parents we interviewed commented on how the school was developing the whole child since the project work was supporting teamwork, independence, and selfconfidence. Parents in India and Turkey highlighted their childrens growing confidence and independence to do research or make public presentations, and they also noted the fondness relationships between students and teachers. IX. Changes in the Use of ICT Tools to Promote Students LearningA core aim of the Essentials Course and a central objective for the ministries in Chile, Turkey, and India is to encoura ge the use of ICT as a learning aid for students. Although the administrators and teachers we interviewed in all six schools told us they wished they could do more, to the extent permitted by resources, space, and time, students were using ICT for learning activities. PowerPoint presentations and Internet research were, by far, the most common ICT tools that students used. All six schools promoted student use of ICT, but each adopted different strategies to shed light on its goals.In Turkey and India, with short school days and tight schedules, the teachers had to strategically make timeeither by working outside of class, or rationing accessfor students to complete their ICT projects. For example, the teachers at the Anatolian school in Turkey told us that they meet as a team each semester to make up which classes will do long-term projects to ensure every student gets a chance each year. The Chilean teachers had more flexibility to schedule lab time during school hours, although they also did afterschool activities.Perhaps the clearest change is that, in all six schools, teachers gave students Internet research activities for homework. For instance, a math teacher in India assigned students to calculate average rainfall in different split of the world using online databases, and a Chilean history teacher had students break up online photos for life conditions in 1900s Chile. X. Conclusion This paper presents the findings from our fieldwork that describe the nature of the changes taking place in the classrooms in these six schools as they integrate ICT activities.Since the governments point to these schools as positive examples, their experiences can help contribute to an understanding Light 11 Journal of Education for International Development 42 December 2009 of the process of integrating ICT into the schools of developing countries. While some educators we observed are more skilled than others, and some changes in practice are just emerging, all six sch ools are making changes beyond just the use of new tools. They are developing new beliefs about learning and new practices, new ways to engage with content, changing relationships, and new ICT tools for learning.That three of the four common dimensions of change are pedagogical shifts, and that they are changes in pedagogy that are supported by the ICT, illustrate the paradigm shift required for effective ICT integration (Bransford et al. , 1999 Hepp et al. , 2004). These findings illustrate the complex sets of changes that have to occur for ICT to be deeply and meaningfully used to support student learning. This would explain why technology integration is so difficult to achieve but also points the way forward. Our findings suggest that necessary changes are much broader than just the introduction of a new tool or one new ractice. Instead, change begins by deeply reshaping life in the classroomsfrom educators beliefs about learning to the relationships that make up the school commu nity. In each context, the teachers found points of work between the model of ICT use and teaching in the Essentials Course and the possibilities and limits of their context. For Indian teachers, it was most feasible to integrate aspects of the teaching model (i. e. , open-ended questions) into their classroom and the ICT into after-class time. In Turkey, schools brought ICT activities into scheduled lab time and group work into their class activities.And, Chilean teachers used holistic assessment strategies and inquiry-based projects in class because their school day provides a block of time for projects. But, the responsibility for change cannot rest solely on the shoulders of the teachers bringing about these changes is a long-term, incremental process. in force(p) reform requires sustained investment and support along multiple dimensions of the educational system, including physical and technical infrastructure, human resources, curricular frameworks, standards, and assessment .For example, the teachers in Chile and Turkey spoke of how things like new national curricula, national computerization efforts, and professional development opportunities helped them use ICT in their classrooms and apply what they learned from the Essentials Course to their practice. Light 12 Journal of Education for International Development 42 December 2009 References Akbaba-Altun, S. (2006). Complexity of integrating computer technologies into education in Turkey. Journal of educational applied science and Society, 9(1) 176187. Baki, A. , & Gokcek, T. 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