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Despite their increased diffusion through rich and poor communities around the world, many people still have serious reservations about large scale investments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) within education systems. Spirited and long-running related debates related to their costs ("too expensive", their critics say), appropriateness ("students needs lots of ...

The New York City Department of Education has supported collaborative inquiry as a potentially powerful process for helping administrators and teachers use student data to improve instruction and raise student achievement. Beginning with a pilot project in 2006, teams of teachers have learned to work together to diagnose the needs of students who have not been successful in their classrooms and to develop strategies to improve their learning. Collaborative inquiry sits at the heart of the...

This paper reviews the themes emerging from Bangladeshi teachers’ experiences of taking part in the initial research and the development stage of a professional development programme they were involved with. The Secondary Teaching and Learning Programme is an information and communications technologies‐enhanced supported open distance learning programme of professional development in English‐language teaching. This paper presents evidence arising from semi‐structured interviews carried out...

This paper reviews the themes emerging from Bangladeshi teachers’ experiences of taking part in the initial research and the development stage of a professional development programme they were involved with. The Secondary Teaching and Learning Programme is an information and communications technologies‐enhanced supported open distance learning programme of professional development in English‐language teaching. This paper presents evidence arising from semi‐structured interviews carried out...

This paper reviews the themes emerging from Bangladeshi teachers' experiences of taking part in the initial research and the development stage of a professional development programme they were involved with. The Secondary Teaching and Learning Programme is an information and communications technologies-enhanced supported open distance learning programme of professional development in English-language teaching. This paper presents evidence arising from semi-structured interviews carried out...

The American Psychological Association’s Learner-Centered Principles provide empirically-based approaches to improving teaching and learning. However, in order to facilitate learner-centered, technology-rich instruction to K-12 students, teachers must be afforded opportunities to develop key understandings and skills, rarely evident in most professional development programs. In this paper, we synthesize empirically-based studies and recommendations for teacher learning and propose a...

The American Psychological Association’s Learner-Centered Principles provide empirically-based approaches to improving teaching and learning. However, in order to facilitate learner-centered, technology-rich instruction to K-12 students, teachers must be afforded opportunities to develop key understandings and skills, rarely evident in most professional development programs. In this paper, we synthesize empirically-based studies and recommendations for teacher learning and propose a...

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to examine female principal leadership practices that are considered crucial in the effectiveness and improvement of schools and school administration in Ghanaian junior high schools.

The authors examine the determinants of information and communications technology (ICT) usage among low-income people in three developing countries: Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Using two composite indicators, they focus on cross-country differences and similarities in ICT usage across gender, age, education, and income levels. The authors’ analysis indicates that the single most important factor limiting the digitalization of low-income people in all three countries was lack of education....

Kilimani Sesame, a media intervention that employs print, radio, and television, was developed to entertain and educate preschool children in Tanzania. This study examined the effects of a six-week intervention delivering Kilimani Sesame material to 223 children in the rural district of Kisarawe and the city of Dar es Salaam. Results offer evidence that literacy and numeracy, social and emotional development, and health and hygiene significantly improved from baseline to post-intervention;...

The aim of this paper is to highlight some of the challenges of information and communication technology (ICT) integration in a South African classroom setting. The main focus is on the concept of a digital divide, and how cultural complexity with special emphasis on language can affect the divide in schools that already have material access to ICT. The study is based on fieldwork in seventh-grade classes in four primary schools in Cape Town, South Africa. The learners answered a...

This paper describes Project Kan é , a research endeavor aimed at exploring the role that technology can play in improving child literacy in developing communities. An initial pilot study and a subsequent four-month-long controlled field study in Ghana investigated the viability and effectiveness of an automated reading tutor in helping urban children enhance their reading skills in English. In addition to quantitative data suggesting that automated tutoring can be useful for some children...

The classification by many scholars of numerical research processes as quantitative and other research techniques as qualitative has prompted the construction of a third category, that of ‘mixed methods’, to describe studies that use elements from both processes. Such labels might be helpful in structuring our understanding of phenomena. But they can also inhibit our activities when they serve as inaccurate or limiting descriptors. Based on the observation that mixed methods are fast...

Despite their increased diffusion through rich and poor communities around the world, many people still have serious reservations about large scale investments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) within education systems. Spirited and long-running related debates related to their costs ("too expensive", their critics say), appropriateness ("students needs lots of ...

Economists emphasize the link between market returns to education and investments in schooling. Though many studies estimate these returns with earnings data, it is the perceived returns that affect schooling decisions, and these perceptions may be inaccurate. Using survey data for eighth-grade boys in the Dominican Republic, we find that the perceived returns to secondary school are extremely low, despite high measured returns. Students at randomly selected schools given information on the...