Strigel, C.

The objective of this sector assessment activity is to identify strengths, weaknesses, and key leverage points to improve children’s reading outcomes within the institutional context of Cambodia’s education system.

With the aim of providing developing member countries (DMCs) with better guidance for using information and communication technology (ICT) effectively in education, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded a 21-month Regional Technical Assistance (RETA) in Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia, and Samoa. the study team conducted a number of activities in Mongolia, guided by a site assessment and needs analysis. These included (i) a 1-week intensive training program for teachers and training managers, as well as representatives from the Education and Culture Department (ECD), in August 2006; (ii) moderate procurement of equipment and software for SEDP schools; (iii) 2-day follow-on training interventions at each IIREM and SEDP school in the study, in October 2006; and (iv) a 4-day training for trainers with 3-day follow-on regional trainings, in April 2007. Applying a three-group research design, 12 schools were sampled for participation in the study: four schools that had participated in the IIREM project, four schools that received computer equipment under SEDP, and four schools that were sampled as control schools.

This case study will highlight practical lesson learned from the use of mobile devices with Tangerine®:Class open-source software for data-informed instructional decision-making from a year-long, rigorous study conducted by RTI International in Kenya. Throughout 2013, twenty-one teachers and 600 pupils used Tangerine:Class on Android tablets in a randomized controlled trial. While the trial was focused on early reading instruction, the applicable lessons learned are also for mathematics and independent of subject matter. Practical findings concern training and support, the logistics of individual pupil assessments in large classrooms; the nature of instructional decision-making; and the use of data and interactions between teachers, headteachers and parents. This is a chapter of an edited book "Mobile Learning and Mathematics" (Crompton, H. and Traxler, J., eds.) available at Amazon.com.

This presentation was given at the 2015 Game Change Summit of the United Methodist Church in Nashville, TN. The presentation takes the audience along a journey of 2 different technology initiatives that involve teachers in Samoa and Kenya and share with you some of the pieces we have found, and where we think some are still missing. While there are many more, the presentation focused on each initiative’s main puzzle pieces – the key design elements of education objective, content, technology, training, cost and scale, as well as monitoring and evaluation.