but how much of it is relevant?
Such knowledge doesn’t come a moment too soon! While estimates about the size of national and regional edtech markets canvarywidely, depending on how one chooses to define the term and whose white papers you choose to believe, there is no denying that this stuff is (for better or for worse, depending on your perspective) big business around the world – and growing bigger. It’s important to note that big investments in educational technologies aren’t only happening in places like the United States or South Korea, Germany or China or Australia. The emails that land each week in my in-box are testament to just how widespread a phenomenon this has become:
- 950 primary schools to receive tablets in Jamaica
- 1500 schools in Rwanda will have ‘smart classrooms’
- Over 6000 government schools in India to get advanced computer labs
- A new contract for one mission tablets for primary schools in Egypt
- An update on an ongoing effort to provide 1.2 million devices to primary schools in Kenya
etc. etc. etc.
That said, while access to devices, connectivity and digital learning content is spreading quickly around the world, knowledge about how to harness increased levels of access to technology in ways relevant and practical for policymakers and educators in so-called ‘developing countries’ is not spreading anywhere near as quickly.
The vast majority of research and documentation related to the use of educational technologies around the world is generated from within ‘highly developed’ countries (most of them in Europe, North America and East Asia), animated and informed by research questions and the needs of education communities and education systems in these same countries.
Beginning later in 2019, a new, multi-year initiative will seek to change this existing paradigm.
