Page 138 - Education in a Digital World

International Development 125

commentators as the most desirable and sustainable approaches to take in theory, in
practice the vast majority of educational ICT4D projects remain resolutely ‘pro-
poor’ in their approach and intent – therefore facing all of the “danger[s] of design
versus reality gaps” that this engenders (Heeks 2008, p.29).
The persistence of the pro-poor approach in the area of educational ICT4D runs
the risk of replicating the notion of the ‘technical fix’ that has recurred throughout
many of the discussions in this book. In particular, the false promise of potential
transformation on behalf of an incoming technology runs the risk of distracting
attention away from the wider, deeper and more fundamental issues that underpin
the provision of education in developing countries and contexts. We shall return to
these issues in the final chapter – not least the suspicion that educational ICT4D
solutions remain largely ‘external’ impositions onto low-income and marginalised
people and communities. However, before we can expand this line of reasoning,
the next chapter will consider one further initiative in the field of educational
technology and development that is reckoned by many commentators to have the
potential to transform the educational – and it follows societal – conditions of
countries around the world. Chapter 7 therefore goes on to examine the much-
celebrated ‘One Laptop Per Child’ initiative – one of the most significant educational
technology programmes of the past thirty years. As well as constituting a prominent
element of global educational technology, OLPC offers a rich and revealing case
study of many of the critical issues and concerns that have emerged from our dis-
cussions so far. We will now go on to make critical sense of this hugely ambitious
educational technology intervention. Is this the instance where the globalising
potential of educational technology could be realised once and for all?