Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

It sounded like a splendid idea, didn’t it? Putting a laptop in the hands of every Kenyan kid in primary school?

This was not long after Kenya had embarked on an ambitious project of providing free primary education to many of its children, and eventually to all.

If free laptops for all seems a bit lavish for a struggling, third world country, consider this: it would cost less than providing all those kids with the learning materials we think of being in all schools. It would cost less than textbooks and work sheets and paper and pencils.

Besides, eLearning would be possible, with classes and exercises and tests being available on the internet.

Then the problems became apparent.

For one thing, one company in India had the inside track as vendor of the laptops—but the courts nullified its contract, which was said to be worth about $280 million.

Another obstacle was the fact that many schools are in parts of Kenya that are not on the grid. To carry out its pilot project, one company had to build a solar array to generate power to charge the laptops.

There had to be signal reception for use of the internet or even of private wide area networks (WANs).

In some schools laptops, with programs installed, were taken from the children and locked in a closet by teachers who did not know how to use them. The children had caught on pretty well, as kids seem to with whatever interests them. They loved the learning games, the animations, the sound, the magical touch response.  But teachers had not received any computer training.

Kids obviously preferred and were engaged by interactive learning. A teacher at a blackboard was not nearly as exciting.

In Swahili education is “elimu.” Nivi Mukherjee called the program he founded eLimu. It was based on giving every student a program-ready laptop. He saw laptops as being part of the curriculum, not all of it.

The ambitious project was approved and partial implementation was launched before some of the obstacles had been considered. But there is still hope that the sound concepts can be revamped into something workable.

“As we think about content, you cannot have it without a device. Without infrastructure and connectivity there is no point in having those devices,” Nivi says.

Something else to think about is what kinds of devices can withstand the rigors of being carried to and from school in backpacks, and perhaps being used by other family members in the home. What if there is a fall, and the glass breaks? Are there components in addition to glass that might be harmful?

Kenya has some “schools without classrooms”—schools without chairs and desks,  blackboards or artificial lights.

John Temba of the Ministry of Education agrees that teachers need training in the use of computers. “The teachers have fear of this new technology.” There are 300,000 teachers in Kenya, but only about 50,000 have computer skills. Just training the rest of them will be a major undertaking.

Some teachers have experienced use of email and money transfers. Nivi believes they will welcome the use of laptops once they are familiar with their use.

The choice of materials to put on the laptops or the distance learning sources will be key to how much is learned.  “The digital content needs to be rich. It can’t just be a text book. It’s got to have digital media: video, audio.”

I find the Kenyan experiment interesting. Starting in primary grades and working upward is, well, different. A few years ago there were debates here about whether it was a good idea to introduce primary school kids to keyboarding. Some parents, and maybe some teachers, worried that the youngsters wouldn’t want to learn to write.

I remember one elementary supervisor who was keen on computers, and used the one in his office very often. Not that he had been supplied with one: a local dealer had made it available.

The same dealer supplied one computer for each “pod,” for use by the teachers. Not all teachers used them, though. These were DOS computers—pre-Windows.

The next elementary supervisor wanted nothing to do with computers, and had them removed.

Meanwhile computers were tolerated in the high school, in the business courses. IU9 was just gearing up to reinvent the internet with SHWAN, and sell various amounts of connectivity to its member districts.

Back before the present elementary school was built, the school system acquired a few Commodore PETs. I covered a meeting at which then elementary supervisor Ronald Ungerer showed off the first models. IU9 reading and math teachers also used primitive computers and impact printers to create individualized worksheets and practice problems for students. Kids were intrigued by that process, by the printers and getting custom-made homework.

This was before Windows, let alone Windows 95 and the multimedia revolution. It was before interactive, disc-based instruction. One of the first inroads made by “computer-based instruction” here was in the French and Spanish courses, when the switch was made from audio tape and headphones, in carrels, to CDs with audio and video, and companion textbooks.

In our country we have seen that some teachers can be resistant. Teachers’ unions mobilized against “teaching machines” for a while; administrators were opposed, and school boards were reluctant to commit the funds. Those attitudes seem almost comical now.

But at least we had electricity and telephony. Gradually even the need for support services and for a technology coordinator (and then an assistant) was recognized. Eventually the vo-tech office practice program was converted to IBM-compatible, teachers sadly relinquishing their Apple II machines.

Good luck to Kenya. I hope all their primary school kids get laptops and the means to use them. Then, as with “vertical integration” in this country, the program will expand upward, into middle and high schools.

That may provide impetus for getting electrical power into all communities and homes.