Draft
Internet
Learning in Unlikely Places:
Education
in Nations With Crises
Maureen
W. McClure[1]
and Margherita Amodeo[2]
Two revolutions are sweeping the international relief world. First, the telecommunications revolution reduces the costs of international communications, providing greater opportunities for interaction across donors, relief workers and disaster victims. Second, new research about learning shifts traditional thinking about education in nations with crises beyond events to be managed or systems to be fixed. Learning focuses on the experiences and efforts of individuals and groups. This requires thinking about crises as an opportunity to build civil economies through generational and peer learning networks. Sierra Leone provides a good example of the rapid convergence of technology and learning.
Educational strategy in crises today needs to be framed not only as media events to be managed or water systems to be fixed, but also as sustainable communication networks within and across generations. Together, telecommunications and learning are helping to reframe the roles of education and its professionals. These revolutions transform crisis education from a development emphasis on literacy to thinking about learning as meaningful communications within the context of crises. The role of crisis education professionals is being shifted by understandings of complex active learning mediated by increasingly sophisticated technology. See Principles of Learning (http://www.instituteforlearning.org/pol3.html ) and Technology in Teaching and Learning ( http://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/netlearn/technology.htm ).
Innovations in technology and learning are making fundamental changes in the way education professionals work internationally in nations with crises. Global telecommunications have greatly reduced problems and learning curves created by distance and by time zones. On-line peer learning networks have offset professional coaching and mentoring experiences lost in organizational shifts toward short-term contract work. New forms of Internet multi-media are helping to close the growing gaps across the experiences of donors, aid workers and beneficiaries.
Cheaper Communications for Complex
Conditions
Educational crises requiring international education responses occur under extraordinarily complex conditions. The normal routines of civil life have often disappeared. Security is a defining problem. Natural or man-made disasters have often damaged some or all of a country’s educational delivery systems. Consequently, responses often need to be simultaneous, rapid and large scale. Problems are often transnational. For example, refugees may flee to neighboring countries too poor to adequately host them.
Many education professionals working internationally in poor countries with crises do not place a high priority on investments in local Internet development. Comments heard often include “There is no electricity.” “These people don’t have enough to eat.” “How can you be so insensitive to local needs?” “You are forcing English on people.” These perspectives, while understandable, miss the point.
The Internet is already making a significant contribution to three critical areas of education for humanitarian assistance: decision support, professional development and donor engagement. The Internet is reducing professional isolation. Learning research is enhancing the role of education professionals as mediators of learning and effort in context (http://www.stw.ed.gov/factsht/bull0996.htm ) rather than gleaners of natural talent (http://www.educationau.edu.au/archives/cp/04k.htm ). Together both new research and technologies are shifting the roles of education professionals from arbiters of classroom teaching toward mediators of learning situated within actual and virtual communities in and out of schools (http://rem.bangor.ac.uk/~martin_owen/reflect/profdev.html ). The development of transnational peer networks for professional improvement creates important new tools for managing education in nations with crises.
Decision Support
Before the development of the Internet field-related decision support was often sporadic at best. Decisions were, and still are, made on the basis of personal experience and professional relationships, and not necessarily informed either by data or by the actions of others. Telephones calls are limited by time zones and fax quality can often be poor. The Internet improved the efficiency of field communications in three ways. (This is not meant to gloss over the many problems created by working in the field [bandwidth, cost, politics of ownership, maintenance and upgrades, etc.]). New technologies and research need to be judged not only by their romantic appeal to donors, but also by their capacity for practical implementation.
The Internet can provide rapid access to high quality knowledge and expertise in ‘digestible’ formats at relatively low costs. During the early stages of an emergency, both time and bandwidth are at a premium. Those who have access to the Internet need to move as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The addition of wireless email to other telecommunications options has allowed field communications during crises to become more reliable. Email has reduced the time zone problem and improved the visual quality of information transfer. The development of the World Wide Web has greatly expanded the use of graphics and multi-media, leading to innovative systems of geographic information systems (GIS) for decision support during crises. For example, the UN’s primary humanitarian assistance coordinating website, ReliefWeb, provides detailed maps of crisis countries which include the location of refugee camps, IDP movements, etc. (http://www.reliefweb.int/w/map.nsf/home ). Under highly fluid conditions, these maps can be rapidly updated and globally distributed.
Education-specific sites such as the Global Information Networks in Education (GINIE) (www.ginie.org) focus resource attention narrowly on the education-related sectors in countries with crises like Ethiopia, Kosovo or East Timor. The GINIE project provides access to distributed documents and as well as crisis-related links (http://ginie1.sched.pitt.edu/countries/ethiopia/.)
The Internet has developed sophisticated new
ways to help mange crises in the post-Cold War period. For example, crises can
be thought of as events to be managed, like wars. International crises are
increasingly media events. Both public
and private resources flow according to the level of general public interest,
often occurring within a narrow time frame.
There is fierce competition for media attention, so many international
crises must, by definition, languish in the dark with no camera lights. Also, there is little economic incentive for
agencies to coordinate their efforts for longer-term national sustainability if
short-term individual ‘cowboy’ activities attract media attention, and funnel
resources into the institution.
The Internet has helped to offset the problem of
insufficient media space. Relief
organizations have developed websites that let others, especially donors,
partners and the press, know about their activities in the field. Within days of a major international
disaster, hundreds of related web pages spring up within institutional
websites. Here are a few of them:
Ø
CARE
(http://www.care.org/info_center/notes.html
) - personal notes from the field
Ø
GINIE
(http://ginie1.sched.pitt.edu/referencedesk/
) –countries, materials, guides
Ø
ICRC
(http://www.icrc.org/eng/operations_country
)- Red Cross International in 50 countries
Ø
InterAction
(http://www.interaction.org/disaster/index.html
)- coordination of US non-profits
Ø
ReliefWeb
(http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/vLND
)- primary website for relief coordination
Ø
Save
The Children US (http://www.savethechildren.org/crisis/
)- learn about children in war
Ø
UNESCO
(http://www.unesco.org/education/emergency/index.shtml
) -emphasis on education
Ø
UNICEF
(http://unicef.org/emerg/country.htm)-
focus on children (??won’t work??)
Ø
USAID
(www.usaid.gov/hum_response/ofda/) - US government coordination of relief
efforts
The Internet has also been very helpful in the
development of professional networks that engineer systems during relief
efforts by providing rapid global access to highly specialized knowledge and
expertise in emergencies. For example:
WEDC – The Water, Engineering and Development Centre is one of the world's leading institutions concerned with the planning, provision and management of physical infrastructure for development in low- and middle-income countries.
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cv/wedc/specialist-activities/er/index.htm
WFP – The World Food Program WFP is the frontline
United Nations agency whose mission is to provide: Food for LIFE to sustain victims of man-made
and natural disasters; Food for GROWTH to improve the nutrition and quality of
life of the most vulnerable people at critical times in their lives; and Food
for WORK to help build assets and promote the self-reliance of poor people and
communities, particularly through labor-intensive works programs. Hunger afflicts one out of seven people on
Earth. http://www.wfp.org/
These content-specialized networks provide rapid access to
organizations that coordinate sector-specific activities.
Professional Development
The Internet’s flexible archival and hypertext capabilities have put global professional development just a click away. Hypertext’s link and node model of mapping “knowledge spaces” creates opportunities for narrowly focused archives that can be rapidly accessed, distributed and modified. The rapid development of on-line databases allows critical documents such as country-based situation reports to be quickly distributed globally, avoiding long publication and snail mail delays.
On-line global peer learning networks can now structure multi-media materials on websites through more exploratory formats than traditional, sequential forms of text-based learning. These learning networks can provide peer coaching and on-line mentoring, helping to offset both an increasing use of contract workers and shrinking professional development budgets. The ‘temp agency’ problem reduces informal incentives for organizational workers to mentor the next generation of professionals. This loss is being somewhat offset by the development of Intranets that create greater access to organizational expertise for professionals at institutions like USAID and UNICEF.
Interagency learning communities such as the Network on Education in Emergencies (INEE) (need address) greatly expand opportunities for professional development beyond institutional boundaries. For example, it collects and shares field-based resources created in different countries and posts them on its website for global use. UNESCO and UNICEF, two of the founders of INEE asked GINIE to collect locally produced land mine awareness education materials for global distribution and review. The purpose of the site was to archive grey materials that would help reduce field time spent re-inventing the wheel. In addition, contributors were asked to provide not only the materials, but also a narrative that explained the context in which the materials were developed. Users were invited both to contribute to http://ginie1.sched.pitt.edu/ginie-crises-links/lm/ and to comment on the materials. This discussion eventually morphed with others into the emer-edu email list ( ), creating a virtual learning community and reducing the professional isolation of this far-flung global community of emergency educators.
Donor Engagement: The Case of Sierra Leone
The Internet’s multi-media capacities help donors better understand the experiential context in which educational programs are situated. This development has been very rapid as applied high tech/relatively low cost tools become available to improve donor interaction with the field. Sierra Leone provides a mini-case study in this rapid change.
Micro-Searches
Early in the development of the GINIE project’s country pages, users commented that they were reluctant to use commercial search engines in the field because they were costly. Why? Because of the time needed to sift through too many resources. Worse, many of the best materials were in the databases of big agency users like UNICEF, UNESCO, USAID and the World Bank, and consequently, they were not available to commercial search engines. Donor agencies often had little time to check with each other, even when their reports were available on the searchable databases on their websites.
In response GINIE, under the direction of Marut Buranarach, in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Sciences, developed country-level micro-searches of key development agency databases. This distributed model allows the GINIE country-level archives to stay current because the agencies themselves keep them updated. (http://ginie1.sched.pitt.edu/countries/sierraleone/search.html ).
E-lists
E-lists have been used as inquiry management systems to link donors and field professionals. In Sierra Leone in 1999, a rapid education teacher training team of Plan International, UNESCO and (Ministry of Youth, Education and Sports ) MOYES professionals decided that they needed information about tools to assess psycho-social trauma and cognitive functioning separately. They used the emer-edu listserv managed by InterWorks to forward their request. Many list members were from donor agencies. Over fifteen people responded within three days. Most were not members of the emer-edu list. They were instead eminent US clinical psychologists and researchers with expertise in the area of children and violence. Donors had generously shared their knowledge and their own personal networks with people in the field they did not know.
Digital
Photography and Rapid Publication
The teacher training team rapidly assembled a manual by downloading GINIE materials and combining them with local ones. The team also produced a report that was published in GINIE within one day. It not only was more rapid than hardcopy publication, it also increased donor accessibility. The team leader, Gonzalo Retamal, purchased a digital camera and took pictures of the educational conditions and child soldiers of Sierra Leone. These digital photographs were added to the team’s report to give headquarters and donors rapid visual access to the experiential context that situated their work. (http://ginie1.sched.pitt.edu/countries/SierraLeone/sierra-update/SierraRep1.html).
Video Clips
By September 2000, the reports with still photographs had given way to photographs in motion. UNICEF included powerful video clips of the experience of children in Sierra Leone and elsewhere at the Conference for War-Affected Children in Winnipeg. These audio-visual images draw donors in closer to the experience of children’s lives in nations with crises ( http://www.waraffectedchildren.gc.ca/menu-e.asp) .
GIS for
Interagency Coordination
In May 2001, ReliefWeb published a series of maps show the geographic distribution of activities in Sierra Leone by non-governmental organizations such as the Norwegian Refugee Council, Save The Children and the International Rescue Committee.
(http://www.reliefweb.int/w/map.nsf/wByCLatest/4DB7249DDFC1D05B85256A47007626A3?Opendocument ) These maps can be enormously helpful in determining the coverage of areas with mobile populations of refugee and internally displaced persons. Donors can clearly see where they are and aren’t in comparisons with others.
Distance
Learning For Donors
By June 2001, Linda Hawkin-Isreal was breaking down the barriers across education and health by moving toward greater interactive engagement in the use of Web-based multi-media in Sierra Leone (http://www.ianlee-designs.com/mamas/ ). The MAMAs’ (Mothers Against Military Advancement in Sierra Leone ) experimental site gives the camera and the microphone to African mothers who converse directly with viewers about their experience (http://www.ianlee-designs.com/mamas/intro.html ). These multi-media clips are titled Context, Tools, Need for Information and War and Health. They are linked to background maps with overlays of refugee camp locations. The site pulls in the viewer by creating a place where donors can learn from refugees. This engagement in the process of learning may place greater responsibility on some viewers to listen, learn and act.
Next Steps: Video-Conferencing
Margherita Amodeo is pushing the interactive technology and learning envelope even further by designing IS systems that place education and communications specialists into the same rowboat. Together they function as a team to engage donors not as silent witnesses to tragic events, but as active partners working collegially with field operatives and local communities. The team helps to raise donor, media and public awareness by bringing them into the heart of field activities in real time almost anywhere around the globe – thus making live inter-active documentation a reality. And, although some of the equipment involved is rather costly, its cost-effectiveness far outweighs the initial outlay.
Today, field information in the form of situation reports, updates, media releases, audio-visuals, for both donors and media is channeled and filtered through a number of players at the country, regional and HQ levels before reaching key audiences. To some extent, the “hands-on” information loses some of its “live” quality, and thus its effectiveness, as it passes through links in the communication chain. Even though this well-tried system does deliver information relatively rapidly, it does not carry the “bite” of a live exchange of facts and ideas.
This can now be realized with the introduction of a series of IT developments, especially videoconferencing, which can be assimilated and internalized into the standard “modus operandi” for field strategy – initially, in emergency situations and, later, in a more generalized fashion.
The comparative advantage of video-conferencing lies in its wide variety of important new management and programmatic applications:
· In areas where the appropriate technology is available, it can be used as a social mobilization, social marketing and community awareness building tool
· In the world of education, it can fulfill the dual function of educating while bringing information technology skills to the widest possible audience.
Audio/visual data transmission links (telephone
line, satellite, etc.), allow media/donors to experience the program
interventions and to talk to the implementers in real time. This inter-active communication can be done
in many ways, such as:
- Conversing with representative/program officers and members of vulnerable populations in a fixed location (viz. office) against a backdrop of recently shot footage filmed at crisis locations, and
- Viewing a live voice-over of digital footage that has just been filmed
The hardware required to make this possible includes: mobile and/or office-based video-conferencing equipment, web-conferencing equipment, digital cameras, digital video camcorders, etc.
This should initially be a regional “hub” operation. The hub would stream the material onto a public or Intranet web site for use by donors. It could also be transmitted as an email attachment, recorded on a videocassette, archived on a website and/or burned onto a CD.
As the technology, added value and funding becomes clearer, this could be expanded to other offices. (IT expertise and advice required for information and modalities regarding in-country capacity, feasibility, cost, etc.)
Transmission of data presupposes the availability of compatible equipment at the receiving end. Therefore, at the outset, it may be necessary to foresee a strong involvement of local institutions, as well as national and regional offices in donor organizations where meetings/press briefings could be held with a direct link to the field.
As best as possible, the field team
will direct a live, inter-active “program” that provides regular data on the
crisis. By interviewing program
officers and vulnerable populations, the field team can elaborate on the
emergency at hand, while documenting their organizations’ implemented and planned
involvement. Imagine the impact of staffers and teachers speaking to a camera
against a backdrop of an ongoing program…
Eventually, one could also examine the possibility of providing a regular (twice-daily, daily, weekly, depending on the need) on-line update to the web site about the situation on the ground, backed by footage of the ongoing crisis. Relevant reliable data and statistics would be mapped onto overlying satellite and district maps of the affected country/region/area using developing GIS (Geographical Information Systems). Statistical information would be complemented by short, regularly updated “human interest” filmed stories – short, topical, possibly semi-professional but, nonetheless, effective. This type of service would become an invaluable resource both for donors in their fund-raising activities and for the media. Focal points would act as gatekeepers for material to be posted on the web site.
Conclusion
Finally, professional networks developed during crises can help reconstruct a national infrastructure in post-crisis transitions. Grassroots professional networks can be extended to link local communities across donor and crises nations. These new global learning communities can then begin to work on the problems of education and globalization that face them simultaneously: education for civil economies, public health, labor mobility, trade, etc.