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Informatics 2000

By PAUL CONSTANCE

But Morales, who lives in the Venezuelan state of Miranda, never boarded a plane. Instead, he and 1,800 other teachers from 115 primary schools in seven Latin American countries used a combination of personal computers, televisions, satellite dishes and the Internet to embark on an unprecedented experiment in distance learning.

For six days each month, Morales and 14 other teachers in the Unidad Educativa Municipal Andrés Bello, a public primary school with 700 students, gather around a television in the school's computer lab for a live broadcast of a lecture at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Advanced Studies. While they listen to the professor, Morales and his colleagues also type questions on personal computers and e-mail them to the institute. During pauses in the broadcasts, the professor reviews the questions and then answers them live.

Following the broadcasts, teachers take two weeks to complete demanding group study projects assigned by professors in Monterrey. The results of their work are posted on a website to be read and critiqued by professors and teachers in other countries--all via e-mail.

"This has been a revolution for us," says Morales. "In the past, the only option we had for continuing our professional education was enrolling in a pedagogical institute, which required more time and money than most of us could spare. Besides, the courses at the institutes are all very theoretical. Now we're taking these classes right where we work, and the focus is on practical solutions to real teaching problems. It's so immediate--as soon as we learn a new technique, we turn around and try it out in the classroom."

The idea for the program, known as Continuing Education for Teachers (or AME, its initials in Spanish), was born in July 1997 at an IDB-sponsored conference in Cartagena, Colombia, entitled "Education in the Information Age." Much of the seminar was devoted to assessing what kinds of technologies are most promising for the region's schools. According to Claudio de Moura Castro, the senior IDB education advisor who helped organize the event, one conclusion was that several Latin countries--Mexico and Brazil in particular--have developed outstanding track records in television-based distance education, (See "Wired Schools" in the June 1998 edition of IDBAmérica.) "We concluded that distance learning in the region is world-class, mature and very inexpensive on a large scale, and that new projects should capitalize on that legacy," recalls Castro.

Also at the seminar were representatives from private companies including the Cisneros Group, Venezuela's leading media conglomerate; Galaxy Latin America, a satellite television concern; and Microsoft Corp. Enthused by the potential applications of television, computers and the Internet in the classroom, senior executives at the Cisneros Group solicited support from a number of public and private entities to develop a pilot project. Galaxy Latin America, which transmits educational and entertainment programming to most of the region via digital broadcasts that are picked up on small, roof-top satellite dishes, agreed to provide free transmission time and reception equipment for schools. Microsoft offered word-processing and Internet software. And the Monterrey Institute agreed to lend its well-known education faculty and extensive experience in distance learning.

In each of the seven countries, AME organizers invited promising schools, both public and private, to take part in the pilot project and made arrangements to obtain computers, televisions and Internet connections for those who lacked them. "The entire project is based on donated resources," says Harris Edelman, a Cisneros Group official who helped coordinate AME.

For the pilot project, the Cisneros Group wanted subject matter that would cross international boundaries easily and show short-term payoffs. Teacher training, with an emphasis on practical solutions to everyday classroom challenges in a typical Latin American school, emerged as an ideal subject, according to Edelman.

Creative thinking. Until May 1999, the pilot project will put participating teachers through a demanding series of courses on everything from classroom quality models to critical and creative thinking. Then a team of education specialists from UNESCO will use financing from the IDB's Informatics 2000 Initiative to conduct a thorough evalutation of the project and provide recommendations to school officials and policymakers for future applications of these technologies.

"Distance teacher training is one of the most important ways we can use information technology to improve the quality, equitable distribution and cost of educational services," says Warren Buhler, coordinator of the Informatics 2000 Initiative and organizer of the Cartagena conference.

Morales, however, is not waiting for an outside evaluator to draw his conclusions. "This has had a tremendous motivating effect on both students and teachers," he says. "As teachers, we've been given a chance to upgrade our skills and exchange ideas with colleagues in other countries. Students and parents are also pleased because they find themselves in a public school that is at the cutting edge of technology, at least as good as private schools. Our students come from poor homes, and this is a modest school. But this program lets us get world-class training."