Use of ICT: A hope for a new generation of kids in the coffee region in Colombia

Author : Pablo Jaramillo
Date added : 1999-12-01

Brief Project Background

A partnership between the regional government of the State of Caldas, 15 Municipalities of this State, The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia (Private Company) and the communities of 28 Rural Schools has been established in order to improve the quality of the education of their kids and help, in the near future, these comunnities of poor coffee growers to be more competitive in their agricultural business.
This general objective will be reached by developing different projects, including this one, whose main strategy is the introduction and use of ICT in rural schools.

Results

Justification

There is ample evidence in the international literature that proves the positive relationship between education of farmers (number of grades and quality of education) and their performance, particularly in productivity and total output.
Although this partnership, mentioned above, has existed for more than 15 years with other projects in rural education, it was not until the begining of 1998 that the decision to introduce ICT in rural schools was made.
However, it took a while to design the project, because of the poor results obtained by other projects (in and outside the country), which attempted to introduce computers and internet in schools. With some exceptions, it could be observed that a high effort and an important investment in ICT did not automatically obtained good results. Moreover, in most cases the great initial expectations turned into deception, frustration and poor motivation.
After all these experiences, the decision was to launch an ICT project with a strong pedagogical methodology as a support.

The project

The introduction and use of ICT in 200 rural schools of the coffee region of Colombia.

Location

This project is carried out in the rural area of the,department of Caldas, Colombia. The main agricultural product of this region is coffee, which is grown mainly by poor traditional farmers.

Specific Objectives

- To have teachers and students of public rural schools to use the computers and educational software as tools to implement their teaching and learning process.
- To use internet as a means of training teachers, developing collaborative projects among the schools, exchanging information and experiences among the educative community and accessing to the world wide web.
- To promote the ludic, creative and autonomous learning of the students at schools.

Phases of the project

Phase I: Motivation and Awareness
The aim of this phase is to make teachers aware of the use of the computer in their educational process and, at the same time, to let students understand the advantages of these technologies and become familiar with them.
The project provides a basic training in the use of computers, educational software and internet, based on the principles of the New School (an active pedagogical methodology used in Colombia), so that both students and teachers perform more effectively.
It is important that teachers realize that the computer is only one more tool to work with in the classroom.

Phase II: Collaborative Projects
This phase allows the teachers to learn about the strategies to design and make collaborative projects. Its main purpose is that students and teachers carry out class projects in collaboration with fellows from other regions using the Internet and chat software, integrating regional, national and international schools or institutions. The purpose is to exchange ideas, interests, achievements, culture, project doubts and mutual solution of problems. As a result, the activity at school goes beyond the classroom boundaries.

Phase III: Search and Selection of useful information in the WEB or in Consulting Rooms
This phase refers to the collection of remote information by using Internet. There are two ways to do it: having access to databases, webpages and lots of information stored in distant servers via Internet; and having telematic access to different consulting rooms which are run by a group of specialists in many different areas such as pedagogy, academic subjects, computer science and other specialized topics.

Phase IV: Virtual training
This phase includes a variety of actions to train and qualify teachers via Internet. The training is related to academic and pedagogical aspects, according to their needs and interests. It is important to stress that teachers do not need to leave the school at any moment during the training.

Why is this an innovative Project?

There are several aspects that make this project innovative:
- It is a partnership between Public and Private sectors and the Rural Communities.
- The Private Sector is involved not only financing the project, but also leading and coordinating it.
- Technicians and Engineers are only advisors. The real managers of the project are common rural teachers
- There is not any Computer Science teacher within the school. All teachers (Language, Maths, Physics, Natural Science, etc) and the director are involved in the project. This is a neccessary condition for a school to be accepted in the project. All teachers are trained and followed-up.
- Every school develops each phase of the project at its own pace, respecting the principles of our pedagogical methodology (New School).
- The project is simple, easy and practical to implement. Satisfactory results are almost guaranteed for those schools committed with the project.

Challenges and Difficulties:

Although the results are really satisfactory, this does not mean that difficulties and hard times have been absent. Some of them have been overcome and others simply have to be dealt with.
Some of them are:

- Internet is a new cost that has to be paid by poor communities. In Colombia, internet is not subsidized by the government. Therefore, somebody has to pay for it. We believe that although it is hard for them to be in charge of the telephone bill, it is also advisable that they realize they are part of the project and that usually free goods or services are not appreciated and tend to be underestimated and misused.
- Since the number of computers per school is relatively low at the begining, the rapid interest of students and teachers create a "difficult access" to computers. This challenge has pushed the director, teachers and the comunity in general, to knock different doors, have funding-festivals, talk to politicians and other entrepreneurs in order to raise some money and get new computers.
- The cost of a new school involved in the project is high. Therefore, there are more requests of schools to be accepted in the project, than money available to do it. Therefore, some of the schools, which are ready to be involved, have to wait until new resources are allocated.
- Usually the latest technology takes longer to reach rural areas. Developments like optic fiber are not accesible in countryside schools. Therefore, the ICT used in the project is not the very best; Internet gets slow, comunications fail more often than in urban areas, etc. However, compared to what they had in the past, the change is enormous.

Results

Up to November 1999, the project has enrolled 28 rural schools, 274 teachers and 5,206 students that benefit along with the community. The majority of the teachers have strongly linked the resources of virtual education with the different activities they perform within the pedagogical process of the New School Methodology.
Most students are using effectively the Internet by themselves. They are learning new things about the world and at the same time they are sharing their projects with students from other schools. In addition, the community is now more integrated with the school.
Eighteen out of the 28 institutions are in phase I of the project and the other 10 are in phase II. The institutions that are in the second phase are already developing collaborative projects related to ecology and human values, not only in their institutions but also at regional, national and international levels.

Stimulating Findings

After having followed the development for 21 months, we conclude the following:
- This ICT project increased significantly the self esteem of teachers, students and community in general. These rural communities feel proud that they have "something" that even many private urban schools do not have.
- Teachers and students stay voluntarily for a longer time at schools.
- Time at school became more ludic, interesting and creative.
- Sudden interest of teachers and students in learning English, meeting new virtual friends and colleagues and knowing others' cultures, interests and environments

Surprising and unexpected Findings

- The more isolated, poor and distant are the schools, the better the results.
- The feeling of isolation disappeared. To them, "being connected" means being part of a virtual group.
- Poor prepared teachers do not show any disadvantage against prepared teachers. This variable does not appear to be a key factor.

Key Factors of Success:

- Technology, software, and hardware are very important, but not enough to make a significant change in the classroom by themselves. There must be a pedagogical support for these new tools, to really contribute to help teachers and students in the learning process. It can not be a fashion project full of technology with a poor pedagogical support as a platform.
- Provision of adequate software that supports the curriculum is a must.
- ICT must be accesible for ordinary rural teachers and students. If we want the project to be sustainable, it can not depend on a complex administration, full of technicians, engineers and experts. It has to be simple, easy, practical and relatively cheap: both administratively and operationally.
- A close accompaniment, permanet counseling and follow-up are absolutely necessary. The initial enthusiasm of teachers and students rapidly disappears if there is a lack of permanent support, especially at Phase I.
- No Computer Science teachers are needed at schools.
- And the last, but not the least, commitment, commitment and commitment of all the actors.

Lessons

Pablo Jaramillo
Director of Social Development Unit
National Federation of Coffee Growers
Caldas Coffee Growers Association
Tel:(57)(68)840677
Fax:(57)(68)843854
Address: Carrera 22 # 18-21
Manizales-Colombia
Email:pjarv@cafedecolombia.com

Project Information

Total budget in US$ : -

Contact Information

Pablo Jaramillo

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