HYPERTABLET: Despite earnest efforts like One Laptop Per Child or Aakash tablets, why is it that "ed-tech solutions touted by the mainstream press as innovative in developing countries seem entirely impractical in [these] settings?"
That's the hot-button question presented in a recent report, "Education Technology in India: Designing Ed-Tech for Affordable Private Schools [APS]." Based on interviews with 18 APS and surveys with 450 students in Hyderabad, along with quantitative data provided by Gray Matters Capital, Kim Campbell and the team at Ed-Tech India explore commonly used products in schools, how leaders decide what to buy, and share detailed breakdowns in what and how tech tools are actually being used by students. An entire section is devoted to tablet ecosystem and why implementation models have failed to live up to expectations so far.
We particularly like the report's comments on why this "hype-to-failure" cycle persists: "A poor understanding of an educational community lends itself to weak technology integration and ed-tech ineffectiveness in schools." Ditto!
