When I first looked at the topic for this week’s Inquiry Blog I was a little taken back and thought to myself, ‘Ok, this is a lot different from what we’ve been talking about.’ I was working ahead in all of my Blog’s, but this one got me stuck. I started looking through scholarly journal articles on our UBC library site and found 7 articles that related to the topic, but I still was not ‘inspired’ to write anything yet. Throughout this course I have had moments (mainly in the evening) where it clicks and I run to the computer and write my blog post. I have a moment where it comes together, or I am inspired by something that has come up in conversation or it just seems to make sense in my mind. It took me awhile for this one!
Once Darcy had posted the mid-week video with a link to the work being done with CODE I thought, ok this has to give me a starting point, and it did exactly that. I watched the following video and thought that this was so relevant to how the world around us is evolving in so many different ways.
Cellphone-made short films empower teachers in Mozambique
I think what these youth are doing is a great use of mobile devices. Not only are these students spreading awareness about gender equality and social justice, but they are also learning to use mobile devices to their capacity. These students are sharing their voice and using them in a way to empower others. As discussed a lot earlier in this course it is important for students to be literate, and this is exactly what mobile devices are doing for these developing countries.
These students are then able to share these issues to their community and maybe even spread their message around the world. A lot of what I have read in this course comes back to connecting with others, and allowing students access to mobile devices to create media is one of the most powerful ways to connect with the world around them. No matter what the state of their school library, as long as they have these mobile devices these students are still able to provoke inquiry and find the answers to all of their questions and wonders. The greatest power is that they are now able to share their stories to such a large scope.
My first instincts when I saw the topic of this blog post took me straight to access, which is always a topic that comes up when talking about technology anywhere. Access to information at your fingertips is exactly where my mind went to when thinking about libraries and mobile devices. What is stopping a lot of students is not the access to the technology itself, but access to wifi or unlimited data use. Being a BC Teacher I now how access to 20GB of data every month! I have no idea when I would ever need that much data. It is the 30th of the month and I have only used 7.72GB’s. I might add that 5.5GB’s of that was used to hotspot my phone to start work on my two UBC summer sessions. I often do not think about how fortunate I am that I have Wifi in my home, or when we had the exterminators in my house the other day I could go to a coffee shop and tap in to their Wifi.
Now it really wasn’t that long ago that I was only subscribed to 2GB of data, and I thought that was excessive! As technology evolves the need for this type of access grows. Companies have made smartphones which are inexpensive and accessible to developing countries, however, what is missing is the infrastructure that students need to be able to use mobile devices for educational purposes. The following video shows just how much students are wanting to answer and research their inquiries, yet they just need the access to get them.
Making data free for developing countries | Jimmy Wales
As many educators know this is not just a developing countries problem, this is a problem that classroom teachers are facing on a daily basis. We all know where to get the ‘Good Wifi’ in our locations which seems a little ridiculous sometimes. We encourage educators to get onto technology, but it NEEDS to be reliable. I will never forget showing a Principal and VP how to set up their staff Microsoft Team and accompanying Microsoft Notebook and it kept crashing and spinning forever. Luckily I had a personal connection with this principal and we laughed about it and I came back on a different day, however, this is not the case with everyone. I found that whenever I was trying to show educators new technology they almost wanted it to fail. If one thing went wrong they would go, ‘See! This is why i don’t even bother trying!’
So in order to get everyone on board, the technology and infrastructure to support it needs to be both accessible and reliable to all, whether it be in developed or developing countries.
Access to the Internet is definitely something to consider for students in developing and developed countries. You make a great point that students already want answers to their inquiry questions but as educators, it is important for us to ensure that they have access to WiFi to get them. This was definitely an issue in my class this past year. Our classroom is located outside the school in a portable and we learned the hard way that we did not have good connection. This technical difficult interrupted a few lessons and I hope this will change in the next year.
Hi Taryn,
I also worked in a portable for a few years and there was minimal connectivity. Then I had a classroom which was built as a photo studio, so a special ethernet line had to be put in. Today, I laugh as if I stand in the middle of my class my cell phone will work, but if I physically move over the ‘magical and imaginary line’, it will end the call! It makes me realize how many remote school locations and homes must have these challenges on a daily basis. We have progressed so far, but I feel many of these challenges are hidden to avoid personal embarrassment.
I agree about getting access. We have all these big ideas about how technology can help developing countries’ library programs but we are not yet able to do that in our own classrooms due to a failure to connect. Technology can be very fickle and I have found that we can depend on it almost too much these days that we can be at a loss when it fails us. We thankfully are making it better all the time, but there is always something new that can fail us. I guess a continued question is, how can we make the failures not a deterring factor?
This is an excellent post. It is well-written and thought-provoking. You made excellent connections between this topic and our course themes. Thank you for highlighting the important work of students in Mozambique. I also appreciated your discussion about access. This was something that became an issue for many families within our own communities during remote learning.