CAPÍTULO I: MARCO TEÓRICO
CAPÍTULO 3: RESULTADOS, ANALISIS Y DISCUSION DE DATOS
3.3. Desempeño profesional en el ámbito de la gestión de aprendizaje
3.3.2. Ejecución del proceso de enseñanza – aprendizaje
3.3.2.3. Tabla 18: Nivel de conocimiento que tiene el docente en el ámbito de la gestión del
used to send text messages from a PC to a cellular phone and can be used to send many people the same text message at once. Since there is a high incidence of TB in South Africa, measures have to be taken to help people who have contracted the disease to overcome it. For a patient to combat TB, slhe needs to follow a strict drug regime. Failure to follow the drug taking schedule aggravates the TB condition and makes the TB virus increasingly drug resistant. A company, The Compliance Service working with the city of Cape Town, sends SMSs to patients to alert them to take their medication. The initiative impact has not yet been evaluated.
It appears that more ICT development work has been undertaken in South African urban areas.
Moreover, it seems that provision of community access in the form oftelecentres around has largely not been successful. The question to answer now is what are the factors that make a successful ICT development initiative and how can we ensure that we as computer scientists develop relevant software applications for underserviced areas. The following section describes the factors that help make an ICT project successful and Section 2.5 suggests how to address some of these factors to ensure a successful project.
2.4 Factors Affecting The Success of an leT Development Project
From an examination of case studies and reports of ICT development initiatives around the globe [9,49,73]' the following themes emerge:
1. Local content is the key - Applications for underserviced areas need local content if they are to successfully address user needs; be seen as beneficial by the communities in which they reside and to be utilized successfully [8,42,94]. The tagline here is that ICTs will not attract potential users unless they find them useful [32,40]. Ernberg argues that the demand for ICTs will increase as an iterative process [41]. As various user groups learn to use tools and discover what they can do with them, they will realise how the tools can benefit them. Thus he stresses that it is important to create content that meets the needs of various user groups and to adapt existing information to the conditions of people in rural and remote areas.
2. Training is a necessity - ICTS are tools not ends. If one is introducing new technologies into an area, sufficient training should be provided so that people are able to use these technologies successfully and for their benefit [42,94]. In 2003, we visited a telecentre in Tombo in the Eastern Cape set up by the USA of SA. The centre, shown in Figure 3, had been built in 1999
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CHAPTER 2. OVERCOMIlW THl!; VlCITAL DiVIDE IX SOUTH AFRICA 28
but, at the lime of OUI visit, none of the surrounding community had ever u8eci the centre.;
computers_
Figure~, Tombo Telecentre in 2(X}~ - The complllers at ~hi5 centre had ye~ to be u8ed by the surrounding comm1mity even though the centre "'lIS built in HI99. Factors hampering usage of the computers included the fact that nO training was provided to the show people how to use the computer" and that nO Mtempt was made to provide relevant content.
Reasollil for this included the fact that no tr8.ining had been provided and that the local people did not S€€ the beudh of u&ing the technology. A local Ol"gani>;ation was due to start teaching basic computer literacy in the centre SOOIl after Our vioit in order to overrome the"" probleIIlli.
This CtlOO il!USlrates the point. that local content. creation and r.raining are prerequisites for the sucooss of any community oriented dewlopment initiative in South Africa.
3. Participation helps fast,,· trust, ouag' and rna/;" ,t ,asjer to create conl'xI relevant applica-nom. - Introducing technologie. tbat are n<'CCSIlary 10 addreSl< a comnllmity problem is most often accep1.ed when pankipatory approaches are lL<.ed. Al"", participatory approaches usu-ally ensure that the applica.tions developed are locusu-ally relevant because it enhances &nsitivity of the projects to the K>Cial environment [9.42,94]_
4. Bottom-1<p "pprooclu:$ are far more likely '.0 succeed lh"" lop-dow" approache, - Bottom-up approaches are f(\]" mOre succes.sful than top down approaches as they are grounded in the realitie. of the oornmullity situation. This is espocially the case in South Africa. where past
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CHAPTER 2. OVERCOMING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN SOUTH AFRICA 29
failures in telecentres have proved that a top-down approach to development does not work
[91].
Additionally, Bridges.org reviewed a number of development initiatives from around the globe and found most failed projects used a top down approach which is not grounded in the needs, intere~ts and participation of the local residents.[19].
5. The local and macro economic and legislative environment should support lCT development initiative [8] - According to Bridges.org
[19],
there also needs to be political will in the government to do what is needed to integrate the technology into society.6. Successful projects often make use of a local champion - This champion is an individual in the local community that coordinates other community members and spearheads part of the project
[19].
7. Evaluation and monitoring should be built into each project as a means of assessing impact [9]
- If no measures are put in place to evaluate the impact of a project, it is hard to determine whether the project has been a success or not. This makes it difficult to alter the initiative to better suit the local conditions and to learn from project successes or failures.
8. Keep it simple - often the simpler technological solutions are the most effective - An anecdotal case is mentioned by the Global Knowledge Partnership
[80],
which illustrates this point.Here, a sophisticated and complicated telemedicine system introduced into a hospital had limited success whereas a basic communication system was used to its full potential. It is important therefore to provide systems that enable local facilities to communicate in a simple and efficient manner [9}.
In this dissertation, we attempted to create a socially aware methodology that would have these factors intrinsically built into it. This is discussed in Chapter 3. The following section outlines how the factors above can be dealt to increase the likelihood of success in an ICT development initiative in South Africa.
2.5 The Way Forward
There is a definite opportunity for South African computer scientists to contribute to the alleviation of the digital divide within our own country. To meet the challenges discussed earlier of using ICTs in locally relevant ways and in ways which integrate the factors discussed in Section 2.4, we discuss three strategies. The first is to utilise a more socially aware software development process that will