Dissertation research: Toward A Successful Plan for Educational Technology in Low Income Communities: Formative Evaluation of One Laptop Per Child Projects in Nigeria and Ghana

这项博士论文研究改进资助是为了支持在尼日利亚阿布贾和加纳阿克拉两个非洲社区开展的美国“每个孩子一台笔记本电脑”（OLPC）项目研究。它将由一名在尼日利亚出生和长大的专业教育工作者承担。该研究将采用定性研究设计来检查两个OLPC项目的规划和实施阶段，以便将OLPC的目标与当地人口的感知教育需求和期望进行比较。研究数据将使用进步教育和后殖民理论以及交流参与式模型为基础的分析框架进行审查。在早期的试点研究中，研究人员采访了高管，并检查了总部位于麻省理工学院（MIT）的OLPC项目的文件，以确定公司的目标和程序。在阿布贾和阿克拉的实地工作将包括与两个社区的当地教育领导人、家长和学生进行访谈，并收集与两个各自教育系统有关的数据。研究表明，在低收入社区利用教育技术的项目如果没有当地领导人和受其影响的用户参与，通常无法实现其目标。自20世纪60年代和70年代联合国的“发展十年”以来，这种自上而下的方法在发展中国家的西方非政府组织或政府组织的活动中很常见。本项目比较考察了两个当代案例。这项研究是及时的，因为麻省理工学院的OLPC基金会继续扩大其在美国和其他国家贫困社区的工作范围。这项研究将形成对阿克拉和阿布贾的OLPC工作的形成性评价，进而提出如何使当地参与者更积极地参与阿克拉和阿布贾项目以及OLPC可能开展的其他工作的建议。研究结果将与OLPC总部的项目官员分享。

This doctoral dissertation research improvement grant is to support the study of US-based One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programs in two African communities: Abuja, Nigeria, and Accra, Ghana. It is to be undertaken by a professional educator born and raised in Nigeria. The study will use a qualitative research design to examine the planning and implementation phases of the two OLPC projects so as to compare the OLPC goals to the perceived educational needs and expectations of the local populations. Study data will be examined using an analytical framework informed by progressive educational and postcolonial theories, as well as participatory models of communication. The researcher builds on an earlier pilot study, in which the research interviewed executives and examined documents from the OLPC project, headquartered at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to establish the company's goals and procedures. Fieldwork in Abuja and Accra will involve conducting interviews with local educational leaders, parents, and students in both communities, and gathering data related to the two respective educational systems.Research shows that projects utilizing educational technologies in low-income communities typically fail to accomplish their objectives when they do not involve local leaders and users affected by them. Such top-down approaches have typically been seen in the activities of Western-based non-governmental or governmental organizations in developing nations since the UN's "development decades" of the 1960s and 1970s. This project comparatively examines two contemporary cases. The research is timely in that the MIT-based OLPC Foundation continues to expand its scope of work within poor communities within the US, as well as other nations. The research will result in a formative evaluation of the OLPC efforts in Accra and Abuja, and that will in turn lead to recommendations for ways to bring local participants more actively into the Accra and Abuja projects and in other efforts the OLPC might pursue. Research findings will be shared with program officials at the OLPC headquarters.