Ten trends in technology use in education in developing countries that you may not have heard about

Much of what we read and hear discussed about 'emerging trends' in technology use in education is meant largely for audiences in industrialized countries, or for more affluent urban areas in other parts of the world, and is largely based on observations on what is happening in those sorts of places. One benefit of working at a place like the World Bank, exploring issues related to the use of ICTs in education around the world, is that we get to meet with lots of interesting people proposing, and more importantly doing, interesting things in places that are sometimes not widely reported on in the international media (including some exciting 'innovations at the edges').

We are often asked questions like, "What trends are you are noticing that are a bit 'under the radar'?" In case it might be of interest to wider groups and/or provoke some interesting discussion and comment, we thought we'd quickly pull a list of these sorts of things together here.

Inclusion on the list below doesn't mean to imply that a given trend is 'good' ... just that it is apparent and interesting to us in some way. We don't mean to suggest that these trends are apparent everywhere; they are largely born of our personal experiences, and so are perhaps informed more by strings of compelling anecdotes and 'gut feelings' about what is relevant than on hard data that we can cite. We have deliberately omitted a number of trends that we have noted in prior posts that didn't necessarily have a specific developing country focus (including those mentioned in an entry on 10 Global Trends in ICT and Education that is now a few years old) or which are cited in widely read publications like the Horizon Report (whose K-12 edition for 2012 was released earlier this month). In some cases, the trends have been observed and noted in more 'advanced' countries for some time, but are only now gathering momentum (sometimes with a twist) in many less economically privileged parts of the world. In other cases, the trends may have emerged in developed country contexts, and are finding particular resonance in some less economically developed places.

With that explanation out of the way, here are, in no particular order ...

1. tablets tablets tablets
2. my learning network is a social network
3. lost and found in translation
4. the great firewall of ... everywhere
5. earlier and earlier
6. special needs
7. all this tech is going to my waste
8. open data, big (brother?) data
9. getting school leadership on board
10. _______________

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