Why is the Teacher Development with Mobile Technologies project needed?

A number of pilot projects have attempted to use mobile technologies to enhance the role of teachers in developing countries.

However many of these pilot projects have not moved beyond the pilot phase of attempting to engage in system-wide use of mobile technologies to enhance teacher development. They served mainly to test ideas on a small scale.

This project proposes to consider ways in which mobile technologies can be integrated with national teacher training systems in ways that can improve the quality of their teaching practice.

What is the goal of the project?

The ultimate goal of this project is to support the target countries in reaching Education For All Goal 6 (Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all) through improving teacher quality in the long term. It seeks to do so through the integration of mobile technologies in national teacher professional development systems in ways that support teacher pedagogical practice and enhance of teacher quality.

The specific goal of the project is to demonstrate effective and scalable ways of using mobile technologies in developing the capabilities and supporting the teaching practices of primary school teachers with delivering curricula in the areas of mathematics, science and languages all enabled by mobile technologies.

What are the objectives of the project?

The objectives of the project are:

• To design and pilot test the mobile phone supporting functions to enhance teacher development
• To develop short training courses, supporting resources, and interactive functions that are appropriate for the commonly used mobile phone in the local context.
• To explore the institutionalization mechanism to provide sustainable content development
• To develop a local mobile phone–based resources center or portal to provide subscription, downloading, and consultation service
• To explore peer coaching or mentorship programmes between selected pre-service teachers and the targeted in-service teachers.

Who is the project for?

The target audience for this project includes:

• Ministries of Education in the target countries particularly the divisions responsible for teacher education
• Teacher development institutions and their lecturers
• Developers and programmers
• Teacher development and content specialists

The intended beneficiaries of this project are under-served in-service teacher development institutions, their lecturers, institutions and their ministries of education, and the teachers themselves.