Utilizing open-source technology platforms to interrupt traditional norms of development

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

We are living in the future. Technology constantly changes the way we live, work, play, and relate to others. Professionals in higher-resource contexts are learning new ways to collaborate and share information on a daily basis, while those in resource-constrained contexts face increasingly complex methods of interaction with limited information about those changes. We are seeing a true Matthew Effect, where the (technologically) rich keep getting richer and the (technologically) poor remain poor (Reich, 2020). Development work, by its very nature, tends to cause power imbalances between stakeholders in resource-constrained contexts and technical experts from high-resource contexts. Particularly with technology in mind, this completely contradicts the purpose of development – to enable people to become freer in their everyday lives (e.g., Poveda & Roberts, 2017). Externally funded education activities nearly always require some form of materials development – reports, teacher guides, student books, training manuals, etc. – wherein external technical expertise is imported to build the capacity of local actors using local resources and integrating only the most basic and necessary skills training. Projects tend to follow a 5-year cycle, with additional waves of experts arriving to repeat a pattern that results in limited local capacity growth around technology and digital management skills – a continuation of the Matthew Effect.
In this panel, we discuss opportunities where our technical experts integrated open-source and globally utilized technology in order to effect genuine skills development processes and engage stakeholders in using the technology and collaborative power that are operational across resource rich contexts. Each of these activities resulted in a rethinking of traditional processes to integrate technology that allowed more local control of product quality, better collaboration and communication between local teams and project directors, and the empowerment of local actors to better understand ways technology can change and improve work processes. We include an official from the Malawi Ministry of Education to discuss the importance of building a strong network and collaborative processes between partners. Successes, challenges, and lessons learned through these interventions will spark dialogue around the ways in which technology can be used to level power dynamics, even in low-tech contexts.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Adrienne Barnes-Story, Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University

Individual Presentations

• Leveraging open-source technology in materials development: A theoretical application of Sen’s capability approach and Freire’s critical agency - Adrienne Barnes-Story, Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University; Rachel Keune Mincey, Florida State University; Joseph Mwenya Mwansa, University of Zambia; David Sani Mwanza, The University of Zambia

• Low-cost technology solutions for high-impact curriculum development - Jennie Robinette, Florida State University, Learning Systems Institute; Adrienne Barnes-Story, Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University

• Interrupting the cycles of extraction: Using open-source software and provisions of technology with local teams - Melanie Phillips, School to School International; Laura Oleson, School to School International; Emily Crane, School-To-School International; Shannon Reiffen, School to School International

Discussant

• Adrienne Barnes-Story, Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University