Más Tecnologia, Más Cambio?: Investigating an Educational Technology Project in Rural Peru

Providing access to and training in ICTs is seen as key to bridging the digital divide between technology-rich communities and those with poor IT infrastructures. Several projects have focused on providing ICTs for education in developing countries, of which the best known is One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). Although, there has been significant criticism of some of these projects, in particular OLPC, due to its use of a top-down implementation strategy and the limited evidence for its educational benefits, there has been comparatively little analysis of what underlies successful approaches. We aimed to address this deficit by conducting an ethnographic study of community-based projects organised by Blue Sparrow, a small charity that donates refurbished desktop computers to schools in rural Peru, as this organisation has experienced both successes and failures when implementing its educational technology projects. The relative success of Blue Sparrow highlights the benefits of: understanding local contexts; using a bottom up approach; involving stakeholders in setting programme objectives; and empowering communities. We argue that the educational impact of such projects can be improved by: providing teacher training; integrating computers into the wider curriculum; and providing teaching materials and clear objectives for volunteers.