What do we know about the effective uses of information and communication technologies in education in developing countries?

Recent work at infoDev created a series of “Knowledge Maps” of what is known – and what isn’t – about ICT use in education. These knowledge maps reveal that, despite a decade of large investment in ICTs to benefit education in OECD countries, and increasing use of ICTs in education in developing countries, important gaps remain in the current knowledge base. In addition, there appears to be a dearth of useful resources attempting to translate what is known to work – and not work – in this field for policymakers and donor staff working on education issues in developing countries, especially those issues related to Education For All and other education-related Millennium Development Goals.

The knowledge mapping exercise investigated ten topics:

• impact of ICTs on learning and achievement;
• monitoring and evaluation;
• equity issues;
• costs;
• current projects and practices;
• specific ICT tools;
• teachers, teaching and ICTs;
• content & curriculum;
• school-level issues; and
• policy issues

grouped into four major themes: Impact, Costs, Current Implementations and Planning.

The end goal of this knowledge mapping exercise was to aid in the formulation of a number of key research questions that point to existing important gaps in the knowledge base.