"You, the chil­dren, yours is the great re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ed­u­cate your par­ents, teach them to live to­geth­er in har­mo­ny...To your ten­der and lov­ing hands, the fu­ture of the Na­tion is en­trust­ed...On your scholas­tic de­vel­op­ment, the sal­va­tion of the Na­tion is de­pen­dent...you car­ry the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go in your school bags."

Dr. Er­ic Williams, Au­gust 30, 1962 In­de­pen­dence Youth Ral­ly

Tech­nol­o­gy ad­vances have made it eas­i­er and more af­ford­able to bring dig­i­tal con­tent in to the class­room. Mo­bile tech­nol­o­gy, dig­i­tal me­dia, and so­cial net­works are rad­i­cal­ly chang­ing the way stu­dents learn, teach­ers teach and how ed­u­ca­tion is de­liv­ered here at home and around the world.

In spite of the crit­i­cisms and re­sis­tance tech­nol­o­gy-based ef­forts get from with­in and out­side the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, the signs point to an un­de­ni­able and ir­re­sistible trend: tech­nol­o­gy is, yet again, trans­form­ing how ed­u­ca­tion is de­liv­ered and how it is re­ceived.

In­creas­ing­ly, the mea­sure of our suc­cess­ful march in­to the fu­ture is what dig­i­tal con­tent is be­ing car­ried in the elec­tron­ic de­vices in our chil­dren's school­bags, pock­ets, and class­rooms.

Dig­i­tal learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments

The Unit­ed States Ed­u­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Arne Dun­can was re­cent­ly quot­ed as say­ing, "Over the next few years, text­books should be ob­so­lete."

The mo­ti­va­tion be­hind the state­ment is no dif­fer­ent for the US than it should be for the Caribbean. Our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem has to not on­ly keep up with the tech­nol­o­gy times; it must keep up ad­vances in oth­er coun­tries that are mov­ing faster to adopt to­tal­ly dig­i­tal learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments.

Dig­i­tal text­books and the wider glob­al trend to­ward open-sourc­ing ed­u­ca­tion al­so cre­ate new ed­u­ca­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties. Dig­i­tal texts can free stu­dents from the bur­den of over­priced text­books. Ac­cess to free on­line ed­u­ca­tion con­tent al­so pro­vides any­one who has a de­sire to learn with ac­cess to the ed­u­ca­tion­al re­sources to do so at their leisure.

From free on­line cours­es and lessons via YouTube, Khan Acad­e­my and CXC's Notes­Mas­ter plat­form, to gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives to put com­put­ers in­to schools and in­to the hands of stu­dents, tech­nol­o­gy is pro­vid­ing ex­cit­ing new op­tions for the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor.

Dig­i­tal learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments take ad­van­tage of mod­ern in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy to en­hance the learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment and, in some cas­es, com­plete­ly re­de­fine it. Dig­i­tal learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments al­low ed­u­ca­tors far greater flex­i­bil­i­ty in adapt­ing ed­u­ca­tion con­tent de­liv­ery to stu­dent learn­ing. It can al­so fa­cil­i­tate more dy­nam­ic track­ing of stu­dent per­for­mance and ed­u­ca­tor ef­fec­tive­ness.

Dig­i­tal con­tent, in­clud­ing dig­i­tal text­books and mul­ti­me­dia aids, of­fer a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence that is more in­ter­ac­tive, en­gag­ing and cus­tomis­able for stu­dents as well ed­u­ca­tors. Dig­i­tal con­tent al­so al­lows stu­dents to get up­dat­ed ma­te­ri­als quick­ly, bring­ing sav­ings to house­holds, schools and gov­ern­ments in the process.

Op­por­tu­ni­ty to lead

Tech­nol­o­gy in ed­u­ca­tion, how­ev­er, is not just about lap­tops, dig­i­tal text books and In­ter­net ac­cess. It is about mak­ing the cur­ricu­lum a tru­ly dig­i­tal cur­ricu­lum. Stu­dents need to be equipped with 21st cen­tu­ry work skills, to move be­yond be­ing mere users of the In­ter­net, to be­come func­tion­al, cre­ative and col­lab­o­ra­tive con­trib­u­tors in the knowl­edge econ­o­my.

The Caribbean has re­al op­por­tu­ni­ty to play a lead­ing role in this re­gard. As na­tions around the world try to fig­ure out the best way for­ward in terms of dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture and dig­i­tal ed­u­ca­tion, those coun­tries with small­er pop­u­la­tion sizes have the great­est chance of ef­fect­ing sys­tem-wide trans­for­ma­tion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, coun­tries with chal­leng­ing fi­nan­cial and hu­man re­source con­straints should al­so have the great­est in­cen­tive to in­no­vate. With the right lead­er­ship, and enough will, a world-class dig­i­tal ed­u­ca­tion agen­da can be de­vel­oped and im­ple­ment­ed right here at home.

Lo­cal ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions should not wait or re­ly on for­eign users of ed­u­ca­tion­al tech­nolo­gies to pro­vide ev­i­dence about its ef­fec­tive­ness.

Their en­vi­ron­ments and needs do not al­ways re­flect lo­cal con­di­tions or pri­or­i­ties. In­stead, lo­cal schools could be en­cour­aged to join to fa­cil­i­tate test­ing of in­no­va­tions and promis­ing tech­nolo­gies and to share the re­sult­ing as­sess­ments.

As dig­i­tal con­tent and new tech­nolo­gies start en­ter­ing class­rooms, ed­u­ca­tion min­istries and schools can evolve poli­cies that cater for the use of new de­vices, ac­cept new meth­ods of con­tent de­liv­ery and pro­vide ad­e­quate pro­fes­sion­al train­ing for teach­ers. Schools can high­light which par­tic­u­lar tech­nolo­gies and ap­proach­es proven to be ef­fec­tive in meet­ing com­mon ed­u­ca­tion­al ob­jec­tives. In this way, in­sti­tu­tions that are a part of a new, vir­tu­al as­sess­ment com­mu­ni­ty can pro­vide an im­por­tant in­ter­face for defin­ing na­tion­al and re­gion­al ed­u­ca­tion pol­i­cy and im­ple­men­ta­tion best prac­tices.

How­ev­er, with many of these chal­lenges, it is up to the schools, prin­ci­pals, teach­ers and par­ents, not al­ways the Gov­ern­ment, to de­vise ap­pro­pri­ate so­lu­tions.

North­Gate Col­lege, a pri­vate sec­ondary school in St Au­gus­tine, Trinidad, is al­ready mov­ing in this di­rec­tion. It re­cent­ly an­nounced an ini­tia­tive which links tech­nol­o­gy in­fra­struc­ture up­grades with staff train­ing and cur­ricu­lum adap­tions.

The pro­gramme, called Jump­start, is sup­port­ed by Bright­Path Foun­da­tion and in­tro­duces stu­dents and teach­ers to new more in­ter­ac­tive ways of in­ter­fac­ing with the syl­labus and prepar­ing for the re­al world. The dis­cov­er­ies and lessons will be shared with oth­er schools and fed back to CXC.

Count­ing the costs

Tran­si­tion­ing to dig­i­tal learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments is not with­out its chal­lenges. Tech­nol­o­gy and the sup­port it re­quires, come at a price. Ed­u­ca­tors should le­git­i­mate­ly be con­cerned about the cost of in­fra­struc­ture, de­vices, soft­ware and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that every stu­dent has eq­ui­table ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy. These con­cerns are com­pound­ed by the rapid pace of tech­nol­o­gy evo­lu­tion and the risk of in­vest­ing in sys­tems that can quick­ly be­come ob­so­lete or ir­rel­e­vant. How­ev­er, in­ac­tion and in­cor­rect ac­tion al­so come at a price, one that may be too steep for so­ci­ety to bear.

To be suc­cess­ful, a school or na­tion­al lev­el ed­u­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy strat­e­gy must tie ac­cess-de­vices to dig­i­tal con­tent de­vel­op­ment and teacher train­ing; to pol­i­cy that in­cor­po­rates new meth­ods of course-de­liv­ery and as­sess­ment; and to tech­nol­o­gy in­no­va­tors and en­tre­pre­neurs.

Fill­ing the dig­i­tal school bag

There is a re­al op­por­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a sus­tain­able glob­al ex­port mar­ket for dig­i­tal­ly-based ed­u­ca­tion con­tent and tech­nolo­gies. Work­ing to­geth­er, ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers can pro­vide prospec­tive lo­cal tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor play­ers with key in­sights to tai­lor lo­cal­ly-de­vel­oped tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts and dig­i­tal con­tent for the ed­u­ca­tion mar­ket.

Tablets and lap­tops need dig­i­tal con­tent. Some­one has to cre­ate it or covert it where it al­ready ex­ists in dig­i­tal form. The com­pe­ten­cies need­ed to sup­ply the dig­i­tal con­tent needs of the lo­cal ed­u­ca­tion mar­ket are the same skills that al­low our dig­i­tal con­tent pro­duc­ers to pen­e­trate oth­er glob­al mar­kets.

Ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers, civ­il so­ci­ety groups and pri­vate sec­tor firms, should move with ur­gency to take ad­van­tage of these op­por­tu­ni­ties. This all helps to cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment that is hos­pitable to in­no­va­tions and in­no­va­tors.

The pay­off in the form of more rel­e­vant, more ef­fec­tive, and more wide­ly-utilised ed­u­ca­tion­al con­tent AND tech­nolo­gies can on­ly lead to bet­ter out­comes for stu­dents, teach­ers and the wider so­ci­ety.

The youth still car­ry the fu­ture of our coun­try in their school bags. To help them ush­er in that fu­ture, we all have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that the con­tent of those bags and their learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments are in­creas­ing­ly dig­i­tal and in­creas­ing­ly tai­lored to de­liv­er the knowl­edge, val­ues and skills rel­e­vant to their de­vel­op­ment.

To do so we must ac­cel­er­ate ef­forts to up­grade our ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor and give our stu­dents, and na­tion, the best chance of seiz­ing the world of pos­si­bil­i­ties ac­cess to qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion pro­vides.