Setting a path forward for the use of educational technologies in Papua New Guinea

The work benefited from the strengths of Portable's human-centred approach being used in the context of Papua New Guinea. Our focus on empathy, humility and collaboration was well-received by people throughout the organisation who were often unaccustomed to being treated as the experts in their own experiences. 

The resulting deliverables provided meaningful, student-centred approaches to the adoption of technology in education. The series of evidence-based recommendations we produced provided the IEA’s leadership team with a number of clear decisions to be made in order to chart the course ahead.

With the Coral Sea Cable completion occurring as the project concluded, we have provided the IEA with the timely guidance they need to successfully establish a long-term, strategic approach to transformed learning experiences with technology.

We began by partnering with Greenshoot Consulting to craft a baseline survey focused on gaining an understanding of attitudes towards and usage of technology throughout the IEA’s school ecosystem. Over 150 teachers, 500 students and 50 administrative/management staff responded to the first distribution of these surveys. The team at Greenshoot then analysed the survey data as part of our research and insights development.

Alongside this, we produced a literature review on current best practices for the application of educational technologies. These deliverables were excellent preparation for our in-country visits and informed the direction of our interviews and workshops.

Next, over two in-country visits, we conducted a series of in-context interviews, observational activities and workshops and classroom activities with teachers and students. We also had the pleasure of attending a conference held by one of the schools, where we were able to meet and talk with teachers from all over the country.

This was underpinned by our initial literature review findings, conversations and interviews with IEA staff, classroom and office observations, and activities with students. This vision document was conceived primarily as a tool for educators. Each example of a digitally enhanced contemporary learning environment focused primarily on the experience of students and their teachers. We included strategies for improving learning outcomes, details on how the learning experience is being enhanced or transformed with technology, and considerations for how students and teachers are thinking. The contents and concepts in this vision were tested and refined directly with IEA teachers, students and administrators during our second in-country visit.

The digital learning journeys document was created with IEA educators across PNG and tested and refined in IEA schools in Port Moresby and Alotau. It draws from pre-existing teacher digital literacy, fluency and pedagogy standards already used around the world. We took care to adapt the existing tools for teachers to the IEA’s particular use case. Key contextual adaptations included simplification of language for our ESL audience, and the accompanying series of self-assessments to help teachers and professional development personnel to map their progress and determine relevant next steps for growth.

This report provided detail on a number of aspects that we identified to be central to a successful transformation of the learning experiences of the IEA’s staff, students and communities with technology. The report provided comprehensive recommendations regarding the people, infrastructure, platforms, policies and strategies needed in IEA’s educational ecosystem, and outlined a roadmap for implementation of the various strategies.

In order to deliver current, best-practice recommendations in educational technologies, Portable sought a collaboration with key contributors from CompNow, an Australian-owned information technology service provider established in Melbourne.

The baseline study provided insights into the current levels of use of educational and administrative technologies in IEA schools, teachers’ attitudes towards technologies, and limitations to existing infrastructure. This study can be used by the IEA to track their progress towards their goals of the adoption and use of technologies throughout their ecosystem.

The literature review was written for a wide variety of audiences, that provides a rationale for the use of educational technologies and practical implications and possibilities for IEA in PNG. This review had the twofold benefits of: informing Portable’s ongoing research approaches and prototypes, and serving as communication about the project to the people it is likely to impact.

We took a narrative approach to describe eight unique technology-enhanced classroom scenarios. Alongside these, we crafted a ‘Teaching with Technology’ canvas and workshop guide to support teachers in iterating on and contextualising these examples and other examples they may come across when searching online for lesson inspiration. We tested the canvas and several of these scenarios with teachers and in classrooms and received excellent feedback that teachers found them very useful.

These teacher standards were accompanied by self-assessment and learning activities corresponding to the self-identified competency levels. These tools will benefit teachers in the IEA schools by guiding them for their technical skills-based professional development.

This report was written for the the IEA Board and Management Team, it outlined key risks and issues, and provided a range of key recommendations to fulfil the vision including indicative timelines, resources and a range of options. The potential benefits from this report are wide-ranging and will depend on how the leadership within the IEA decides to action the recommendations contained within it. Many opportunities for growth and increased leveraging of technologies in the school systems have been highlighted.