making the right to secondary education possible
technology-based rural schools in Argentina making the right to secondary education possible
technology-based rural schools Making the Right to Secondary Education Possible Technology-based Rural Schools in Argentina Editorial Management Cora Steinberg, Education Specialist at Unicef Argentina
Author Elena Duro
Collaborators Paula Camarda Emmanuel A. Lista
Design & Layout Valeria Goldsztein
© UNICEF Argentina, 2nd Edition, July 2016.
Total or partial reproduction of texts published herein is authorized as long as they are not altered, the corresponding credits are assigned, and they are not used for commercial purposes.
Using language that would not make any discriminatory differences between men and women is one of the main concerns of those who conceived this publication. Thus, the “he/she” option is included where appropriate.
UNICEF Argentina [email protected] www.unicef.org.ar Those who made possible the beginning of Technology-Based Rural Secondary Schools are:
Authorities of provincial Ministries of Education: the Minister of Education of the province of Chaco, Prof. Sergio Soto; the Minister of Education of the province of Jujuy, Florencia Gelmetti, B.A.; the Minister of Education of the province of Misiones, Luis Jacobo, Eng.; and the Minister of Education of the province of Salta, Roberto Dib Ashur, C.P.A.
Technical teams of the provincial Ministries of Education.
National and provincial mentors of the National Program Conectar Igualdad.
Acknowledgements We wish to express our appreciation for Mr. Martin Scasso’s, B.A., work and collaboration, as well as for providing data on rural education and developing the survey herein mentioned.
A special thanks to all the students and their families who gave us their voices. Index
Introduction...... 7
Chapter I. History and Background...... 11
I.1. ICT programs and policies: changes in Institutional Formats...... 11
I.2. Data on Rural Conditions and Secondary Education in Argentina...... 21
I.3. Educational Situation of Adolescents in Rural and Urban Areas. ICT Access in the Provinces undergoing this Experience: Chaco, Salta, Misiones and Jujuy...... 29
Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation...... 41
II.1. Objectives and Implementation...... 41
II.2. Format of the Technology-based Rural Secondary School...... 45
II.3. Participants and Roles in this Secondary School...... 49
II.4. Recognition of Schools by the Law...... 56
II.5. Location of the Technology-based Schools classrooms in Rural areas...... 61
II.6. An insight to the Technology-based Rural Schools...... 66
Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School...... 69
III.1. Scope of an ICT-based Educational Process...... 69
III.2. ICT Types and Notes on their Use...... 72
iii.2.1. Equipment...... 75 iii.2.2. Educational Virtual Platforms in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools...... 84
iii.2.3. Training and Educational Collaborative Meetings for Pedagogical and Communicational Use of ICTs...... 87
Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools...... 93
IV.1. Ensuring Integration between Primary and Secondary Levels...... 93
IV.2. Collaborative Work between Teachers and Tutors...... 98
IV.3. Protecting Academic Careers...... 105
IV.4. The Challenge of Achieving Powerful Learning for Everyone...... 109
Chapter V. Comments and Suggestions for Expanding and Ensuring Education in Remote Rural Locations through Technology- based Rural Secondary Schools...... 127
V. 1. Lessons Learned from the First Evaluation of Results...... 135
Bibliography...... 141
Spreading the news on Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools.....145
Introduction
Introduction Introduction
In these pages we present the systematization of an innovative experience with ICTs (Information and Communications Technologies) destined to creating access to secondary education in rural locations. This innovative format of secondary school has been promoted by UNICEF since the year 2012 and, to date, has been driven forward by the Ministries of Education of the provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Chaco and Misiones.
Seven years ago, in TIC y justicia educativa we wrote about the need of encouraging ICT use in public policies in terms of equality. There, we specifically expressed the need to strengthen the use of technologies to promote access to secondary education in remote rural areas and in indigenous communities living in rural locations. National Education Law No. 26,206 that positions education as a right and common good, set new challenges to the country. The compulsory nature of this educational level poses a great defiance for the State, families, teachers, youth, and public policies as a whole: having to guarantee it. And this is even more defying in remote rural territories and/or in hard-to-reach areas. A coexistence of social issues, derived mainly from the violation of other basic rights, can be frequently observed in said places. Communities with unmet basic needs, children and adolescents who take on precarious work responsibilities early in life, unequal insertion due to gender-based issues, and teenage pregnancy and parenthood. Moreover, difficulties for accessing safe water and other basic services can be, at some rural locations, part of the circumstances in which these communities live. Enabling access to secondary education there has a transcendent value for ending poverty and exclusion determinism into which the inhabitants of the most remote locations usually fall.
In Argentina, rural population represents around 10% of the total. By the age of 15, one fourth does not attend school, and by the age of 19, 57% does not attend school and has not finished secondary school.
Duro, E. (2008): “TIC y justicia educativa”, en: Las TIC del aula a la agenda política. [Translated by the author]. Presentation at the International Seminar “How ICTs Transform Schools”. Buenos Aires: UNICEF-IIPEUNESCO.. Quantitative data on rural secondary education belong to the study: Duro, E., Scasso. M. and collaborators: Secundario Rural en Argentina. Avances y desafíos [mimeo]. UNICEF. [Translated by the author].
Introduction community asaresult oftheseTechnology-basedschools. for account testimonies that. An their indirect effect can be seen and in new social dynamics that arise futures, in each possible project now towards people themselves Young inserted. are they where communities those to access to have and time education first secondary very the for who people young 600 than more the of lives the transformed only not Schools Secondary Rural ICT-mediate interinstitutional reflectionandtheirconstant evolution. are These innovation. this implementing of process the during and beginning the since making been needs, the have teachers and authorities the to that assessments the and possibilities, the according peculiarities own its gained has they place, where taking provinces are the of one each in formats, School Technology-based Secondary these Rural of one Each effective. practices learning make to these classes reach students through multiple on adailybasis,andareaccompaniedbytutorwhoguidesclasses.Inturn, community their in located classroom school secondary the attend Students mentioned, inrurallocations. Technology-based in education to 10 attend, classrooms provide can that headquarters adolescents are urban Each situated, community. rural headquarters. as remote where previouslyown their anurban classrooms satellite in derive headquarters placed specifically are teachers format: special very a has School Secondary Rural Technology-based This “Pampichuela” Community,whereoneoftheclassroomsRural Secondary SchoolNo.1,oftheprovinceJujuy,islocated. col, n em o ter olcie and collective their of terms in schools, living T, u as cagd h wy f iig in living of way the changed also but ICTs, ICT channels that teachers use o this From Systematization of this valuable experience is aimed at sharing the first steps of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools in terms of technology. There is an explicit outline, the objective of which is to emphasize ICTs and their role in these secondary schools, excluding references to the multiple dimensions that a school of these characteristics, in a remote rural location, entails. To perform this systematization, we resorted to several reports and records that were generated in each one of the schools of the four provinces ever since their implementation. Moreover, a survey was performed to 46 teachers and 34 tutors from the different schools, and in- depth interviews were conducted to teachers and tutors of the province of Chaco, all of which enabled us to look deeper into some issues.
During the months of August and October of 2015, an international evaluation was performed, through UNICEF, on the operation of these schools, their future possibilities, their sustainability and their scalability. The results of said evaluation -axis of a first diagnosis on a very young program, which is innovative and on its way to becoming stronger- were highly positive in terms of guaranteeing rights and access to education, and giving symbolic and material strength to those communities where these schools are located. At the end of the systematization, recommendations as well as the most important aspects recorded in the conclusion of this evaluation have been incorporated.
Based on these data and on other relevant and significant information gathered during the first semester of 2016 regarding Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools in the different jurisdictions, we found it pertinent to reissue this publication, the first version of which was shared in December of 2015.
Technology-based rural schools I Chapter Chapter I. History and Background
I. History and Background
I.1. ICT programs and policies: changes in Institutional Formats
When the National Education Law No. 26,206 established the expansion of compulsory basic education to the last year of secondary school, it raised the need to apply educational policies, programs and devices that fostered inclusion and access to secondary education in order to guarantee this right to the young and adolescent population. The Ministry of Education and the provincial governments promoted several actions towards this goal through their respective laws.
The compulsory nature of secondary school is today shared with Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil. These countries have claimed the expansion of compulsory education to secondary level in their latest Education Laws. This places the rest of the countries of the region before an endless number of political, cultural, administrative, economic, pedagogical, technical, management and quality challenges, among others. It can be asserted that at least two of these challenges are priority and they are shared by a broad number of countries. One of them entails the need to guarantee education throughout all the territory, including the most remote locations; the other challenge lays on the implementation of pedagogical and socio-educational policies and devices that effectively show improvements in students’ learning achievements: inclusion and quality are two sides of the same right.
The first of these challenges includes the central goal of this systematization: how can education be brought to remote and, possibly, isolated locations? This purpose led to think of an offer different from the traditional one; a fact that represented a new opportunity to reconsider school itself and innovate. The offer of secondary education in these locations may represent the last opportunity for students to continue their training and build a project with prospects, even within their own communities.
In relation to the need for students to learn more and better, it should be noted that this is a challenge that involves the system as a whole, and
Technology-based rural schools
that requires continuous actions and new policies in search of alternatives for pedagogical support to schools, as well as new assessments on teacher training. Several authors highlight this need of improvement and in this sense Gorostiaga points out that the greatest challenge of ensuring secondary education in countries where compulsory education was expanded lies in the ability of turning more schooling years into an increase of learning.
Educational systems of the region show rich and varied examples of ICT uses, some of them linked to the purpose of promoting access. Among the first educational policies towards this direction we find Tele Secundaria in Mexico. Taking as reference the experience of Telescuola carried out in Italy between 1958 and 1966, the General Directorate of Audiovisual Education of Mexico implemented, in 1965, the program of Secondary School Learning with Television Support. “The project focused on addressing the lack of schools and teachers in most of the rural areas of the country, as well as the need of an alternative to the educational demand in overpopulated regions”. The scarce resources to establish traditional secondary schools in rural locations and the limited availability of teachers specialized in this type of communities were two essential reasons that led to think of an alternative proposal of secondary education mediated by television. This project consisted in offering adolescents ages 12 to 15 an educational service through tele-classrooms: students would attend classes coordinated by a monitor teacher or coordinator; the classroom had access to an educational channel through which teachers of each specific subject of the official curriculum would deliver lessons on different contents. The monitor teacher “had to coordinate tasks before, during and after the television broadcast, and would supervise students’ punctuality, attendance and behavior. Also, they would systematically assess students’ activities, manage school documentation and prepare accurate reports related to documentation and school functioning.” This program has extended its scope significantly over the years. Moreover, it went through several changes related to the decisions resulting from educational policies and, particularly, to the successive reviews and assessments of the educational goals and proposals of this type of method.
Gorostiaga, J. (2010): “La reforma de la educación secundaria argentina en el contexto de América Latina”, en: Más Rocha, S. M., Gorostiaga, J. M., Tello, C. G., Pini, M. E. (comps): La educación secundaria como derecho. Buenos Aires: Lacrujía. [Translated by the author]. Jiménez Hidalgo, J.J., Martínez Jiménez, R. y García Mancilla, C. D. (2010): La telesecundaria en México: un breve recorrido histórico por sus datos y relatos. [Translated by the author]. México: General Directorate of Educational Material of the Office of the Under Secretary of Basic Education. Available at: http://telesecundaria.dgmie. sep.gob.mx/docs/B-HISTORIA-TELESECUNDARIA.pdf
Chapter I. History and Background 5 ibid., p. 32. [Translated by the author].
Other experiences such as Telesecundaria in Costa Rica, the program in Guatemala, Teleaprendizaje in El Salvador and Telebásica in Honduras and Panama involved other ICT policies that paved the way and showed the good aspects as well as the necessary cautions that should be considered in these types of formats in order to foster not only access but real educational and learning academic careers for students. Another inspiring initiative to promote access to secondary education, already involving ICTs and the Internet, was the one originated in the province of Río Negro, Argentina.
That is how several analyses based on a group of programs constituted resources to create the Technology-based Rural Secondary School, which will be described here. One of them has been the existence of coordinators or tutors (according to the name used in each province) in the classrooms alongside students. The background mentioned above shows that tutors are key participants within the educational process and that the role itself has gained more importance in flexible and innovative educational programs throughout time. Compared to the early tutor profile of the initial programs supported with TV, the current profile involved in these secondary schools has experienced some changes, as will be described later.
In Argentina, the solid scenario of educational policies related to ICTs encouraged the team and governments to move forward with the idea of promoting a different school format in remote rural locations. In the framework of the Argentinean educational system, ICT integration policies have been strengthened and cover a wide range of programs and efforts. It should be pointed out that, in general, both public and private education started incorporating computers with two goals: to invigorate school management and create laboratories for computer education, as well as to integrate the most vulnerable social sectors through digital literacy.
In the subsequent paragraphs we will briefly go through the main national programs and their scope in terms of equipment, implemented training devices, and educational levels they were aimed at.
Vacchieri, A. (2013): Las políticas TIC en los sistemas educativos de América Latina: Caso Argentina. Buenos Aires: UNICEF-Programa TIC y Educación Básica. [Translated by the author].
Technology-based rural schools CNAD - Campaña Nacional de Alfabetización Digital [National Campaign of Digital Literacy]
The Campaña Nacional de Alfabetización Digital [“National Campaign of Digital Literacy”, CNAD, for its acronym in Spanish] was launched in 2004 with the aim of using ICTs to solve priority problems in education and job training.
QQ Integration model: computer laboratory.
QQ Full equipped premises: 12,000 institutions of vocational-technical education and secondary level; 600 teacher-training institutions and primary schools that include ICT components.
QQ Educational resources: generated through the Educ.ar portal for the program. The distribution of equipment was reinforced by the project Reciclado para el Aula [“Recycled for classrooms”] that granted 17,000 refurbished computers.
FOPIIE - Fortalecimiento Pedagógico de las Escuelas del Programa Integral para la Igualdad Educativa [Pedagogical Reinforcement for Schools Involved in the Comprehensive Program for Educational Equality] This program was created in 2005 as reinforcement for the Programa Integral para la Igualdad Educativa [“Comprehensive Program for Educational Equality”, PIIE, for its acronym in Spanish], through a funding agreement with the European Union. In the framework of concrete actions related to the integration of ICTs, it established:
QQ Training: “Pedagogical use of ICTs”: 11,100 trained teachers with a conceptual proposal that covered a cultural and pedagogical perspective of ICT implementation within the educational environment. Training also included courses of 21 persons from 3 schools grouped by geographical proximity.
QQ Duration: 92 hours (52 hours of face-to-face learning and 40 hours of blended learning).
Programa Integral para la Igualdad Educativa. Implemented in 2004 at a national level as a response to the educational problems in disadvantaged urban sectors. National Ministry of Education (21/10/2015). Programa Integral para la Igualdad Educativa. Retrieved from: http://portal.educacion.gov.ar/primaria/
Chapter I. History and Background programas/programa-integral- por-la-igualdad-educativa/ [Translated by the author].
QQ Technical support for Jurisdictional Teams.
QQ Bank of significant experiences for the systematization of pedagogical initiatives after implementation of training.
QQ Multimedia equipment for all 2,267 schools within the scope of the program.
PROMSE - Programa de Mejoramiento del Sistema Educativo [Program for Educational System Enhancement]
This program was a comprehensive policy developed between December 2004 and May 2009. With the premise “ICT integration in school practices” it presents the following guidelines for secondary level:
QQ Technical and pedagogical training for teachers and school authorities.
QQ Creation of technical and pedagogical teams to provide training and support.
QQ Generation of off-line materials and resources for the incorporation of ICTs.
QQ Infrastructure for connectivity in schools.
QQ Provision of computers and other necessary equipment.
PROMEDU - Programa de Apoyo a la Política de Mejoramiento de la Equidad Educativa [Program for Supporting the Policy of Educational Equality Enhancement] This program was initiated in 2008 and aims at funding ICT facilitators and their training, as well as at providing computers and multimedia equipment.
PROMER - Proyecto de Mejoramiento de la Educación Rural [Rural Education Enhancement Project]
It was developed from 2006 to 2011 for the rural schools of the country. With the premise “Enhance functioning conditions for rural schools” the program granted equipment and technological resources for the broadcast of the educational channel “Horizontes TV”.
Technology-based rural schools Plan de Inclusión Digital Educativa [Plan for Educational Digital Inclusion]
This plan was created at a national level in 2006 under the following premises:
QQ Strengthen access to technology.
QQ Collaborate with the social distribution of knowledge.
QQ Improve students’ educational quality and opportunities regarding job placement.
And it was established through the following components:
QQ Programa Nacional de Conectividad en escuelas PRONACE [“National Program of Connectivity in Schools”, PRONACE, for its acronym in Spanish].
QQ Digital television for rural schools.
QQ Implementation of Model Classrooms (one in each jurisdiction with 1 to 1 equipment) to be used as spaces for innovation and training.
QQ Una computadora para cada Alumno Program.
“Una computadora para cada Alumno” Program [“A Computer for Each Student”]
It should be noted that this is the first national program that adopted the 1 to 1 model.. It started in 2010 and granted a computer to each student of public vocational-technical schools by distributing 250,000 netbooks, 250,000 flash drives, 20,000 routers for the setup of an Intranet, 1,200 school servers, and 7,150 pieces of furniture for storage and recharge. Its scope was:
QQ Schools: 1,156 vocational-technical schools.
QQ Teachers: 25,680 teachers of the second cycle of vocational-technical education.
As pilot experiences for the implementation of this program we can mention the ones conducted between October 2007 and December 2008 in the provinces of Tucumán, Salta, Mendoza, Misiones,
Chapter I. History and Background Chubut and Santa Fe with 700 laptops.
QQ Students: 231,164 students attending the last three/four years of vocational-technical education.
The training proposal was organized on the basis of the cross-cutting incorporation of ICTs in pedagogical practices.
Conectar Igualdad Program [Connecting Equality]
It started in 2010 through Executive Decree 459/10 based on Resolution 123/10 of the Federal Education Council, which represented the educational and political basis of the Program. Its precedents were the program for vocational-technical schools and the most significant experiences regarding the implementation of 1:1 model of the initiatives in the provinces of San Luis, Río Negro, La Rioja and the city of Buenos Aires.
It granted a computer to all students and teachers of public secondary schools, special education schools and teacher-training institutes throughout the country, having delivered, to the day, 4.6 million computers.
The program designed training strategies for the use of tools aimed at teachers and teams, as well as proposals through several formats and multimedia resources incorporated in the devices. Furthermore, it was supported by the production teams of the website Educ.ar and of the Encuentro TV channel, as well as by ministerial teams. The National Teacher Training Institute developed programs of specific training actions.
Primaria Digital [Digital Primary School]
Primaria Digital was conceived as the means to pedagogically incorporate ICTs in primary level, and was implemented in three major areas:
QQ Equipment: Mobile Digital Classrooms (MDC), with 30 netbooks, one pedagogical server, one router, a photographic camera, flash drives and a projector, and a cart for storage, transport and load.
9 federal Education Council (2009): Programa Nacional “Una Computadora para cada alumno” in vocational-technical schools. Resolution 82/09. Buenos Aires. Recovered from: http://www.inet. edu.ar/wp- content/uploads/2012/10/82-09-anexo-1.pdf [Translated by the author]. Programa Conectar Igualdad (21/10/2015). Retrieved from: http://www.conectarigualdad.gob.ar/ [Translated by the author]. 11 national Ministry of Education (21/10/2015): Primaria Digital. Recovered from: http:// portales.educacion.gov.ar/primariadigital/ [Translated by the author].
Technology-based rural schools
QQ Multimedia environment and materials: creation of a hyper-texual environment developed to reinforce the pedagogical goals of primary level, and uploaded in the netbooks and servers of MDCs.
QQ Training for teachers and technical teams: 10 national events with the attendance of more than 5,000 teachers, school authorities, facilitators and supervisors of the PIIE program from all over the country. “Capacitación TIC en escuelas primarias: Primaria Digital” [“ICT training in primary schools: Digital Primary School”] was addressed to the 3,900 schools covered by the PIIE program.
Between 2013 and 2014, around 7,020 MDCs were distributed among public primary schools, bilingual schools, schools covered by the PIIE program and institutions with extended school hours.
This group of initiatives led to the creation of the Plan Nacional de Inclusión Digital Educativa [“National Plan of Educational Digital Inclusion”, PNIDE for its acronym in Spanish] (Resolution 244/15 of the Federal Education Council), which includes the different public policies related to the incorporation of ICTs in pedagogical practices like Conectar Igualdad program, Primaria Digital and Aulas Rodantes [“Mobile Classrooms”], and which is organized on the basis of several actions developed by the teacher-training program Nuestra Escuela [“Our School”], among others.
Its main goals include developing actions aimed at strengthening public school under the premise “No digital gap,” and focus its efforts on the processes of pedagogical transformation in educational institutions with the integration of ICTs in teaching management and processes. This ambitious goal, as shown by several studies and by the experience itself, is at its initial stage.
This group of ICT programs dedicated to the educational system reinforced the idea that the innovation that was about to be born in rural locations was feasible. Schools in rural areas were already receiving different equipment; teachers and students would have access to ICTs. It is worth mentioning that from all these programs, it was Conectar Igualdad the one that achieved the greatest levels of coordination in those provinces where Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools were implemented, since it provided netbooks
Primaria Digital (21/10/2015). Retrieved from: http://primariadigital.educ.ar/ [Translated by the author]. Ministry of Education (2014): Primaria Digital: capacitación TIC en el Nivel Primario. Retrieved from: http:// portales.educacion.gov.ar/primariadigital/files/2014/04/capacitaciontic.pdf [Translated by the author]. Plan Nacional de Inclusión Educativa (21/10/2015). Retrieved from: http://pnide.educacion.gob.
Chapter I. History and Background ar/el-plan [Translated by the author].
during the second year of implementation, when the number of students increased.
Although some of these ICT programs reach some rural locations, it was not the case of those classrooms where Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools were initiated, precisely because the offer did not exist there. We should point out that connectivity still represents a challenge that should be urgently addressed. An equality approach demands prioritizing these locations where educational deficiency converges with a complex scheme of needs that are stressed in situations of isolation. In these areas Internet access gains not only educational but also social and civic relevance.
Other resources that were obtained when thinking about the development of this type of secondary school were the consequences of the inclusion policies that were implemented at national and provincial levels with different types of initiatives. Guaranteeing adolescents access to secondary education resulted in changes in the institutional format through different strategies.
UNICEF, together with several universities, developed studies on four programs related to inclusion to secondary education which modified academic format and regimes: the Centros de Escolarización Secundaria de Adolescentes y Jóvenes [“Centers of Secondary Education for Adolescents and Youth”, CESAJ, for its acronym in Spanish] and the Finalización de Estudios y Vuelta a la Escuela Plan [“Studies Completion and Return to School” Plan, FinEs, for its acronym in Spanish] in the province of Buenos Aires; the Inclusión/Terminalidad de la Educación Secundaria y Formación Laboral para Jóvenes program [“Inclusion/Completion of Secondary Education and Professional Training for Young People”, PIT, for its acronym in Spanish] in the city of Cordoba ; and the Programa Joven de Inclusión Socioeducativa de la secretaría de Promoción social de la Municipalidad de Rosario [“Juvenile Program of Socio-educational Inclusion of the Secretary
Diez, M.L., Di Virgilio, M., Heumann, W., Serial, A. y Toscano, A. (2012b): Adolescentes y secundaria obligatoria. Centros de Escolarización de Adolescentes y Jóvenes (CESAJ) Conurbano (Argentina). UNICEF y Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento. Available at: http://www. unicef.org/argentina/spanish/CESAJ_OKb.pdf [Translated by the author]. Diez, M.L., Di Virgilio, M., Heumann, W., Serial, A. y Toscano, A. (2012): Adolescentes y secundaria obligatoria. Finalización de Estudios y Vuelta a la Escuela Conurbano (Argentina). Available at: http:// www.unicef.org/argentina/spanish/FINES_OKb.pdf [Translated by the author]. Vanella, J.; Maldonado, M.; Abate Daga, M.; Falconi, O.; Gutiérrez, G.; Martínez, M.C. y Uanini, M. (2013): Programa de Inclusión y Terminalidad de la Educación Secundaria para Jóvenes de 14 a 17 años Córdoba (Argentina). UNICEF and National University of Cordoba. Available at: http://www. unicef.org/argentina/spanish/educacion_PIT_DIC_OKweb.pdf [Translated by the author].
Technology-based rural schools
Office of Social Promotion of the Municipality of the city of Rosario, province of Santa Fe”.].
These programs have been conceived with the purpose of creating opportunities to resume school and/or implementing school formats that provide flexibility to existent institutional models -which are closed and rigid-, in order to generate teaching and learning spaces that enable adolescents and youth excluded from the educational system to finish their studies. In general, these formats include the involvement of tutors, teaching through small groups or even through individual lessons, new regimes of certification of subjects and years of study, and an alternative curriculum proposal. Adolescents and youth who attend these new school formats usually make a positive assessment of these types of programs due to the opportunity they are given to complete their studies. To carry out the experience of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools, certain learning points derived from these types of programs have been taken into account. These include: supporting teaching practices which, in some cases, tend to reproduce traditional methods; guaranteeing the institutionalization of these programs; and improving the tension present in “flexibility vs. learning achievements” that threatens the continuity of these kinds of proposals .
These new institutional formats also encouraged innovation through a new secondary school in remote rural locations where there was a demand for this educational level with no existent offer.
18 fattore, N. y Bernardi, G. (2014): Programa Joven de Inclusión Socioeducativa Rosario, Santa Fe (Argentina). UNICEF and National University of Rosario. Available at: http://www.unicef.org/ argentina/spanish/educacion_ROSARIO_educarCiudades.pdf [Translated by the author]. Duro, E. (2015): “Hacia la mejora continua de la educación”, en Tedesco, J. C. (comp.): La
Chapter I. History and Background educación argentina hoy. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI-Fundación OSDE. [Translated by the author].
I.2. Data on Rural Conditions and Secondary Education in Argentina
In relation to the teenage and young populations that live in rural areas and their education levels, an ad hoc analysis was performed based on census and educational information in order to obtain a higher level of information and detail. One of the first questions is, how many people live in rural areas and how are they distributed?
In general terms, the rural population represents less than 10% of the total and, for migratory and urbanization reasons, it is decreasing. Also, in those provinces with a higher percentage of rural population, distribution is mainly scattered, except in the case of the provinces of Catamarca, La Pampa and La Rioja. This distribution is relevant when thinking of the issue of accessing the educational system in a rural context.
Chart 1. Percentage of rural population, scattered and clustered, in each jurisdiction (2010).
35% Clustered rural population 30% Remote rural population 25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Source: own processing of data collected from the National Institute of Statistics and Census, Census 2010.
It can be observed that the distribution of rural population is far from being uniform at the center of each of the regions and provinces of the country. Although the North East and North West regions show the greatest amount of rural population (a bit less than 20%), important differences appear within
Technology-based rural schools
these regions as well. For example, the North East region of the country includes the province of Misiones, with 26% of rural population, and the province of Chaco, with 15% of rural population. The differences between jurisdictions are even greater in the North West region of Argentina, with a difference of 20 points between the province of Santiago del Estero on one side, and the provinces of Salta and Jujuy on the other.
Chart 2. Percentage of population by groups of jurisdictions. Rural areas in the entire country (2010).
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0% Patagonian Bs. As. (inland)
Noreste (North East) Noroeste (North West)
Source: own processing of data collected from the National Institute of Statistics and Census, Census 2010.
On the other hand, the living conditions of rural population present important challenges for the purpose of universal education. In this sense, the challenges that certain locations pose to educational policies and to public policies as a whole towards an improvement of people’s lives show that the offer of one sole service, as in this case the offer of secondary education in rural locations, is a necessary response. It is at the same time partial and insufficient in social contexts that are complex and lacking multiple basic services that affect the communities where this new educational offer was created.
In relation to the socio-educational situation of adolescents in rural areas, one out of four adolescents lives in homes with unmet basic needs (UBN). At the age of 18 one out of ten adolescents becomes head of household. Approximately 145,000 adolescents are involved in economic activities and 8% look for employment without success. The comparison with urban locations demonstrates the particular challenges for education in rural populations. Chapter I. History and Background
Chart 3. Adolescent population in rural and urban areas.
Activity rate (age 14-19 años, by area in the entire country, 2010) Percentage of population living in homes with unmet basic needs 40% (age 12-19, by area 35% in the entire country, 2010) 30% 30% 25% 25%
20% 20%
15% 15%
10% 10%
5% 5%
0% 0%
Percentage of population head Unemployment rate of household* (age 12-19, by area (age 14-19 años, by area in the entire country, 2010) in the entire country, 2010)
20% 10%
15% 8%
10% 4%
2% 5%
0% 0% Rural. .. Urban Rural. .. Urban
*It is considered population in charge of the household the one that is declared as head of household or spouse.
Source: own processing of data collected from the National Institute of Statistics and Census, Census 2010.
Technology-based rural schools
As far as schooling is concerned, at the age of 12, school attendance reaches universal levels, both in urban and rural areas. As age increases, this indicator decreases as a consequence of dropout.
Chart 4. Percentage of attending population* (ages 12 to 14 and 15 to 17, rural areas 2010).
age 12 to 14 age 15 to 17 100% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% Noreste East) (North Noreste East) (North
89,4% 57,6% Noroeste West) (North Noroeste West) (North
91,6% 62,9%
94,9% 70,0%
93,8% 70,5%
Patagonian Patagonian
* It is considered “attending population” those who claim to attend any educational offer during the census survey. Therefore, it includes all levels and modalities.
Source: own processing of data collected from the National Institute of Statistics and Census, Census 2010. Chapter I. History and Background
By the age of 17 less than half of the population in rural locations is out of school. This shows an important difference with urban areas where adolescents of the same age attending school represent 75.1%. It should be pointed out that, as shown in the chart below, school dropout affects the male population at a greater scale and the gaps are seen as of the age of 14.
Chart 5. Percentage of attending population* (age 12 to 17, rural locations, by gender, 2010).
100%
80%
60%
40%
12 years old 13 years old 14 years old 15 years old 16 years old 17 years old Male Female
* It is considered “attending population” those who claim to attend any educational offer during the census survey. Therefore, it includes all levels and modalities.
Source: own processing of data collected from the National Institute of Statistics and Census, Census 2010.
Only around 31% of the young rural population completes the secondary level. This situation is, in part, a consequence of the difficulties encountered when entering secondary school: 22% of the population age 15 to 17 drop out of school before starting secondary education, and less than half of them did not complete the primary level. The situation worsens in the North East region of the country: around 1 out of six adolescents age 15 to 17 drop out of school before starting secondary education.
Technology-based rural schools
Chart 6. Actual admission rate for secondary schools* (rural areas, 2013).
1 2
Actual admission rate for secondary school
Drop-out rate
Potential admissions to secondary level are: students that were promoted from the last year of primary level, students that were not promoted from the first year of secondary level; potential re admissions: annual dropout during the first year of secondary education.
*Calculation of this index takes into account the first year of secondary level according to the different grade and level structures of each jurisdiction.
Chart 7. Percentage of population age 15 to 17 that do not attend and did not start secondary school, by jurisdiction (rural areas, 2010).
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0% Patagonian
Noreste (North East) Noroeste (North West)
Source for Charts 6 and 7: own processing of data collected from the National Institute of Statistics and Census, Census 2010. Chapter I. History and Background
On the other hand, in addition to the transition between primary and secondary school, there are serious difficulties at the completion stage of the secondary level: 17% of adolescents enrolled in secondary education drops out of school. Although we should highlight the increasing opportunities to complete the secondary level that were developed in the last decade (in relation to 2001, the percentage of youth population to complete secondary level studies increased 10 points in 2010), secondary education in rural areas is still an important challenge as regards the continuity of academic careers.
Although we recognize the important advances in the last decade in terms of expansion of rural secondary education, it is important to highlight that the problems mentioned above are related to the deficiencies and/or lack of educational services in rural contexts, mainly in communities within remote rural populations. The difference between the existent primary schools and the existent secondary schools shows a deficit in the coverage for the latter: in 2015 there were 10,707 service units of primary level in rural areas and 3,667 units for secondary level.
At the same time, most of the jurisdictions only offer the Lower Secondary Education Level. This organization of the offer imposes a restriction to the possibility of continuing studies: in many jurisdictions, most students attending secondary education must travel to other schools, in other communities or cities, in order to keep studying. This results in an endless number of issues that usually end up interrupting their education.
Chart 8. Percentage of service units offering secondary education by jurisdiction and by cycle (in the entire country, rural areas, 2010).
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Basic cycle Oriented cycle
Basic cycle and oriented cycle Patagonian
Noreste (North East) Noroeste (North West)
Source: own data processing based on information collected from The National Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality (DiNIECE) of the Ministry of Education. Annual survey on enrollment and teaching posts, 2013.
Own data processing based on information collected from the National Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality (DiNIECE). Ministry of Education. Registry of Premises, 2015.
Technology-based rural schools
Having specific information on the rural population and the educational status allows sketching the design of policies and programs for the access to compulsory secondary education in rural areas. Although the increase in the access to secondary level in rural locations has been significant, there is still a portion of the population without access to this basic right. This feasible goal of having secondary education in all rural locations by 2020 must be an educational priority if we think in terms of educational and social justice.
I.3. Educational Situation of Adolescents in Rural and Urban Areas. ICT Access in the Provinces undergoing this Experience: Chaco, Salta, Misiones and Jujuy
So far Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools have been implemented in the provinces of Chaco, Jujuy, Misiones and Salta. Below we will share a brief diagnosis of the situation in each of these jurisdictions before the implementation of these schools.
Province of Chaco
As shown by information from the National Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality (DiNIECE, for its acronym in Spanish) , in 2010 the province of Chaco registered a 73.2% of actual promotion in the lower Secondary Education level (positioning the province below the national rate) and 79.7% in the Higher Secondary Education level (positioning the province above the national rate by 0.69 percentage points). At the same time, that same year it registered an inter-annual drop-out rate of 14.3% for the Lower Secondary Education level and 13.6% for the Higher Secondary Education level; in both cases, percentages exceed the national rate.
Chaco is the fifth province that, according to the information of the census of 2010, presented the highest percentages in the country as regards population between ages 20 to 24 that did not complete secondary level
21 national Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality (DiNIECE). Ministry of
Chapter I. History and Background Education. Annual survey 2010.
education (46%); in 2010 the records show that 23,090 adolescents and youth of secondary-school age were not attending either primary or secondary school.
Rural classroom “Alta Esperanza”. Technology-based Rural Secondary School. Province of Chaco.
In relation to the offer of secondary education in rural areas, and according to the information of the DiNIECE , in 2010 a total of 666 rural primary schools were recorded (33,573 students) whereas the number of educational units for rural secondary education was of 106 (13,498 students).
The evolution of enrollment between 2000 and 2010 at both levels has been positive. An increase in enrollment for secondary education was shown throughout this period in both areas (rural and urban). However, as previously mentioned, the differences between the number of students receiving primary and secondary education are still significant.
UNICEF and Civil Organization Educación Para Todos (2012): “Informe Nacional Las Oportunidades Educativas en Argentina 1998-2010”. [Translated by the author]. 23 national Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality (DiNIECE). Ministry of Education. Annual survey 2010..
Technology-based rural schools
National Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality (DiNIECE). Ministry of Education. Annual survey 2010.
Primary level Secondary level
Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
Source: own data processing based on information collected from the RAMC of the DiNIECE.
Chart 10. Evolution of enrollment by level in rural areas, Chaco (both sectors, whole country, 2001-2010).
Primery level Secondary level
Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
Source: own data processing based on information collected from the RAMC of the DINIECE. Chapter I. History and Background
Finally, in relation to the digital gap present in the province, it should be pointed out that, as indicated by the results of the National Census of 2010, 29.6% of homes have a computer and approximately 37.2% of the whole population above the age of 3 confirmed they used a computer (being Chaco the fifth province of the country with the lowest percentages). Also, this percentage is lower in districts like Independencia (16.5%), General Belgrano (18.3%), Tepenagá (20.3%), General Güemes (21.2%), Almirante Brown (21.7%) and others. This situation is evidence of the digital gap that affects a significant percentage of the population of the province, especially the one living in El Impenetrable, Chaco’s natural forest.
Province of Jujuy
According to the data collected by the DiNIECE, in 2010 Jujuy registered 80.6% of actual promotion in the Lower Secondary Education level (positioning the province above the national rate) and 77.6% in the Higher Secondary Education level (positioning the province below the national rate). At the same time, that same year it registered an inter-annual drop- out rate of 8.5% for the Lower level and 14.6% for the Higher level. In both cases, percentages exceed the national rate (9.6% for the basic cycle and 15.8% for the oriented cycle).
In this province, 36.4% of the population between ages 20 and 24 did not complete the secondary level. In 2010 Jujuy registered 7,643 adolescents of secondary-school age that were not attending either primary or secondary school.
That same year the DiNIECE recorded a total of 246 rural primary schools (12,923 students) whereas the number of units for rural secondary education was of 57 (6,980). Although the existent primary schools cover a period of several years and receive a great number of students of secondary education, this information indicates a significant need to provide an educational offer specifically for the secondary level within rural communities.
24 national Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality. Ministry of Education. Annual survey 2010. UNICEF and Civil Organization Educación Para Todos (2012): “Informe Nacional Las Oportunidades Educativas en Argentina 1998-2010”. [Translated by the author]. 26 national Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality. Ministry of Education. Annual survey 2010.
Technology-based rural schools
Rural classroom “Pampichuela”. Technology-based Rural Secondary School No. 1. Province of Jujuy.
The evolution of enrollment at secondary level was positive as of 2006 (when Law 26,206 was enacted and established the compulsory nature of secondary education) both in urban and rural areas, although the differences between the number of students receiving primary and secondary education are still significant, as previously pointed out.
Chart 11. Evolution of students’ enrollment by level in urban areas, Jujuy (both sectors, whole country, 2000-2010).
Primary level Secondary level
Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
Source: own data processing based on information collected from the RAMC of the DiNIECE. Chapter I. History and Background
Chart 12. Evolution of students’ enrollment by level in rural areas, Jujuy (both sectors, whole country, 2000-2010).
Primary level Secondary level
Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
Source: own data processing based on information collected from the RAMC of the DiNIECE.
Finally, in relation to the digital gap present in this province, it should be noted that, as shown by the results of the National Census of 2010, 33.9% of the homes have a computer and approximately 40.7% of the whole population above the age of 3 confirmed they use a computer (being Jujuy the sixth province with the lowest percentage). Also, this rate is lower in districts like Santa Catalina (13.3%), Valle Grande (14.8%), Rinconada (17.4%), Santa Bárbara (19.4%) and others. This situation is evidence of the digital gap that affects a significant portion of the population.
Province of Misiones
In 2010 Misiones registered a rate of 80.9% of actual promotion in the Lower Secondary Education level and 78.7% in the Higher Secondary Education level, exceeding national rates according to the DiNIECE. At the same time, that same year it registered an inter-annual drop-out rate of 10.98% for the Lower level and of 17.3% for the Higher level; in both cases, percentages exceed the national rate.
Misiones is the second province that, according to the information of the Census performed in 2010, presents the highest levels in the country as
Technology-based rural schools
regards population between ages 20 and 24 that did not complete the secondary level (48.9%). By 2010 there were 25,510 adolescents of secondary- school-age that were not attending either primary or secondary school .
In relation to the offer of secondary education in rural areas, and according to data collected from the DiNIECE, the province recorded 422 rural primary schools (38,850 students) whereas the number of units for secondary education was of 212 (16,837) in 2010.
The evolution of students’ enrollment between 2000 and 2010 at secondary level has been positive. An increase in students’ enrollment in secondary level was recorded through this period. At the same time, this increase also occurred in rural areas as of 2003, although the differences between the number of students receiving primary and secondary education are still significant.
Rural classroom “Santa Ana”. Technology-based Rural Secondary School. Province of Misiones.
UNICEF y and Civil Organization Educación Para Todos (2012): “Informe Nacional Las Oportunidades Educativas en Argentina 1998-2010”. [Translated by the author].”. 28 national Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality. Ministry of Education.
Chapter I. History and Background Annual survey 2010.
Chart 13. Evolution of students’ enrollment by level in urban areas, Misiones (both sectors, whole country, 2000-2010).
Primary level
Secondary level
Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
Source: own data processing based on information from the RAMC of the DiNIECE.
Chart 14. Evolution of students’ enrollment by level in rural areas, Misiones (both sectors, whole country, 2000-2010).
Primary level Secondary level
Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
Source: own data processing based on information collected from the RAMC of the DiNIECE.
Technology-based rural schools
Finally, in relation to the digital gap present in this province, we should point out that, as indicated by the results of the National Census of 2010, 37.9% of the population above the age of 3 confirmed they use a computer (being Misiones the fourth province with the lowest rates). Also, this values are lower in districts like 25 de Mayo (15.8%), San Pedro (16.8%), Guaraní (19%), General Manuel Belgrano (22.6%) and others. This situation proves the digital gap affects a significant portion of the population of the province.
Province of Salta
In 2010, and according to the DiNIECE Salta registered 80.71% of actual promotion in the Lower Secondary Education level, and 82.3% in the Higher Secondary Education level, being below the national rates. At the same time, that year it showed an inter-annual drop-out rate of 8.4% for the Lower level and 9.5% for the Higher level; in both cases, percentages exceed the national rate.
In this province, 40.1% of the population between ages 20 to 24 failed to complete secondary education. In 2010 there were 18,021 adolescents of secondary-school-age that were not attending either primary or secondary school.
In relation to the educational offer of secondary level in rural areas, in 2010, 489 rural primary schools (30,830 students) were recorded, whereas the number of educational units of secondary level was of 402 (15,362 students). Although the difference between the number of primary and secondary schools is not as significant as in other provinces, it is important to highlight that the number of students attending secondary school represents less than half of the students that attend primary school. This shows the great challenge that the province faces when guaranteeing the right to compulsory education for all adolescents living in these areas.
29 national Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality. Ministry of Education. Annual survey 2010. UNICEF y and Civil Organization Educación Para Todos (2012): “Informe Nacional Las Oportunidades Educativas en Argentina 1998-2010”. [Translated by the author].. 31 national Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality, Ministry of Education
Chapter I. History and Background op cit.
The evolution of students’ enrollment between 2000 and 2010 in both levels has been generally positive. An increase of students’ enrollment in secondary level has been recorded throughout this period in both areas (rural and urban). However, as previously pointed out, the differences between students attending primary school and secondary school in rural areas are still significant.
Rural classroom “Pucará”. Technology-based Rural Secondary School. Province of Salta.
Chart 15. Evolution of students’ enrollment by level in urban areas, Salta (both sectors, whole country, 2000-2010).
Primary level
Secondary level
Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
Source: own data processing based on information collected from the RAMC of the DiNIECE.
Technology-based rural schools
Chart 16. Evolution of students’ enrollment by level in rural areas, Salta (both sectors, whole country, 2000-2010).
Primary level Secondary level
Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
Source: own data processing based on information collected from the RAMC of the DiNIECE.
Finally, in relation to the digital gap present in the province, it is worth mentioning that, as shown by the results of the National Census of 2010, around 39.9% of the whole population above the age of 3 confirmed they use a computer (being Salta the third province in the country with the lowest rates). Also, these rates are lower in districts like Rivadavia (10.2%), Santa Victoria (14.7%), Molinos (16.1%), La Poma (19%), Iruya (19.4%), among others. This situation is evidence of a digital gap that affects a significant portion of the population of the province.
These scenarios experienced advances in terms of policies seeking greater access to rural secondary education, and in terms of ICT supplies. They provided the opportunities to move forward with the idea of promoting access to Technology-based Rural Secondary School in remote locations. On the other hand, irrespective of the progress made, educational inequality in more vulnerable regions and areas still represents a challenge for governments. Not only a challenge in terms of education but also a challenge in terms of comprehensive and geographical policies that support the efforts of educational action towards quality improvement and promoting full academic careers that ensure relevant learning to the children and adolescents in rural locations throughout the country. Chapter I. History and Background
Indigenous population in the provinces of Chaco, Salta, Jujuy and Misiones
It is appropriate to conclude this section by mentioning the population of native inhabitants of the provinces where this educational project is carried out. There are many young people from different indigenous communities that, with their diversity in terms of language and cultural worldview, are part of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools, thus, challenging pedagogical models and strategies for real educational inclusion.
Aboriginal population or descendant Aboriginal population living in rural areas from native communities (1) Children and Total aboriginal Clustered rural Remote rural Total adolescents inhabitants population (2) population inhabitants (age 0-17) in rural areas Chaco 19.665 41.304 2.900 14.207 17.107 Jujuy 18.998 52.545 8.891 8.630 17.521 Misiones 6.462 13.006 400 7.135 7.535 Salta 36.307 79.204 12.496 21.628 34.124
(1) It is considered indigenous population those people who acknowledge that they descend (because of their ancestors) or belong to an indigenous or native people (because they declare themselves as such.) (2) Population that lives in locations with less than 2 thousand inhabitants.
Source: National Institute of Statistics and Census. National Census, 2010. http://www.indec.gov.ar/nivel4_default.asp?id_tema_1=2&id_tema_2=41&id_ tema_3=135
In order to depict the richness and plurality of voices, it should be pointed out that rural classrooms of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools in the four provinces include students from the communities Guapoy, Chafariz, Santa Ana Miní, Tamandua, Alecrin, Pindoty i, Wichi, Chane, Atacama, Colla, Ava guaraní, Ava guaraní tappei, and Diaguita Calchaquí.
Technology-based rural schools Chapter II Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
II.1. Objectives and Implementation
Considering the background mentioned in the above section and the challenge to promote access to secondary education to adolescents that live in rural locations, UNICEF Argentina’s Education Program proposed cooperation to the education authorities of the provinces of Chaco, Jujuy, Salta and Misiones in order to move forward with the implementation of this new institutional format so as to meet the educational demand. In this respect, the general objectives of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools are:
QQ Guaranteeing access to secondary education for all adolescents residing in remote rural populations and who do not currently have secondary education available in their territory.
QQ Reducing the digital gaps existing between students and rural educational communities and populations residing in urban areas through the inclusion of teaching and learning proposals integrating ICTs.
QQ Achieving the objectives set forth by the National Education Law and the regulations on secondary education of the Argentine State.
After maintaining several conversations and making various presentations to the high authorities about the proposal, and to each of the provinces, they were in favor of the idea, motivated, and also expectant as to what the outcome may be. This is how the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools were born: from a cooperation agreement carried out between the Ministries of Education of each of the provinces and UNICEF.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology of the Province of Chaco was the first to implement this new school format, at the end of 2012. It was subsequently followed by the Ministry of Education, Science
Technology-based rural schools
and Technology of Salta and the Ministry of Education of the Province of Jujuy (first semester of 2013); and, lastly, by the Ministry of Culture and Education of Misiones (first semester of 2014).
In the case of the Province of Chaco, the initiative was shaped as a special project of the Directorate of Secondary Education Level titled Todos a la secundaria [“Secondary School for All.”] In the other provinces, the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools were formally conformed as schools: in Jujuy, it received the name of Rural Secondary School No. 1; in Salta, Technology-based Rural Secondary School No. 5212; in the case of Misiones, the secondary school was part of an annex of CEP (Multimodal Education Center) secondary school No. 4 located at the center of Posadas, capital of the province and, at the beginning of 2015, it was established as an independent secondary school.
In the first three provinces mentioned above (Chaco, Jujuy and Salta), the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools set up, at the beginning, 10 classrooms in remote rural areas and the urban headquarters located in the capital of the province. In the case of Misiones, 5 classrooms were initially set up and, in the second semester of 2014, one more was opened (Santa Ana), all of them under the requirement that they should be in rural locations. In 2015, over 610 students attended this school format.
The conjecture of the proposal of governments promoting innovative formats for Technology-based Secondary Schools in remote rural locations, in terms of the theory of change, is that developing educational alternatives with ICTs focused on equality reduces the gaps in the access to secondary education for adolescents that inhabit those areas. That effectiveness is considered to be high regarding three essential situations: the first one, a matter of right to education. In remote locations, there is usually no secondary education offer due to the extremely high costs of the traditional format in relation to the beneficiary population, and other options arise in some territories, but not involving face-to-face attendance by students; secondly, due to the lack of professional teachers in remote rural communities who may provide a continuous face-to-face offer; the third reason is that, as regard costs, effectiveness and feasibility, promoting these types of Technology-based Secondary Schools in remote rural locations provides extremely high benefits to adolescents and young people, who have access to a basic right, and also has an impact on their communities. It adds value, in political terms, to the governments which are able to aspire to expand this type of format in all remote rural territories and guarantee education to the entire population and, especially, to the non-indigenous or indigenous communities that did not have secondary education available to them. Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
The adolescent population living in remote rural locations represents a statistic weight, which is low within its age group, but high in terms of equality. In communities where the primary school had existed for decades (over one hundred years in the case of one of the locations in Salta), children who were in condition to attend secondary school had to move to other communities and, in their majority, ended up dropping out. Another common practice was for families to make their children attend the last grade of primary school for two or three years, as a way of preventing them from dropping out, lacking other alternatives.
Chart 1. Coverage and Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools.
Enrollment per year Province Beginning Classrooms Location 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Misiones1 Secundaria Rural mediada por TIC Urban Headquarters Posadas 2014 Rural Classroom Libertad 6 13 17 Rural Classroom El Soberbio 20 34 60 Rural Classroom Santa Ana 6 12 14 Rural Classroom 25 de mayo 4 12 12 Rural Classroom Alecrín/San Pedro 7 12 17 Rural Classroom San Ignacio 7 14 16 Total Rural Classrooms: 6 50 97 136 Chaco2 “Todos a la Secundaria” Project Urban Resistencia 2012 Rural Classroom San Telmo 10 14 14 28 33 Rural Classroom Tartagal 15 28 16 15 33 Rural Classroom Pozo del Gallo 9 12 9 13 14 Rural Classroom Fidelidad 9 10 5 7 9 Rural Classroom Campo Grande 8 10 8 11 13 Rural Classroom Gral. Güemes 10 12 9 17 18 Rural Classroom Fortín Arenales 11 15 9 9 10 Rural Classroom Fortín Belgrano 12 17 28 24 24 Rural Classroom Alta Esperanza 9 10 Rural Classroom Luján 7 Rural Classroom Pozo del Gato 14 18 20 16 21 Total Rural Classrooms: 10 98 143 118 149 185 Jujuy3 Secundaria Rural Nro. 1 Urban headquarters San Salvador de Jujuy 2013 Rural Classroom Lobatón 8 25 39 45 Rural Classroom Paicone 16 22 26 30 Rural Classroom Santo Domingo 5 6 8 15 Rural Classroom Loma Blanca 20 20 24 27 Rural Classroom Normenta 9 8 11 12 Rural Classroom Pampichuela 9 16 20 15 Rural Classroom Quebraleña 9 12 10 10 Rural Classroom Valle Colorado 10 14 14 5 Rural Classroom Huancar 35 36 36 50 Rural Classroom Liviara 10 5 Rural Classroom Orosmayo 7 3 3 0 Total Rural Classrooms ICT RSS 1: 10 128 162 201 214
Technology-based rural schools
Jujuy3 Secundaria Rural No. 2 - Urban Headquarters San Salvador de Jujuy 2015 Rural Classroom Laguna de Tesorero 26 Rural Classroom Palca de Aparzo 14 Rural Classroom Vizcarra 16 Rural Classroom Cianzo 13 Rural Classroom Agua de Castilla 17 Rural Classroom Caspala 19 Rural Classroom Chorcan 10 Rural Classroom Olaroz Chico 30 Rural Classroom Valiazo 8 Rural Classroom El Toro 17 Total Rural Classrooms ICT RSS 2: 10 170 Total Rural Classrooms ICT RSS 1 and 2: 20 384 Salta4 Colegio Secundario Rural Mediado por TIC No. 5212 - Urban Headquarters Salta 2013 Rural Classroom La Argentina 2 6 10 5 Rural Classroom Campo Durán 22 22 23 13 Rural Classroom Esquina de Guardia 5 11 11 14 Rural Classroom El Trementinal 13 15 10 12 Rural Classroom Los Pozos 10 10 7 14 Rural Classroom Media Luna 13 19 22 21 Rural Classroom Madrejones 11 11 12 8 Rural Classroom Pucará 25 32 44 37 Rural Classroom Santa Rita 8 5 Rural Classroom Santa Teresa 14 25 28 21 Rural Classroom La Bomba 8 11 Total Rural Classrooms: 10 123 156 175 156 TOTAL Total Rural Classrooms July 2016: 46 98 394 486 622 861 1. Misiones: 5 classrooms began classes in March 2014. The Santa Ana Classroom started working in September 2014. 2. Chaco: All classrooms began classes in June 2012, except for the “Paraje Luján” classroom, which began classes in 2013. This classroom was closed in December 2014 and the “Alta Esperanza” Classroom was opened.
3. Jujuy: ICT RSS 1: 10 Classrooms began classes in April 2013 and the Liviara Classroom was incorporated in 2015. At the beginning of 2016, the Orosmayo Classroom was momentarily closed. ICT RSS 2: In 2015, the ICT RSS 2 was set up by provincial initiative. As reported by the jurisdiction, there are still 4 more classrooms to be brought into operation: “Aparzo”, “Las Escaleras”, “El Cucho” and “La Almona”.
4. Salta: The “Santa Rita” Rural classroom was closed in 2014 and the “La Bomba” classroom was opened.
In order for these innovative schools not to be left out of regulations, they were integrated as part of the secondary level educational policy, both nationally and provincially, and their function was recognized in the same way as regular secondary education. As will be seen below, each Ministry of Education formulated its own laws in respect of these schools Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
II.2. Format of the Technology-based Rural Secondary School
The format suggested by this new educational offer consists of a school with an urban headquarters and different rural classrooms located in remote locations. The urban headquarters holds the managing team together with the team of teachers of the subjects that make up the provincial secondary level curriculum. These teachers plan the teaching activities and share them through Internet or through an intranet, and use other ICT means with the different classrooms and with each of the students. Some examples are provided below.
Technology-based Rural Secondary School No. 1. Urban Headquarters. Province of Jujuy.
“Santa Ana” Rural Classroom. Technology-based Rural Secondary School. Province of Misiones.
Technology-based rural schools
“Pampichuela” Rural Classroom. Technology-based Rural Secondary School No. 1. Province of Jujuy.
“Fortín Belgrano” Rural Classroom. Technology-based Rural Secondary School. Province of Chaco.
“Fortín Belgrano” Rural Classroom. Technology-based Rural Secondary School. Province of Chaco. Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
This innovative format is based on technologically-enriched learning environments. It is worth highlighting that, in these formats, we understand the ICTs as the material and symbolic set of equipment and discourses that are conformed through the new and old means of communication. This enables a complex conception of the practices with ICTs, which are the product of the social interaction of every community.
David Buckingham, education and technologies specialist, reflects on this notion about ICTs and the role of schools today. In this respect, he states that “the increasing convergence of means at present implies that we need to deal with the abilities and competences required for every variety of contemporaneous ways of communication. Instead of limiting ourselves to adding digital literacy to the curriculum’s menu or to dividing the ICTs as an independent subject, we need a much more general reconceptualization of what we mean by literacy in a world increasingly dominated by electronic means.”
Means of communication, social networks, and discourses of new technologies generate metaphors from which we understand the world and interpret ourselves. It is and has been a cultural duty of the school to generate abilities for the creation and production of other metaphors, which also allow us to constitute ourselves subjectively and, in this way, interpret our contexts using plural tools.
The learning path of teachers, school authorities, tutors and students for projecting teaching and learning spaces is neither simple nor automatic. Processes, on the contrary, are very complex and are not reached necessarily in the times demanded by the proposal. However, the advances that take place monthly between the participants of these schools, who have also begun a strong team and collaborative work, prove that the device to promote the ICT-mediated educational process is positive for the proposed ends.
Buckingham, D. (2008): Mas allá de la tecnología: aprendizaje infantil en la cultura digital. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Manantial, p. 221. [Translated by the author].
Technology-based rural schools
Table 1. Enrollment, classrooms and teachers (up to June 2015).
Number of classrooms: 37 TOTAL Number of teachers: 49 Approximate number of tutors and assistants: 70
Classrooms of the locations of each secondary school are physical spaces that the adolescents who live in each of the communities attend with a similar schedule as that of the regular secondary school. In general, the space belongs to the primary school, which lends a classroom.
These rural classrooms, in turn, are coordinated by one or two tutors who are in charge of managing the school day and of accompanying the students’ learning processes, guiding them in the tasks designed by each teacher. The number of tutors per classroom depends on each particular province and case. For example, in cases in which it was diagnosed as necessary due to the characteristics of students’ population, the province also added an indigenous teaching assistant (ADI or ADA, for its acronym in Spanish) to deal with the particular needs of the students.
We find the proposal of having two tutors available per classroom to be very favorable, regardless of how the population is made up. That is, with indigenous students, it is advisable that one of the tutors be an ADA or an ADI. In the case of classrooms that do not have indigenous population, we also recommend that two tutors be present, due to the additional demand brought about by groups including children of different ages in each of the classrooms. That is, each rural secondary school classroom in a community has, among its students, some students who are attending grades of the Lower Secondary Education level and others who may be in the same space, attending grades of Higher Secondary Education level. Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
II.3. Participants and Roles in this Secondary School
In connection with the selection of the professionals and participants that were required for this school proposal, profiles for tutors, school authorities and teachers were developed together with the governments, as a team, and were subsequently adjusted to the teachers involved in each school. Thereafter, assignment of each role was made based on a background review and interviews, in an alternative manner to the tender for titles carried out in regular secondary education. This was necessary in order to identify the most suitable profiles to participate in a proposal of this type, which required a particular handling of technologies and a strong commitment and inclination to the innovation of school management and teaching practices.
In this section, you will find interspersed the statements of the teachers of the Urban Headquarters and the Rural Classrooms of the province of Chaco. They are extracts of a survey carried out in the province and provide a powerful testimony about the experience.
“This year I was summoned to work in this project, which honestly (…) the idea, the model, and its modality made an impact on me.”
“The fact that children who did not have the possibility to study are able to study today. That they have the resource of netbooks available and that, through them, they are able to study, there is (also) a team behind this entire resource.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
With the aim of strengthening the role of each participant, specific orientations. were developed. Essentially, these suggestions arose due to the challenge of the figure of the tutor, who is a member chosen among the community, who not in all cases began tertiary studies. This figure is crucial to the daily accompaniment of the children. Communication and interaction among tutors and teachers is one of this format’s greatest challenges. The understanding and appreciation by school authorities and
Duro, E. y Lista, E. (2014): Secundaria Rural mediada por TIC. Guía para directivos [MIMEO]. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). [Translated by the author].
Technology-based rural schools
teachers of these schools of the tutor’s role and of what supporting these young people entails, whose teachers and classes are mediated by ICTs, is a learning process and, fundamentally, a process of recognition of the other. The tutor accompanies students every day, he/she guides them, guarantees that they go to the classroom and do not drop out, worries about each of the students and their academic careers, and works so that all of his/her students understand.
“Children are here, they are not only here, but they are learning, this is what demands that we, as tutors, do not confuse the fact that they attend with the fact that they are coming to school and learning; this is what we have and what I value. Because we can be with the kids, they can come to school to be with their schoolmates. That is, the time they spend here, they are learning (…) what we call the priority contents.”
Tutor, “Pozo del Gallo” classroom. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
In connection with equipment and its uses, it will be one of the aspects to be considered in the next chapter. Here, we only mention that classrooms have netbooks for students, a projector, a PC for the tutor and access to satellite Internet. It should be mentioned that access to the Internet brings about several difficulties due to the deficiencies still present in this type of service in rural locations, which led to the amplification of the ICT spectrum with the implementation of Technological Classrooms and the creation of an internal network among the computers that are in the classroom.
As previously mentioned, the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools are integrated by a managing team, teachers of each of the subjects of secondary school level, and tutors of the rural classrooms. In turn, there are other roles that make up the institutions, depending on the cases: technical or technological coordinators, pedagogical coordinators, pedagogical advisers and assistant teachers of the classrooms where adolescents from indigenous communities attend.
According to the results of the interviews conducted in the province of Chaco, teachers and tutors are aware that school authorities carry out the general coordination of the school. This would include, among other activities, the handling of information and the organization of the resources and tasks. As stated by a teacher: Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
“I believe its main role, and to me, also the most important role, is being able to manage the school. I believe that management is essential in this school (…) Management from the very basics, I don’t know, from guaranteeing children’s education to organizing trips, virtual classrooms or making sure that children’s attendance is permanent, looking for resources.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
The role of the Director, in this case, would not be very different from the role carried out in a school with traditional modality. However, it is important to mention that, given the size of the schools and the type of constitution of the urban headquarters (with teachers that share the space with the managing teams, without the physical presence of students), there are greater possibilities to generate cases of exchange and collaboration between the managing teams and the teachers, a matter which is comparatively different from regular secondary schools where, in general, school authorities do not have the space and time available to work together with the entire teaching staff.
Consequently, in the interviews it is perceived that school authorities are also aware of the planning and design of activities, of communication between the urban headquarters and rural classrooms, of the correction of activities, and of students´ evaluations. They also exist as a support figure for teachers, since they back up the decisions of the team and guide actions based on learning. This also applies to tutors, who recognize that the Director accompanies them and manages the school from a distance, taking into account their needs and guiding the process:
“We feel that we are accompanied, we have a response... these things make us stronger when we say, I am alone here, in the classroom, but I am not actually alone, I mean (…) when it comes to guiding. They manage, precisely because they guide, organize, set boundaries, systematize things, roles, and that helps us and also leads us in the right direction and guides us, and everything is...”.
Tutor, “Pozo del Gallo” classroom. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
The role of teachers is mainly focused on planning classes, drafting scripts and subsequently sending them through e-mail. It also includes evaluating them and providing feedback, always taking into account the particular
Technology-based rural schools
characteristics of each classroom and of each student. It should be specifically mentioned that there must be a necessary readiness to reply to inquiries and doubts as soon as possible.
“Managing classes first and following-up on students. Because, although it is virtual and you may say “Ok, yes”, but it is not like that, we are there, seeing what happened with that student, finding out why he/she did not hand in his/her homework; or if the tutor from over there tells you: “no, because the student has not attended school for the last 2 weeks,” Well, why is that? Because when he/she comes back to school, he/she will be behind, so we [must] see how to handle that situation. We must also take into account all aspects at the time of preparing the class.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
On the other hand, the role of tutors is based on accompanying students, providing guidance for activities and acting as intermediaries between them and the team of teachers. They must download the activities sent by the latter, read them (study them) and implement them in the classrooms, with the students, following the teachers’ suggestions or proposals. Once the guideline is applied, they resolve doubts or transmit them to the teachers so that they provide a reply and send the completed activities.
“Teachers plan the classes for us, we have a bond with them, we, the tutors who, for example, have this and that doubt and consult them about it, or the children have doubts that they share with us and we are a link, as I said before, between students and teachers.”
Tutor, “Alta Esperanza” classroom. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
The implementation of proposals planned by teachers requires, in many cases, the adaptation by the tutors of certain characteristics, resources, strategies or explanations based on the students, the management of the learning process and the context of the classroom. As it may be observed in the results of the surveys, 20% of tutors have replied that they replicate the teachers’ proposals as sent, and the rest affirms that they have to make some kind of adaptation. Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
Chart 17. At the time of developing the activities planned by teachers, which of the following situations better reflects your work in the classroom?
Tutors
I must permanently adapt planning to students’ characteristics and needs.
Generally, I follow planning, but I sometimes must make some modifications so that students understand better. I try to replicate the activities proposed by the teacher as faithfully as possible.
Source: UNICEF 2015 data from the Survey conducted to teachers, school authorities and tutors of the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools.
It should be mentioned that tutors also perform various tasks and, despite their wide scope, they are all necessary. Some of them, the most important ones, are related to students’ social-affective and educational dimensions, and others are related to the maintenance of rural classrooms, the interaction with communities, and the development of interventions aimed at guaranteeing the continuity of academic careers. We frequently observe tutors who go to the homes of sick adolescents or adolescents that have difficulties attending school, who take care of the transfer of certain children when necessary, who carry out ordinance tasks and may even prepare breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks in some classrooms. In these cases, certain activities, which
All the charts that show the answers of teachers, tutors and school authorities of Technology- based Secondary Schools respond to the same survey. Therefore, the sources will not be repeated in the subsequent charts.
Technology-based rural schools
may be more collective and collaborative between the students and the tutor must be given a new meaning and have the support of other members of the community.
As it may be observed, the figure of the tutor is essential to guaranteeing the operation of this type of school, and their task is complex since it entails dealing with multiple aspects of this operation. On the other hand, school authorities and teachers also assume different roles in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools, as compared to regular schools. All of this has caused the configuration of new roles, the conformation of work teams and the delimitation of responsibilities to be some of the key issues on which these schools have had to work from their beginnings up to the present. Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
Why do we say that Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools constitute an innovation?
The term “innovate”, from the Latin innovare, means “to change or alter things by introducing novelties.” We selected two definitions from the educational field, which summarize the innovative nature of these secondary schools.
Jaume Carbonell, defines innovation as:“A series of interventions, decisions and processes, with a certain degree of intention and systematization, which attempt to modify attitudes, ideas, cultures, contents, models and pedagogical practices.”
According to Juan Manuel Escudero: “Educational innovation means a battle against reality as is, against what is mechanical, a routine and usual, against the force of the facts and the weight of inertia. It means, then, a wager on what is built collectively as desirable by the creating imagination, the transformation of what exists. It demands, in summary, the opening of a Utopian crack in the core of a system that, as the educational system, enjoys an excess of tradition, perpetuation and conservation of the past. (...) innovation equals —must equal— a specific environment in the entire educational system that, from the Administration to the teachers and students, fosters the inclination to investigate, discover, reflect, criticize... change.”
In turn, for UNICEF innovation entails something new that adds value in respect of the previous situation and generates a positive impact in the target population. It must contain the conditions of efficiency, traction and scalability and may or may not include ICTs.
Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools are framed within the three definitions, and the participants of these schools themselves, as well as the provincial officials and authorities, are the ones who innovate on a daily basis, transforming reality and building this new school to enforce a basic right to which these young people could not access.
Carbonell, J. (2001): La aventura de innovar. El cambio en la escuela. Madrid: Morata. [Translated by the author]. Escudero, J. M. (1987): “La investigación en la acción en el panorama actual de la investigación educativa: algunas tendencias”, en Revista de Innovación e Investigación Educativa, N° 3, p. 40. [Translated by the author]. UNICEF (2014): Innovations in Education. Retrieved from: http://www.unicef.org/education/ bege_73537.html
Technology-based rural schools II.4. Recognition of Schools by the Law
Guaranteeing the compulsory nature of secondary education is a state policy. These Technology-based Secondary Schools are framed within the regulation, the goals and the principles of secondary education as set forth in the National Education Law No. 26,206 and in the subsequent decisions of the Federal Education Council related to the new secondary education plan for all citizens.
Firstly, this proposal integrates the educational policy in force for adolescents, which, according to the previously mentioned law, must guarantee:
The right to Including everyone, as a result of effective access, school continuity and education of all graduating, transforming secondary school into a vital and meaningful experience in their day-to-day development as adolescents and well as for their future projects. young people. Continuous and Pedagogical and materials conditions, to completed school make transit through this compulsory level career paths, understood effective, with priority focused as the journey through which on the most disadvantaged equitable learning opportunities and vulnerable segments . are guaranteed by means of a common set of knowledge, for each of society. and every one of the adolescents and young people in our country.
A Relevant education, The necessary conditions for to be able to guarantee everyone links with primary level multiple opportunities of appropriating to establish, so as to guarantee entering, cultural and social heritage, their ways of staying and graduating, as well as construction, their bonds with the life of articulations with higher-education societies and with their future, through institutions, with different areas of educational experiences that propose the State, and social, cultural and articulations between the individual and productive organizations, as specific the general, between local and universal. ways of school leadership. Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
A determining condition for the sustainability of an innovation in the educational system is its integration to the normative and regulatory plexus. This new educational service that the governments decided to implement creates some tensions due to the fact of abandoning the traditional school format, and even more tension due to the lack of trust that still lingers in some participants of the educational system in respect of the use of ICTs as a mediating or enhancing tool for learning (under the conditions of adequate didactic planning). This educational proposal was, from its beginnings, in 2012, a collective learning experience that was the subject of periodic adjustments in order to improve.
One of the possible actions in order to solve the matters that cause said tension -and with the aim of guaranteeing the sustainability of this innovative educational project-, was to approve its format, but under conditions that would respect certain characteristics of the traditional secondary school. That is, the curriculum, the schedule, and subjects and credit hours had to coincide initially with the rest of the official curriculum. This request is comprised within the framework of a rigid system, as is the educational system; however, it must be highlighted that, by respecting the cores of priority learning set by the National and Provincial governments, certain prioritizations of contents demanded by the reality of the practice itself were gradually established. Re- thinking contents and learning priorities of the schools located in rural areas, regardless of this type of educational format, demands a review that awards a higher level of relevance and sense to the education of these young people, as stated by some interviewed teachers:
“We always try to adapt contents to their reality; we always try to see what children need or what would be useful for them to learn”.
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
“First, we ask ourselves if this will actually be useful for the student. Maybe it is a very abstract subject, but we may transform it so that it is more practical.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
Although, initially, in almost every model of Technology-based Rural Secondary School implemented by each of the provinces, matters deriving from the traditional format were specified, they were gradually re-adapted in the implementation
Technology-based rural schools
process with adjustments to the credit hours, grouping by projects, tasks performed by collaborative teams, among other changes that gave cause to team-innovation on the results that were being attained in each classroom and by each student. A reconsideration and team work regarding the Academic and Assessment Regulations in each of these establishments is still pending, so that not only the format but also the regime with its syllabus, evaluation system, credits system, promotion system, cohabitation system, among others, are regularized, so as to guarantee non-exclusive and pertinent academic careers for all and each of these young people. Admittance is unrestricted in all the Technology-based Secondary Schools and every young person that proves they have finished primary school and may have attended or not secondary school years in another community may access. Pregnant students are admitted and some of them take their babies to class when necessary.
In connection with the physical spaces of rural classrooms that make up every secondary school, although classrooms have been reconditioned to improve conditions, it is still a pending matter. Access to safe water, restrooms for men and for women, sharing the building with primary school, are issues often easily managed but, in other cases, tensions persist. Shared use of libraries and other spaces greatly depend on the handling of each tutor or on the existence of good supervision.
In connection with the rules that govern these Technology-based Secondary Schools, the four educational governments that implement them created the provincial rules we may observe below:
Province of Salta
Regulation: Decree 969/2013. Government of the Province of Salta.
CONSIDERING: the National Education Law and the Provincial Education Law provide for the compulsory nature of the secondary education level. The province of Salta has an educational policy aimed at guaranteeing the equality of opportunities so that all adolescents have access to their compulsory education.
As from the academic period of 2013, the Project of Secondary Education mediated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) IS APPROVED.
The creation of Educational Unit No. 5212 is hereby AUTHORIZED, with the ICT-mediated Secondary Education modality with classrooms in 11 localities (Santa Teresa, La Argentina, Los Pozos, Santa Rita, La Media Luna, El Trementinal, Madrejones, Campo Durán, La Poma, Pucará and the Capital). Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
Province of Chaco
Regulation: Circular Letter No. 7/15. Ministry of Education, Culture and Technology.
CONSIDERING: taking into account the implementation of the Technology- based Rural Secondary School format through the 2014-2015 Cooperation Agreement with UNICEF Argentina.
The following is hereby ESTABLISHED: delegation of functions to the Director of the Technology-based Rural Secondary School, the main function being knowledge about the pedagogical and technical aspects of ICT-mediated teaching and virtual environments.
Province of Jujuy
Regulation: Decision 4690/2013. Government of the Province of Jujuy.
In 2016, Decree 920-E/16 is created for the normative regulation of Technology-based Rural Secondary School No. 1
CONSIDERING that the National Education Law provides for the assurance of quality education with equality of opportunity; that in the province of Jujuy, there are rural areas in the five educational regions which require a specific treatment and that was the reason why an educational model of creation of educational centers in rural areas with face-to-face and virtual modalities was designed.
The following is APPROVED: the operation of Rural Secondary School No. 1 as the urban headquarters in the city of San Salvador de Jujuy and the creation of 10 rural classrooms in the localities of Lobatón, Normeta, Santo Domingo, Loma Blanca, Orosmayo, Paicone, Quebraleña, Huancar, Valle Colorado and Pampichuela. An operating staff is also approved to be in charge of local classrooms and curriculum guidelines. In May 2016, it is informed that the Orosmayo classroom is momentarily closed.
In 2015, Rural Secondary School No. 2 is created by means of Decision No. 2831- E-15, dated April 24, 2015, which belongs to the Rural Modality. It currently has fourteen (14) rural classrooms, located in Olaroz Chico, El Toro, Palca de Aparzo, Valiazo, Cianzo, Chorcan, Caspala, Agua de Castilla, Vizcarra and Laguna de Tesorero, which operate regularly. In May 2016, it is informed that one of the classrooms located in Aparzo is in process of defining its operation and three classrooms –Las Escaleras, La Almona and El Cucho– are in process of being relocated in this institution.
Technology-based rural schools Province of Misiones
Regulation: Decision 497/2013
Letter of Commitment for the Creation of the Secondary Education Unit in a Virtual Environment, in which it is undertaken to facilitate the operational-administrative structure for the fulfillment of the cooperation agreement signed with UNICEF Argentina to develop new school formats that guarantee accessibility, quality of education, inclusion and equality in rural communities.
Regulation: Decision 1243/2015. General Education Council.
DECISION: creation of the Coordinación Provincial del Programa Servicios de Educación Secundaria Presencial [“Provincial Coordination of the Face-to- Face Secondary Education Services Program”] in a virtual environment for populations of isolated rural areas.
In 2016, the Provincial Ministry of Education determined that the Technology-based Rural Secondary School would become part of the bilingual intercultural education modality, given the percentage of students belonging to indigenous communities. Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
II.5. Location of the Technology-based Schools Classrooms in rural areas
Georeferencing of rural classrooms was carried out by each of the ministerial teams. Positioning is approximate.
Map 1. Chaco
Fortín Belgrano
Tartagal
Pozo del Gallo Campo Grande
General Güemes Pozo del Gato Fortín Arenales
La Fidelidad San Telmo Alta Esperanza
Urban Headquarters
Technology-based rural schools
Map 2. Jujuy
Paicone
Loma Blanca Santo Liviara Domingo
Valle Colorado Quebraleña
Huancar Pampichuela
Normenta
Urban Headquarters
Lobaton Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
Map 3. Misiones
. Libertad
Alecrin/ San Pedro
San Ignacio El Soberbio
Santa Ana 25 de mayo Urban Headquarters
20 km
Technology-based rural schools
Map 4. Salta
Madrejones Campo Durán
El Trementinal
Media Luna
Esquina de Guardia
La Argentina La Bomba Los Pozos Santa Teresa Urban Headquarters
Pucará Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
Each of these locations may have some or several of these features: mountains, valleys, jungles, desert areas, precipices, streams and rivers. Each location is a unique and special territory, as are the communities that inhabit it. In the videos featured in Chapter V, you may listen to and know the voices and opinions of students and their families, but you may also appreciate and value the geography of some of the classrooms of the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools of this great diverse territory that is Argentina.
Technology-based rural schools II.6. An insight to the Technology-based Rural Schools
In the following link you will find a video that UNICEF has produced in order to share the experience of the Technology-based Rural Secondary School in the province of Chaco.
https://youtu.be/Xo5xrFwKMDY Chapter II. Characteristics of the “Technology-based Rural Secondary School” Innovation
Technology-based rural schools Chapter III Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School
III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School
III.1. Scope of an ICT-based Educational Process
As we have pointed out in the previous chapters, this type of technology- based institutional format defines ICTs as the material and symbolic group of equipment and discourses formed through new and old means of communication. This admits a complex conception of the practices with ICTs that result from social interaction in each community. “One of the main goals of education is the development of transversal abilities and cognitive skills in students to enable an adequate performance in the current net society (...) the comprehension of a multimodal culture which materializes in different supports, devices, formats and representational languages poses the challenge of incorporating new literacies into schools (in curriculum design and classroom practices).” Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools present various axes from which to approach innovation regarding the incorporation of ICTs.
What do we understand by Technology-based Secondary Schools? It is a school where teachers plan their classes and upload them to a virtual platform that is accessed by the tutors and students of the classrooms in rural locations that attend school daily. As it has already been mentioned, tutors are in charge of guiding students in the development of learning activities. Students have netbooks and other ICT tools to access these virtual environments.
An effective Internet connection in rural areas, as it has been pointed out, is still a challenge for the country. In cases in which Internet access is difficult, different alternatives are chosen: use of flash drives, multimedia materials and offline digital resources. This results in a combination of virtual and face-to-face interaction, communication and knowledge generation among students, teachers and tutors and in these educational communities.
38 necuzzi, C. (2013): Estado del arte sobre desarrollo cognitivo involucrado en los procesos de aprendizaje y enseñanza con integración de las TIC. ICT and Basic Education Program, UNICEF. [Translated by the author].
Technology-based rural schools
Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools have special characteristics and require the continuous generation of innovations: schools with several classrooms in remote rural locations, students virtually and personally linked, dispersed communities with frequent realities of vulnerability and poverty. A social and cultural dimension of ICT integration includes the access to equipment but is not limited to it, it compels the generation of a series of educational and communicational strategies. The significant incorporation of ICTs in education implies continuous reformulations in terms of integration and of their pedagogical potential so that these rural secondary schools may become spaces where methods of teaching, learning, producing and representing their own contexts, as well as other scenarios unknown to them until nowadays, can be created.
A key variable for understanding and enriching this innovative format are the ways in which communication situations are established. In this regard, they challenge us to think about the pedagogical process in terms of a communicational perspective.
Communication constitutes a fundamental dimension in any school; nevertheless, it acquires another value in this kind of school. As Jaramillo López points out, “The communicational process, on the other hand, is only perfected when that perception becomes a comprehension incorporated to culture through practices encompassed in everydayness, that is to say, when there is a structural impact that transforms behaviors that, of course, given the complexity of the social construction, cannot be attributed to a single factor, but can be promoted, facilitated and strengthened from communication”.
In this sense, ICTs are crucial since they enable the effective concretion of exchange between the participants at the urban headquarters and those of the different rural classrooms. On one hand, educational platforms offer diverse spaces for interaction among people: general and specific forums, messages and spaces that gather individual participants depending on their roles. On the other hand, there are other possible ways of communication by means of cell phones, e-mails, social networks and messaging services.
Jaramillo López, J. C. (2011): ¿Comunicación estratégica o estrategias de comunicación? El arte del ajedrecista. Document presented in the VII Latin-American Symposium of Organizational Communication, Comunicación Estratégica o Estrategias de Comunicación, he ahí la cuestión del DIRCOM; Autonomous University of the West, 28-30th September, 2011, Cali, Colombia. Available
Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School at www.comminit.com/files/el_arte_del_ajedrecista.doc [Translated by the author].
“We are, that is what we have, that we are always in touch, we are communicated. In any given situation we, the tutors, are in touch with the authorities, the teachers, the secretary.”
Tutor, Technology-based Rural Secondary School. “Todos a la secundaria” project, Alta Esperanza classroom. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
Technology-based rural schools III.2. ICT Types and Notes on their Use
The school’s virtual platform is the most adequate means to communicate and to work jointly since it organizes communication. It constitutes a space where everyone can participate in the teaching and learning processes, and it also enables access to the register of said communications in a systematized manner.
Nevertheless, taking into account connection deficiencies in certain cases, it was necessary to resort to e-mails in order to guarantee communication of specific situations as well as the delivery of classes. The use of this tool has allowed tutors to download teaching activities sent by teachers whenever they have access to the Internet, and to implement them in the classroom without the need to be online, which turns out to be an important advantage as regards online platforms, mainly in the cases and provinces that have yet to provide good connection in rural areas.
The community of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools has been gradually internalizing the importance of communication to optimize its functioning. In addition to e-mails, cell phones are also being used to keep regular communication among the authorities and teachers located in urban headquarters and tutors and students in rural classrooms. This type of communication tends to have a more informal and spontaneous character, and it encompasses didactic and administrative questions. The most frequently used channel of communication is WhatsApp, as is shown in the following chart. Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School
Chart 18. Use of different communication channels.
Users Frequency of use
Text message
School platform
Phone call
Chat
Skype
Other communication channel
Several times a week
Once a week
Several times a month / Every 15 days / Occasionally
E-mail becomes the main means of exchanging school activities when there is limited connectivity to work on the platform.
Technology-based rural schools
Chart 19. Main means used in communication among teachers and tutors and among tutors of different classrooms.
Text message
Phone call
School platform
Chat Among teachers and tutors Among tutors Skype
The communicative dimension implies sharing sense criteria in various aspects:
QQ In terms of pedagogical practices.
QQ In the ways of incorporating ICTs to give a new dimension to teaching and learning processes.
QQ In the ways in which all the members of these secondary schools communicate with each other.
QQ The necessary knowledge about ICTs.
These secondary schools have a dynamics that is undergoing a process of updating and strengthening in the implementation of ICTs. As we have mentioned, these tools may enrich the planning methods for content teaching as well as the manner of consolidating communication channels among all the members of the educational community, in the urban headquarters of the school and in the classrooms in rural locations. Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School
To accomplish this consolidation, planning acquires a fundamental role. Axes for strengthening the use of ICTs include:
1. Equipment/Incorporation of Technological Classrooms to strengthen pedagogical practices.
2. Educational virtual platforms in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools.
3. Trainings and collaborative meetings on pedagogical and communicational use of ICTs.
III.2.1. Equipment
As regards equipment and the incorporation of Technological Classrooms for strengthening pedagogical innovation, ever since this innovative format began to be implemented, every secondary school in a rural location of the four provinces has been equipped, in a progressive manner, with several technological devices. In addition to providing technical assistance and helping in the strengthening of local teams, UNICEF cooperated with the initial supply of technological devices. And, within the framework of the Conectar Igualdad program, other computers were added given that said program provides netbooks for every student of State-managed public secondary schools throughout the country.
Granting the amount and the quality of resources to guarantee access to complex ways of knowledge formation is a sustained commitment of these Technology-based Secondary Schools. Following Anijovich, “concern about education diversity, which is a consequence of the need to pay attention to multicultural problems highlighted by globalization, the sensitization for integration of cultural and religious minorities, and the new considerations regarding gender also bring into educational systems a deep debate about equality and justice, a pair that we consider inseparable when having to define educational policies”. These problems interpellate those who participate in this initiative: adolescents, their communities and their families, which are connected for the first time; the teachers of the urban headquarters of each school, all of them from urban environments and who in most cases teach rural population for the first time; and the tutors whose profile is developed on a daily basis. They all simultaneously and collaboratively learn the ways to respond to the enormous challenges that the use of ICTs with educational purposes implies.
http://www.nacio.unlp.edu.ar/prospectiva/001/Todos_pueden_aprender-Anijovich.pdf [Translated by the author].
Technology-based rural schools
That is why, among the set of strategies for the strengthening of these schools, it was decided to equip the 4 urban headquarters and all the rural classrooms of the four jurisdictions with Technological Classrooms: equipment that forms an internal network which includes multimedia contents with a design similar to that of a web page. In it there are resources related to all the subjects and material for teachers in different formats: books, hypertexts and audiovisual material specifically selected by the teachers of the schools. Moreover, it has sections to upload the work produced by students as well as new pedagogical resources.
These Technological Classrooms (TC) contribute to enrich teaching practices with a collaborative dynamics when it comes to selecting topics and material.
Technological Classrooms are formed by a set of equipment and are destined, as was mentioned, to each urban headquarters and to all ICT rural classrooms of Salta, Jujuy, Chaco and Misiones. The TC arrived to each classroom with a User Manual that contains the pertinent explanation, photographs, user IDs and passwords.
Prior to incorporating TC, work with authorities, teachers, tutors and technical supporters of this secondary school was carried out to learn, all together, about its dynamics of use, the pedagogical proposal, its aesthetics and its possibilities.
On the other hand, it is very significant that contents have been selected by the same teachers that will later use them for their classes. Having the selected contents of the four jurisdictions is an additional advantage since it enhances access to and diversity of materials.
These Technological Classrooms are designed to generate an internal network that connects netbooks to a central server of the classroom by means of a wireless router. In this way, it is possible to have access to a wide variety of contents and resources in different formats, previously stored and ordered according to curricular areas, through four sections: Video Library, Library, Share your Work and Digital Classrooms.
The number of Technological Classrooms corresponds to the classrooms under UNICEF cooperation. The Rural Secondary School ICT 2, in the province of Jujuy, was constituted as a
Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School provincial initiative after the cooperation framework agreements.
Each Technological Classroom is composed of:
QQ 1 classroom central server (with screen, keyboard and mouse).
QQ 5 netbooks.
QQ 1 wireless router that allows netbooks to connect to the classroom central server, thus, setting up the intranet.
QQ 15 flash drives.
QQ 1 surge protector.
Student of the School of the San Ignacio Rural Classroom, Technology-based Rural Secondary School, province of Misiones, accessing the contents of the Technological Classroom.
At the same time, that internal network was set up taking into account the equipment that the schools already had, and it can be accessed by means of any other computer, tablet or cell phone entering the network of the pertinent technological classroom.
The server of the Technological Classroom is organized on the basis of blogs and platforms to give the users a surfing environment similar to that of a website, friendly and simple. Each technological classroom server has the following internal structure:
QQ 1 Video Library (Wordpress platform).
QQ 1 Library (Wordpress platform).
QQ 1 space to Share Your Work (Wordpress platform).
QQ 1 Digital Classroom (Moodle platform).
Technology-based rural schools
The Video Library and the Library contain resources selected by the teachers of the four provinces. This way, all the rural schools of this program incorporate a larger amount of material into classes, thus enriching the activities.
In the Share Your Work section, different students’ experiences, stories, presentations, videos and texts can be stored as they are performed.
Lastly, the Digital Classrooms section is a standard Moodle platform specially designed for this purpose, which can be accessed from the internal network of each technological classroom. Once they have uploaded their user IDs, students can create their profiles and their own blogs. They are sorted by categories, according to years and subjects.
Digital Classrooms in the Technological Classrooms server of the Rural Secondary School No. 1, province of Jujuy.
Library in the Technological Classroom server for all classrooms. Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School
Home screen to access the Technological Classroom server from netbooks in all classrooms.
Video Library in the Technological Classroom server in all classrooms.
And on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHdwgcLymLA) it is possible to watch the Technological Classrooms video presentation for all the classrooms.
It has been arranged that these TC as a whole, both in the urban headquarters and in all classrooms in rural locations, should have an agreed common minimum amount of contents and materials.
This technological model complements and strengthens the virtual and face- to-face proposal of the Technology-based Rural Secondary School, since it enables the production of pedagogical proposals by giving access to hyper textual materials and resources, independently of Internet connection.
“Then a way is always found; when there are meetings of this kind, the activities are given in flash drives or sent with somebody, sometimes they do not do them because the machines do not
Technology-based rural schools
work or have some problem, the kids work on paper, in their folders and somehow they turn them in; now we are trying to make them use WhatsApp. In other words, we always find a way for them to do the activities.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
With the incorporation of TC, all classrooms have the same resources; this way, the teachers in the urban headquarters enjoy the possibility of generating classes in which they ask the students to read a text or to watch a video without having to upload this resource to the virtual educational platform: they propose students to access the pertinent section of the Video Library or of the Library in the Technological Classrooms and to download said content.
Thus, there is no waste of time while uploading or downloading resources, which - due to the quality of the connection available- delays or slows down the management of classes by teachers and tutors as well as students’ access to learning contents.
We can then affirm that with the incorporation of this equipment in rural secondary schools, there is a strengthening of the proposals for:
QQ Promoting navigation and access to different means of communication.
QQ Enhancing the ways to have access to resources and to a variety of information in different formats.
QQ Simplifying the time to upload and download classes on virtual platforms.
As these Technological Classrooms are incorporated in everyday use at every rural classroom and urban headquarters, the advantages and the diverse manners of using contents will be further studied. Sections facilitate pedagogical dynamics that prioritize the multiplicity of sources for the search of information, the generation of selection criteria, the comparisons, the posing of new questions instead of giving immediate answers and the attainment of results through different ways.
The potentiality of the proposal in terms of ICT-mediation in rural secondary schools is then enriched through the pedagogical intention, the commitment of all the parties involved in the educational proposal, the responsibility to Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School
maintain and favor research, the inquiry and update of contents. This is usually carried out in a collaborative manner by authorities, teachers, tutors and students on the basis of curricular proposals, initiatives and motivations of each educational community. All the technological resources become enriching tools within the framework of a significant planning and starting on the idea of the challenge of complexity as an opportunity.
It is worth mentioning that coordination and implementation of a delivery schedule of these Technological Classrooms was needed in each one of the 40 classrooms of the rural locations in the four provinces. All this was accompanied by the granting of sweatshirts with the name of the school and of the location, to all the students, and of signs for each of the classrooms in the interest of strengthening the identity of these schools in each community, an explicit request from students in order to highlight the value of the secondary school and its roles in the community.
Visits to the urban headquarters and rural classrooms of each school were an opportunity for the teams and teachers to work with all the group of schools, parents and relatives. These visits are not only opportunities of support, accompaniment and training but they also create a space where it is possible to work with pedagogical matters and issues related to health and the necessities and/or problems that may arise.
“Going to the locations and seeing the reality of the more than 140 students, all of them happy to be here, inside, studying and undertaking secondary school, is incredible, it touches you deep inside; even more so when you are with them and they tell you: ‘Yes, sir, I like it, I love it, at last I can’, because we had students that, for example, finished primary school and were about two years without schooling until rural schools began to be implemented and then they came back. They entered with this platform. And, well, these experiences are also very positive; being able to reincorporate students.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
By means of the last survey of the second semester of 2015, each of the classrooms of the secondary schools is equipped with the following technological devices:
QQ 1 Technological Classroom
Technology-based rural schools
QQ Netbooks
QQ Wireless router
QQ Projector
QQ Printer
QQ Flash drives
QQ Computers
Here we can observe the quantitative detail of the equipment per province:
Salta: 10 classrooms in rural locations and 1 urban headquarters
Equipment Amount
Netbooks (UNICEF provision) 98
Netbooks (Conectar Igualdad provision) 215
Printers 9
Projectors 9
Flash drives 41
PCs 1
Technological Classrooms 11
Offered data contemplate all the devices acquired since the beginning of the implementation
Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School of rural secondary schools in the four jurisdictions.
Jujuy: 10 classrooms in rural locations and 1 urban headquarters
Equipment Amount
Netbooks (UNICEF provision) 108
Netbooks (Conectar Igualdad provision) 185
Printers 11
Projectors 11
Flash drives 320
PCs 0
Technological Classrooms 11
Chaco: 10 classrooms in rural locations and 1 urban headquarters
Equipment Amount
Netbooks (UNICEF provision) 100
Netbooks (Conectar Igualdad provision) 119
Printers 11
Projectors 11
Flash drives 160
PCs 10
Technological Classrooms 11
Technology-based rural schools
Misiones: 6 classrooms in rural locations and 1 urban headquarters
Equipment Amount
Netbooks (UNICEF provision) 74
Netbooks (Conectar Igualdad provision) 84
Printers 8
Projectors 7
Flash drives 14
PCs 7
Technological Classrooms 7
III.2.2. Educational Virtual Platforms in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
As was mentioned before, teachers plan their classes in the urban headquarters and upload them to virtual platforms specifically designed to comply with curricular contents.
As above mentioned, platforms are the means of communication and of teaching and learning proposals that best meet the needs of secondary schools in these rural locations.
The provinces of Jujuy and Misiones did not have a specific design of educational platforms. For that reason, since the beginning of 2015 work was done to setup both virtual environments. By July, both platforms were ready to be normally operated and organized according to classrooms, subjects and years, with preconfigured user IDs and profiles, and with images and various resources already stored. Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School
Province of Jujuy (http://www.plataforma.mejujuy.gov.ar/)
Province of Misiones (http://www.esr-tic.misiones.gov.ar/)
The provinces of Chaco and Salta had this online virtual space, and during 2015 work was done to put into effect and reconsider curricular areas and planning methods, topics that will be dealt with in the following section.
Province of Chaco (http://www.secundariachaco.com.ar/)
Technology-based rural schools
Province of Salta (http://www.edusalta.gov.ar:105/rural_fresco/)
Virtual environments of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools are set up on Moodle platforms, an open source (free) system that allows personalizing environments according to the needs of the institution that uses it. It has an online community and it is constantly updated, which is the reason why the platform easily integrates other systems and software.
By means of this online community, those who manage the platforms have access to permanent support and a consultation forum, and have the chance of improving their platforms with different additional applications: homework submission in audio files, virtual library, social networks and videoconferencing applications, among others.
Regarding institutional management of classes, these virtual environments accept massive upload of users and exporting information in different formats. They also offer the possibility of tracing activities not only of students but also of tutors, teachers and those who integrate the school community by using the platforms. This information is shown in various statistics, whether individual or belonging to each of the courses therein contained.
In virtual classrooms students elaborate knowledge individually and/or collaboratively. They interact with different Resources and Activities: forums, homework, lessons, videos; and they have the chance to communicate in real time with their teacher and classmates, when the connection available allows this practice. Meanwhile, the teacher can update, re-use and adapt contents and materials to different students according to the feedback and corrections that he/she makes on students’ works.
43 in the Moodle Platform, “Resources” are the tools for communication and content and material
Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School presentation; and “Activities” are the spaces to carry out tasks, interact and collaborate.
Virtual educational platforms may offer these possibilities, but in order to make them available it is necessary to take into account that it is essential for each educational community to:
QQ Clarify and exchange pedagogical goals.
QQ Dynamically and accurately set up the internal structure of the platform on the basis of these goals.
QQ Generate common communication criteria among users.
QQ Plan teaching sequences and projects taking into account the dimensions, the possibilities and the limitations of this virtual structure: teachers need to know the platform, agree upon the kind of “Activities” or “Resources” that the platform shall offer as tools for planning and having hyper textual access to contents, and so need tutors and students.
QQ Revise the manner in which teaching sequences will be written and set up so as to establish planning methods in these new innovative ICT-based formats from their multiple dimensions.
QQ Generate teaching and learning spaces that, using the advantages of these environments, strengthen the complex ways of accessing and creating knowledge: employment of various sources, inquiry of multiple languages, nonlinear formats of tasks resolution, text comparison, collaborative or in-pair work, visibility of the work produced at school in each one’s own community.
The work in virtual platforms will at the same time be enriched when having a pedagogical technical resource like Technological Classrooms installed in each of the rural classrooms.
III.2.3. Training and Educational Collaborative Meetings for Pedagogical and Communicational Use of ICTs
Together with the setup and establishment of classrooms in rural communities, work was done concerning the multiplicity of aspects to be taken into account for the implementation of this innovative format. Among them were the formation, training, continuous support and generation of materials and knowledge regarding the functioning of these secondary schools.
Technology-based rural schools
Regarding training for use and integration of ICTs, during 2015 training courses were further developed and new ones were created within three frameworks to enrich ICT mediation in pedagogical practices and to strengthen communication:
QQ Use of digital tools.
QQ Virtual platforms and teaching proposals.
QQ Technological Classrooms for strengthening innovation.
In relation to the first two items, an initial survey was carried out in the four jurisdictions concerning basic knowledge of digital tools managed by the same provincial technical teams who attend these schools, with the need to favor shared knowledge on the use of said tools. In the same way, there was an inquiry about uses of the platforms, starting from the need to improve class planning by making their design and their organization more dynamic for communication, teaching, learning and production.
In order for this to be possible, one of the first steps was, like with digital tools, to generate common knowledge and conceptualization criteria regarding these technological mediations. Establishing collective and shared criteria about the senses is usually a complex task that requires listening and resignification until reaching shared conceptualizations. This also implies an understanding of the communicative dimension present in all social practices.
Then, in the case of rural secondary schools, defining conceptualizations regarding activities performed on the platforms such as “upload or download homework”, “tag a file”, “generate a forum and with what purposes”, “compress a document” (zip), to mention just a few items, seems, at first sight, a matter way too simple or even already solved, but experience proved otherwise.
Regarding the abilities needed for using digital tools, as it was mentioned, the authorities distributed a simple survey to teachers regarding knowledge of several topics among which we can point out the following:
QQ The so-called office suites uploaded in netbooks.
QQ Educational software installed in netbooks.
QQ Operating systems. Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School
QQ Virus cleaning in equipment.
QQ File zipping.
QQ Drive setup.
QQ Alternatives for sharing information.
QQ Use of images.
QQ Use of e-mails/browsers.
“New netbooks, for example, have some software that does not need Internet, that the kids can use. I think the Math teacher uses Geogebra, she wants to use it but the tutors do not know how to use it and, well, it would be good if they could be trained for it.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]
Some of the training meetings that took place in 2015 in the four jurisdictions were carried out with the members of the Conectar Igualdad National Program, with different degrees of interaction. The activity of each technical team with the diverse areas of each Ministry of Education acquires different characteristics according to provincial dynamics of management and implementation of policies and programs.
These surveys led also to the systematic organization of trips of the jurisdictional technical teams to the classrooms alongside teachers. In Misiones, for example, on the basis of said surveys, training courses about basic digital literacy were delivered by the technical teams, who travelled to all the classrooms with the teachers. This proved to be a very positive activity for all the educational community.
Planning ICT integration is a task that must be repositioned and reconfigured based on metacognitive processes that make use of those experiences documented as positive and of those that require modifications.
With respect to the implementation of educational virtual platforms, agreements were made regarding the implementation of common management criteria among teachers and tutors. Performance of these tasks is developed according to jurisdictional curriculum designs, the planning of each province with regard to its approach on teaching, and
Technology-based rural schools
the adjustments concerning the experience of previous years. Among the several topics that were dealt with, the followings can be mentioned:
QQ Ways to access contents (per classroom, per area, per topic).
QQ Different profiles, their permissions and the tasks they enable.
QQ How to upload a file.
QQ How to tag a task.
QQ How to generate forums.
QQ How to manage contents.
QQ Diverse ways in which classes can be organized.
QQ Different ways in which completed homework can be presented.
QQ Common criteria for turning in homework.
QQ Innovative formats for teaching classes and for the resolution of tasks by the students.
As regards the incorporation of Technological Classrooms, training courses were given before the arrival of the equipment, in which the dynamics and strategies promoted by this resource were specially emphasized.
Within the tasks of these rural secondary schools, it is an immediate challenge to favor a larger diversity of proposals that integrate virtual and offline resources and dynamics in order to facilitate, simplify and strengthen the methods of communication and management of classes, as well as the bonds between the urban headquarters and all the classrooms in rural locations.
These training meetings raised awareness amongst technical teams, authorities, teachers and tutors of the need and importance of systematizing activities, generating shared criteria, continuous training, and permanent communication among all the members of the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools with the aim of strengthening and enriching this innovative educational format. Chapter III. The Role of ICTs in this Rural Secondary School
It is also essential to create spaces that integrate students regarding training on digital tools and use of the platform: young people use ICTs intuitively, but this is no guarantee of good criteria, complexity and generation of metacognitive abilities in the form of incorporation or use.
Chart 20. Agreement among teachers and tutors about ICT teaching.
Teachers Tutors
In this school we should teach the students more about the use of ICTs.
Totally agree Partially agree Partially disagree Totally disagree
Up to this point we have provided a review in terms of ICT mediation in these rural secondary schools from a communicational and pedagogical perspective. This gives way to a group of concrete topics and situations, specific of this kind of format, which demand a deeper analysis ofthe inclusion of different formats for the integration of technology. .
David Perkins states that “formal or informal education faces the most fundamental and general of its problems: how to approach complexity. The goal of education is to help us learn what we do not acquire in our daily life. Education must always ask itself what can be done to make knowledge and stimulating practices accessible.”
In the following section we will present the means and challenges of institutional and pedagogical management in this format of Technology-based Secondary School.
Perkins David (2010): El aprendizaje pleno: principios de la enseñanza para transformar la educación. Paidós, p. 24. [Translated by the author].
Technology-based rural schools Chapter IV Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
IV. Challenges of Institutional . and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
Management of a Technology-based Rural Secondary School implies, among other things, having to specifically address three essential issues in order to ensure the operation of this type of school format, so as to guarantee strong academic careers: 1) integration between educational modalities and levels, 2) collaborative work between participants of secondary school, and 3) the use and operation of communications and information technologies. Though these issues are common to all schools, they acquire distinctive features depending on the geographic distances between the classrooms and the urban headquarters, and on the incorporation of ICTs as key elements within the operation of the educational proposal. Moreover, distinctiveness lies in the fact that for these communities having access, going through and finishing secondary school is something new.
In the following paragraphs a characterization will be made of the ways in which Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools have addressed each of the challenges involved in guaranteeing the full right to education to adolescents of remote rural communities, and which have been the progresses and critical issues identified until now.
IV.1. Ensuring Integration between Primary . and Secondary Level
Coordination between both educational levels becomes an extremely relevant challenge in our country. Repetition and drop-out indicators in secondary school escalate in the first two years. This proves that students from primary school present difficulties to take the first steps in secondary school successfully. In this sense, Masine and others point out: “Between the graduation of students from primary school and the beginning of secondary school, there is, in many cases, a territory without clear jurisdiction: they no longer belong to primary school, but they are not secondary school students either, and thus, they are invisible for the system. Sometimes, the responsibility
Technology-based rural schools
of enrolment and the decision that their children continue studying is exclusively with the family, with the complication that, in many cases, these are families with no experience going through secondary school and, thus, they do not think about it in terms of possibility and opportunity.” This situation can be worse in remote rural communities where, up to now, there have not been secondary education offers. “It is necessary to consider that the more remote the secondary school is in the family’s history, the bigger the efforts that primary school must make for it to be possible. Experience shows that many parents did not go through secondary school; for that reason, it is important to think about the different supporting methods that primary schools should offer so their graduates continue their education”.
Having said that, integrating primary school and secondary school is a complex task; it requires progress in two crucial aspects:
QQ Building agreements between the staff of the primary school and that of the secondary school. This involves all levels (from the supervision to teachers) and it is a necessary condition for teamwork. Some classrooms of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools have been installed in establishments that were previously part of the primary school of the community. In these cases, besides sharing a common space, other resources are shared (Internet, furniture, among others). This generated some tensions between school authorities and tutors in secondary schools and directors and teachers in primary schools. In these situations, the creation of agreements among them was necessary in order to prioritize the right to education of the children and adolescents, and to understand the school as an institution of the State thought to ensure this right. Sharing spaces and resources enhances everybody, but this is a part of an essential joint construction, in addition to written regulations.
QQ Building an information or files system on academic careers and students´ learning, articulated by both levels. It is important for the secondary school to have substantive information on the academic career of each of the students in primary school, particularly, those who are attending the last year of this level. Primary schools have become key informants to recognize the potential number of students in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools and to design strategies to ensure that these students effectively attend the next education level.
Masine, B., Cortés, M., y Chemello, G. (2010): Entre nivel primario y nivel secundario. Una propuesta de articulación. Docentes. Buenos Aires: Ministry of Education. p. 8.
Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools 46 ibid. p. 6. [Translated by the author].
QQ Supporting and accompanying students from the beginning of secondary school in understanding the meaning of school, its project, its academic system (promotion, accreditation, evaluation, interaction systems, class regime criteria, among others). Also, supporting them in understanding the meaning of the subjects and projects of the curriculum. Recreating a shared sense is not only essential to promote interest and commitment, but also to achieve learning in students. These initial support instances are crucial to change the incessant school failure in the first year of the transition from one level to the other that is radically different and, partly, due to these types of omissions, it has also resulted exclusive.
In some classrooms that are already operational, a higher enrollment has been identified –and, even, exclusively by boys. Some of the reasons explaining this are: lack of completion of primary education by some adolescent girls, pregnancy-related situations, having to look after children or other domestic responsibilities assigned to women. Consequently, it is essential to develop strategies to ensure that female adolescents finish their primary education and can begin secondary school; also, the way in which each classroom can ensure education to pregnant students or to adolescents who are already fathers or mothers has to be thought of.
On the other hand, there are situations of girls and boys working in productive, as well as reproductive activities that discourage or influence negatively on school attendance, or on the continuity of academic careers. It is necessary to address these cases and evaluate the modality and timetables of the course, establish school-work integration, and promote agreements with the communities guaranteeing these situations do not affect schooling.
The specificity that this secondary school acquires, as it is unprecedented and/or new, has already been mentioned. This makes both school authorities and tutors develop strategies that allow the inclusion of all adolescents residing in remote locations, the spreading of the educational offer, and building the meaning of secondary school within each community and communicating this meaning to all its members as a whole.
Some of the strategies that have been carried out are:
QQ Spreading this proposal in primary schools in rural locations.
QQ Publicizing this initiative in social networks and web sites of Provincial Ministries of Education.
Technology-based rural schools
QQ Developing joint strategies with local communities to ensure the necessary conditions for the inclusion of every adolescent (provide ID when necessary, guide families to participate in programs or assignments which may help them sustain their children’s education, manage transport when necessary, among others).
QQ Spreading this initiative through local radios.
QQ Printing brochures made by the same school to spread the educational proposal.
Brochure made by Rural Secondary School No. 1, province of Jujuy.
QQ Organizing parent meetings in the communities to present the educational project of the school and to promote students´ enrollment. These meetings were organized and carried out by tutors. It is recommended that authorities, the supervisor, the school director and teachers participate in these meetings so as to legitimate something that is new in the community which -although it is well valued by its members- it is also something unknown.
It is necessary to consider that many fathers, mothers or tutors of adolescents attending these schools have carried out their primary studies without the possibility to continue. Though they recognize the importance of secondary education, it is necessary to build agreements and common senses about the implication of a secondary school inside the community: why to establish an educational offer of this type, what is the impact expected, Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
which are the responsibilities and rights that adults have in relation to the education of their sons and daughters, what are the responsibilities and rights that students have, which joint work instances will there be with the communities, in what way can adults collaborate to communicate the school and ensure the attendance of students, among other things.
Also, it is important to explain how this secondary school modality works and its differences with a regular secondary school. Adults and adolescents tend to have this last model of school as reference when thinking about secondary school. It is necessary to build a new representation of the school with them, where it is clear which is the role of each one of the participants of the institution (management team, teachers and tutors), and how this new school format works.
Technology-based rural schools IV.2. Collaborative Work between Teachers and Tutors
“I see it as almost impossible to work separately. It is too difficult to think that we could act separately, because it is almost a relation of dependence, from the directors to the teachers, the teachers to the tutors, and vice versa.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author].
As it has been mentioned, there is a multiplicity of communication channels coexisting in schools to make the exchange and work between teams of directors, teachers and tutors possible. Even in moments where rural classrooms did not have Internet service due to weather conditions or other factors, authorities, teachers and tutors have found alternatives to stay communicated and to ensure the development of classes.
Apart from considering the technologies that teachers use to communicate, it is also important to mention which devices are being used in these schools, from which the relevant information for joint work, organization and decision making is being socialized. In Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools, two devices were considered:
QQ Teaching guides.
QQ Classroom reports.
Teaching Guides are instruments that help teachers when having to communicate their intentions and the meaning of their proposals to tutors.
“The teachers, actually the planning and guides they send us are, I would even say, ideal. There is no way not to have a class, if you put in 30 minutes per class, I mean first, second, third year… They are very clear; in fact they give us possible answers, that is, we have that information to give answers to the children.”
Tutor, “Pozo del Gallo” Rural Classroom. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author]. Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
In general, teaching guides present the following characteristics:
QQ They describe learning objectives.
QQ They provide guidance for tutors regarding the contents that will be addressed.
QQ They provide suggestions in relation to the approach of the content and the development of activities.
QQ They set expected times for the performance of activities.
Over time, tutors have gradually demanded that the criteria to evaluate the works produced and the answers given by students be included in the guides or, whenever possible, that they include “model” answers of certain exercises to solve doubts that may arise regarding certain contents.
Classroom reports are instruments used by tutors to communicate to each teacher the development of the teaching proposals and the learning results reached. These reports have been developed in different ways in the provinces, from more structured models to more flexible ones. In the case of the province of Chaco, for example, the following weekly report model has been defined:
Technology-based rural schools CLASSROOM REPORTS
a. List of the tasks that have been performed. For example: during these 15 days the following tasks have been implemented: Math: tasks 1, 2, 3 and 4; Language: tasks 1, 2 and 3; Social Sciences: tasks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5; Natural Sciences: 1, 2, 3.
b. Description of tasks that have not been performed or that some students have not performed (indicating who these students were) together with the reasons why these activities were not performed. This description implies listing the above mentioned tasks and expressing the reasons why they were not implemented or why certain students could not perform them.
c. Students’ attendance during the week and non-attendance reasons. Through the following grid:
The non-attendance reasons will be categorized in the following way: QQ Illness QQ Pregnancy QQ Responsibility of having to look after younger siblings or other minors QQ Work QQ Trip to another locality QQ Dropout with transfer to another institution QQ Dropout without transfer to another institution QQ No classes due to weather/illness reasons of the coordinator/other reasons (indicate which) QQ Other (in these cases the coordinator will specify the particular reason)
d. Relevant information about education and about students´ learning processes. Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
School operation depends mostly on the communication between teachers and tutors, but that is not enough. In order to achieve follow-up on academic careers and promote the expected learning in student, it is essential that teachers and tutors form real pedagogical partners.
Collaborative work is something valuable and is always expected to be seen in schools, though it is not the most frequent thing. Particularly in this secondary school format, achieving collaborative work between profiles with different trainings, environments and cultures was an even greater challenge.
Initial Tensions and Improved Collective Proposals to Reach Collaborative Work
Since the tutor figure is new as regards regular secondary school, there was not enough clarity when it came to the specific roles of tutors and teachers. As an anecdote of tensions, some teachers point out
Technology-based rural schools
the corrections of students’ assignments: some tutors sent students’ assignments exactly as they received them and others gave them feedback so they would improve their answers before sharing the work produced with teachers. In the first case, tutors perceived their own role as mere managers of the exchange between students and teachers; in the second case, tutors perceived a bigger responsibility in students’ learning processes. The same thing happened with teachers: there were cases where they would prefer that resolution of students’ enquiries and corrections be their responsibility and other cases where they expected certain strategic interventions from tutors in order to guide students. That is why, at the beginning of the implementation of these secondary schools, the difficulties were focused on:
QQ Construction of trust, respect and acknowledgment of the other, regardless of the formation levels. In this school, each participant is essential; the teacher with post-secondary or university education and the tutor, who has not always finished post-secondary education.
QQ Geographical distances and the difficulties present at some classrooms to ensure an adequate Internet service are cause for exchanges and possibilities of cooperation between both actors to be, at times, insufficient.
QQ Teachers, in general, planned their classes with short advance notice. Consequently, when the tutor received these proposals, he/she did not have enough time to check them, share his/her considerations with the teacher so the latter could reformulate them and share them again.
QQ Certain factors related to management and use of technologies and to organization of time at school also generate difficulties to create workspaces between teachers and tutors.
“We are responsible for planning and adapting, for being predisposed every day to make a possible change because, as I tell you, during the day, things come up many times, and we need to solve them that same day. I mean, I would recommend to somebody who wants to come to work here, first, that he/she must have all the time to devote to this, because we are here but it may take all the afternoon to download 10 files, 10 classes, because they are in another format, because it is not readable, because it is zipped, you have to unzip it, because I do not know the operating system they used and then you have to go to Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
your home and you have to continue correcting and maybe, for tomorrow you have to present a plan or you have to send the corrections.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author].
From these difficulties, joint actions and interventions to improve collaborative work were sought and agreed:
QQ Definition of profiles and reference terms agreed between participants.
QQ More systematic visits to rural classrooms by teachers. This has made possible, among other things, to know the different contexts and understand the needs and particularities present, as well as greater acknowledgment by teachers of the work tutors carry out.
QQ Set deadlines for sending planned proposals by teachers, so as to allow tutors reasonable time to download them and ask all the questions they have, when necessary.
QQ Institutional sessions gathering all the teaching staff of these schools. These instances are really valued by all the teaching staff and are about different topics: (i) joint revision of the educational proposals drafted by teachers together with tutors; (ii) analysis of the situation in which each classroom and each academic space is, according to the assignments delivered by students; (iii) participation in training sessions about topics that have to do with both roles; (iv) identification of strengths and institutional problems, and construction of strategies to address them.
Classrooms reports and teaching guides are presented as very valued devices that allow, in a way, establishing agreements regarding frequency, content and responsibilities around the communication between teachers and tutors. However, there are other informal communication channels and it is important to evaluate how this multiplicity of ways coexists and which are the most powerful ones for pedagogical objectives.
It is worth mentioning that both teachers and tutors significantly value these face-to-face meetings. In the answers to surveys, it is perceived that each teacher makes an average of three to four visits a year, though this frequency varies significantly between provinces and according to the seniority of the teacher in the program and the funds available for
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transfers. At the same time, workdays inside the schools, which reunite all participants, present a frequency similar to that of the visits due to the continuous difficulties that the management of transfer and travel allowances for all the tutors and/or teachers pose (in the cases not performed in the capital of the province) to each one of the ministries. Teachers and tutors regard increasing the amount of meetings as necessary in order to continue strengthening collaborative work among each other. Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
IV.3. Protecting Academic Careers
Academic careers of those students residing in remote rural locations present certain situations which compromise the continuity and/or the regularity of their studies: repeated non-attendance, temporary transfers, work, adolescent maternity (regardless of the attendance of the mothers with their babies in the cases so required), among others.
According to our own processing of the Annual Reports 2012-2013 of the National Directorate of Information and Statistics of Educational Quality (DiNIECE for its acronym in Spanish), of the Ministry of Education, school dropout in rural locations is seen as of 11 years old. Between 2012 and 2013, 60 thousand students under the age of 17 dropped out of rural schools. Of them, 24 thousand adolescents were between the ages of 12 and 14, which represent a 13% of the total students enrolled in 2012. Between the ages of 15 and 16, 14 thousand adolescents dropped out of school, 16% of the total enrolled.
School dropout in rural locations is alarming, particularly in secondary school, and this is a reality that deserves a lot of attention when implementing Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools.
After a study carried out during the two years of the implementation of this initiative, drop-out situations have been identified due to different factors: work situations, transfer to another locality, personal or family situations making the continuity of studies difficult, pregnancies, among others. Initially, these situations had become “natural” for parents and/ or tutors, as they are part of the dynamics the rural populations go through, and the relevance of class attendance and the possibility of continuing with secondary studies could not be actually appreciated. However, from the Ministries of Education and with the support of UNICEF, the identification of these cases, the acknowledgment of the drop-out reasons and the development of interventions tending to prevent it have been promoted constantly. Some of the actions that have been taken in this framework are:
QQ Try to coordinate school timetables and students´ available hours to attend classes (whether for work reasons, transfer or others) and make the necessary adjustments to ensure their attendance.
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QQ Do a follow-up of class attendance. As affirmed by the National Directorate on Socio-educational Policies, there are non-attendance reasons that should not be overlooked in any context, as they are considered possible causes of school dropout: school-related situations (low marks, repetition, overage, difficulties in the teacher-student bond); economic problems; pregnancy, maternity and paternity; work inside and outside the house; admission to an institution (substitute home, reformatories, police station, hospital); domestic violence; change of address without transfer to another school; difficulty to travel to school; drug and/or alcohol abuse; chronic illness; climate factors.
QQ Generate periodic meetings between directors/tutors and families where the performance and/or non-attendance of each of the students is evaluated, and where each of the school attendance regimes and the current regulations regarding the compulsory nature of secondary education are informed. These meetings make it possible for the school and families to commit to taking specific actions to avoid non- attendance situations or dropouts.
QQ Develop joint strategies with parents and/or tutors to ensure the continuity by those adolescents who are going through illnesses, pregnancies or that, for other reasons, have to be absent from school for a long time. These strategies may imply students having to do homework, managing necessary health controls, tutors visiting the student’s house, setting a permanent communication protocol with the family, etc. In the case of the Technology-based Rural Secondary School of the province of Chaco, the teachers generated booklets with activities which have been thought, in first instance, for situations where the classrooms did not have good Internet service, and they are currently being implemented as support material for adolescents that do not attend school due to pregnancy or work-related situations.
47 national Ministry of Education (s/d): Project for Preventing School Drop-out: Available at:
Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools http://portal.educacion.gov.ar/secundaria/files/2010/02/abandono-diptico.pdf
QQ Talk with students about the school attendance regime; analyze non-attendance situations; reflect on the importance of attending school; request collaboration from students to call back those who have been absent for a long time. Generate dialogue instances with those students who are frequently absent or who, due to specific characteristics or situations they are going through, may potentially drop out.
QQ Perform the necessary integrations, claims and management to address those cases where a serious violation of rights is identified and the intervention of other types of bodies or areas is required. “Ensure dissemination of information regarding the necessary conditions and requirements to receive the benefits of intersectorial programs. Recognizing the place of the educational institution as the only public space with presence in all the territory of the country gives it the potential and the responsibility of becoming an example for all the communities, especially those which are more isolated.”
QQ Offer alternative learning activities that have the approval of the Ministries of Education for specific cases of students whose education is being interrupted by particular situations that make it difficult for them to attend class or continue their studies on a regular basis.
Because of these scenarios, a follow-up system of academic careers and learning was created as support, where the management team, the teacher staff and the tutors of the school participate, with specific responsibilities assigned to each of them (for example: what tutors generate information regarding class attendance, students´ academic careers, performance at school; and which teachers generate information about grades and performance in students’ assignments).
Resolution 109/10 of the Federal Education Council, National Ministry of Education..
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This follow-up system is being developed in different ways in existing schools. Some of them have proposed a document that included information about personal and school-performance data of every student, and others have chosen to develop a particular application, incorporating a free software tool such as the one offered by the ALBA project.
It is important for the system to be nominal, so as to allow the follow- up of each student’s academic career in particular, and for the processing of information to allow identification of existing gaps within the school between different subgroups of students, for example: if there are differences in academic performance or in class attendance of over-aged indigenous students. The same applies for gender: quantitative data at national level show that boys are somehow more prone than girls to drop out of secondary school without finishing it, It is important for the system to be nominal, so as to allow the follow-up of each student’s academic career in particular, and for the processing of information to allow identification of existing gaps within the school between different subgroups of students, for example: if there are differences in academic performance or in class attendance of over-aged indigenous students. The same applies for gender: quantitative data at national level show that boys are somehow more prone than girls to drop out of secondary school without finishing it.
On the other hand, online educational platforms offer another type of substantive information to perform a follow-up on students’ performance: number and frequency of visits to the platform; number, frequency and type of visits to each of the resources and activities available in the platform; number of downloads performed; number, frequency and quality of participations in forums; amount of work produced delivered by each student; assignments´ grades. If it is possible for everyone to access this site without further inconvenience, it can be considered that educational platforms can operate not only as places for teaching and learning contents, but also as a real system for gathering information on and conducting a follow-up of students with the purpose of protecting their academic careers.
49 for more information on this project check: http://www.proyectoalba.com.ar/ Binstock, G., y Cerruti, M. (2005): Carreras truncadas. El abandono escolar en el nivel medio en
Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools la Argentina. UNICEF. [Translated by the author].
IV.4. The Challenge of Achieving Powerful Learning for Everyone
Ensuring access to secondary-level education is the initial step; the second step is to address educational proposals promoting continuous improvements, which result in the meanings, types and achievements of learnings reached by students. This goal is acknowledged as a challenge for the whole system. But it must be highlighted that the starting point is different in every territory.
From the beginning of each school, the need to revise traditional teaching practices to elaborate innovative and powerful teaching strategies has been contemplated. This work was carried out in different ways:
QQ Training sessions on topics like teaching planning, learning evaluation, teaching for understanding and for developing skills.
QQ Work sessions on teaching proposals planned by teachers and tutors, where the objectives, strategies and resources have been revised with the purpose of assessing the positive aspects and suggesting improvements.
QQ Generation of materials which are useful to improve teaching and learning. For example, UNICEF has cooperated, in the case of the provinces of Jujuy and Misiones, on the design of a guidance document for planning classes; and, in the case of the province of Salta, on a material specifically intended to plan learning assessment strategies.
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Cover and table of contents of a material generated by the Ministry of Education of the province of Jujuy with the cooperation of UNICEF, which offers guidance and organizes planning of classes in the Technology-based Rural Secondary School No. 1.
QQ Distribution of materials created by the National Ministry of Education and UNICEF, specifically intended for developing skills in secondary school.
QQ Permanent advice to teachers through teams of authorities, advisors and pedagogical mentors.
It is worth mentioning that teaching planning and learning assessment were priority topics and requested with respect to advice given to schools. Regarding planning, in work spaces, reflection on learning objectives and teaching approaches, analysis of the strategies implemented and incorporation of new strategies, the proposal of teaching and learning situations which may become meaningful for students were all promoted taking into account context, prior knowledge and interests. With time, training devices have gradually incorporated workshops or spaces for analysis and revision of teaching proposals, from which personalized feedback is given to teachers.
With respect to learning assessment, spaces for reflection and debate were generated regarding: the construction of assessment criteria focused on fair and inclusive education; the relation between evaluation and grades; the analysis and follow-up of learning evidence; the construction of strategies to address particularities that certain academic careers or learning processes present; the type of feedback given to the students, understanding assessment as a part of the learning process. Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
The experiences of the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools in the provinces of Chaco, Jujuy, Misiones and Salta show a significant potential for innovation and collaborative work. This becomes a fertile ground to reflect on teaching proposals and to introduce improvements. At the same time, these experiences have allowed us to identify certain key challenges of teaching proposals, which were taken into account for developing training and support devices for teachers which have been carried out from the beginning and currently continue.
The potential these schools present to develop innovative and collaborative teaching practices.
Given the innovative character of this proposal, it has been identified that teachers who part of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools are enthusiastic about introducing changes in teaching proposals so as to address the particularities of academic careers and in students’ learning.
The role of tutors, technological mediation, distances between teachers and students are some of the factors forcing everyone to think of alternative ways of teaching and learning in secondary school. Thus, questions arise as to how to teach certain content, how to benefit from technologies, how to evaluate students, how to communicate to the tutor what the intentions of the teacher are, all of which are extremely powerful in order to reflect on the more traditional teaching practices and to start creating answers which take into account new educational approaches, the potential that technologies present, and the specific reality of students.
On the other hand, in these schools, teachers share workspaces and time, without the physical presence of the students. This main difference with most of the regular secondary schools favors the implementation of spaces for reflection and training and the collaborative work among teachers, which can boost traditional teaching proposals even more. Teachers from the province of Chaco who were interviewed say:
“Here we are lucky that the eight teachers work with the coordinator and the director in a same space and timetable. From Monday to Friday we are working and it is like that enables us to work in groups, to debate, to get ideas.”
“We are in this classroom every day, all together, thus, any problem, message, question is dealt with jointly; that is the good thing too.”
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“Teachers, coordinators, team of authorities. One great team working for a great objective: children.”
Teachers, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author].
In this sense, according to the results of the survey, it can be seen that teachers devote great part of their time to planning classes (30% of total time) or to evaluating students´ productions (another 30%). From the remaining time, one out of ten working hours are devoted to communication with the class (12%) and 28% of the time is allocated to team work, whether planned with other teachers (11%), talking to their colleagues about the situation of students (11%), or in meetings with the director (6%). Even though teamwork can continue increasing, it is important to highlight this information and compare it with the situation in regular secondary schools, where cooperation spaces between teachers during the working week are practically nonexistent.
Chart 21. How teachers distribute their work time.
Working together with the School Head Analyzing students 6% situations together with the rest of teachers Planning classes 11% individually 30%
Planning classes together with the rest of teachers 11%
Contacting the rural classrooms Evaluating students’ 12% productions 30% Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
Curriculum and Organization of Teaching Proposals
According to several authors, among them Flavia Terigi, there are particular problems related to the curriculum of secondary education, some of them are old, as the encyclopedic approach, and others are more current: the multiple forms of contemporary adolescence and the particular forms of relationship that different groups of adolescents establish with the school. The author expresses that “We have to acknowledge some anachronism that the secondary school curriculum has, because it has been created on the organization of the knowledge available at the end of the 19th century. This condition of anachronism must be understood as a result of a historical process through which changes in school ideas could not be translated into changes in the structure and the selection of curricula in secondary school, due to the early link between the classified curriculum, specialized teacher training and the organization of the jobs of those teaching in said level.”
These problems highlighted by the author have a particular impact on Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools. Curricular organization by subjects is one of the questions that needed revision. Apart from the lack of integration between the areas of knowledge and the difficulties that this type of curriculum suffers to make interdisciplinary projects or proposals through core areas or topics of interest for students, it is necessary to consider that, in general, each year of study of the secondary level includes a minimum of ten subjects; this represents a total of fifty or sixty weekly curricular spaces, taking into account the total number of years of the course of study and the way in which the regular course is structured in a common school (with a weekly frequency).
In Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools, the tutor is responsible for managing classes to help students learn the contents of each year and subject. Taking into account the amount of existing curricular spaces, there have been significant difficulties to address all the subjects ina simultaneous manner and in the specified period of time. Depending on the cases, this has worsened due to the non-attendance of certain students and the difficulties to ensure that everybody progresses at the same rate when it comes to developing activities. Consequently, the times teachers estimate for classroom teaching are not coherent with the times that
Terigi, F. (2012): “Sobre la cuestión curricular de la educación secundaria”, [“About the curricular issue of secondary education”], in: Tenti Fanfani, E.(coord.) and others: La escolarización de los adolescentes: desafíos culturales, pedagógicos y de política educativa. [“The education of the adolescents: cultural, pedagogical and educational policy challenges.”] Buenos Aires: International Institute for Educational Planning, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), p. 57.
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managing these activities demand from the tutors, and this has a strong impact on the general organization of teaching and of learning processes.
According to the evaluation of the teachers surveyed, approximately 80% of the students have complied with all the tasks requested during the term, though they affirm that most of them have done so with some delay. However, the differences between the perceptions of teachers and tutors surveyed are remarkable regarding this issue; for example: tutors consider that 92% of the students has complied with the delivery of assignments requested throughout the term, and the number of tutors who consider that the terms set by teachers has been respected is significantly higher. This reflects different conceptions regarding the organization of time and teaching proposals for the classroom, on which it is necessary to continue working.
Apart from developing strategies to reduce students´ absenteeism, schools of the different provinces are implementing different alternatives for curriculum organization which seek an improvement in teaching and in students´ performance: the construction of interdisciplinary axes where certain topics that integrate the different subjects of the curriculum are addressed, the construction of a proposal from which students address half the subjects during the first month and a half of each term and the other half in the second part of the term (province of Salta) or the creation of curricular areas (province of Chaco).
“A pedagogical change yes, because we used to work by discipline, that is: History, Geography, Biology, Physical Chemistry as separate subjects, and now we work by areas: Social Sciences, Natural Sciences. That was the change we made because we saw that it was very difficult for students to respond to each discipline, maybe even 10 assignments; then working by area and ensuring knowledge, for example, analyzing a topic from the geographical point of view, the historical point of view and the ethical point of view is going to be much more.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author].
The common objective of all these strategies was to reduce and articulate curricular spaces existing in the regular secondary school. This is supported, on the one hand, by pedagogical reasons and, on the other hand, by reasons related to the management of teaching and learning activities by tutors. Performing an impact assessment of these alternatives is yet to be done, as well as thinking what kind of curriculum organization is more relevant for this type of school. Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
The Academic and Assessment Regulations
The particularities of the rural contexts demand Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools to establish modifications regarding the academic systems of regular secondary schools. The type of productive and reproductive activities and the work conditions of students, the cultural activities of each community, and certain weather conditions that may affect class attendance are situations that difficult regular attendance. Consequently, these schools have established regionalized school calendars taking into account these situations, and they have also introduced modifications in the curriculum proposal and the academic and assessment regulations. For example, given the abovementioned difficulties to achieve the development of the activities planned by teachers for the term, flexibility regarding periods and grades-closing dates have generally been increased; in the case of students who have been absent from school for a long time, recovery instances of certain contents have been created to help them continue their studies without delays. However, it is important to point out that these types of decisions, even though they have been approved by the respective supervision levels, have been made informally, not supported by regulations.
One of the recommendations for the near future is to create academic systems for each of these Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools, so as not to leave this current flexibility out of the regulations that enable real monitoring of the actions of all the participants involved.
New Approaches in Conflict with Traditional Practices
Experiences regarding Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools that have been implemented so far account for the different education strategies and approaches inside each institution. However, the prevalence of an encyclopedic approach is still perceived in different practices: an excess of informative content in programs, learning objectives focused on the reproduction of this content by students and –given the extension of the contents to be included and the time available– a relatively small number of activities to address each content is used, which, in many cases, prevents a deeper approach.
Terigi, F. (2012), op. cit.
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This characterization is not particular of this type of secondary school but is part of a problem of the secondary-school level as a whole. However, we consider that it can be aggravated in these secondary schools due to the characteristics that this new school format presents. Generating significant teaching proposals in these schools implies that teachers should take into account -in addition to revising certain educational approaches- the characteristics of rural contexts and of each classroom in particular, and knowing the technological tools that make the development of powerful learning situations possible.
In general, learning proposals presented by teachers in these schools consisted of a short introduction of the content and, then, a series of exercises to directly apply and/or reproduce such content. In many cases, the introduction of contents was done in a decontextualized manner, resorting to examples or situations that were not significant for the students residing in rural areas. On this basis, different training and support instances and materials for teachers have been generated around the following topics:
>> Construction of powerful learning: why do I teach this? Why and how could this content be interesting, attractive and challenging to an adolescent student residing in a rural context? Which situations or problems would allow students to think about these contents? In what way will we take into account the diversity of the learning processes of students? Questions like these have been the core of discussion and analysis of the learning proposals suggested by teachers in the training instances that have been developed and at the meetings with tutors. At the same time, visits to different rural classrooms and getting to know their students have allowed teachers to further understand these contexts and incorporate examples and activities that are more significant for students
According to the results obtained, tutors affirm that subjects such as Literature (24%) or Biology (21%) are some of the subjects that students like the most as, among other reasons, in the case of Biology “it deals with topics which are more known and pleasant for them”, “they relate them with the context they live in”, “they can experiment and it is associated to what surrounds them”; and in the case of Language, “because it is easier for them to do, because there are topics they relate to reality” or “because they can tell their stories, express who they are and tell events of their place.” On the other hand, Math (48%) and English (26%) are the most difficult subjects for students explaining, in the case of Math, that “they are very abstract subjects that the student cannot easily understand, no matter how clear the class Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
is” or the “lack of basic knowledge such as of multiplication tables”; and in the case of English, “that is a third language for them, as Spanish is a little hard for them; when incorporating English, it was a little difficult for them”, “that it is a foreign language and they are not used to its use and pronunciation.” In reality, difficulties in Math and English are a problem of the whole system and it has not been approached with the strength it requires.
Lastly, 33% of the tutors affirm that one of the suggestions they would make to teachers in order to improve the planning of activities is to contextualize the proposals more according to students and to the characteristics of rural contexts: “to know the context, the different learning levels, the situation of each student”; “to get closer to students”; “to take the time of each student into account. Not to make deliveries so long. Take the diversity of the students and their learning paces into account.”
>> Development of activities that promote the understanding of contents. As Perkins we understand something when we can think and act flexibly based on what we know. Some activities that promote understanding are: explaining, exemplifying, applying, justifying, comparing and contrasting, contextualizing, generalizing, among others.
Many times, teachers consider that it is necessary to first understand certain knowledge, for then to use it or do something with it. However, what the authors of the teaching-for-understanding approach propose is precisely the contrary: the more the students can do and think, the more they will understand contents. This has implied, and it still implies nowadays, a great challenge for Technology-based Rural Secondary School teachers, not only in terms of modifying a teaching paradigm: many of them have identified the need for the design of teaching sequences that begin with the introduction of the content and that continue with activities of direct application or reproduction for reasons of time; they consider that these types of activities are more effective given the difficulties abovementioned to achieve the development of tasks in the scheduled time. The execution of inductive activities, case analysis, simulations or debates, research projects, among others, tend to require more time than traditional
Perkins, D. (2010): El aprendizaje pleno: principios de la enseñanza para transformar la educación. Buenos Aires: Paidós. [Translated by the author]. Perkins, D. (2008): La escuela inteligente: del adiestramiento de la memoria a la educación de la mente. Barcelona: Gedisa. [Translated by the author].
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tasks. In turn, these types of proposals are more demanding on tutors in terms of classroom management and guidance of students during their development. The latter has been another reason why certain teachers tended to dismiss strategies that promoted deeper thought processes and that implied a greater production and participation from students.
Chart 22. Activities that teachers propose more frequently.
Reading texts, individually
Answering questions in writing
Answering a question paper
Team working
Writing assignments
Solving Problems
Researching information
Creating glossaries
Participating in forums and debates
Participating in learning games
Role playing
Simulations
Building Wikis
In teachers’ answers it can be seen that most of the activities proposed in classrooms tend to reproduce –with specific adaptations to format restrictions– the most traditional supports of education: reading texts, written production of answers to questions, resolution of questionnaires or exercises. However, some emerging answers that show a transition to new educational paradigms are also visualized.
“The original proposal, if we speak from the pedagogical point of view, suggests that we work with learning and knowledge… that was also another change in which we had to be trained because we came from what was traditional, from what was the content-based, we were lineal; and in this proposal the purpose is to generate learning and for students to develop critical thinking; Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
for them to be able to analyze texts; and for that aim, classes are set out differently, not in that lineal way we are used to; for example, ´what is Geography?´ a colon and the definition. Other strategies are sought, from generating knowledge, as I tell you, that are really significant and prioritize and determine what is going to be useful for them in the future.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author].
>> Develop skills, as “(...) processes developed with conscious control of the situation in which skills are at the service of an action plan of higher hierarchical level from the cognitive point of view. This kind of procedure is always developed intentionally, with the purpose of achieving a specific goal, and its development varies according to the situation, permanently adapting (like when solving a riddle, summarizing a text, reading between the lines, looking for a safe place in an emergency situation, doing and improvisation according to a given musical base). (…) Developing an ability demands taking advantage of the repeated opportunities to use the skills available in situations requiring its strategic use, making sure there are different and new aspects between one and another opportunity.”
Particularly, we have detected the development of text production and reading comprehension abilities in students of Technology- based Rural Secondary Schools as a key factor. Some of them finished primary school several years before or have had interrupted academic careers, and this has impacted on the literacy level they present when starting school. Also, even though it is very important to propose different ways of communicating and of knowledge in school, text production and reading are essential means for the construction of learning in this type of modality, based on technologies and spaces of interaction that require writing files, mails and/or messages.
Petrosino J. (2010) El desarrollo de capacidades en la escuela secundaria. Un marco teórico. [“Development of Abilities in Secondary School. A Theoretical Framework.”] UNICEF, Civil Association Educación para todos [“Education for everybody”] and OIS. Available at: http://files. unicef.org/ argentina/spanish/Cuaderno_1.pdf
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>> Use a variety of resources and activities that are powerful and attractive to students. ICTs offer us a variety of possible resources and activities which are really significant in terms of learning and which motivate students to learn. The use of these activities and resources requires much exploration and investigation by teachers, and even the need to take certain resources, contextualize them and/or present them in a more attractive manner for specific students who are in school today. Taking into account the abovementioned point, concept maps, images, audios, videos, computer graphs, among other resources, are powerful elements for learning and they allow the diversification of ways to access knowledge (not only through reading of certain texts). In the case of activities, educational platforms and web sites generally offer a multiplicity of strategies that can be implemented to enrich learning, enable different “entrance doors” to content, and promote a bigger variety of knowledge and abilities: forums, wikis, text production, questionnaires of different types, simulators, educational games, etc.
Educational proposal on Biology, Technology-based Rural Secondary School. Province of Misiones, year 2015
These are key aspects not only because they contribute to enrich students´ learning but also because they allow addressing and generating diversity in learning processes. In general, in secondary schools there is a predominance of tasks that require writing texts; in these schools, this is intensified by the type of communication that teachers and students establish in learning platforms or digital tools (written communications, through text documents, messages or emails). Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
Even though the majority of the teachers surveyed considered that the activities that are most valuable and powerful when it comes to learning are the production of concept maps (35%), videos (30%), digital presentations (21%) or simulators or online games (19%), a contradiction is perceived regarding the frequency with which they suggest these types of activities in their proposals, using them only occasionally, and individual text reading and the resolution of questionnaires or written assignments prevail. However, it is worth highlighting the answers of certain teachers who affirm having used discussion forums (36%), educational games (31%), role playing (27%) or simulations (18%) during the month prior to the survey.
>> Incorporate self-assessment, peer assessment and metacognition activities. These types of strategies allow students to identify their progress and difficulties in relation to learning contents, thinking strategies to improve their performance, reflecting on how they learn, and increasing their level of autonomy in relation to school learning processes. In the case of the province of Salta, self-assessment instances have been incorporated in different opportunities, the results of which have been valuable both for students and teachers. As a teacher of this school states, the implementation of these types of processes takes time and requires that students develop a relationship of trust in order to express what they have learned, how they have done it, and what difficulties they have had:
“Assessment is an instance that allows us to make a cut, that is, to see where the students are at a certain point in learning, and it gives us information so we can be able to adjust or reschedule activities.
Students’ self-assessment also provided qualitative information about their learning process. In my case in particular, I began suggesting these self-assessments as of August. I asked them to make a self-assessment on the way they were learning and I suggested them some questions. At the beginning, I suggested very general questions: what they thought about the subjects, the reading material; how they could be improved; and answers were not very clear at the beginning, there were few claims about not understanding the reading material and that everything needed to be improved, but they did not know how to explain it. There were many cases of students copying other students´ self-assessments. But also, at the beginning, many realized that it was not only a matter of
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doing the activities to send them through the platform or doing the questionnaire online, but that they also had to read the material and practice in the folder before doing the assessment activities. I highlighted that it was an individual activity and that they had to answer the questions in the most reflexive way possible so we could all improve teaching and learning.
In later instances I asked more specific questions: if they had read the material, how many hours they devoted to Math, if they had done the practical assignment and then the self-assessment with the solved exercises, if they had to correct the assignment a lot… and so the answers began to show the work the students did, what helped them understand the topics, whether they work in teams. (…) That is, there was a progress in the self-assessment process of all the children; at the beginning they complained a lot about the material, and in the end they put titles like ‘Reading and reading again’, ‘I almost got a ten’, and others. It was really surprising and pleasant to witness this process in children; it obviously also helped me improve my classes.”
Fragment of a report written by a Math teacher, Technology-based Rural Secondary School 5212, province of Salta, year 2014. [Translated by the author]. Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
Evaluating Students
Undoubtedly, this is one of the key aspects of learning and of academic careers of students of any school, and it takes certain particularities in Technology- based Rural Secondary Schools. As it happens with teaching planning, we consider that learning evaluation is a joint task between teachers and tutors that deserves much attention and strictness. Both participants have specific knowledge of students’ learning processes and academic careers that deserve to be considered when evaluating and grading. Now, joint evaluation of students is not a simple task.
Some of the first strategies that Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools have implemented implied that both teachers and tutors determined a particular grade for each student and from the average or the comparison between both grades, a common mark would be obtained. In other cases, teachers grade the evaluation and tutors set a “concept grade” which is taken into account to evaluate the first grade and to reformulate if necessary:
“I consider that the final grade for the third term is this, and the tutor would tell you, ‘yes, it can be a little more, it can be a little less’; or maybe said student ‘does everything faster than the rest but then bothers during the class, so reduce one point’. All the grades for the first term were agreed.”
Teacher, Urban Headquarters. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author].
“Evaluation is shared, even though it is the teacher who grades it. But we also need to have a concept grade that they will not have; they have the objectives.”
Tutor, “Pozo del Gallo” Rural Classroom. Province of Chaco. [Translated by the author].
Even though this can be a useful strategy to grade students, it needs to be formulated after having reached an agreement as to what evaluation criteria will be considered by each participant. Otherwise, grades proposed by each teacher and tutor are based on different criteria and, thus, they do not always account for the learning processes of the students. As an example, in a work session in the province of Misiones with all the staff of the school and mentors from UNICEF, each participant was asked what topics they would consider when defining if a student passes a term or not.
Technology-based rural schools
Answers to this question varied: behavior in class, participation, attendance, performance in certain specific activities, autonomy, commitment regarding assignments, particular learning in an area, among others. This showed the need to agree on evaluation criteria focused on learning and to determine what topics will be evaluated by teachers, and which will be the topics that shall be evaluated by tutors.
Another strategy that has been implemented in some schools, and which we consider very innovative, is the evaluation of each student jointly, by the whole teacher staff. The possibility to share workspaces benefits a joint analysis by teachers of each student’s specific situation. Even though grades will refer to a specific learning domain (that of each subject), this type of work allows teachers to know their students in greater depth and from the comparisons of their performance in different curricular spaces, an opportunity is created for reflecting on the teaching practice in itself and for having a more comprehensive look at each student.
Technological mediation and the characteristics of these schools introduce a greater complexity to the evaluation process. In regular classrooms, a teacher interacts with his/her students and he/she has the possibility of specifying certain interventions in order to recognize what his/her students have actually learned and to evaluate them. In Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools, in general, the teachers evaluate students´ performance through their work and through their answers to activities. As it has been mentioned before, there have been difficulties in students sending back their answers on time as specified by teachers and, consequently, this had an impact on the possibility to give timely feedback on the assignment and to plan activities taking into account the comprehension mistakes that were identified: some teachers continued sending assignments to the tutor about new educational units without having yet received the students´ answers to prior activities. In the beginning, teachers considered each work produced as an input for the evaluation and the grade and, accordingly, for accreditation; a common general mistake in the education system that does not have to be associated to the type of unusual institutional format of these schools.
Even though the work produced by students can clearly be used to evaluate progress as regards their learning, grading each one of them or giving a quarterly grade according to the performance they have had in each activity can entail a partial look of the learning process. This is highlighted here because the assignments students perform are thought with the purpose of promoting the acquisition of certain contents and the development of certain abilities; thus, it is logical that the answers or the work produced, particularly the first ones, present some comprehension mistakes. If these Chapter IV. Challenges of Institutional and Pedagogical Management in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
assignments are taken as inputs for the grade, students are not getting real learning opportunities. From this situation, instances of advice and spaces for reflection have been generated in order to promote the inclusion of different and progressive assignments that allow each student to improve their learning, reformulate their representations on the contents, and acquire more consciousness and precision in the management of certain concepts or abilities.
Initially, feedback generally consisted of general assessments of students’ assignments, indicating whether the answers were correct without further clarification. Criteria have been developed to offer feedback where teachers acknowledge their strengths and progress and share questions and suggestions to improve certain difficulties. According to the results of the surveys done on students of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools of the provinces of Salta and Jujuy, more than 70% affirms that comments made by teachers on the assignments they do are always or many times useful to solve doubts or improve their activities.
Complexity of institutional and pedagogical management of these Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools could be reviewed. It needs to be understood that the work, commitment and wish of continuous improvement in learning practices, as well as the setting up of ways to achieve more collaborative work between school authorities, teachers and tutors constitute in itself the seed of remarkable innovation. On the other hand, it is confirmed that the use of ICTs in teaching practices takes time and different ways of appropriation, and requires creativity by teachers who have not been frequently invited to detach from pedagogical tradition.
Opening Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools brought along a significant change in the life of the communities, in families, in children and in youth, in the ways to look at and project themselves. It has generated a broader perspective of their horizon, as well as new demands and practices which somehow ensure the correction of the inequalities that these populations are exposed to.
56 internal processing based on the performance of surveys to 236 students of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools of the provinces of Jujuy and Salta.
Technology-based rural schools Chapter V Chapter Chapter V. Comments and Suggestions for Expanding Ensuring Education in Remote Rural Locations through Technology-based Rur al Secondary Schools
V. Comments and Suggestions for Expanding and Ensuring Education in Remote Rural Locations through Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools
Access to and completion of primary school education in the country are practically universal. Even in the most remote places, there is a primary school. We have also shown advances in attendance to secondary school in rural areas; however, there is still a sector of adolescents and young people that inhabit places where access to this compulsory level of education is still a dream and an unfulfilled right. At the same time, the changes of this century cause a large portion of the infant and adolescent population to develop in environments mediated by multiple discourses, screens and languages. But access to this world of information with ICTs does not yet include everyone, and the abilities to distinguish, compare, investigate and produce information and knowledge require specific training. Two gaps that increase inequalities on top of those already present in some of these locations.
The initiative we have shared here of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools resulted from decisions of, and cooperation between, governments and UNICEF that gave rise to provincial policies aimed to reduce gaps in the access to secondary education, as well as in digital literacy, for adolescents and young people that live in rural locations and that attend these 40 foundational secondary school classrooms. This has been an achievement in terms of rights, life-project opportunities and political and social commitment by the States that were part of the idea and made it possible.
Education in ICT scenarios, which is still challenging for many adolescents, created in the country an emerging path, which is the result of the policies implemented at a national level and in the provinces. Education on ICTs and with ICTs —beyond the debate as regards to whether it is a learning tool or subject— is a one-way street of collective construction between teachers, tutors, students, school authorities and other areas and persons beyond the school, such as the private sector or infrastructure areas, just to name a few basic ones.
Intense learning of the several ICT languages is essential for the formation of critical citizens, inserted in complex societies, who require increasing levels of justice and coexistence in contexts in which conflicting interests are exacerbated.
Technology-based rural schools
The country made progress in ICT policies regarding resources or equipment. Schools presented in this document prove the need to continue with ICT policies in terms of equality and fostering of access, among other uses. Equipment is one of the basic conditions to guarantee access to ICTs, but if it is not accompanied by the infrastructure it requires, it inevitably produces a reduction in the real and potential use of these communicational devices.
These Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools implemented in these four Argentine provinces face daily challenges that were unknown to all of them. ICT mediation in teaching practices in this type of format, the knowledge of the students population with their specific characteristics derived from their rural or indigenous identity, the need to carry out collaborative work between professionals with various roles and training -such as teachers and tutors-, the particular pedagogical requirements, the need to rethink the curriculum, among many other mentioned throughout the text, are processes that required and demanded, for their sustainability, continuous development and collective monitoring.
In the same way in which the teaching and learning process is built daily in each of these classrooms of secondary education in rural locations and in which new ways of communication and practices are being configured, we also confirm that this innovation has an impact on central managements. The political decision of expanding rights demands the anticipation of the resources necessary to provide a timely answer to the needs that arise from time to time in these types of schools and communities. Each secondary school classroom in each rural location also meant a change of scenario for the population, which, from this revolution that secondary school and access to information through ICTs brought about, started to make other kinds of demands, such as attention to health and access to safe water, among others.
Dominique Wolton poses a motivating question: “How do we reconcile the technical and economic reality of communication with the social, cultural and political dimension? If saving communications is, first of all, preserving its humanistic dimension: the essence of communication is not the techniques, the uses or the markets, but the ability to link increasingly efficient tools to democratic values.” This quote is crucial in the approach to ICT teaching for children (both boys and girls) and adolescents. This is especially so for those who live in these territories, different from many others, with their unique specific qualities. In a perspective of continuous educational improvement, it will not be enough only to perfect the technical dimension of the use of ICTs in teaching practices, but it is also necessary to select and prioritize
Dominique, Wolton (2006): Salvemos la comunicación. Aldea global y cultura. Una defensa de
Chapter V. Comments and Suggestions for Expanding Ensuring Education in Remote Rural Locations through Technology-based Rur al Secondary Schools los ideales democráticos y la cohabitación mundial. Gedisa, p. 10. [Translated by the author].
what to teach and how to do it in a Technology-based Secondary School for each of these young men and women who are shaping their identity. When they finish this secondary school, it is to be expected that they have learned what is necessary and pertinent to prosecute studies and begin working on projects that promote the development of their communities. In order to achieve that, the review of the syllabus arises as a pre-requisite for teaching and for the opportunity to change by prioritizing the contents and the development of abilities necessary to reach a pertinent learning by the group of students.
Recently, results from investigations about the effects of virtual education in the United States were made available, where it was detected that students of virtual charter schools attain a lower level of learning in basic areas, such as Mathematics and Language as compared to students that attend face-to-face modality schools. These virtual charter schools (where there is no physical contact among teachers, tutors and students) represent an option that families are choosing for their children in said country. It should be clarified that we are not promoting or recommending this type of educational format to expand adolescents’ access to education; far from it. Many studies have shown for decades certain limitations of solitary virtual education in those who are youngest, which are not only reduced to levels of achievement of instrumental areas. The greatest loss in this type of virtual format is the lack of objectives and, in turn, the impossibility to educate citizens as regards values that are only obtained through coexistence and interaction with others.
In this case, we opted for a face-to-face format where, as already described, students attend a classroom every day accompanied by a tutor. This type of educational format and pedagogical proposal that supports this ICT integration strengthens through the collective action for the development of learning processes and knowledge.
Challenges faced by these schools are many, and the improvements must be considered as continuous. These schools and each of their classrooms require sustained support and accompaniment by other professionals specialized in ICTs, planning, evaluation, management and cultural diversity. There are many simultaneous challenges faced by and impacting all those who integrate it. There are many questions and a heap of possible answers, which are not always those which are desirable, but those which are possible, and we are all aware of that. In turn, a large part of these challenges are similar to those faced by the majority of traditional secondary schools at present.
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1846344-un-estudio-pone-en-duda-la-eficacia-de-la-ensenanza- online [Translated by the author].
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From dialogues and interviews with the participants involved in the proposal a series of suggestions, mentioned herein, arise, aimed at strengthening these schools and ensuring not only the sustainability already imposed by demand, but also the opportunity to expand it to the locations that still lack this educational offer. With this in mind, we transmit the ideas born therefrom.
With respect to the organization and communication towards the inside of the schools:
QQ Continuing to strengthen communication and the use of channels between teachers and students. Regardless of the role of the tutor, this communication is essential to favoring students’ autonomy, dealing with the particular characteristics of the learning processes, strengthening the bonds between both parties and increasingly contemplating, during teaching planning, the inquiries, motivations, progresses and difficulties of each student.
QQ Maintaining the collaborative work between teachers and tutors, because it was proven that it is the only way to jointly move forward.
QQ Improving the organization of teaching practices and increasing the frequency with which work is sent between students and teachers. As previously mentioned, there are difficulties to ensuring that students do and send the activities planned by the teachers in due time and in the correct manner.
QQ In connection with teaching and learning, their suggestions are similar to the changes required by a regular school, but made more complex due to the innovative format:
QQ Continuing with the process of constant improvement of teaching practices with the aim of promoting understanding of contents, developing abilities, and achieving digital inclusion. This entails a change of paradigm in pursuit of a deeper and more meaningful learning.
QQ Accompanying everyone in the development of higher knowledge and greater abilities related to the use of ICTs. Here, it is essential that the use of educational software and teaching and learning platforms be increased, promoting students’ participation in the digital culture and the production of knowledge.
QQ Maintaining multiple-year working strategies. Proposals of this kind may substantially strengthen learning in Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools and favor the management of each classroom. Chapter V. Comments and Suggestions for Expanding Ensuring Education in Remote Rural Locations through Technology-based Rur al Secondary Schools
QQ Creating specific Academic and Assessment Regulations for Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools. The characteristics of this school format and the academic careers of adolescents from rural contexts require that the school rethink traditional Academic and Assessment Regulations of the secondary education level.
QQ Incorporating knowledge and practice of sports and physical activity.
QQ Maintaining the exchange between students and other rural classrooms and urban headquarters, and vice versa. Building our own identity will also depend on the knowledge of their communities as well as of the cities.
With respect to the significant incorporation of ICTs:
As mentioned before, Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools have specific characteristics and require a continuous generation of innovations: schools with several classrooms in remote rural locations, students connected virtually and face-to-face, isolated communities which are vulnerable and poor.
A social and cultural dimension of ICT integration, which includes access to equipment but is not limited thereto, must ensure and strengthen:
QQ Generation of a set of educational and communicational strategies, both toward the inside of the areas of the Ministries of Education themselves, towards other bodies, as well as between the educational community of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools, for the visibility and the understanding of this innovative educational project, which guarantees the right of access to education.
QQ Design of new curriculum proposals in view of the diversity of communities, realities and cultural worldviews, and with the aim of expanding the youth’s symbolic and material horizon.
QQ Re-formulation of pedagogical strategies, of teaching and learning proposals so that these rural secondary schools become creative spaces for ways of teaching, learning, producing and representing their own contexts.
Technology-based rural schools
QQ Systematization and organization of information regarding the development of the program in each classroom and, jointly, as a school, regarding the students’ academic careers, the keeping and following-up of diagnostics data.
QQ Reduction of the digital gap not only in terms of access, but also with the aim of generating the opportunity to work, handle and produce material through digital tools and multimedia programs, within the framework of the importance in citizenship education that nowadays means the appropriation of these new formats.
QQ Training improvement for technical teams, teachers and coordinating tutors, on ICT use and appropriations from a communicational, educational and technical-pedagogical perspective, which involves tools, use of educational platforms, coordination of offline (Technological Classrooms) and online proposals, as well as integration of multimedia resources as vehicles to a more critical and deep understanding of current contexts.
It should be noted, furthermore, that educational governments will have to generate strategic alliances with the multiplicity of participants in terms of generating a real knowledge about the connectivity possibilities in rural locations and their alternatives (centers where other activities which are closely related to the classrooms take place, several technical proposals according to provincial geography and mapping, interaction with national bodies and entities with local presence for the generation of synergies related to this matter).
With respect to academic careers:
QQ Continuing to pay attention to cases of adolescent work. Identifying which students work and what they do. In this respect, they recognize a weakness in the interaction between school knowledge and work- related knowledge: “the premature participation in agricultural tasks, in general, simultaneously with schooling, make the questioning by young people about the usefulness of the school contents in their work activities almost omnipresent, even more than in the urban context, where it arises, in general, as a question about their future advantages.” More
Bruniard, R. (coord.) y otros (2007): Educación, desarrollo rural y juventud. La educación de los jóvenes en las provincias del NEA y NOA en la Argentina. Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock,
Chapter V. Comments and Suggestions for Expanding Ensuring Education in Remote Rural Locations through Technology-based Rur al Secondary Schools Fisheries and Food National Ministry of Economy and Production, International Institute for
than 80% of students of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools of Jujuy and Salta consider that it is “very important” to learn what is necessary in order to continue working when they finish secondary school .
QQ Maintaining and increasing devices that ensure the continuity of studies to graduates of the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools, such as: offering vocational orientation to students, providing substantive information about higher level offers, connecting schools with ICT- based higher education offers, offering study scholarships, work scholarships, among others.
QQ Increasing the interaction and joint work with the communities to guarantee students’ regular attendance, dealing with situations of rights violation, promoting local development through the school and strengthening the cultural identity of communities.
With respect to the management by central governments that, by political choice, assumed the commitment and generated the possibility to create this innovative offer, it is necessary that certain conditions be ensured for the School’s sustainability, as well as its necessary accompaniment for its continuous improvement. We believe, in this sense, that one way to do so is by making these Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools visible and by providing all the accompaniment and necessary resources for their sustainability in terms of offer and quality of service. Guaranteeing investment –which is not typical in relation to a regular secondary school– in resources for moving all the involved parties between classrooms and within classrooms for work matters, education issues, knowledge matters, and for the interaction of students, their teachers and tutors.
It should be considered that the communities where the Technology- based Rural Secondary Schools are, since they did not have previous offers, do not have to naturalize certain reproduction of inequalities which are frequently observed in this educational level and which need to be foreseen and avoided from the beginning. All of this leads us to think about the importance of this type of school offering a more pertinent and attractive education that is challenging for students, an education that allows them to build a real sense about what they learn at school
Educational Planning of UNESCO, p. 33. [Translated by the author]. 60 internal processing based on the performance of surveys to 236 students of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools of the provinces of Jujuy and Salta.
Technology-based rural schools
and which motivates them to continue their secondary studies. Promoting abilities and autonomies that enable them to design life projects.
The commitment and the educational work shown by each tutor, each teacher, each adviser and school authority of each of these schools towards every one of the boys and girls that conform the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools not only calls for a continuance of the guarantee of these initiatives, but also requires great recognition for everyone. Today, there is a young man who attended a Technology-based Rural Secondary School who is going to university. Chapter V. Comments and Suggestions for Expanding Ensuring Education in Remote Rural Locations through Technology-based Rur al Secondary Schools
V.1. Lessons Learned from the First Evaluation of Results
As it was already mentioned in the Introduction, during the second semester of 2015, an evaluation of results on the program of Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools was carried out in three of the four provinces, that is, Chaco, Salta and Jujuy . The evaluation was performed based on an International Request for Proposals, which was assigned to consultants: Pablo López Ochoa, Elena Rodríguez San Julián and María Jesús Izquierdo Carballo.
The aim of carrying out this evaluation, despite the program’s short implementation time, had to do with generating significant knowledge for educational governments and for UNICEF, with the purpose of strengthening and improving joint work, as well as determining its potential for adequacy, scalability and sustainability as a jurisdictional educational public policy, determining, furthermore, the extent to which the program has contributed to reaching the expected results, its innovative character and the possibility that it be transferred to other contexts and territories.
In this respect, the external evaluation has assessed the degree of progress in the achievement of the goals set out by the Program, and it has also identified the bottlenecks and facilitating factors for an effective achievement thereof. Transversally, the differences in the implementation of the program depending on the context were also taken into account, considering the risks, difficulties and specific conditions that may turn out to be decisive to achieve results.
In order to conduct this study, the following methods were used:
QQ Documentary analysis
QQ Qualitative techniques: personal semi-structured interviews of key informers (educational authorities, project managers, teachers and coordinators, families and people from the community, UNICEF personnel), group meetings with coordinators and families. Participative observation during visits to rural classrooms and urban headquarters.
Given that the province of Misiones was incorporated to the project in 2014, it was not part of this process.
Technology-based rural schools
QQ Quantitative techniques. Online survey for the coordinators of rural classrooms, who offered their outlook about the program in the territory.
QQ 6 case studies (2 in Jujuy, 2 in Salta and 2 in Chaco).
QQ Rural Classrooms visited:
• Loma Blanca and Santo Domingo: Jujuy • Tartagal and Pucará: Salta • Tartagal and Pozo del Gallo: Chaco
As central axes, the following conclusions, lessons learned and recommendations are established, emphasizing that the program:
QQ Has fulfilled the educational needs of the target population and its community, providing adolescents with access to secondary education, showing a great capacity for adaptation to the context and flexibility, prioritizing schooling continuity and learning process progress. However, there are differences in the distribution of results according to gender and ethnic group: worse results are perceived in girls as compared to boys, and in indigenous students as compared to the rest of the students, both female and male.
QQ Great results were achieved in the communities, which go beyond the educational aspect, generating very significant changes and benefits in the social, work and economic aspects for the youth and their families.
QQ It obtained very good educational results regarding schooling, retention, repetition and overage, with a positive evolution in all indicators. In turn, there has been a significant increase in the use of the technological tools, and the digital gap with other rural and urban areas has been reduced.
QQ It proves its sustainability, due to the provincial normative framework that governs this educational modality, the cost the provinces may assume, the availability of suitable and sufficient human resources, a very strong social demand and the personal and professional involvement of all those who integrate the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools.
QQ It offers an important potential for transference to other provincial contexts: the jurisdictional authorities of the provinces of Jujuy, Salta Chapter V. Comments and Suggestions for Expanding Ensuring Education in Remote Rural Locations through Technology-based Rur al Secondary Schools
and Chaco have already begun to replicate the program in other communities of their respective provinces or are very advanced in the process for its development. The province of Misiones has acted in the same manner. Jujuy already has Rural Secondary School No. 2.
QQ The deficiencies and lack of infrastructure, furniture and schooling material that may be observed in several of the rural classrooms remain to be resolved.
QQ Likewise, Internet connection, which has not worked properly and regularly, is yet to be resolved. This constitutes one of the main constant challenges for the program, making it difficult to develop essential pedagogical activities for a fluent and efficient implementation. Although it has proven to be flexible and adaptable enough to deal with connectivity problems and achieve its goals, this is one of the challenges to be solved in order to improve the project and ensure the fulfillment of the right to access to quality education.
Furthermore, the evaluation strongly stresses the fact that Technology- based Rural Secondary Schools:
QQ Are an educational model, which is an alternative to the traditional model in remote rural places that lack an educational offer at the secondary education level.
QQ They have a very beneficial effect on the communities in aspects that go beyond the mere educational aspect and that reach practically all aspects of community life, causing great motivation to all the participants of the program.
QQ They establish the need for pedagogical and methodological instruments to adapt to the social and cultural context and characteristics of the communities where it is implanted as an essential issue for the project to succeed.
Finally, in its recommendations, the study states the following:
QQ Provincial authorities must guarantee the program’s continuity by awarding it the same guarantees and rights as other educational models and formally integrating it in their educational policy.
QQ Provincial authorities must allocate the technical and human resources necessary for the program’s effective implementation and to ensure quality teaching.
Technology-based rural schools
QQ Educational authorities must facilitate and guarantee access for all students with particular individual situations that render their access to school difficult, allowing for their school inclusion.
QQ School authorities and teachers teams must create a teaching plan and a specific design of the curriculum and the contents for the ICT- based model.
QQ Every rural classroom must have suitable infrastructures available: dining space, lodge and school facilities prepared for teaching to take place.
QQ It is necessary that every rural classroom be provided with more than one coordinator and/or supporting assistant.
QQ A clear commitment must be obtained -by entering into agreements or through other pertinent modality- from the authorities in order to guarantee the Internet service.
QQ Teachers and coordinators must have a pedagogical and virtual profile that is adequate for the program and ensures its stability through time.
QQ It is essential to create and design a plan to establish communication and coordination mechanisms and processes between teachers- coordinators-students.
QQ A study of the total costs of the program must be conducted, per year and per province, disaggregating the costs per school.
QQ The implementation in other contexts must include the performance of a study of the structural needs and the processes.
QQ It is necessary to conduct a study of the structural needs and the processes necessary for the program. In this respect, it is important to increase the interaction with other affected ministries: Planning, Communication and Health.
These results were presented to all ministerial technical teams and institutional teams of the Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools in all the provinces that carry out the initiative. In the UNICEF Cooperation cycle of 2016-2017 with them, many of these aspects were considered in order to move forward in the strengthening of the schools. Chapter V. Comments and Suggestions for Expanding Ensuring Education in Remote Rural Locations through Technology-based Rur al Secondary Schools
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La educación argentina hoy. Buenos Spreading the news on Technology-based Rural Secondary Schools:
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CHACO 1 Source: Diario digital El impenetrable hoy Title: Se inaugurarán 9 sedes de escuela secundaria en 9 parajes en el impene- trable con entorno virtual Date: 24/7/2012 Link: http://elimpenetrablehoy.com/se-inauguraran-9-sedes-de-escuelas-se- cundarias-en-9-parajes-de-el-impenetrable-con-en-entorno-virtual/ 2 Source: Diario digital Día por Día Title: Más de 100 adolescentes indígenas y criollos empezaron la escuela secun- daria Date: 2013 Link: http://chacodiapordia.com/noticia/66900/%C2%93mas-de-100-adoles- centes-indigenas-y-criollos-empezaron-la-escuela-secundaria%C2%94 3 Source: Diario digital El impenetrable hoy Title: Chaco y UNICEF profundizan estrategias para garantizar educación secun- daria a jóvenes en el impenetrable Date: 20/3/2013 Link: http://elimpenetrablehoy.com/chaco-y-unicef-profundizan-estrategias- para-garantizar-la-educacion-secundaria-a-jovenes-de-el-impenetrable/ 4 Source: Diario digital Chaco Title: Encuentro de estudiantes secundarios de El Impenetrable en Resistencia sobre enseñanza y aprendizaje a través de netbooks Date: 11/5/2015 Link: http://www.diariochaco.com/noticia/encuentro-de-estudiantes-secun- darios-de-el-impenetrable-en-resistencia-sobre-ensenanza-y 5 Source: Diario Digital TAG Title: Los alumnos del proyecto especial “Todos a la secundaria” fueron recibi- dos por el gobernados Date: 14/5/2015 Link: https://www.diariotag.com/noticias/locales/los-alumnos-del-proyecto- especial-todos-la-secundaria-fueron-recibidos-por-el 6 Source: Diario Digital Primicias Chaco Title: Encuentro de estudiantes secundarios de El Impenetrable en Resistencia Date: 11/5/2015 Link: http://www.primiciaschaco.com/noticia.php?nota=21096 7 Source: Gobierno de la provincia de Chaco Title: Chaco hace historia en parajes en el Impenetrable con la escuela secunda- ria rural mediada por TIC Date: 13/5/2015 Link: http://www.prensa.chaco.gov.ar/?pag=noticia&nid=36744
Bibliography JUJUY 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Link: http://www.eltribuno.info/relevan-avances-gema-y-tic-n614118 Fecha: 16/9/2015 Título: Relevanavancesde“Gema”y“TIC” Fuente: DiariodigitalEltribuno le&id=1820:2015-08-27-17-48-48&catid=31:ministerio Link: http://www.mejujuy.gov.ar/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic Fecha: 27/8/2015 los estudiantes Título: GelmettidestacóqueenJujuysegarantizaigualdad deoportunidadesa Fuente: MinisteriodeEducaciónJujuy cambios-n549469 Link: http://www.eltribuno.info/el-uso-como-plataforma-educativa-genero- Fecha: 17/5/2015 Título: Elusocomoplataformaeducativagenerócambios Fuente: DiariodigitalEltribuno unicef-y-escuela-rural_32266?print&render=false Link: http://www.todojujuy.com/todojujuy/encuentros-de-trabajo-entre- Fecha: 17/3/2015 Título: EncuentrosdetrabajoentreUNICEFyEscuelaRural Fuente: DiariodigitalTodoJujuy capacitan-a-docentes-de-escuela-rurales-a-traves-de--entornos-virtuales_9427 Link: http://www.prensajujuy.gov.ar/ministerios/ministerio-de-educacion/ Fecha: 11/11/2014 Título: Capacitanadocentesdeescuelaruralestravésentornosvirtuales Fuente: GobiernodelaprovinciaJujuy Link: http://www.eltribuno.info/secundaria-rural-n-1-loma-blanca-n351674 Fecha: 6/12/2013 Título: SecundariaRuralNro1.deLomaBlanca Fuente: DiariodigitalEltribuno fuerte-compromiso-con-las-comunidades-aledanas/ Link: http://www.ellibertario.com/2013/07/31/mina-pirquitas-mantiene-su- Fecha: 31/7/2013 aledañas Título: MinaPirquitasmantienesufuertecompromisoconlascomunidades Fuente: DiariodigitalElLibertario las-rurales&catid=31%3Aministerio&Itemid=75 le&id=875%3Anueva-propuesta-educativa-con-entornos-virtuales-para-escue- Link:http://www.mejujuy.gov.ar/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic Fecha: 2013 Título: Nuevapropuestaeducativaconentornosvirtualesparaescuelasrurales Fuente: MinisteriodeEducaciónJujuy entornos-rurales-n233530 Link: http://www.eltribuno.info/proyecto-escuelas-secundarias-obligatorias- Fecha: 12/12/2012 escuelas rurales Título: ProyectoEscuelasSecundariasObligatoriasenentornosvirtualespara Fuente: DiariodigitalElTribuno SALTA 1 Fuente: Gobierno de la provincia de Salta Título: La oferta para la secundaria en parajes rurales salteños fue expuesta en una jornada con UNICEF Fecha: 28/3/2014 Link: http://www.salta.gov.ar/prensa/noticias/la-oferta-para-la-secundaria- en-parajes-rurales-saltenios-fue-expuesta-en-una-jornada-con-unicef/29665 2 Fuente: Diario digital El Tribuno Título: En zonas rurales realizan la secundaria por internet Fecha: 28/4/2013 Link: http://www.eltribuno.info/en-zonas-rurales-realizan-la-secundaria-inter- net-n276288 3 Fuente: Diario digital La hora de Salta Título: “Les debemos a nuestros hijos una Salta con más inclusión” dijo Urtubey en Campo Durán Fecha: 28/4/2013 Link: http://www.lahoradesalta.com.ar/2013/04/29/les-debemos-a-nuestros- hijos-una-salta-con-mas-inclusion-dijo-urtubey-en-campo-duran/ 4 Fuente: Diario digital El Intransigente Título: Urtubey: “Le debemos a nuestros hijos una Salta con más inclusión” Fecha: 30/4/2013 Link: http://www.elintransigente.com/salta/2013/4/30/urtubey-le-debemos- nuestros-hijos-una-salta-con-mas-inclusion-182272.html 5 Fuente: Gobierno de la provincia de Salta Título: Presentaron los materiales multimedia de un secundario mediado por TIC Fecha: 16/12/2014 Link: http://www.salta.gov.ar/prensa/noticias/presentaron-los-materiales- multimedias-de-un-secundario-mediado-por-tic/35936 6 Fuente: Diario digital La Gaceta Título: UNICEF muestra el trabajo de las escuelas rurales salteñas mediadas por internet Fecha: 21/12/2014 Link: http://www.lagacetasalta.com.ar/nota/10236/sociedad/unicef-muestra- trabajo-escuelas-rurales-saltenas-mediadas-internet.html 7 Fuente: Gobierno de la provincia de Salta Título: Más equipamiento y nueva sede para las escuelas secundarias rurales mediadas por tecnologías Fecha: 11/9/2015 Link: http://www.salta.gov.ar/prensa/noticias/mas-equipamiento-y-nueva- sede-para-las-escuelas-secundarias-rurales-mediadas-por-tecnologias/40761 8 Fuente: Gobierno de la provincia de Salta Título: Evaluación de programas educativos Fecha: 24/9/2015 Link: http://www.edusalta.gov.ar/index.php/2014-05-09-13-50-01/partes-de- prensa/1573-evaluacion-de-programas-educativos
Bibliography GENERAL MISIONES 1 5 4 3 2 1 nen-secundario_0_1408059409.html Link: http://www.clarin.com/educacion/tecnologia-escuelas-rurales-termi- Fecha: 07/08/15 secundario Título: Latecnologíallegaalasescuelasruralesparaqueloschicosterminenel Fuente: DiarioCLARIN acceden-a-la-secundaria-mediada-por-tics/ Link: http://misionesonline.net/2015/09/29/cerca-de-cien-jovenes-guaranies- Fecha: 29/9/2015 Título: Fuente: MisionesOnline por-tic-opcion-para-garantizar-el-derecho-a-la-educacion/ Link: http://misionesonline.net/2014/08/08/secundarias-rurales-mediadas- Fecha: 8/8/2014 a laeducación Título: SecundariasruralesmediadasporTIC:opciónparagarantizarelderecho Fuente: MisionesOnline tic/ Link: Fecha: 8/8/2014 Título: SecundariasRuralesmediadasporTIC Misiones. Fuente: MinisteriodeCultura,Educación,CienciayTecnología.Provincia educaci%C3%B3n#sthash.AbEaIvgi.dpuf rurales-mediadas-por-tic-opci%C3%B3n-para-garantizar-el-derecho-a-la- Link: http://fmamerica.com.ar/index.php/interesgeneral/1948-secundarias- Fecha: 8/8/2014 cho alaeducación Título: SecundariasRuralesmediadasporTIC:Opciónparagarantizareldere- Fuente: FMAmérica tic-otra-opcion-para-jovenes-misioneros/ Link: http://www.mcecyt.misiones.gov.ar/secundarias-rurales-mediadas-por- Fecha: 27/3/2014 neros. Título: SecundariasRuralesmediadasporTIC:otraopciónparajóvenesmisio- Misiones. Fuente: MinisteriodeCultura,Educación,CienciayTecnología.Provincia http://www.mcecyt.misiones.gov.ar/secundarias-rurales-mediadas-por- Cerca decienjóvenesguaraníesaccedenalasecundariamediadaporTIC
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