Synthesis Report: Instructional Technology

Analysis in Guatemalan Schools

By: Nichole Schumaker

EDTC 645
February 28, 2016

Introduction
Two meaningful and insightful articles about cyber infrastructure and teacher preparation
and professional development for technology integration throughout Guatemalas rural society.
The two articles are, Fostering learning in the networked world: The cyberlearning opportunity
and challenge (2008) and A professional development initiative for literacy in Guatemala (2009).
The first article is a report sponsored by the National Science Foundation Task Force on
Cyberlearning and how vital new technologies are to citizens in all fields developing and thriving
societies with weak economic systems and those countries looking to transform education
throughout a lifetime (Borgman, Abelson, Dirks, Johnson, Koedinger, et al., 2008). In the first
article, the cyber infrastructure was analyzed and several factors give way to opportunities for
action that have both short-term and long-term returns. In the second article, the focus was
literacy instructional practices, professional development for teachers, and opportunities for
personal and professional learning.
This paper takes aim at the impact two major improvements can have for the children and
educators of Guatemala creation, expansion, and retention of a reliable cyber infrastructure and
improved teaching preparation training programs that are researched-based and infused with
literacy instructional methods, materials, strategies, and rich curriculum to increase the literate
population for people with more than a primary school education.
Cyber Infrastructure
Most countries around the world are infusing technology into teacher preparation, student
learning standards and curriculum, and into every-day lesson activities so that students will
become highly-skilled to compete for new jobs in an interconnected, competitive global

economy. Guatemala has a plantation or agricultural-based, mostly rural society that educates a
few thousand students in three tiers of schooling primary, secondary and tertiary. Even though
Guatemalan people experience continual hardships, such as wide-spread villages with little
means of connectivity, extreme poverty due to income distribution inequalities and multilingual
families with several varieties of dialects, they are positioned to improve the quality of education
their children receive.
Government officials and even native academics in Latin American countries often lack
the resources to create this infrastructure and often times, international or American
organizations need to provide a stable cyber infrastructure to help ensure reliable and continued
access to instructional resources and interactive virtual learning environments. A well-built cyber
infrastructure must also have data management and stewardship component services developed
with specifications unique to its purpose.
Scientists and scholars in all disciplines, the world over, are finding ways to ask new
questions, deploy new methods, and exploit a far wider array of data through
cyberinfrastructure-mediated research (Borgman, 2007). Considerations for infrastructure
include building a field (human capital, networks, etc.); creating models of sustainability
and interoperability; establishing design principles (modularity, appropriate for multiple
devices, localizability, etc.); and exploring open platforms. The task of developing an
infrastructure has goals and a set of strategies to achieve the goals (Borgman, et al.,
2008).
Educational reform is closely tied to economic development. It can also be surmised that
education is at the center for long-term development strategies stemming from the labor market
and dramatic improvements are possible when there is a social and cultural emphasis on
education. In Latin America, the teaching profession carries less prestige and the requirements
to become a teacher are much lower [than South Korea]; teachers enter the profession with
varying academic credentials (Severin & Capota, 2011). Distinguishing the role of education as a

factor in government decisions for hardware technology absorption and the production of
knowledge is significant for countries with societies in transition, in reference to Guatemala from
civil war to plantation economy. This type of economy is undermined by insufficient cheap labor,
in particular for the harvesting and production of coffee. Ive gathered from my research that
Guatemala, during the past few decades, availability and quality of primary education were at the
minimum requirements to adopt foreign technologies. Throughout this time, economic growth in
Guatemala was measured haphazardly including an exclusion of large parts of the society due to
social conflict (Loening, 2005).
In an interview with the Washington Post from March 2014, the chief information officer
for the Peace Corps, Dorine Andrews, spoke of her work to bring stable Internet service to farflung rural areas. She worked with 7,200 volunteers in 65 countries, but more specifically, in
Guatemalan cities (Overly, 2014). The disparate organization has encountered obstacles carrying
out their mission but continue to improve towards operating various stages of technological
advancement in cities and rural villages. She eloquently explained her vision as the Peace Corp
as
ship[ping] a product, not parts. We arranged with our vender so the whole system is
packaged, boxed up and shipped to the post. While that is happening, our IT specialists at
each post receive instructions so that theyre able to setup the local network. The
infrastructure gets delivered, they hook it up, and then from headquarters over the
weekend we transfer all of their data (2014).
The global education community expects increasing amounts of learner data available from
formal and informal learning activities within the scope of online chat, cell phone messages and
video chats, games, and even developmental toys. Learning-relevant data will continue to
become honed and more useful to academics designing teacher preparation programs in all

countries. The reason would be to mine this data to discover improved cognitive-effectivepsychometric models of academic achievement cross-matched with student engagement.
Developing countries, such as Guatemala, need to be prepared for this deluge of data and
be able to best prepare their teachers for next generations learners.
[Technology implementation] goals represent a theory that describes a viable
infrastructure. The goals and strategies will need to be reviewed, updated, revised, and
evaluated regularly. Some of these goals (e.g., a strong and sustainable field) will take
considerable time to achieve, while other goals [e.g., open-source platform(s)] will take
less time, although continuous work in this area will be required owing to the rapid
evolution of technology (Borgman, et al., 2008).
The Ministry of Education in Guatemala government was tasked with developing and
implementing a comprehensive educational plan but the imbalances and struggles of socioeconomic issues and agrarian way of life prevent success. In 1996, the Ministry created two
commissions to help overcome the status quo: the Parity Commission for Educational Reform
(COPARE) and the Consultative Commission for Educational Reform (CCRE) that address
specific resolutions of variations, acceptance, solidarity and agreement of diverse living
situations (Cojti Cuxil, 2002).
Improved Professional Development with a focus on Literacy
There is a strong need for improved and revised professional development training for a
new generation of teachers in Guatemala. With prospering training, teachers can experience new
literacy teaching practices through professional development and in turn, raise student academic
achievement in reading and writing. A professional development initiative for literacy in
Guatemala was an academic research project that described influences from the International
Reading Association improved childhood literacy. Some of the opportunities they afforded
Guatemalan teachers were hosting a professional development conference, school visits, teacher

interviews, and data collection. The literacy rate in Guatemala in 2000 was 69%, which
compares poorly with the rest of Latin America (as cited in Lora, 2008). Lora cites research in
2006 by Wilms, that in Latin America an overwhelming number of schools concentrate lowincome children, and in these schools the learning outcomes tend to be less favorable, with few
but notable exceptions (p. 131) (Pepper-Sanello & Sosin, 2009). Educational insights abound
when research-based pedagogical practices in literacy are given to Guatemalan teachers. The
researchers conducted a participatory action research study, with a keen eye and understanding
about developing countries, to measure using data Guatemalan educators collect from working
with their students.
Analysis
A method this research team arrived at and alluded to was to continue collaboration
between United States teachers and Guatemalan educators. This opens the door to an
international professional development that is collaborative and focused on literacy. The
conundrum of which types of literacy strategies to use and whether to use the same strategy for
primary students across the board or if primary students should be pre-tested, reading level
determined, and differentiated literacy strategies applied. For the lowest scorers, the read write
think strategy was designed to increase their phonemic awareness. For average scorers, step-bystep literature response templates can be used with read-aloud activities that asks students to use
drawing and writing to respond to increasingly more complex prompts. For top scorers, they can
be challenged with learning and expertly using literary devices, figurative language and reading
excerpts to identify and explain poetic devices.

Another method to boost overall student academic achievement is to provide pre-service

education to the formal teaching position by providing new teachers additional training,
mentoring by an experienced teacher, and/or time to observe mentor teachers while they are
teaching. Classroom management skills, the benefits of providing a print-rich classroom
environment, classroom furniture configuration and flow. Effective professional development is
on-going, includes training, practice and feedback, and provides adequate time and follow-up
support (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OCED], 2005).
Conclusion
The articles and additional sources in this paper were chosen because the writer believes
them to be areas of weakness and that the most reward would come from improvements in the
two areas of cyber infrastructure and professional development. Schools are dynamic and vibrant
town and village centers that cannot meet the needs of their people without adequate support for
proper teaching pedagogical practices and the wealth of information, nearly unlimited access to
authentic and high-quality instructional materials, and opportunities to build international
learning communities among teachers and students. Improved student academic achievement and
literacy rates bode well for countries with economies in transition and struggling in global
markets.

References
Borgman, C., Abelson, H., Dirks, L., Johnson, R., & Koedinger, K. R. (2008, June 24).
"Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and
Challenge. A 21st Century Agenda for the National Science Foundation" by Christine L
Borgman. University of California, Los Angeles. Retrieved February 23, 2016, from
http://works.bepress.com/borgman/329/
Cojti Cuxil, D. (2002). Multiculturalism in Latin America: Indigenous rights, diversity, and
democracy (Institute of Latin American Studies Series) (R. Sieder, Ed.). Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Loening, J. L. (2005). Effects of primary, secondary, and tertiary education on economic growth:
Evidence from Guatemala (pp. 1-4). Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Latin America and
the Caribbean Region, Central America Country Management Unit.
Overly, S. (28 March 2014). Bringing technology to far-flung rural areas. Washington Post, The.
(3)
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2005). Teachers matter: Attracting,
developing and retaining effective teachers. Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development. Paris, OCED Publishing.
Pepper-Sanello, M., & Sosin, A. A. (2009). A Professional Development Initiative for Literacy in
Guatemala. International Journal of Learning, 16(8), 261-269.
Severin, E. and Capota C. (2011). The use of technology in education: Lessons from South
Korea. Inter-American Development Bank, 10, 1-8.

Wise, D., & Zwiers, J. (2013). Instructional coaching, in Guatemala: Reflection for reform.
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