Ethnocomputing in Tanzania: Design and Analysis of a Contextualized ICT Course

A crucial challenge in the teaching and learning of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in developing non-Western countries is the irrelevance of much Western learning content, materials, tools, and methods from the perspectives of local communities. Our approach for designing an ICT course is based on the concept of ethnocomputing — finding culturally suitable entry points for understanding, utilizing, and producing ICT in a relevant way. In order to study the feasibility of our approach, we designed a contextualized introductory programming course with Tumaini University, Tanzania, and offered it to second-year undergraduate students in teacher education in the academic year 2004–2005. The approach was to encourage students to create programs that would meet the needs of their own local communities. The course made extensive use of learning technologies, such as robotics, to concretize the first steps in understanding ICT. We applied an ethnocomputing-based analysis to three aspects: (1) the development process of the course; (2) the role of learning technologies in the course; and (3) students’ contextual learning outcomes. First, representation, utilization, and appropriation appeared at various stages in the development of the course. These included unexpected spin-offs for local communities, such as the introduction of educational robotics to assist young patients in a rural hospital. Second, contextual relevance of learning technologies — digital learning materials, the robotic I-BLOCKs, and the Jeliot program visualization tool — was analyzed by the CATI model, and the results indicate their relevance at all the four levels of the model: Contextualization, Application, Transfer, and Import. Third, student learning outcomes were observed by using content analysis of questionnaires and interviews. There is evidence that students developed a contextual understanding of ICT, especially at the application level of the CATI model. Overall, the study indicates that an ethnocomputing-based analysis can be used for designing needs-based ICT education by analyzing its feasibility with various operationalizations of the ethnocomputing concept. Moreover, research results envisage new components and methods for an entirely contextualized undergraduate curriculum of ICT.