If you follow the #ICT4D hashtag on Twitter, you’ll see a strong, focused conversation around the use of ICT in international development. Happily, the ICTworks helped create that focus through Twitter Chats we organized in the past. (Want them back? Throw out some topics!)
The same cannot be said for the ICT in education space. There are a number of hashtags in use, for all sorts of communities. The most popular seem to be:
- #EdTech – Mainly North American/Europe tweets that focus on 1st world ideas and issues
- #EduTech – A mix of developed and developing world thoughts and ideas
- #ICT4E – More international development focused, but not so popular
- #ICT4Edu – Our favorite, which seems only to be used by ICTworks
Now the beauty of a good Twitter hashtag is that over time, it comes to mean something specific, and therefore people only tag their tweets with it to reach a very targeted group of people. Looking at the list above, which do you think would be the best to concentrate those focused on using ICT to improve educational systems in the developing world?
Now, I say #ICT4E for two reasons. First, its easy, short, and flows with the #ICT4D tag. Next, it’s not that widely used, so we can take it over and make it ours without too much effort. But what do you, dear community say? It’s our collective hashtag after all.
Hi,
thanks for the post,
in amsterdam we recently had a meetup to share experiences and lessons learned and just to connect amongst orgs and individuals working on education processes, using various technologies and with a focus on emerging economies and (post) conflict states
we choose the EduTech tag and then made it EduTechNL to work with,
as some of the org’s involved work in both developed and developing contexts and because of the inspiration that can be gleaned from both areas,
the fledgling Linkedin group is here,
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4270517&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr
greetings,
Emer
I totally agree that it’s time to define one Twitter hashtag that focuses on ICT in education, in developing country contexts!
I also think #ICT4E is the best option for the same reasons – and although #ICT4Edu is more precise, it’s a bit too long. I find I often use both the #ICT4E and #EdTech hashtags when tweeting about something that’s relevant to the broader global educational technology space, but developing country/social change focused, which I think is an indication that they don’t mean the same thing.
Like ICT4D, ICT4E isn’t a perfect (or, perhaps, even a particularly good) reflection of the complexities, contradictions, and challenges in the field… but I don’t think there’s an acronym that can be.
So, for the purposes of sharing information and continuing discussions via Twitter, my vote’s for taking over #ICT4E!
I will recommend “EduTech” because it more focused on both developed and developing word.
Here are a few tweets on the subject coming from Twitter users:
@Parvez_Iftikhar I think #ICT4E is best for education.
@leadingleo: I prefer #ICT4E, it’s easy to remember, clean visually, and also just quicker to type!
@dontyna my vote is for #ICT4E
@viviantia #ICT4E
@IM_PM #ICT4E definitely!
@Bobby_Moeng: I would go with #ICT4Edu coz its more explicit than others, explains the intentions as well
Hi Wayan, my preferences goes to the shortest recognizable hashtag, #ICT4E