Is technology a tool for language learning, or is language learning a tool so that people can access technology? This paper suggests that both language and technology are tools for individual and societal development. The paper introduces a developmental approach to integrating technology in language education, based on consideration of both product and process. It then illustrates these concepts through analysis of a large US-funded English language developmental program in Egypt. Two projects are examined: a teacher education program on computers in English language teaching and a basic English methodology course taught via video-conferencing. The analysis indicates that a developmental approach is critical to successful integration and use of technology in language education programs.

The role of the computer in education has gradually been transformed, in the eyes of many educational technology specialists, from that of tutor to that of tool (see discussion in Warschauer, 1996). This is certainly the case in the field of second language teaching, in which the most dynamic applications of computer-assisted language learning involve simulations, electronic communication, and multimedia production, rather than simple drill and practice tutorials (see examples in Egbert & Hanson-Smith, 1999).

But, the question still remains: a tool for what? The premise of this paper is that technology in TESOL is best understood not only as a tool for language learning, but also more broadly as a tool for individual and societal development.

The paper draws on three years' of research in Egypt, where the author participated in a large donor-funded program for integrating technology in English language teaching and teacher training at the K-12 and university levels. The program involved a wide range of technology projects, ranging from the high-tech, such as interactive video-conferencing and online workshops, to the low-tech, such as the development of audio-based language materials for one-room rural schools. Research from the program suggests that a developmental perspective should guide the products and processes of the integration of technology in TESOL, particularly in the developing world. I will first briefly discuss the product and process of technology in language learning and then provide examples from specific projects carried out in Egypt.

As Markee (1997a) points out, the notions of product and process are critical to both language education and development theory. In general theories of socioeconomic development, perspectives on the end product of what constitutes "development" have gradually changed from a vision that focuses narrowly on wealth to one that also includes broader issues of social inclusion and protection from vulnerability, encompassing literacy, health care, social equality, and democratic rights. This broadening vision of the desired product of development has corresponded to an increase focus on process: "how development is gained" is viewed as "no less important than what benefits are obtained at the end of the development road" (Goulet, 1971, p. x, emphasis in original), since only participatory and democratic involvement of people in their own developmental process can assure that any change is sustainable. Development then becomes both a terminal state as well as a change process (Goulet, 1971, cited in Markee, 1997a.)

Language learning theory has also been marked by a broadened vision of desired product and a renewed emphasis on learning process. A singular focus on the end product of grammatical competence has widened to encompass other forms of communicative competence, with the goal being not just formal knowledge but also the power to use language for meaningful interaction and agency (Warschauer, 2000). With this widening has come an increased emphasis on classroom processes, or, actually, on the combination of product and process, from both a teaching (e.g., Breen, 1984; Candlin, 1984) and research perspective (e.g., Spada, 1987). Processes involving autonomous learning, collaborative learning, and the development and practice of language learning strategies are all designed to empower students to continue their own learning and communicative innovation outside the classroom (see discussion in Markee, 1997a).

A developmental approach to technology in language learning reflects these same two issues: an expanded product and a special attention to process. Starting with product, the rapid diffusion of information and communication technology (ICT) is shifting the goal posts of what it means to be a competent language user. For example, with the number of e-mail messages sent and received annually exceeding 3 trillion (Pastore, 1999), e-mail has joined other media as an essential means of communication. Indeed, according to one study, a plurality of US managers believe that e-mail is the principal means of communications in their business, surpassing the telephone, fax, and even face-to-face conversation (American Management Association International, cited in Warschauer, 2000). Therefore, language teachers must not only use e-mail to promote English teaching (Warschauer, 1995), but also teach English to help people learn to communicate effectively by e-mail. Similarly, with the World Wide Web becoming an essential medium of information exchange in economic, academic, and civic affairs, the literacies of accessing and publishing Web-based information must also become part of English language teaching curricula. New electronic literacies (Shetzer & Warschauer, 2000; Warschauer, 1999a, in press) include computer literacy (comfort and fluency in keyboarding and computer use), information literacy (the ability to find and critically evaluate online information), multimedia literacy (the ability to produce and interpret complex documents comprising texts, images, and sounds), and computer-mediated communication literacy (knowledge of the pragmatics of individual and group online interaction). These literacies are important in many languages, but they are especially critical in English since more than 50% of the world's online content is in the English language (Cyberspeech, 1997). The extensive amount of online information and communication in English provides the possibilities and, in many contexts the imperative, to reconstruct the English language curriculum to incorporate technology-enhanced communication and project work (Warschauer, 2000).

The importance of these new literacies calls into question a basic tenet of computer-assisted language learning (CALL): that the computer is an optional tool to assist the language learning process, but that technology doesn't transform the end goal of what is to be learned. My ethnographic research with language learners in Hawai'iÑincluding immigrants, foreign students, and native HawaiiansÑindicated that they viewed technology not as a secondary and optional tool, but as a critical added value to language education (Warschauer, 1999a). In other words, students in technology-intensive language classrooms learned both language skills and valuable information/communication literacies simultaneously. This point was similarly brought home to me many times in Egypt, but never more so than when a high school English teacher expressed his view that "English is not an end in itself, but just a tool for being able to make use of information technology," thus standing on its head the traditional mantra of CALL proponents. While I understand the sentiment of the teacher, I would suggest instead that both English and information technology are toolsÑto allow individuals to fully participate in society.

And they are also tools for societiesÑto fully participate in the world community and advance politically, economically, and socially. With the successful institutional integration of information technology one of the key factors in socioeconomic development (Castells, 1998/2000), societies, schools, and teachers will not make the sacrifice of time, effort, and money required for implementation of technology-based instruction only for the goal of teaching the same English skills better. Rather, they make these sacrifices because they believe that the mastery of technology, as part of the English curriculum and other curricula, is essential if their students and society are to fully develop.

An examination of new curricular standards in Egypt, Israel, Singapore, the United States and many other countries indicates the value that national governments and ministries of education place on the goal of developing student expertise in information and communication technologies. As the Egyptian Minister of Education wrote,

International language-training development projects, which often focus on development of language education management skills in addition to teaching skills, need to recognize the expanded role of ICT within the language teaching and broader educational enterprise. This entails developing institutional expertise and learning processes so that collectives and institutions can take leadership in adapting new technologies in ways appropriate to their circumstances. Language departments, schools, ministries of education, and professional organizations all need to enhance their leadership in effective integration of information and communication technologies as a developmental tool. In summary, at all levels of language education, from the individual to the institutional, active mastery of ICT, rather than just passive use, is essential for confronting the imperatives of an information society and economy.

To achieve these expanded goals, whether at the individual or social level, requires a reconsideration of process. Since ICTs are changing and developing so rapidly, mastery of new technologiesÑwhether by a student, teacher, or institutionÑnecessitates a capacity for constant innovation and adaptation. The critical element here is autonomy, a concept that was already valued in earlier stages of communicative language teaching but now takes on ever greater significance. As Shetzer and Warschauer explain (2000)

The concept of autonomy must be extended to apply not only to self-directed use of language and today's technology but also to the ability to develop, explore, evaluate, and adapt new technology as it evolves. This requires the development of meta-skills of critique and innovation beyond the skills of deploying any particular technology. Students should be able to use not only today's search engines, but should have the right analytic framework to select and make use of new search engines as they emerge. Teachers should be able not only use today's CALL software, but should have successful strategies for evaluating and adapting the new waves of software that will surely come. And institutions should have the capacity not just to make use of technologies, but to participate in the generation and improvement of technologies (Corea, 2000).

All of this suggests a highly interactive and organic process, in which the development of capacity for sustainability is of greater interest than short-term results. This involves the application of general developmental principles of educational reform, such as respect for local circumstances and working within the parameters of local institutions (Holliday, 1992; 1994). The concept of local appropriateness is of critical importance, since access to and attitudes about information and communication technologies differ greatly in different parts of the world.

This also necessitates an understanding of principles of social informatics, that is the perspective of technology as a complex social system reflecting relations of culture and power rather than as the machines per se (Feenberg, 1991; Kling, 1999; Warschauer, in press). From a social informatics perspective, the implementation of ICT is not a one-shot deal of purchasing and installing computers but rather a complex social process involving a lengthy restructuring of incentives, the development of different social relationships, and reconfigurations of power (Kling, 2000).

Finally, this involves understanding and taking into account the principles of innovation diffusion. According to these principles, new ideas or innovations are not simultaneously adopted by all, but rather gradually spread through different categories of people along an S-shaped curve (see figure 1; Rogers, 1962). The first category to grasp a new idea, labeled Innovators, is made up of a small group of highly venturesome and risk-taking people. Members of the next group, the Early Adopters, are noted for the degree of opinion leadership they exert within their social networks; they are more cautious than the Innovators and are respected by their peers. After the Early Adopters take up an innovation, the rate of diffusion increases, as first the Early Majority, and then the Late Majority, come on board. These two groups together make up fully two-thirds of society. Finally, the last group, termed Laggards by Rogers, consists of those people who are highly resistant to an innovation and may wait a long time before adopting it.

Because of this process, long-term in-depth training of a cadre of change agents who can provide ongoing leadership within a particular social system is a critical component of development. It is especially important to mobilize Early Adopters in such training since this group, due to its opinion leadership, is critical for the success of an innovation.

To better understand the development perspective on technology and language education, I will now discuss examples from a large-scale English language development project in Egypt. Data on this project was collected over a three-year period (1998-2001) from sources including participant-observation, interviews, focus groups, Websites, transcripts of e-mail messages, and Ministry of Education and university documents.

The Integrated English Language Program-II (IELP-II) is a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded program to improve English language teaching in Egypt. It is the latest incarnation of a quarter century of US-funded language aid projects in Egypt. These projects began in the mid-1970s (see Bowers, 1983) when the US government was actively trying to court Egypt into the US political and economic camp. Aid to Cairo, including for language projects, greatly expanded in the 1980s after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a peace accord with Israel. Washington's aid to Cairo was seen as a reward for the accord, an incentive to keep Egypt in the Western camp, and a developmental tool to integrate Egypt into the US-led globalized economy (Weinbaum, 1986).

IELP-II was launched in 1997 on the heels of IELP-I, an earlier teacher-training project that took place from 1984-1996. IELP-II was designed to be as much an economic development program as an educational one; it originated in the section of USAID that supports economic reform programs in Egypt, and it sees its long-term impact as bringing about "improved English language proficiency for the current and future work force of Egypt" (IELP-II, 2000, final para.) IELP-II programs focus not only on language pedagogy, curriculum, and materials development, but also on issues related to the management of English language education and training programs.

IELP-II places a great premium on institutional change and sustainability. IELP-II program does not bring over American instructors to teach directly, but instead emphasizes training and assistance programs to increase the capacity of Egyptian educational institutions. As in many international aid projects, though (see also Kenny & Savage, 1997; Markee, 1997a), the supposed emphasis on sustainability in IELP-II is complicated by a range of international and local factors that shape the design, funding, and implementation of the project . From the US side, these include a USAID-mandated emphasis on numerical milestones (such as x number of teachers trained per year in such-and-such activity). Since funding to the USAID subcontractors depends on reaching these milestones, they are given great priority, but pursuit of numerical goals does not always enhance the patient behind-the-scenes work required for enhancing sustainability. From the Egyptian side, the tremendous largesse of the IELP-II programÑwith $52 million to spend over a six year periodÑhad a distortional affect, influencing many collaborating institutions to seek a piece of the pie to address urgent short-term problems rather than long-term development needs (see discussion in Smith, 1997). More explicit political issues also impacted the nature of the IELP-II program and its ability to bring about sustainable change. For example, at one point, during the Camp David negotiations led by President Clinton, USAID made plans to divert millions of dollars of aid money from Egypt to the Palestinian Authority, thereby forcing IELP-II to suddenly cut back on some of its training programs.

These emergency reductions notwithstanding, IELP-II is believed to be the largest donor-funded program in the world for assisting English language teaching in a developing country. At its height IELP-II employed approximately 60 full-time staff (including 11 Americans and about 50 Egyptians), working under two USAID subcontractors, the Academy for Educational Development and America Mideast Educational &Training Services. This full-time staff is assisted in its efforts by scores of US and Egyptian part-time consultants from the fields of TESOL, applied linguistics, assessment, evaluation, educational management, and educational technology.

The work of IELP-II is focused in three main sectors: (1) with the Egyptian Ministry of Education (to improve in-service teacher training, management of English language programs, use of technology, etc.); (2) with Egyptian university colleges of education (to improve in-service training of future English teachers; and (3) with English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) programs. Technology is considered a crosscutting area that has projects in all three of these sectors. Work on educational technology projects has been managed by a nine-person team within IELP-II supplemented by the assistance of US and Egyptian consultants and working in partnership with Egyptian educational and non-governmental bodies.

I will now briefly describe two technology-based projects coordinated by the IELP-II to illustrate the developmental approach discussed above.

One of the objectives of IELP-II is to help Egyptian educators make use of new technologies in ways that are appropriate to their own circumstances. Toward this end, IELP-II has carried out a professional development program in computer and Internet use for English language teaching. The program was developed following a national needs analysis (reported in Warschauer, 1999b). The needs analysis demonstrated that there was a fair amount of computer equipment in Egyptian schools and universities, but there was little knowledge on how to use it for language instruction and professional purposes. There were no CALL organizations in the country, no Websites or public email lists for English teachers, and no other form of organized leadership on the issue of technology for English teaching.

Based on this situation, IELP-II placed priority on developing a leadership core for the future of technology in English teaching in Egypt. Rather than conducting undifferentiated short-term training for large numbers of teachers, IELP-II chose a strategy that was based on an understanding of the aforementioned "S" curve of innovation. As a first step, main emphasis was put on developing and consolidating a relatively small group of change agents who could exercise leadership in this area. As a second step, these leaders were helped in reaching out to others around them both to deepen their own knowledge and also to help build a larger group of early adopters. The intended "product" of IELP-II's program was thus an informed, organized leadership core that had knowledge and expertise in the use of technology in language teaching as it applied to the Egyptian context. The process involved working to develop a leadership cadre, and then providing scaffolding to assist this leadership cadre to reach out to a broader group of early adopters.

To develop a group of leaders with expertise in technology for English teaching, a two-year training program was established. Approximately 100 people participated in this program in three groups of 30-35 people. Groups were made up of English teachers, English language supervisors, and English methodology specialists from schools, universities, and English for Specific Purposes centers.

The program was entitled Computers in English Language Teaching (CELT). The name was chosen to emphasize the broader role that computers can play in English language teaching, rather than the narrower role suggested by the better-known term of Computer-Assisted Language Learning. The content of the CELT program was tied as closely as possible to the actual needs of Egyptian teachers and learners as identified through the needs analysis. Technology instruction covered included simple tasks such as the creation and use of e-mail lists for professional discussion, the use of office software to develop materials or prepare presentations, and the use of the Internet for finding information or creating professional Websites. Free or advertiser-supported software was selected over commercial software so that teachers could readily replicate what they had learned in their own situations. Modules on classroom use of technology focused in large part on the "One-Computer Classroom," as this reflects the current conditions of Egyptian schools. Participants who completed the CELT program were thus prepared to provide leadership in the areas most needed by Egyptian teachers.

All those who participated in the CELT program had to go through a rigorous application process that evaluated their expertise in English language teaching methods, their experience with technology, and their leadership potential. Applicants had to propose, and present in a personal interview, a specific technology-based project that they would implement in their own schools, universities, and regions. People were chosen to participate either because they were Innovators who were already experimenting with technology in the classroom and had some valuable lessons to share, or because they were potential Early Adopters with an interest in technology and with good ties to the broader educational establishment (see Markee, 1997b for discussion of the complementary roles of innovators and early adopters.)

1. A Pre-Training Period. During a pre-training period of one year, CELT members had short computer training workshops in Egypt and formed teams to further plan their projects. The CELT members met in Cairo and continued discussions online to prepare for their main training and their project work.
2. A Main-Training Program. Following the first year, CELT members participated in an intense one-month training program in the US where they learned about computer-assisted language learning and carried out work on their projects.
3. Follow-Up Implementation. Following the main training program, CELT members continued their efforts by completing their projects, implementing their projects in their schools, continuing discussion over e-mail, participating in advanced workshops in Cairo, and sharing what they had learned with their colleagues by leading their own local workshops and participating in a national "Electronic Oasis" (see discussion below). Finally, in 2001, a national CELT conference was held so that members from the three CELT groups could share ideas together and view each other's projects.

Some of the CELT members' projects were not in areas that might traditionally be thought of as CALL. One professor, for example, helped launch an English-language Website for his university. While such a project might not be directly related to English language teaching in the classroom, the project served to highlight to Egyptian educational institutions the value of integrating technology and English and inspired other universities and departments to later launch or improve their own English-language Web sites, thus facilitating professional networking. Other CELT members launched electronic discussion lists to network English teachers in particular regions or programs. Other CELT projects focused on topics such as developing multimedia presentation content for the one-computer classroom and creating video-based listening exercises for university English courses.

One special success of the CELT program was the work of a blind English teacher, Ahmed. During his study in the United States, Ahmed gained experience with English language assistive technology for the visually impaired. Upon his return to Egypt, he organized a number of follow-up sessions on the topic for other blind teachers and the broader educational community. His leadership in this area was recognized by UNESCO, which invited his cooperation in launching a blind electronic library at the recently opened (or re-opened, after 18 centuries) Bibliotecha Alexandrina (Library of Alexandria), with ten specially designed computer stations providing materials in English, Arabic, and other languages for the visually-impaired.

In addition to the CELT program, a number of other efforts were carried out to help consolidate a group of innovators made up of the CELT members and other highly interested teachers. Most important, a national Educational Technology Special Interest Group (Ed Tech SIG) was launched within EgypTesol. Though the Ed Tech SIG was founded by an American working for IELP-II, it is now under the leadership of Egyptians and chaired by an Egyptian applied linguist. The Ed Tech SIG carries out a number of its own training and education programs to further effective use of technology in TESOL.

Research indicates that the work of change agents is important in fostering innovation only if they have good ties to a broader community (Markee, 1997a; Rogers, 1962). A critical next step in promoting effective technology use in Egypt was thus to help promote ties between the initial leadership cadre and the broader English teaching community in Egypt, and in particular with those who had the potential to become early adopters.

Toward this end, IELP-II coordinated closely with the Ministry of Education and Egyptian universities to assist the CELT members in organizing one-week follow-up workshops in their own locales. This coordination was challenging, as the Ministry of Education was not used to facilitating this kind of grassroots initiative. Though thousands of Egyptian classroom teachers have traveled abroad for training over the last two decades, no systematic initiative had previously involved them in providing substantial ongoing follow-up training to their colleagues. Though arrangements were eventually made to carry out this follow-up training, this was accomplished only after a great deal of delays, obstacles, and resistance, with some CELT members facing problems even getting Ministry of Education approval for leave to attend follow-up meetings. In the end though, the workshops were arranged.

Each workshop was led by 1-4 CELT members and included 5-15 local teachers, depending on the size of the laboratory available. The content of these workshops was similar to the initial workshops taken by the CELT participants and focused on the mastery of basic tools, such as word processing, presentation software, and the Internet, and the applications of these tools for professional communication and English teaching. Approximately 1,000 teachers participated in these follow-up workshops, and, as indicated by this statement by one CELT member, some of those trained continued the cascade or snowball effect by also doing training at their school sites.

In addition to these local training workshops, an "Electronic Oasis" is organized each year at the annual EgypTesol conference. At the Electronic Oasis, CELT members and others involved in the Ed Tech SIG give hands-on demonstrations to the many hundreds of English teachers in attendance. A total of 120 such demonstrations were given at the November 2000 Electronic Oasis, reaching an estimated 500 teachers. Topics at the electronic oasis range from the basic, such as getting a free e-mail address, to the sophisticated, such as the authoring of multimedia.

Finally, CELT and Ed Tech SIG members also manage several Websites for Egyptian English teachers as well as a national e-mail discussion list, ELTEGYPT, which includes some 400 educators. The list has been used for everything from announcement of local training programs, to commiseration over obstacles to using of technology in schools, to discussion of how the Israeli/Palestinian conflict should be presented in the English language classroom. (This latter topic generated intense debate when the Mideast conflict flared in 2001, as some teachers wanted to use the list for free-flowing discussion of political issues while others felt that a list for English language teachers should only include political discussion to the extent that connections were made to education or language issues.)

These achievements of the CELT program, while important, are still relatively minor compared to the broader challenge of integrating new technologies in Egyptian English language classrooms. The 1000 teachers reached so far represent only a tiny proportion of the 60,000+ English teachers in Egypt. And even these 1000Ñand indeed, even the leadership core of 100Ñface serious obstacles in actually making use of computers and the Internet in their teaching. Some of these obstacles involve lack of access to equipment: there are too few computers in Egyptian schools to allow classroom use by English students on a daily basis. In addition, many administrators are fearful of even using the computers that they do have for fears that they will be broken. As one CELT participant complained on the group e-mail list, the school technology staff "know only how to unplug and cover it to protect the computer from dust so as not to be damaged." And even with access to computers, Egyptian teachers face additional obstacles toward using them creatively with their students, including huge class sizes, a centralized test-driven curriculum, and a school culture that discourages innovation (see discussion of these issues in Jarrar & Massialas, 1992; Sarhaddi Nelson, 2001; Tawila, Lloyd, Bensch, & Wassef, 2000). A frequent complaint of CELT participants is that they do not have sufficient support or opportunity to really put to practice their new knowledge and skills.

However, the high motivation of CELT participants has led many of them to seek ways to introduce technology in their teaching, even in difficult circumstances. An excellent example of this is the classroom activity of Mounira, a CELT participant who teaches English literature at an urban university, and whose success illustrates well the principles of electronic literacy and autonomous learning discussed earlier. Lacking access to any departmental or university computers for her teaching, Mounira began to involve some individual students in tracking down online information on English poems from their home computers. These students made wall posters about what they found online and also gave oral presentations to the other students in the class. These posters and presentations generated so much student curiosity about the Internet that voluntary after-class "field trips" were organized to the public access computers at a nearby library. Groups of students, most of whom had never previously sat in front of a computer, worked in pairs at the library computers to sign up for free e-mail accounts and learn how to use the World Wide Web. These newly connected students then started to do their own online research on English poets, leading to more classrooms presentations and eventually to an online collaboration with students in another English class taught by a CELT participant at a different university. Mounira explained to me by e-mail (personal communication, April 2001) how all this activity reshaped class dynamics:

Though Mounira started by just wanting to get her students access to the content on the Internet, she came to strongly value the autonomous processes involved. When told that she could just give out handouts rather than have students find information themselves online, she replied that "it's not the handout I'm interested in as much as the process of the students retrieving that handout themselves and using the Internet to do that" (personal communication, January 2002).

The excitement generated in Mounira's class reflects the positive attitude toward the CELT program by many educators and students in Egypt. Though it has not yet reached a large percentage of Egyptian teachers, nor received sufficient institutional support from the Ministry of Education, the program's strong grassroots orientation has earned it the reputation as one of IELP-II's best projects. Key to the success have been a strategic focus on the development and consolidation of change agents, a cascade training approach that works through change agents to reach other early adopters, a focus on content and tools appropriate to the current developmental conditions of Egypt, and a fostering of ongoing sustainable leadership networks and structures. Whether and how this group breaks beyond its still relatively small circles to help affect lasting change within the broader system of schooling remains to be seen, though substantial underlying problems with Egyptian educational institutions as well as a broader political, economic, and cultural climate that discourages innovation make the possibility of any rapid breakthroughs unlikely (Warschauer, in press).

A second IELP-II program worth examining is a teacher methodology workshop conducted via videoconferencing. The workshop has trained some 3,000 teachers in three years in areas of basic English language teaching methodology. Lessons learned in conducting and improving the workshop over a three-year period support many of the points discussed above

The intended product of the videoconference training, as initially conceived, was trained teachers. Specifically, the videoconferencing training sought to reach large numbers of teachers who could not ordinarily attend workshops in the few major cities where such training is usually held, and help them acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to carry out effective communicative language instruction in their classrooms.

The process chosen to achieve this goal was a one-week videoconference workshop. During the first year of the program, two one-week workshops were held (each with a different set of teachers), covering the principle aspects of basic English language teaching methodology. The workshops were held in the Egyptian Ministry of Education's videoconference halls, a set of 27 centers scattered throughout the country. These halls enjoy multipoint communications capacity; a speaker from any one of the 27 sites can communicate by video and audio to all the other 27 sites simultaneously.

The workshops were taught by university teacher trainers, who delivered the workshops from Cairo over the videoconference network. Discussion at the 27 sites and across sites was managed with the assistance of two or three facilitators at each site, most of whom were working for the Ministry of Education as English language supervisors in the schools and who had come to Cairo for a few days of training in videoconference facilitation prior to the workshops. Approximately 600 public middle school English teachers participated in each of the one-week workshops, for a total of 1200.

Unfortunately, the communicative medium of videoconferencing did not prove rich enough for effective training. Sound quality was not as good as in face-to-face communication, and the Cairo-based trainers could not adequately assess the conditions at each site (since they could only view one of the 27 sites at a time). In addition, teachers complained that they found the presentations too theoretical and that they failed to adequately address classroom conditions in Egypt. Lack of direct follow-up between the trainers and the teachers also proved to be a serious problem, since it was unclear what teachers were able to implement from the training in their classrooms, if anything. A formal evaluation team found that the training program had little lasting impact on the participating teachers.

During the next two years, the training program was redesigned to better reflect a developmental perspective. This entailed change in both the intended product and the training process. The product, or goal, was reconceived to place greater emphasis on sustainable change, at both the teacher and institutional level. Individual teachers were expected not only to master knowledge and skills of communicative language teaching, but also to be able to reflect on teaching techniques and approaches in light of their classroom circumstances and make ongoing adjustments and adaptations as necessary. At the institutional level, a goal was set to develop the capacity of the Ministry of Education and its personnel to develop and carry out its own effective teacher training programs via videoconferencing in the future.

Adjustments were made in the process to support these expanded goals. The two separate one-week workshops were replaced by a single yearlong workshop with different parts. Specifically, 600 teachers participated in a one-week workshop early in the academic year, in a series of follow-up one-day videoconference workshops throughout the year, and in follow-up assignments between the workshops. These assignments including trying out in their classrooms what they had learned in the videoconferencing, keeping reflection logs and portfolios, and carrying out peer observation. The one-day follow-up videoconference sessions then focused directly on challenges and problems that teachers faced as they tried to implement what they learned in the classroom. This reorganization of the videoconference workshops meant that only 600 teachers were reached per year rather than 1200, but they were in effect participating in a year-long program, with a good deal of on site follow-up, rather than in a five-day program with no follow-up at all.

The role of the local facilitators changed as well. While they previously had just helped guide discussion during the videoconferences, they now also helped manage the school-based follow-up by visiting and observing teachers at their schools, reading over their journals and portfolios, and conducting meetings with teachers in their area. This school-based follow-up added a note of seriousness to the workshop, as the participants knew that they were expected to reflect on and try out what they had been introduced to in the videoconferences, and that they would be offered support and guidance to ensure that that occurred.

The facilitators were also invited to contribute their own considerable expertise, based on years of local teacher supervision, by making presentations as part of the videoconference workshop. All the facilitators were invited to submit formal proposals as to what kind of presentation they would like to give in the workshop. Those with the best proposals were selected to make presentations over the videoconferencing network during the one-day follow-up videoconference sessions. Topics of these proposals included techniques for teaching reading, effective use of visual displays, and the use of pair and group work in the class. The facilitators usually collaborated with colleagues in their locations--in some cases participants in the CELT network--to develop multimedia material to support their videoconference presentations.

These presentations were an important step forward, since there is a huge social and educational gap in Egypt between Ministry of Education employees (whether teachers or supervisors) and university professors. By having the local facilitators, who are Ministry of Education supervisors, join the university professors in giving presentations over the national videoconference network, a small step was taken in overcoming this gap. The facilitators' presentations were not as polished as those of the university professors, but their knowledge of teachers' working conditions was much greater as they worked on a daily basis supervising teachers in the classroom. They could thus fashion presentations that directly addressed teachers' needs, and this added credibility to the entire workshop.

The pre-workshop training program for the facilitators was redesigned to reflect the expanded role they played in the program. Beyond topics of workshop facilitation, it also included topics such as how to organize peer observation, how to keep and evaluate teaching portfolios, how to make effective proposals, and how to make effective presentations.

Technology was used to support the new school-based emphasis. A video-team from Cairo traveled to different parts of the country to film teachers who were implementing in the classroom what they had learned in the workshop. This video gave the trainers of the workshop a better understanding of how teachers were acting on what had been previously covered, and thus allowed the trainers to refine the content of the course. More importantly, the videos were then shown in the follow-up workshops and served as a powerful basis for discussion among the workshop participants. Ordinary classroom teachers showed great courage in having their own unrehearsed classroom teaching observed and critiqued by hundreds of their peers from throughout the country.

With presentation and discussion of this classroom video, the workshops became less of a lecture from Cairo and more of a reflective interaction based on teachers' discussion of actual examples of their peers' practice. Workshop participants who were perhaps more shy about attempting new techniques in the classroom could see with their own eyes that the material covered in the course was not only theoretical, but that it could actually be interpreted into classroom instruction in an Egyptian context. Lively discussions ensued as teachers observed and discussed video of their colleagues trying out new techniques, with the very teachers featured in the video available to explain their pedagogical strategies and respond to follow-up questions. For example, one video clip showed Hanaa, a teacher from a small town in a rural area, using small group role-playing to reinforce a grammatical point. The hundreds of teachers at 27 sites then actively debated over the videoconferencing system whether Hanaa's teaching strategies were practical in their own classroom and how they might have managed things differently. At many times, these debate and discussion became quite animated, as teachers from several sites competed to gain the floor and explain their views.

Over two years, the videoconferencing training was thus transformed from an activity that was somewhat removed from teachers' actual needs and experiences to one that many of the teachers viewed as highly relevant and valuable. As one teacher from a small town in the Sinai said, "I've been in many training workshops, but none of them were so closely related to what I actually needed in the classroom. This workshop allowed me to learn about things that were directly related to my own teaching needs."

In summary, the infusion of videoconferencing did not bring many positive changes, but when videoconferencing was carried out in a way that better reflected the developmental needs and conditions of the local actors, important gains were achieved. Changes included focusing on the overall system of instructional supportÑin this case, a longitudinal school-based training programÑthat could be integrated with a technology-based distance education. These changes also involved the training and development of a leadership cadre, the facilitators, who gained expertise in all aspects of videoconference-based education, including learning to conduct effective presentations themselves over the videoconference system. Through this effort, and especially through the close work the facilitators, a leadership cadre was formed that could help lead technology-mediated training programs in the future.

As in the CELT project above, the long-term impact of the videoconferencing workshops is difficult to foresee. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Education unit that organizes other videoconference training is made up exclusively of experts in the technical matters of video, computers, and telecommunications, with no specialists in pedagogy. Those in charge of the unit appeared to recognize the value of the IELP-II videoconferencing program, and spoke positively of the interactive features that they witnessed, but it is unclear the extent to which such features will be incorporated into their own training programs, which are more similar to the first round of IELP-II videoconferencing (short training programs with limited interaction) rather than the improved later version. In the long run, the Ministry of Education's Technology Development Center, which manages the videoconferencing unit and other Ministry technology programs, needs to develop more expertise and emphasis on pedagogy and curriculum rather than solely on technical matters, but affecting that change was not something that IELP-II has been able to achieve.

The length limitation of a journal article does not allow a full discussion of all the challenges, successes, and failures of IELP-II's work with technology in education. The two relatively successful projects described here were chosen for discussion because of their common link to issues of technology, training, and capacity development, but some other technology-based projects were not so successful. For example, an effort to install two model CALL laboratories stalled for years, caught between the differing priorities of the donor (USAID) and recipients (the Egyptian Ministry of Education and a university college of education; see discussion in Warschauer, in press) And even the training projects described above were limited in their impact, reaching a small percentage of Egyptian teachers and failing to achieve full integration in Egyptian educational institutions. This reflected a more general shortcoming of IELP-II's work: an inability to help further institutional reform within the Ministry of Education so that the ministry itself could provide better ongoing leadership to improving teaching training and language education. This failure was due to broader donor-recipient contradictions in the aid dynamic (as discussed, in general, in Hall, 1997; Smith, 1997) and reflect the fact that Egypt and its educational system were targeted for US aid projects for geo-political reasons rather than because of a good match between donor and recipient development perspectives (Weinbaum, 1986). Overcoming these larger contradictions was beyond the capacity of either IELP-II or the Egyptian teachers it worked with.

However, the shortcomings of IELP-II's work were balanced by some important successes, particular in areas related to technology in language teaching. A leadership core, made up of innovators and early adopters, has emerged within the educational system to discuss and promote effective uses of technology in language learning. This technology- (and pedagogy-) savvy network can now play a similar leadership role as that of comparable networks in other countries (e.g., JALTCALL in Japan). And a number of Egyptian language educators have also begun to share their expertise on these issues internationally by presenting on educational technology topics at international conferences and participating in the international leadership of CALL organizations. This participation allows Egyptian educators to help define the future of CALL rather than only implementing technologies and approaches that are designed abroad.

"Technologies like computer systems belong to the realm of expressive tools of human nature," wrote Corea (2000. p. 9). Rather than "foisting such technologies haphazardly on people," he continued, we should instead foster "the long-term nurturing of behaviors intrinsically motivated to engage with such technologies is likely to prove more synergetic." It is thus crucial to "engender a systemic tendency to toward innovation in social units," and this requires "an 'innovating' rather than a 'borrowing' strategy" (p. 9). Quoting Perez and Soete "(1988), he added that "A real catching up process can only be achieved through acquiring the capacity for participating in the generation and improvement of technologies, rather than in the simple use of them" (Corea, p. 9).

In the area of language education, this translates into the essential role of a body of teachers with the knowledge, skills, and attitude for innovatively designing, adapting, and applying technology in the classroom, appropriate to local context. This crucial role of human capacity and motivation for technological innovation was recognized by an Egyptian university lecturer, who told me several years ago that "we have the hardware, we have the software, but we lack the humanware." Even then, the statement was exaggerated, but the speaker's emphasis on human development and leadership provides an excellent framework for ESOL educators who seek to make effective use of information and communication technology. Our goal in TESOL, and especially when considering how to make use of technology, should be not only development of the language, but also development of the person. At the classroom level, that implies helping students not only use technology as an instructional aid, but also master technology as a medium of communication, research, and knowledge production. At the professional level, that implies developing networks of innovators with expertise in technology-enhanced teaching, teacher development, and educational reform.

As the experience in Egypt demonstrates, these "products" also require us to rethink the process of teaching and teacher training with technology. Whether working with students or teachers, a developmental approach for technology and language learning requires a long-term process emphasizing initiative, autonomy, reflection, and the self-generated capacity for innovation. Through such an approach, we can enable people to make use of all the tools available to themÑand especially the two powerful and intertwined tools of English language and information technologyÑto achieve their developmental goals.

This paper benefited from the comments and suggestions of Mounira Soliman of Cairo University, who was a leader in the CELT program and videoconferencing workshops. In addition, I would like to thank all the educators that I worked with on educational technology programs in Egypt; their dedication and commitment made these programs possible.

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