Reporting back from eLearning Africa 2015

e/merge Africa team10 June 2015

Presentation Plan

What is eLearning Africa?The e/merge Africa teamWorkshopsOpening PlenaryDay 2 EventsDay 3 EventsClosing PlenaryOverall Reflections

What is eLearning Africa?

Goals for e/merge Africa

Contribute to the conferenceMeet with new and existing colleaguesNetworkIdentify potential presentersLearn

Introducing the team

e/merge Africa workshops

Peer Assist Workshop•Knowledge of the peer assist process•Fresh perspectives and knowledge •Tools to organise and lead a peer assist process•Expanded professional network

Growing Your Innovation Network

For eLearning innovators to:

•identify and engage with potential conference buddies and collaborators,

•celebrate our innovations,

•surface success factors for innovation,

•share and review our boldest goals for the next wave of innovation.

Reflections from the e/merge Africa workshops

Alice Barlow-Zambodla: Participants appeared to be deeply engaged in the interactive processes that were facilitated ... Great interest was sparked by the Peer Assist session (and there have been subsequent requests for online peer assists) ... The Growing your Innovation Network Workshop was extremely interesting especially since we were trialling it for the very first time.

Nicola Pallitt: I enjoyed sketchnoting and because people took photos and tweeted it, I think they saw value in these very simple sketches. It was new for the participants, facilitators and myself - we are all learning together:) I like how some of the participants in the afternoon workshop engaged visually too, making things together in addition to speaking.

UNESCO-UNEVOC TVET Workshop

Gabriel Konayuma: The presentations highlighted promising practices in the the use of ICTs in TVET in Africa and internationally. What was interesting was that challenges in the use of ICTs in TVET were also shared by developed nations. There was an emphasis on blended and flexible learning in TVET using ICTs so as to produce an employable and well-rounded TVET graduate.

OER Workshop

Sukaina Walji: Some of the participants were exhibiting open educational practices (such as creating and sharing resources or using FOSS) but were generally unfamiliar with Creative Commons licences and how to discover or adapt OER. For me, this was fascinating and sobering at the same time. Blog: http://roer4d.org/1669

https://creativecommons.org/

Opening Plenary

“Yazmi is a proven system, ready to effectively and economically provide abundant support to teachers and students across the continent. We are looking to partner with governments, civil society and the private sector to roll out our solution.”

Keynote by Noah Samara

From the Keynote by Mark Surman

“I think we need a movement that says web literacy is absolutely an essential piece of how we imagine education empowerment and the future of human society […] I believe an internet that is made by all of us is something worth protecting and also I believe it is something that will unlock much of what we’re trying to do in the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of education, and the pursuit of a just and equitable human society.”

Day 2 - Reflections and Highlights - 1

OER02 - A Truly African MOOC: Is it coming? (Alice)

Marilena Djata Abral - AVU: talked about lessons learnt from developing a MOOC in collaboration with COL on using ICT to enrich teaching and learning ...El Mahdi El Mhamdi from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - presented on building a Science and Maths library for students using “atomised content” that is presented rather like the Khan Academy offerings.

Day 2 - Reflections and Highlights - 2

RES16 - Research in Action II: Moving Towards Enlightenment (Jakob Pedersen)Three research presentations giving their view on how eReadiness and what educators and policymakers can draw from this knowledge. There were some interesting debate questions though, to focus on frameworks, especially to ensure quality education. The question was raised whether there is a proper understanding of ‘blended learning’.

Day 2 - Reflections and Highlights - 2

RES31 - Are we reaching a plateau of productivity? - (Tony)

Antoinette Mukendwa - Polytechnic of Namibia presented on the use of a capability maturity model to assess an institution’s capacity to “design, plan, initiate, manage and evaluate eLearning activities” and then to provide a framework to guide the achievement of high quality e-learning projects.

Day 3 Reflections and Highlights 1

AGR43 - Agriculture and ICTs (Alice)

Iddo Dror from ILRI spoke about the Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) a systematic method to assess local feed resource availability and use that helps in the design of intervention strategies aiming to optimize feed utilization and animal production. A face to face training course on how to use the tool has been converted for independent study both online and offline.

Day 3 Reflections and Highlights 2

CAP 49 - Expanding the Reach of NGOs (Tony)

Daniel Oloo: (SOS Children’s Villages in Kenya) presented an Open Space Literacy training model which was designed for low power and limited resources. The most common challenges experienced related to limited skills among teachers, resistance from teachers and language issues.

Ayan Kishore: from Technology for Development presented on the use of crowdsourced local language stories delivered by SMS in education projects.

eLearning Africa Debate

"This House believes that Africa needs vocational training more than academic education."

As opposed to such debates in previous years the arguments weren’t so focused on false dichotomies because it was recognised that both academic education and vocational training were needed. Ultimately the audience vote suggested that the strongest arguments came from the team in favour of the motion.

Overall Reflections: Alice, Gabriel, Jakob

Alice: There is clearly a growing interest in implementing elearning in our African institutions/organizations and we are moving into a space where Africa is becoming an innovative contributor…..

Gabriel: the Conference offers a unique opportunity for e-Learning practitioners and policy makers to network and share useful knowledge and skills.

Jakob: The conference gave a great opportunity to connect and supplement online connections with face-to-face, explore practices and engage with colleagues

Overall Reflections 2: Nicola, Sukaina, Tony

Nicola: eLA15 and the bit of Ethiopia that I did experience allowed me to see through the bubble, that there is a bigger world outside.

Sukaina: It was good to be in conversations where issues, opportunities and problems in African education were discussed and debated (largely) by Africans or people working on the ground in Africa.

Tony: The profession and this practitioner focused conference are maturing.

Overall Reflections 3: Mohamed

Mohamed: eLA conference focuses on using computing technology in the education. Describe the growing interest in implementing e-learning in Africa and build the bonds of the cooperation between the sons and daughters of the continent(Africa). Really I have learned from this conference many and many ideas but the main one for me is that ( we cannot live or learn without each other)......we are one........African people.

Tony Carr

Tony