eLearning

I just realized that this site was set up to disallow comments. I have just made the correction and want my readers to know that I welcome your comments.

In a few weeks I will be assuming new responsibilities with my university. I am moving from administration of online classes to teaching of online classes. I will be seeking to understand how best to offer online religion classes to our students in Kenya. But I hope to find out more about distance education in Africa generally. Feel free to point out resources in your comments ;-)

Labels: Africa, distance education, Kenya

Some of the speakers at this conference gave the evidence that they have done this sort of thing before. One of those was Annika Andersson from Örebro University in Sweden. She is a doctoral student who has researched why some students persist in e-learning and others do not. She constructed a grid of factors which influence a student's persistance that I would like to use to assess the design of the courses we offer online. Areas that she examined include the student, teacher, technology, course, institution, support, and society. She found that few researchers are examining technology and teacher issues; most focus on the learner. Click on her name to find contact info if you are interested in starting a discussion with her.

Another presenter who clearly communicated was Dr. Moses Mbangwana of Cameroon. He uses Yahoo Groups quite effectively for online research and teaching. In the same session, Prof. Otto Ikome of Téluq-University of Québec presented some very engaging examples of using technology with sensitivity to cultural context. Wish you could have been there.

Labels: Africa, Kenya, online education

The eLearning Africa 2007 conference was held in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 28-30. Workshops filled the first day, then there were multiple sessions on various topics the next two days. In many ways, the conference resembled education conferences one would attend in the US. Sessions were 90 minutes long with tea (and coffee) breaks between them, vendors' booths surrounded the main hall, and keynote addresses were given by dignitaries.

While I am tempted to describe all the flaws of the conference, I must keep in mind that this is only the second iteration of eLearning Africa. The organizers still have a bit to learn about effective conference planning. For example, each of the 90-minute sessions had five speakers shceduled. Many of them tried to cram all their wordly knowledge into their 12-minute slice, with PowerPoint slides displaying the notes that they read. What a nightmare!

However, some of the sessions that I attended were helpful and insightful. I also met some interesting people with whom I expect to do some followup. That said, I will list some of the more instructive findings.

• When students in South Africa were required to use a LMS (WebCT), they were skeptical. A survey taken after they had become familiar with the features and completed a course yielded the following surprising (to my mind) results: students greatly enjoyed the quiz feature and found the discussion booard feature least appealing. Perhaps this is normal for oral cultures.


• Many institutions are using Moodle, Yahoo, and Google tools to conduct their online education. Cost is certainly a factor, but being able to have more control over the shape of a learning management system is important also.
  
• Because vastly more Africans have access to cell phones than to computers, a number of institutions and individuals are experimenting with content delivery and even (text) discussion via phones.

More later!

Labels: Africa, Kenya, online education