Wednesday, June 06, 2007
eLearning Africa 2007 conference
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.
More later!
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
