eLearning

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