Several events took place in conjunction with the meeting of COL's Board of Governors in November 2001 in New Delhi, which involved COL staff and Board members who were present. These included a colloquium on emerging scenarios in distance education, a roundtable for international educational broadcasters active in educational television and a workshop on the dissemination of materials developed for the empowering of rural women, the latter in collaboration with IGNOU's School of Continuing Education. COL also supported and made presentations at an international conference on volunteerism, NGOs and open schooling organised by India's National Open School.
Educational broadcasters made recommendations about creating a forum for professional and organisational networking, engaging in co-operative research initiatives and mounting an awards programme.
The second Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning will be held at the International Convention Centre in Durban, South Africa, from Monday, 29 July to Friday, 2 August 2002. The Forum is being hosted by COL, the National Association of Distance Education Organisations of South Africa (NADEOSA) and the South African Department of Education, in collaboration with the Commonwealth's open and distance learning professional associations. The theme is "Open Learning: Transforming Education for Development".
An e-mail-based, pre-Forum virtual conference series will start up in early 2002. COL will host the conferences, but each will be moderated and co-ordinated by a different member organisation of the Federation of Commonwealth Open and Distance Learning Associations. There will be six monthly conferences, each lasting two to three weeks, and a plenary session will be held at the Forum where moderators' reports will be presented and discussed. Virtual conference topics will be:
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Bridging the digital divide (February)
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Technology and lifelong learning (March)
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The future of technology for developing countries (April)
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Distance learning in the small and island states in the Commonwealth (May)
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Quality assurance in open and distance education (June)
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Open and distance learning for community and social development (July)
Watch COL's web site and the Forum web site for details on the virtual conferences and how to participate - or request information by contacting COL at info@col.org. www.col.org/virtualconferences
Programme committees are now reviewing 135 parallel session presentation abstracts that have been submitted. Conference brochures have been posted and details are also available on the web at http://colforum.mweb.co.za [now archived at: www.col.org/pcf2].
Please also see above for information on making nominations for COL's Excellence in Distance Education Awards that will presented at the Forum. www.col.org/edea
 |
South Pacific Distance Education Symposium, Fiji: COL was represented
at this meeting
by its Vice President,
Brian Long |
The annual COL-convened meeting of Chief Education Officers from the Commonwealth Caribbean region and the Association of Caribbean Chief Education Officers (ACCEO) was held in Barbados in October 2001. It provided an opportunity for the participants to discuss various open and distance learning initiatives that COL and others are working on with partners in the region. They include:
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the establishment of a regional distance education association;
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the Caribbean Regional Educational Management Information System project;
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the launch of the University of Technology, Jamaica special diploma in teaching programme for technical/vocational education and training, which is using the COL-co-ordinated, regionally developed curriculum; and
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the COL/Caribbean Examinations Council project on the development of open and flexible learning materials (see COL in Action, page 3).
Participants noted that, "Over the years, COL has provided significant and invaluable assistance to the region particularly in implementing programmes in open and distance learning. Further, the partnership that exists between the Association and The Commonwealth of Learning continues to be a catalyst in the region's determination to improve standards. The ACCEO is grateful to COL for its continuing support."
The Benjamin Franklin Institute of Global Education presented it's fifth annual Global Learn Day on 6/7 October 2001. COL's President and Chief Executive Officer, Professor Gajaraj Dhanarajan was a keynote speaker and COL's recently published book on telecentres was used as a backgrounder for discussions. Professor Dhanarajan discussed how telecentres are part of the response in overcoming the digital divide. Thousands of people from 24 time zones participated in the 24-hour web- and audio-cast. The event is free to anyone with an Internet connection and, in some locations, is available on community radio. This year's participants included people talking from solar-powered telecentres in Nigeria, scientists talking to the audience by ham radio from Antarctica, a young mother in New Zealand and an Aboriginal community in Australia. www.bfranklin.edu and www.col.org/telecentres
"Evolving eLearning" is the theme of the biennial conference of the Distance Education Association of New Zealand to be held from 10 - 12 April 2002 at Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand. www.deanz.org.nz
Due to concerns related to world events at the time, these two conferences have been postponed to early 2002:
Publications and studies
The Changing Faces of Virtual Education, released in mid-2001, is the latest virtual learning study from COL. It reports on the latest macro developments in virtual education and follows up on the findings of COL's 1999 landmark publication, The Development of Virtual Education: A global perspective, which tracked trends in the virtual delivery of higher education. Both reports were funded by the British Department for International Development and were widely reported on and referenced in online as well as print-based distance learning publications.
The 1999 report found that the development of virtual education was "more rhetorical than real." This year's follow-up study concludes that "virtual education development is a lot more rhetorical, and a lot more real," says Dr. Glen Farrell, editor and study team leader of both reports.
Two years have witnessed a surge of interest in virtual education, which now forms part of the planning agenda of most organisations concerned with education and training. The focus, however, remains on using technology to enhance the delivery of existing programmes and courses for flexibility, accessibility and cost-effectiveness. Virtual education is still regarded primarily as a way to generate revenue for the institution by adding value to existing programmes and courses, rather than as an alternative to traditional educational delivery. The rapid pace of development in virtual activities has also resulted in a wide body of terminology that is imprecise and confusing. Growth in virtual education development is most marked in countries with mature economies and an established information and communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure; lack of ICT infrastructure and development capital hampers the efforts of developing countries to use virtual education models for mass education.
However, the study concludes that emerging broad trends are likely to bring about radical changes to the way we think about the concepts of campus, curriculum, courses, teaching/learning processes, credentials/awards and of how ICTs can enable and support learning. These macro developments include new venues for learning, the use of "learning objects" to define and store content, new organisational models, online learner support services, quality assurance models for virtual education and the continuing evolution of ICTs. Each of these is defined in individual chapters, with the final chapter focussing on their collective impact on future models for virtual education.
The report's findings emphasise the role that these macro developments are likely to have in the evolution of virtual education systems in developing countries. Both the follow-up report and its predecessor are available in PDF format on COL's web site. 152 pages.
Reflections on Ten Years of The Commonwealth of Learning. By Gajaraj Dhanarajan. The purpose of this document is to reflect on and encourage discussions about COL and its strategic objectives for the next ten years, beginning July 2000. It draws on COL's experiences since its inception in November 1988 and builds on COL's initiatives during its first decade and, at the same time, benefits from global knowledge and experience in the application of open and distance learning in the last five years. 80 pages.
Brave New Women of Asia: How distance education changed their lives. Asha S. Kanwar and Margaret Taplin, Editors.
The aim of this book of case studies is to inspire and encourage women to participate in open and distance learning. From the case studies, potential women learners will see that most of their reservations and fears are unfounded. Other questions in their minds about how to cope with studies after a long gap, at a mature age or without regular tutorials are answered as they read about the experiences of other women. 82 pages.
Knowledge Series. Six new titles (see article above) www.col.org/knowledge :
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Designing online learning (Sanjaya Mishra)
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Using community radio for non-formal education
(John Thomas)
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Analysing costs/benefits for distance education programmes (Greville Rumble)
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Audio/audioconferencing in support of distance education (Paul Macmullen)
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Video/video-conferencing in support of distance education (Linda Stilborne and Peter MacGibbon)
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Using telecentres in support of distance education
(Colin Latchem)
All of the publications noted above are available for download from COL's web site free-of-charge. They are also available in print from COL at a nominal cost.
COL has supported the publication of South and East Asian Adult Education: Chronologies in Commonwealth Countries.
Dr. James A. Draper, Editor and Project Director. It provides an historical perspective on the factors that influenced how, why and where men and women learn; the various ways in which learning was organised and delivered; and the organisations that were created to meet the needs of adult learners. It is available from Universiti Putra Malaysia Press, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia; tel: 60 3 8948 6101 (ext. 1326); fax: 60 8941 6172; e-mail: gala@admin.upm.edu.my . It follows on the 1998 publication of a similar study on Africa, Africa: Adult Education Chronologies in Commonwealth Countries, available from Cape Publications, University of Western Cape, South Africa.
COL's new web site includes a new literacy project section. For the past two years, COL has been implementing a pilot project in India and Zambia that focuses on exploring ways that information and communications technologies can be used to enhance non-formal adult literacy education programmes. The British Department for International Development is providing funding for this major initiative. The project will conclude in late 2002.
COL has established a web site for the project which provides a full description of the study and a background on literacy programmes in the respective countries, and is kept up to date with information on the development processes the project has gone through, reports and outcomes. While the site is designed primarily for those directly involved in the project and its evaluation, it will also be of interest others who are working in this or related areas. Comments and questions are welcome.
COL negotiates Commonwealth-wide rights for use or adaptation of existing learning materials by publicly funded educational institutions in developing countries. Also, materials that it develops in collaboration with Commonwealth Governments are always available for use elsewhere, usually together with important testing and use "lessons learned."
Print masters and/or electronic copies of the following learning materials are currently available:
. Learning About Small Business - developed collaboratively by COL and UNESCO to encourage small business at a local level in island nations. This would help add commercial value to local cultural activities, increase the ability of people to harness their skills in planning successful small commercial enterprises and help them to realise that they can play an important part in their nation's economy.
. Educational Technology Professional Development Programme - developed by Grant MacEwan College and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology to address faculty needs identified at various post-secondary institutions in the province of Alberta, Canada. Nine self-instructional modules are included: survey of educational technology, independent study and distance education, instructional design, design and layout of print-based learning materials, an introduction to the Internet, survey of educational technology research, managing student data and historical records, adapting your course for distance education and writing a print-based module.
. STAMP 2000+ - 45 modules developed collaboratively by administrations in eight Southern African Commonwealth countries, with assistance from COL, to train and upgrade upper primary and junior secondary teachers and administrators in science, technology and mathematics (STAMP) as well as general programmes. (See Connections, June 2001)
. Water Safe: An Introduction to Water Quality Issues/Food Safe: A Response to the Training Needs of Food Service Workers - a coursebook for a self-study programme that will help in the understanding of the importance of good, clean, and safe water in everyday lives, but particularly when used in the preparation of food. The Commonwealth of Learning and Vancouver Community College, 1995.
Please contact COL for further information: info@col.org
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