BUILDING CAPACITY IN OPEN SCHOOLS
Participants at the Quality Assurance Workshop in September 2008.
COL is undertaking a range of activities to strengthen the capacity and sustainability of open schools in developing countries. This includes practical handbooks (including publications to support open school managers and policymakers, see New Resources, page 14) and several workshops on various aspects of open schooling.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
A workshop in Johannesburg hosted by COL and the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) involved 22 delegates from 16 countries in Africa and Asia. Delegates from open schools, open universities and quality assurance groups shared their knowledge and experiences. They also contributed to the framework for a Quality Assurance Toolkit for open schools. The Toolkit will be available later in 2009.
LEARNER SUPPORT
Twenty-three people from 16 countries took part in a Learner Support in Open Schooling workshop in Johannesburg in October 2008. Over one week, they learned about the fundamentals of open and distance learning, best practices in learner support, quality assurance, developing a comprehensive learner support system, and training and supporting tutors. By bringing together representatives from established open schools such as India’s National Institute of Open Schooling with countries that are establishing open schools, the workshop enabled information sharing and networking.
An important outcome of the workshop was the framework for a Learner Support Guide for Open Schools, which will be available later in 2009. This guide will help to create a common approach to learner support among open schools in the Commonwealth.
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
Thirty educators from Lesotho took part in a two-week instructional design workshop sponsored by COL and administered by the Lesotho Distance Training Centre. The aim of the workshop was to build the capacity of open and distance learning (ODL) practitioners in the design, development and management of study materials. Delegates learned about best practices and used COL’s Instructional Design template to produce 14 units of self-instructional materials in subjects such as English, chemistry, geography and math.
Open Schooling research reports and training resources related to finances, tutoring and course development are available on COL’s website.
www.col.org/OpenSchooling
EXPANDING COMMUNITY MEDIA
Mang'elete Community Radio Workshop in Kenya
Community media offer powerful opportunities to contribute to local development, education and governance by providing information, communication and educational services at the local level. COL is working with a number of government, non-governmental and community groups throughout the Commonwealth to expand capacity of community media. COL’s focus is on the role of community media in open and distance learning; strong, efficient organisations in which community members are fully represented are critical if these groups are to realise their long-term potential.
BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION IN KENYA
Mang’elete Community Radio is rooted in the work of 33 rural women’s groups from the semi-arid Makueni District in Kenya. The women’s groups identified information about reproductive health, agriculture and other livelihood issues as key to local development. Each group has many members, making this truly a grassroots initiative. The challenge is to ensure the radio station is both democratic and effectively able to serve the needs of these many varied groups.
COL is helping Mang’elete review its organisational structure and develop a strategic plan in a participatory way. Working in partnership with EcoNews Africa and the Kenya Community Media Network, COL supported two workshops in November 2008. The first session, which involved 66 representatives from more than 30 women’s groups, began the process of rethinking the station’s structure; the second workshop focussed on strategic planning with educational programming in mind.
The materials developed in these workshops are available as open educational resources on the Community Media space of WikiEducator.
www.WikiEducator.org/Community_Media
Delegates at the November 2008 Learning Media Workshop
ENHANCING CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY MEDIA
COL sponsored a three-day workshop on Learning Media in the Caribbean in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The workshop brought together media units from government ministries along with community, prison, school and university-based radio stations from seven Caribbean countries.
Participants explored what makes for effective learning programmes, identified good practices from the Caribbean and internationally, and designed a series of programmes addressing community development priorities in the region, for example teaching effective parenting and mitigating violence among youth. Day 1 of the workshop was streamed on the Caribbean Internet Radio Portal, demonstrating how community media can extend the reach of meetings such as this. Participants also visited an FM radio facility located inside a community school on the island of Bequia, which was established with support from UNESCO.
STRENGTHENING TEACHER EDUCATION
Improving the quality of teachers is a necessary element for developing countries to attain Education for All and the UN Millennium Development Goals. COL is helping to build capacity in teacher education through initiatives in several countries, including these recent workshops:
LEARNER SUPPORT IN NIGERIA
In partnership with Nigeria’s National Teachers’ Institute (NTI), COL hosted a “train the trainers” workshop to build capacity in tutoring in open and distance learning (ODL). The aim of the one-week workshop at NTI in Kaduna in December 2008 was to develop the skills of trainers who will subsequently train NTI’s course tutors across the country. This workshop follows up on recommendations from a study of NTI’s learner support services commissioned by COL in 2004.
QUALITY ASSURANCE IN NIGERIA
COL and Nigeria’s National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) held a quality assurance workshop for teacher educators in Abuja in December 2008. Delegates from four teacher training institutes focussed on adapting COL’s Quality Assurance Toolkit for their specific needs. The institutes will use the Toolkit to assess the quality of their teacher education programmes.
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN SIERRA LEONE AND THE GAMBIA
COL hosted one-week workshops in Sierra Leone and The Gambia in December 2008. The main objective of the workshops was to disseminate practical skills on instructional design and development in ODL. Workshop participants reviewed best practices in creating effective learning materials for ODL.
CONSTRUCTIVIST PEDAGOGY IN INDIA
In collaboration with the Regional Institute of Education (National Council of Educational Research and Training, NCERT), Mysore, India, COL held a three-day workshop in October 2008 to introduce teacher educators to constructivist pedagogy. This approach highlights the centrality of the learner as a constructor of knowledge rather than a receiver or reproducer of information. COL brought together international and national experts in constructivist teacher education who shared their knowledge about how to re-orient teacher education programmes.
LEARNING4CONTENT TEACHES WIKI SKILLS
Participants from 19 countries took part in the Caribbean Regional Learning4Content workshop in Barbados in November 2008. The Rt. Hon. Ronald Jones, Minister of Education and Human Resource Development, welcomed participants and officially opened the five-day workshop. All participants achieved the Wiki Apprentice certification. More than 20 Learning4Content workshops are planned for the Caribbean region in the first half of 2009.
COL’s Learning4Content initiative provided free wiki skills training for more than 1,600 people, roughly 50 per cent women/men, in 2008. Face-to-face and online workshops have been provided to educators from more than 200 countries, helping to build capacity in online skills. In return for the free training, participants are asked to contribute one learning resource to COL’s library of free learning materials.
Learning4Content is supported by COL and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. For more information about facilitating or organising a workshop, participating as a learner or contributing funding, contact Dr. Wayne Mackintosh, COL Education Specialist, eLearning and ICT Policy at wmackintosh@col.org or visit the WikiEducator website.
www.WikiEducator.org/Learning4Content
EXPANDING eLEARNING IN EAST AFRICA
COL recently supported workshops in Africa that provided educators with training in content development skills to enable them to offer more courses by eLearning. The first workshop, hosted in partnership with the National Open University of Nigeria’s (and COL-supported) Regional Training and Research Institute for Distance and Open Learning (RETRIDOL), was held at the Open University of Tanzania. This marked RETRIDOL’s first activity in East Africa and signals growth in south-south partnerships.
A similar capacity building workshop in Kenya was held at Maseno University and facilitated by a COL consultant. Over several days, the Kenyan participants learned to use COL’s Instructional Design template and began converting courses.
UPCOMING EVENTS
17th Conference of
Commonwealth Education Ministers (17CCEM)
15 - 19 June 2009,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
“Making Connections and Partnerships: Towards and beyond global goals and targets”
www.17ccem.com
The Second
m-libraries Conference
23-25 June 2009,
Vancouver, Canada
Hosted by the University of British Columbia.
http://m-libraries2009.ubc.ca
The Cambridge
International Conference on Open and Distance Learning
22-25 September 2009,
St. Edmund’s College,
Cambridge, UK
www2.open.ac.uk/r06/conference/
The Sixth
Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF6)
November 2010
Kochi, India
Organised by COL and
Indira Gandhi National Open University
www.col.org/pcf6