EXPANDING THE USE OF OERs

The OERs Workshop in Namibia

COL and UNESCO are partnering in an initiative aimed at improving the understanding of open educational resources (OERs) by educational decision makers in order to expand their use.

“Taking OERs beyond the OER community: policy and capacity” involves a series of capacity building workshops that will be held in all regions of the Commonwealth. The first two were held recently in Africa.

The OERs workshop for Heads of Commonwealth Universities was held in Cape Town, South Africa in April in conjunction with the Association of Commonwealth Universities Conference of Executive Heads. The workshop brought together Vice Chancellors from developed and developing countries to discuss the potential, use and development of OERs in higher education.

A similar one-day OERs workshop was held in Windhoek, Namibia in May as a lead-in to the 2010 Biennial Members’ Forum of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies for Higher Education (INQAAHE).

www.col.org/eLearning

STRENGTHENING TEACHER TRAINING IN SIERRA LEONE

COL has provided training for 55 educators in Sierra Leone who are developing materials for an important teacher education programme. Thirty course writers attended a workshop in March, hosted by COL at Freetown Teachers College. The focus: developing ODL course materials for the College’s Higher Teacher Certificate (Primary) course. The course writers received training in instructional design and began to develop course materials for the first two years of the teacher training programme.

A further 25 course writers attended a similar workshop in May and are developing materials for the third year of the programme. The capacity building, carried out in response to a request by Sierra Leone’s Minister of Education in December 2008, will help in-service teachers upgrade their qualifications by learning at a distance.

RADIO SCRIPTWRITING COMPETITION

COL is partnering with Farm Radio International on a new radio scriptwriting competition by supporting a free eLearning course on radio scriptwriting, this time focused on promoting healthy communities.

http://scriptcompetition.farmradio.org  

eLEARNING WORKSHOP AT UNIVERSITY OF GUYANA

By Dr. Ramesh C. Sharma, Director (Distance Education), Institute of Distance and Continuing Education, University of Guana

A workshop on eLearning was conducted at the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE), University of Guyana on 14 December 2009. Teachers from the University of Guyana, Cyril Potter College of Education and Guyana Technical Institute participated in this workshop.
Professor Lawrence Carrington, Vice Chancellor, University of Guyana, shared his vision on the importance of eLearning for the University of Guyana (UG) for three reasons:

• We need to reach more of Guyana’s population without having to invest in bricks and mortar for each community with whom we work.
• We need to share our intellectual resources across the campuses and centres that we have already established. 
• We need to expand the scope of our subject-area offerings into academic areas in which it is difficult to recruit resident staff.

To achieve this, said Professor Carrington, we need to invest in contemporary information and communication technology (ICT), both in hardware and in acquiring the skills to convert the potential of the technology into educational results. Professor Carrington spoke about the need for focussed training activities to ensure all academic staff

members, whether full-time or part-time, are confident users of ICT and are capable of delivering courses using the technology. He stressed the need to develop our own cadres of curriculum developers and course writers, to offer learner support through e-tutors and to ensure administrators are able to manage students and teachers through virtual media.

In the first workshop session, the role and significance of ICT in education, its need analysis and integrating ICT into teaching practices were discussed. The second session focused on quality in distance education, design principles for eLearning and integration of multimedia into eLearning. A session on copyright issues in distance education generated a lot of interest among participants.

The Institute of Distance and Continuing Education plans to have more eLearning workshops for teachers so that the vision of the University of Guyana can be fulfilled. We thank COL, Ms. Trudi van Wyk and all the participants for making the workshop a great success.

SCHOOL REPORT NEWS DAY

Students at Kabulongo Basic School in Lusaka, Zambia strengthen their skills by taking part in the BBC’s School Report News Day in March

COL supported the participation of students at three Zambian schools by providing access to equipment and training in interviewing and radio production techniques. The students created their own reports on subjects such as the FIFA World Cup, reading circles at their school and cultural activities. The reports were broadcast on the BBC, along with news reports from students at hundreds of schools in the United Kingdom. In addition to introducing technology to the classroom, engaging students in learning and building reporting skills, the BBC School Report News Day initiative in Zambia opened a window to the larger world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/school_report/news_day_2010/

COMMUNITY LEARNING IN ASIA-PACIFIC

COL and the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) hosted a three-day community learning workshop in Bangalore, India. Held in conjunction with AMARC’s Asia-Pacific conference in February, the workshop introduced innovative approaches in programme development and content creation.

The four workshop facilitators from India, Nepal and the Solomon Islands brought skills and experience in radio planning and production, theatre, participatory communication and community mobilisation. The 17 participants learned about good practices in educational media and the five key stages of learning programme development. Together they designed four learning programmes about maternal and child health, healthy families, diabetes and anemia.

In addition to raising awareness of the potential of community radio as a vehicle for non-formal education, the Bangalore workshop provided participants with valuable skills and knowledge in non-formal open and distance learning (ODL) programme development that they can share and apply upon their return home.

LEARNER SUPPORT FOR TEACHERS IN NIGERIA

COL has completed training of 78 “master trainers” who will now train the National Teachers’ Institute’s 6,000 course tutors across Nigeria. By orienting tutors to the unique challenges and opportunities of tutoring in ODL, this training will improve the ability of course tutors to support in-service teachers who are upgrading their qualifications. The final “train the trainer” workshop took place in Bauchi in April. The capacity building initiative follows up on recommendations from a study of the National Teachers’ Institute learner support services commissioned by COL in 2004.

MULTIMEDIA FOR OPEN SCHOOLS

Participants at the Open Schools Multimedia Strategy Workshop in Maputo in March

Integrating multimedia into open schools was the focus of a two-day workshop in Maputo, Mozambique hosted by COL and the National Institute of Distance Education. Educators from open schools in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia explored issues related to incorporating technology in education and developed draft multimedia strategies for their institutions.

The workshop was co-facilitated by Mr. Wynand Diergaardt and Ms. Wihelmien Louw from the Namibian College of Open Learning (NAMCOL). Last year NAMCOL introduced 16 video lessons that were developed through a multimedia capacity building programme supported by COL. The sharing of knowledge by the NAMCOL representatives at the Maputo workshop is an example of effective South-South collaboration and evidence that COL’s “train the trainer” approach often has a multiplier effect.

UPCOMING EVENTS

E-Learn 2010 World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education
Orlando, Florida
18-22 October 2010

www.aace.org/conf/elearn

Sixth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF6)
Access and Success in Learning: Global Development Perspectives
Le Méridien Cochin Resort & Convention Centre
Kochi, Kerala, India. 24-28 November 2010
Hosted by the Commonwealth of Learning and Indira Gandhi National Open University

www.col.org/pcf6

14th Cambridge International Conference on Open, Distance and e-Learning
COL is sponsoring five delegates from developing countries to the 14th Cambridge International Conference on Open, Distance and e-Learning 25-28 September 2011. The sponsorship would appeal to individuals interested in the role of open, distance and e-Learning in internationalisation and social justice. Conference details are available at www2.open.ac.uk/r06/conference.

For more information, contact us before 31 August at rameresekere.