Bridging the digital divide has been a major concern of COL as Internet access has been spread somewhat unevenly in the developing countries of the Commonwealth. Access and affordability and human capacity limitations were the key concerns whenever the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) deployed ICT in support of its activities. This translated as an orientation towards Open Source applications in software and in identifying opportunities for innovation through novel uses of readily accessible ICTs. This also led COL to consider use of established technologies, such as community radio, in newer contexts and purposes.
We give below brief descriptions of COL in relation to ICT platforms, services and products below.
WikiEducator: Bringing Open Source and large scale collaboration together
WikiEducator is a community resource supported by the Commonwealth of Learning and Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand, for the development of free educational content. It is an evolving online community intended for the collaborative:
- planning of education projects linked with the development of free content,
- development of free content on WikiEducator for eLearning,
- building of open education resources (OERs) on how to create OERs, and
- networking on funding proposals developed as free content.
WikiEducator’s members (currently over 5000 from across the world) participate from remote locations to create educational content collaboratively and to plan conferences and other events. An example is the Learning for Content (L4C) program which is an online capacity strengthening initiative in Wiki matters. In a span of eighteen months during 2008-9, 3001 educators from 119 countries attended the L4C online sessions.
COL launched WikiEducator in 2006, which became an independent entity in 2009 and is part of the non-profit OER Foundation established by Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, New Zealand. Its servers are hosted by the Athabasca University. A recent initiative of the WikiEducator is the global consultation to launch the OER University (February 2011), and event that was attended by individuals and institutional representatives from 39 countries.
LIVES: Creating new learning opportunities through mobile telephony
Learning through Interactive Voice Response Systems – LIVES – is a mobile-telephone-based technique that offers two-way communication, flexibility and anywhere-anytime learning. It makes effective use of auditory learning to reach illiterate learners. Rather than creating a new communications channel, LIVES uses existing mobile infrastructure, which is readily available even in remote areas of the developing countries. Aside from acquiring a mobile phone, the learner does not incur any costs. The system uses cost-effective Voice over IP (VoIP) technology, Open Source software and special arrangements with mobile network providers. The technology was designed and tested at the Networks and Internet Computing Lab of the Computer Sciences department of the University of British Columbia.
According to the technology designers at UBC, at the core of LIVES is a set of optimised computers equipped with specially designed software and hardware to deliver educational material over the phone. It makes extensive use of Open Source applications such as Asterisk and Drupal. LIVES is designed to:
- provide pre-recorded learning material to specific groups of people at specific times in specific ways,
- be asynchronous: learners can learn at their preferred time,
- be bidirectional: learners can answer the questions and system can respond instantly,
- avoid requiring learners to purchase special equipment, and
- have the capability to track user progress.
After intensive testing of the technology in the lab and with student-volunteers from the UBC, the LIVES was deployed in the Tamil Nadu State, India, during November 2010 for more extensive trials with women members of a micro-credit federation. Since almost all the members are shepherds and goat farmers, the LIVES content in this phase consists of livestock-related learning materials. The IKSL, a subsidiary of the public sector Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO), has come forward to test it on a scale involving 10 000 farmers.
EduFrame: Exploring alternatives in low- cost computing for education
COL’s regional agency, the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA, www.col.org), has been working on the development of an inexpensive educational computing device for the last year. COL and CEMCA have no intention of entering the computer marketing business, but they develop hardware and software in the same spirit that they create Open Educational Resources (OERs) – in order to share developments that promote learning.
Design began by merging a Netbook with a digital photo frame and has proceeded from there. Fifty-five sets (copies) of the current machine have recently been manufactured at a unit cost of US$73.80. The functionality and capabilities of the machine are: Internet browsing, e-mail, reading texts, working on spread sheets, almost all of Office functions, watching CDs/ DVDs. The main catch is that the memory is sufficient only for booting the machine. However, memory can be incorporated via an external hard drive/ a flash drive/ SD Card.
COL's and CEMCA's aims are educational and 30 of these EduFrame machines are now being used by Grade 3 primary school children on one of the atolls (Villigille) in the Republic of Maldives. Thirteen courses have been scanned and are available on pen drives for the students to use. The Republic of Maldives has a special challenge. Since the country is composed of many atolls and islands, the student population is scattered as are the teachers. In some islands there may be only ten pupils and it is not cost-effective to appoint a teacher for them. The Ministry of Education came up with the idea of using the EduFrame to impart quality education to students in remote atolls after seeing the demonstration of a digital photo frame in May 2009. The 13 courses on the machines are: Arabic 1, 2 and 3; English 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, Environmental Studies 3 A, 3 B, Primary Maths 3 A, 3 B, and the New English Pupils' Book.
EasyNow: No-cost Open Source software tools for teachers
Open Source software applications and tools are many and widely varied. Many teachers looking for such tools are often bewildered by the range of availability and cannot decide on their suitability for the purposes at hand. EasyNow, developed by CEMCA, is a collection of Open Source tools that helps teachers:
- adapt material for ODL purposes,
- mix audio and video elements for content enrichment,
- supplement learning materials with quizzes and questions,
- incorporate self-assessment tools, and
- package the created materials for distribution.
EasyNow tools have been adapted for use in a number of ODL institutions in India, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Community Media in support of learning about health and nutrition
Although an “old” communication technology, it is only now that the power of Community Radio especially, and Community Media in general, has been realized as a support tool in knowledge and skills-based development. Listening supplemented by discussions among the listeners is the trend that reinforces learning and leads to visible changes in behaviour. COL has been working with Community Media in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Oceania. All programs are in local dialects and content deals with local issues linked to development. In India, women have been taught radio skills and are able to function as radio announcers, interviewers and content producers and have thus acquired skills needed for a potential new livelihood source. Similar programs are in progress in Malawi, Solomon Islands and Fiji where community-based organisations are in the lead, supported by University partners and COL. A recent synthesis of results from COL’s work with partners in different regions of the Commonwealth is also available.
COL has also been involved in use of ICT-mediated processes in a number of ODL program initiatives.
Our understanding is that ICT-mediated processes provide an advantage in cost-effective scale up of delivery and large scale interchange of information. The Virtual University for the Small States of the Commonwealth – VUSSC – is a COL initiative joined in by 32 countries. One activity of VUSSC is to create and make accessible digital open content as learning materials. These are created by small states for small states.
Recognising that shortfalls in teacher supply cannot be addressed through conventional face-to-face training, COL is playing an important role by helping developing countries to build the capacity of their teacher training systems using ODL, and to enhance teachers’ quality, performance and effectiveness.
A variety of Open Educational Resources have been generated for teacher education in partnership with TESSA.
Open Schooling is increasingly recognised as a viable solution to the lack of qualified teachers and conventional schools in the developing world. COL is working with educators in six countries – Botswana, India, Lesotho, Namibia, Seychelles and Trinidad & Tobago – to develop and share open educational resources (OERs) for secondary education.
More generally, COL is undertaking a range of activities to support governments to integrate ICT into their education and training systems and to assist institutions, individuals and communities to use ICT confidently and creatively to achieve their respective goals and participate in the global community. This includes providing policy support to governments, increasing digital literacy in institutions and communities and supporting governments and institutions to develop and use open education resources. COL and UNESCO are jointly driving the initiative, ‘Taking OER beyond the OER community: Policy and Capacity’. Its aim is to expand the understanding of OER by educational decision makers (governmental and institutional) in order to promote their wider use.
March 2011