YAYI SPECIAL PROGRAMME ON INTERNET USAGE

Yayi organised a two day workshop on blogging at Netcom college. Ghana


YAYI SPECIAL PROGRAMME ON INTERNET USAGE





This training section was held in Tema. The participants were selected from various communities in the Tema municipality.The purpose of this training was to equip the participants on the uses and importance of the internet as a tool and source of information,among the topic were browsing the net, creating accounts and recieving and sendind mails,charting and (ISAS)for short internet search and analysis skills. the training was well petronised and very beneficial to first time users of the internet. We hope to continue the good work we are doing to really get poeple from underprevilaged homes to benefit from Yayi.

3RD INTERNATIONAL CONFRENCE ON ICT FOR DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION AND TRAINING , ACCRA INTERNATIONAL CONFRENCE CENTRE. MAY 28-30

The third eLearning Africa conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training ended successfully on Friday, May 30th. 1502 eLearning users, newcomers, providers and experts from 83 countries gathered during the three conference days at the Accra International Conference Centre in Accra, Ghana. Eighty percent of the participants came from African countries.

The huge number of participants from African countries shows the vital interest in eLearning on the Continent and substantiates the conference as a truly African event. Europe was represented by 12.2 percent, followed by North America with 5.9 percent, Asia with 1.7 percent, as well as Australia and Central and South America with 0.3 percent respectively.

The conference programme featured 315 speakers from 54 countries, representing African universities, educational institutions, governments as well as major development organisations such as UNESCO-UNEVOC, the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) and the World Bank. National and governmental institutions, mainly from Africa but also from Europe, Asia and North America, were also present.

Bringing together leading experts and practitioners from Africa and beyond, the conference proved to be an excellent opportunity for networking and for sharing experiences in the application of technology throughout the learning cycle – from primary and secondary education through to professional development and lifelong learning.

Projects and initiatives from all over Africa were presented and the agenda featured valuable examples of how the latest developments in eLearning are being put to work in the service of learners regardless of their location or level of technology. eLearning at school and open educational resources were featured significantly in this year's agenda.


Interview with George Siemens, University of Manitoba Learning Technologies Centre, Canada


eLA: What are the biggest changes in terms of the availability of knowledge in recent years? Are we currently entering a new era in education?

George Siemens
George Siemens: The biggest change we are currently experiencing with availability of information today is the sheer quantity. We have new opportunities to interact with and create information. We also have new opportunities to connect with others in the process of disseminating existing information. The ease of access offered by the Internet and open educational resources initiatives indicate only the beginning stages of an information crisis. Abundance raises the importance of sense-making. The last several decades of technology-development have been focussed on improving access to information and on interacting with others around information. The next stage of development will centre on using technology as a resource to increase our capacity to cope with and make sense of the constantly shifting and rapidly developing climate. This complex information climate is compounded by two factors: 1) our increased understanding of problems facing not just one country or region, but all of humanity (economy and ecology); and 2) development of global markets and economies, increasing the ease of capital and resources to shift to new areas of opportunity, instead of being limited by traditional geographical constraints.
To address these challenges, societies need to rely increasingly on the educational sector. Re-skilling a society, developing a region or even country, embracing new markets and the advancement of national economies find their roots in education. We are now entering a new era of education where the ability to offer high-quality learning to diverse, dispersed regions is possible. Vision and will, not only economics, are now primary inhibitors to education systems that remain underdeveloped.
eLA: In which ways is our "old" model of education limiting for future developments? What are the major misunderstandings these days when it comes to learning?
George Siemens: To slightly paraphrase Roy Pea, our technology and models of learning carry “patterns of previous reasoning”. In many instances, educators are confined by how we have viewed information, learning, knowledge and teaching in the past. New technologies and processes are often applied to replace (or augment) existing approaches, rather than to alter the entire act and process of teaching. The structure of our educational institutions – particularly in how they serve, or fail to serve, non-traditional learners – has been the focus of much discussion by theorists such as Freire, Illich and Papert. We are faced with a rare opportunity: to rethink and redesign education to serve and include all learners. This opportunity is created by two significant trends:
1. A conceptual shift in how we view learning. Learning is increasingly seen as comprising social, contextual and situated perspectives. The social dimension of learning is certainly not new, as it has been advocated by Vygotsky, Bandura and others for almost a century. Within education today, however, these concepts are not merely receiving theoretical acknowledgement, but are now actively implemented at classroom and system-wide levels.
2. A technological shift in how we interact with information and each other. The development of technology has reduced access barriers, enabling individuals from around the world to access information and each other with far greater ease than possible even five or ten years ago.
To realise the transformative potential of education in a global environment requires educators and corporate managers to rethink the entire process of teaching and learning, determine which elements need to be eliminated as they bear too strongly the mindsets of the past, and decide which elements need to be preserved.
At the broadest level, learning today is seen increasingly under the umbrella of constructivism and, more recently, networked learning or “connectivism”. With connectivism in particular, I’ve tried to emphasise the value of networks in influencing how we learn. Specifically, knowledge is a function of how we have connected information and come to understand it in certain contexts. Knowledge is, literally, in the connections. Learning, then, is the ability to form these networks and connect new information (in context) to existing knowledge. How we are connected to others and to information is a vital indicator of our ability to stay current and adjust as environments change.
eLA: You propose a new narrative for understanding learning. What would it look like?
George Siemens: The new narrative I propose is that of “being a part of”. This isn’t a new narrative in the history of humanity, but it is a new narrative when seen from under the shadow of today’s education system. Creating new content and information has always been largely communal. Ideas and stories were passed and shared from one generation to the next, allowing listeners to see themselves and their heritage in the long trajectory of their culture and, more broadly, history.
But as schools and universities – as we see them today – became prominent, the learner was removed as an active participant in the stories of culture and knowledge. Instead, the teacher assumed the role of expert and the student one of subservience. This model would have seemed ludicrous to great teachers such as Socrates and Plato. Learning, in their eyes, was a process of engagement, dialogue, and debate, not a model of transferring and duplicating.
We now stand, however, at an inflection point. As stated, acknowledgment of the conceptual underpinning of social views of learning is increasingly acknowledged, and increased access to information opens new doors. Learning today, I would argue, can be addressed through a narrative of belonging, of “being a part of”. Learners have the ability to create, co-create, and re-create content. Learners have opportunities to participate in global conversations and to directly access expertise. Learners once again belong in the dialogue, creation, and exchange of knowledge. This belonging – locally and globally – is the framework that should drive our consideration of education.
eLA: In regard to Africa, where do you see significant opportunities and challenges for the Continent in relation to recent changes and developments in education?
George Siemens: Education is one of the most productive ways of moving a society forwards by many different metrics, perhaps most notably, in terms of quality of life. As barriers and limitations to education are reduced – through initiatives such as open educational resources and fairly inexpensive information communication technologies – opportunities to provide education to a broader audience are increased. The growth of the information-based economy theoretically creates a new space where geographical location plays a less critical role. The industrial revolution was often confined to a certain geography, often due to access to natural resources or a skilled labour force. While these elements still exist, they are less pronounced in their influence on information-intensive economies. The challenge facing countries in Africa is to build a skill base where the population can participate in this new economy. While barriers still exist in re-skilling a population, they are much lower than they have been at any time in the past.
A second challenge exists to ensure that cultures are not co-opted. Technology is not neutral. It is embedded with cultural viewpoints and ideologies. As countries in Africa begin to adopt different technologies and open educational resources, a key consideration arises as to how these will be utilised as a means to preserve, not overwrite, existing cultures. To this end, it becomes critical that African countries are not only consumers and importers of information and technology but also producers and exporters.
eLA: What is your vision for the future of learning and education, especially regarding Africa?
George Siemens: My vision of the future is one where learners are a part of – not only recipients of – information, knowledge, learning and teaching. It makes little sense for someone outside of Africa to promote their vision for the Continent. What is most important, in my eyes, is that Africa is able to define its own vision and future direction. As stated, the importance of considering a narrative of “being a part of” involves more than Africa participating in the information economy as defined by other countries or continents. Being a part of involves the creation of a personal identity, preserving existing cultures and being a contributor.
But it’s difficult to define a vision, as we are in a complex environment with many rapid and jointly-influencing changes. At best, we can outline a framework to guide the discussion of a vision. The framework itself should be defined by the qualities already listed: open, democratic, culturally distinct and defined by participation of all members. What is most important at this stage is fostering dialogue that will lead to the creation of a vision and strategies that attend to the unique needs of each country or region. Loose, informal collaboration on a global scale can certainly serve this process, as long as it does not overwhelm the needs of the individual region.
eLA: Mr Siemens, many thanks for your time


Bridging the Scientific Content Divide in African Universities

Since the mid-1980s, a large number of university libraries in Africa, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, have faced reduced budgets. In some cases, they have no funds whatsoever for subscriptions to scientific journals due to competing demands like national infrastructure development, to which governments are giving priority.
The situation has been made worse by the increase in scholarly journal prices, which, according to data collected by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), jumped by 215% during the fifteen-year period between 1986 and 2001.
The result is that students, researchers and lecturers in most universities on the Continent do not have access to global scientific knowledge distributed through international journals, says Justin Chisenga from the Regional Office for Africa of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). This means that a huge scientific content divide currently exists between their colleagues in developed countries and them. This has also led to several questions being raised regarding the quality of education and research provided and coming out of universities in Africa.
"One major component of any university education is access to the latest research outputs, much of which is published in scientific journals”, says Chisenga. “Lecturers, researchers and students in African Universities need access to up-to-date information published in scientific journals for their academic and research work.”
Most African university libraries cannot afford to provide access to scientific journals. However, there are several initiatives underway that address this issue. Amongst them are AGORA (Access to Online Global Research in Agriculture), an FAO-led project, HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative) led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and OARE (Online Access Research in the Environment), which is led by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).
The three initiatives, whose objectives, among others, include the improvement of the quality and effectiveness of education and training, as well as facilitating high quality and timely research, have put well over 4000 key scientific journals and bibliographic databases at the disposal of students, researchers and lecturers. All can be accessed via the Internet for free or at low cost. The subjects covered include agriculture, biomedicine and environmental and related social sciences.
The AGORA, HINARI and OARE initiatives are providing universities in Africa with a way to bridge the access-to-information gap, according to Chisenga. AGORA provides access to a collection of more than 1,200 journals, HINARI to over 3,750, and OARE to over 1,300 titles.
“These programmes provide access to current journal literature that libraries have not been able to subscribe to for a long time. Furthermore, I don't see African libraries managing to subscribe to journals via traditional means for sometime in the future because the trends in funding indicate will continue to be low”, explains Christine Wamunyima Kanyengo, former Head of the Medical Library at the University of Zambia. She now works as Africa User Community Coordinator at the Information, Training and Outreach Center for Africa (ITOCA) in Zambia, where she promotes the HINAGOA (AGORA, HINARI, and OARE) Programmes among African libraries, scientific and higher education institutions.
“The benefits of the programmes lie at several levels. Information on patient care, teaching, research, programme development and management, etc. can be obtained very easily”, Kanyenyo explains, “You can get the journals from your desktop, plus they are very versatile - it allows users to search multiple databases and make a lot of linkages to similar articles.”
According to the FAO’s Chisenga, eligible countries were categorised, and their universities pay a subscription fee to the online resources according to the national per capita GNP. For example, those with a GNP below $1000 were eligible for free access. Universities in countries with a higher GNP pay a fee of $1000 per year and per institution. Considering that a subscription to a single scientific journal can cost more that $1,000, paying the same sum for more than 1,200 titles is almost free, remarks Chisenga.
But what about those who still lack the appropriate ICT infrastructure, such as access to the Internet? Christine Kanyengo observed, “I think the major impediment really lies in the fact that there is little capacity in terms of the number of computers available to users and the low bandwidth. The other impediment would be the training capacity needs of the users. Training in how to make effective use of the online resources is required.”
To address these issues, ITOCA has trained over 5,000 information professionals, scientists and students in electronic information programmes in over thirty Sub-Sahara countries in the last nine years. With an extensive network of over 35 representatives and liaisons (professors, librarians and scientists) across the Continent, ITOCA provides on the ground coverage of the needs in ICT for development in Africa.
By Brenda Zulu
May 21, 2008



Interview with Alan Yates, General Manager of the Worldwide Education Group at Microsoft


Why is eLearning so important for Africa?
Alan Yates: We live in a digital world. For a child to be mainstream - so they can get jobs, be productive citizens and give back to their communities - they need to be confident with their digital skills. To put it simply, digital learning is the bedrock of lifelong learning.
Are there are any specific eLearning challenges for Africa?

Alan Yates
Alan Yates: We work with countries around the world, and there are enormous similarities in all emerging markets. The infrastructure is sometimes lacking, the overall capacity is hard to support, and teachers are in short supply. In fact, the shortage of teachers is one of our key challenges. We constantly face the issue of how to scale teachers and their expertise to meet the demand for students. Every marketplace sees this issue, but it’s pronounced in Africa where more than sixty percent of the population is children. This can be daunting, but it’s also incredibly exciting because of the potential for local economies.
Another issue for Africa is the incredible variety of local circumstances. It takes local stability and political will to put eLearning in place. However, information technology can sometimes magically bypass a lot of those issues. When you have children who have access to PCs and the Internet, all of a sudden, magic things happen. Technology is an equalizer, an amplifier. We fundamentally believe that it’s more than just access to a PC; rather, it’s access to a lifetime of learning.
How is Microsoft addressing the need for capacity building in the teacher community?
Alan Yates: We have a number of projects and programmes that we’ve been putting in place over the years. It really starts with Microsoft Partners in Learning, which focuses on building capacity and applying learning to both teachers and students and then on helping schools adapt their curricula to eLearning. Whenever you hear about programmes like Innovative Teachers, at the most basic level, we’re training teachers.
The unique thing about Partners in Learning is that teachers are so involved in the process. We have Partners in Learning programs in 101 countries around the world, and there are millions of teachers involved. Teachers figure out how to be efficient and how to scale to meet the students’ demands. In many cases, teachers come up with unique solutions that we wouldn’t necessarily have thought of.
Do you have any examples of innovative teacher solutions?
Alan Yates: A recent example is from South Africa. Not everyone has a PC or Internet connection at home - but everyone has a mobile phone. A teacher came up with the idea to adapt the curricula to mobile phones so that students could receive their coursework and homework assignments by text message and even do self-assessments. This was not a solution that we would ever have thought of, but it made sense for that particular market. It’s a great example of adapting Partners in Learning to local circumstances.
Partners in Learning can easily result in models of great behaviors like these. A lot of what we try to do is to promote the students, teachers and schools who are making a difference for themselves and their communities. Every year, we send a number of teachers to regional Innovative Teacher conferences, where we highlight those teachers who are really doing great things - not just to scale education, but who are also creating new types of learning and who tap into the learning cycle for children.
You mentioned the potential for local economies. Can you talk a little bit more about how eLearning and Microsoft help economies?
Alan Yates: Partners in Learning is really the start of what we hope to accomplish. It’s absolutely fundamental because it gives students a gateway into lifelong learning. Worldwide, these 21st century skills become extremely valuable for the students we reach. We’re also extending our programmes. For instance, we’re establishing IT academies that graduate students who have the technical skills that are in demand. We help match students who graduate with Microsoft certification to companies who need workers with those skills. Essentially, we’re creating a currency for skills that people can use. As education increases, economies become better and more self-sustaining. This is one of the most exciting aspects of what we do - as more children are given ICT training and education, their possibilities expand exponentially. They grow their local software economy, and they’re not just employable locally; they can go anywhere else around the world, too.

























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