Distance Education
Distance education seems to me to be a promising tool that can support the conversion of the «information society» to a widespread «knowledge society», and, in fact, to a knowledge society without geographic limits: local to international education possibilities, limited at this point in time only by language and by the pace of the spread of technology. Technologies supporting learning include radio, television, mobile phone, and computer. Whether through an exclusively virtual classroom or individual tutorial, or a technology-supported educational setting that includes «face» time with instructors, the field is expanding at all age levels and in both traditional education and training settings.
This issue of The Drum Beat features examples of distance education enabling knowledge acquisition and the sharing of the kind of opportunities envisioned by Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, in Technology Alone Will Not Bridge Knowledge Divides when he states: «Knowledge societies should not be shaped and driven by technological forces but by societal choices… [p]olitical and social environments have to be developed that enable knowledge creation, preservation, acquisition, and sharing.
Below you will find projects, tools, and evaluations of distance education. If you have knowledge of a distance learning project that might be added to The CI archive, please send it to drumbeat@comminit.com
Julie Levy
jlevy@comminit.com
Distance Education: Broadening Reach
The applications of distance education are broadly focused (and, I believe, broadening), so this representation only scratches the surface. The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) book «Learning to Live Together: Using Distance Education for Community Peacebuilding» includes a range of projects that have been applying open and distance learning (ODL) approaches to involve many of the people most affected by conflict in being part of its prevention, mitigation, and resolution. In the field of healthcare, the American International Health Alliance launched a project to strengthen evidence-based practice, telemedicine, community outreach, and information systems development in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Newly Independent States (NIS). Core to the Learning Resource Center (LRC) Project is a partnership with regional health care institutions, which are provided with the resources and skills to teach healthcare professionals how to access current information on the most effective practices within their area of specialisation through telecentres in each medical institution. A literacy project that makes use of the broad proliferation of cell phones, the Kontax project, involves an m-novel (mobile-novel) created to improve literacy levels in South Africa using cell phones. The m-novel story, which is about the adventures of a group of teenage graffiti writers, was told in 21 chapters which were sent over 21 days to cell phones and computers. In an effort to support face-to-face teacher interactions, Southern Sudan Interactive Radio Instruction (SSIRI) designs, develops, and broadcasts instructional programmes for children, adults, and teachers, including daily half-hour broadcasts for children in primary school, a series for teaching English to youth and adults, and a series on classroom management to strengthen teacher skills.
And making use of an age-appropriate affinity for social networking, here are 2 samples: The use of Facebook for educational purposes gets an experimental examination in this United States (US) university learning application, «The Chemistry of Facebook: Using Social Networking to Create an Online Community for the Organic Chemistry Laboratory». One US community college campus supports its students through the iPASS Project: An Online Tutoring System, which is designed to address the challenges of accommodating students with a variety of learning styles and needs in a remote, asynchronous system. On the subject of teaching the use of information and communication technology (ICT) using distance learning, the document ICT Human Capacity Building for Development describes eight standalone yet interrelated modules examining ICT for development (ICT4D) topics ranging from e-governance to ICT4D project funding. These modules, presented as the «Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders», have been rolled out and analysed for lessons learned in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Mongolia, the Philippines, and the Pacific Island Countries.
Know of other purposes fulfilled by distance learning? Send them our way! drumbeat@comminit.com
Connecting Teachers and Schools
Educating educators is a focus for distance learning that, from my perspective as a former teacher, has broadened teacher resources well beyond state and national borders. EduSud: ICT in Education in Africa Portal, created specifically for teachers by BREDA, the UNESCO Regional Office in Dakar, Senegal, is designed to help teachers discover the world of ODL and to provide tools, advice, references, educational resources, and other materials to help integrate technologies into training and teaching contexts. Thutong, a project of the South African Department of Education, aims to connect schooling communities with their teachers through an online education experience-based web portal. Ideagora: Thinking, Learning & Working without Boundaries is an online professional network of individuals, organisations, and professional groups engaged in knowledge and resource sharing, research, social policy, political strategy, technology issues, and business policies. This resource aims to highlight ideas and creative solutions to enhance the global educational process via technology, digital content, social media, and web 2.0 tools. A school reform project via radio in Guinea, the Fundamental Quality and Equity Levels (FQEL) Project, intends to improve literacy instruction by providing teacher training and through strategies such as the use of song and storytelling to encourage reading for pleasure and personal writing.
Know of distance ed. teacher/school connections from other regions? Send them through! drumbeat@comminit.com
Evaluating Distance Learning
Evaluation is critical to the next steps in scale-up of any project, but it is of particular concern where ICTs bear a cost – for example, the purchase and maintenance of computers and web access – that educational systems may not have dealt with previously. Perspectives on Distance Education: Emerging Trends in the Development of School Networking Initiatives features posts from 2009 on the World Bank’s EduTech blog site, including entries on two attempts to provide low-cost laptops to children in sub-Saharan Africa and India, an entry that explores a world forum on examining topics related to ICT use in education, and an entry looking at the importance of teaching «‘soft’ communication, management, cultural adaptation and sensitivity skills» to ICT workers in India. Information Communication and Technology (ICT) in Education for Development aims to explain the state of how ICT is being used in education and how it can better benefit current and future users, including making difficult decisions in how to allocate national monetary resources and foreign aid and shifting the existing focus from the traditional educational models in place, depending on the specific country, to one that is ICT-driven. Reaching REMOTE Learners: Successes and Challenges for Students in an Online Graduate Degree Program in the Pacific Islands reviews a study that aimed to identify promising practices and common challenges faced by students enrolled in a multiyear, online degree programme in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei), Guam, Hawaii, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and the Republic of Palau. Game-based learning has been explored in various projects, with an Evaluation of Breakthrough’s ICED! Video Game serving to assess changes in ICED! game players’ knowledge and attitudes about US immigration and deportation policies due to game play.
Know of distance ed. evaluations? We would love to hear from you. drumbeat@comminit.com
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