The news portal for the eLearning Africa 2010 conference in Lusaka, Zambia, between May 26-28 has the following news items about presentations to be made at the conference:
Haggards, S. (2010) African Digital Diaries – Portraits of Ad Hoc eLearning in Africa, eLearning Africa 2010 News Portal, March 31
This is a podcast about several self-taught “digital pioneers” in Africa, including the Bishop of West Africa, a group of teenage “beach boys” on the island of Zanzibar, and a young woman journalist in Tunisia.
They keep diaries of their work and will present them at eLearning Africa 2010 – either directly or online – inspiring a discussion on the power of unstructured learning.
For more information on this project, go to: http://sites.google.com/site/africandigitaldiarieslusaka/
IICD (2010) ICT Helps Young People in Zambia Increase Their Employment Chances eLearning Africa 2010 News Portal, March 31
This is a project of the Youth Resource Centre in Kalingalinga, a suburb of Lusaka, Zambia. In a food production class, young people have learned how to run a restaurant. By using a computer, they can then design and print menus for the restaurant and use the computers to find recipes of international dishes on the world wide web. In the carpentry and tailoring classes, computers are primarily used to calculate precise sizes and produce designs for products such as tables and chairs. This saves time for the carpenters and cuts out errors from drawing by hand.
Kiyama, R. (2010) Tackling eWaste in Africa with eLearning from UNEP eLearning Africa 2010 News Portal, March 31
To counterattack the surge in eWastes, officials at UNEP have developed an eLearning strategy and built internal capacity in eLearning course development and managing eLearning programmes. The UN agency has also established a number of strategic partnerships with specialised institutions across Africa. Representatives of environmental authorities in fourteen African countries met in Dakar, Senegal in 2009, during the fourth eLearning Africa conference. They agreed on their responsibility for establishing an African environmental eLearning network to share expertise, best practice and eLearning content.
Zulu, B. (2010) How good are Open Educational Resources? eLearning Africa 2010 News Portal, March 31
An interesting report of the response of high school teachers in four provinces of Zambia to OERs.
Dr. Tony Bates is the author of eleven books in the field of online learning and distance education. He has provided consulting services specializing in training in the planning and management of online learning and distance education, working with over 40 organizations in 25 countries. Tony is a Research Associate with Contact North | Contact Nord, Ontario’s Distance Education & Training Network.
