e/merge Africa report on Highlights from the 2015 eLearning Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in May

1. Reporting back from
eLearning Africa 2015
e/merge Africa team
10 June 2015

2. Presentation Plan
What is eLearning Africa?
The e/merge Africa team
Workshops
Opening Plenary
Day 2 Events
Day 3 Events
Closing Plenary
Overall Reflections

4. What is eLearning Africa?

5. Goals for e/merge Africa
Contribute to the conference
Meet with new and existing colleagues
Network
Identify potential presenters
Learn

6. Introducing the team

7. e/merge Africa workshops
Peer Assist Workshop
•Knowledge of the peer assist process
•Fresh perspectives and knowledge
•Tools to organise and lead a peer assist
process
•Expanded professional network
Growing Your Innovation
Network
For eLearning innovators to:
•identify and engage with potential
conference buddies and collaborators,
•celebrate our innovations,
•surface success factors for innovation,
•share and review our boldest goals for
the next wave of innovation.

10. Reflections from the e/merge Africa workshops
Alice Barlow-Zambodla: Participants appeared to be deeply engaged in the
interactive processes that were facilitated ... Great interest was sparked by
the Peer Assist session (and there have been subsequent requests for
online peer assists) ... The Growing your Innovation Network Workshop
was extremely interesting especially since we were trialling it for the very
first time.
Nicola Pallitt: I enjoyed sketchnoting and because people took photos and
tweeted it, I think they saw value in these very simple sketches. It was new
for the participants, facilitators and myself - we are all learning together:) I
like how some of the participants in the afternoon workshop engaged
visually too, making things together in addition to speaking.

11. UNESCO-UNEVOC TVET Workshop
Gabriel Konayuma: The presentations highlighted promising practices
in the the use of ICTs in TVET in Africa and internationally. What was
interesting was that challenges in the use of ICTs in TVET were also
shared by developed nations. There was an emphasis on blended and
flexible learning in TVET using ICTs so as to produce an employable and
well-rounded TVET graduate.

12. OER Workshop
Sukaina Walji: Some of the
participants were exhibiting open
educational practices (such as
creating and sharing resources or
using FOSS) but were generally
unfamiliar with Creative
Commons licences and how to
discover or adapt OER. For me, this
was fascinating and sobering at the
same time.
Blog: http://roer4d.org/1669
https://creativecommons.org/

13. Opening Plenary

14. “Yazmi is a proven system,
ready to effectively and
economically provide abundant
support to teachers and
students across the continent.
We are looking to partner with
governments, civil society and
the private sector to roll out our
solution.”
Keynote by Noah Samara

16. From the Keynote by Mark Surman
“I think we need a movement that says web literacy is
absolutely an essential piece of how we imagine education
empowerment and the future of human society […] I believe
an internet that is made by all of us is something worth
protecting and also I believe it is something that will unlock
much of what we’re trying to do in the pursuit of knowledge,
the pursuit of education, and the pursuit of a just and
equitable human society.”

17. Day 2 - Reflections and Highlights - 1
OER02 - A Truly African MOOC: Is it coming? (Alice)
Marilena Djata Abral - AVU: talked about lessons learnt from developing
a MOOC in collaboration with COL on using ICT to enrich teaching and
learning ...El Mahdi El Mhamdi from the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology - presented on building a Science and Maths library for
students using “atomised content” that is presented rather like the Khan
Academy offerings.

18. Day 2 - Reflections and Highlights - 2
RES16 - Research in Action II: Moving Towards Enlightenment (Jakob
Pedersen)
Three research presentations giving their view on how eReadiness and
what educators and policymakers can draw from this knowledge. There
were some interesting debate questions though, to focus on frameworks,
especially to ensure quality education. The question was raised whether
there is a proper understanding of ‘blended learning’.

19. Day 2 - Reflections and Highlights - 2
RES31 - Are we reaching a plateau of productivity? - (Tony)
Antoinette Mukendwa - Polytechnic of
Namibia presented on the use of a
capability maturity model to assess an
institution’s capacity to “design, plan,
initiate, manage and evaluate eLearning
activities” and then to provide a framework
to guide the achievement of high quality e-
learning projects.

21. Day 3 Reflections and Highlights 1
AGR43 - Agriculture and ICTs (Alice)
Iddo Dror from ILRI spoke about the Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) a
systematic method to assess local feed resource availability and use that
helps in the design of intervention strategies aiming to optimize feed
utilization and animal production. A face to face training course on how to
use the tool has been converted for independent study both online and
offline.

22. Day 3 Reflections and Highlights 2
CAP 49 - Expanding the Reach of NGOs (Tony)
Daniel Oloo: (SOS Children’s Villages in
Kenya) presented an Open Space Literacy
training model which was designed for low
power and limited resources. The most
common challenges experienced related to
limited skills among teachers, resistance from
teachers and language issues.
Ayan Kishore: from Technology for
Development presented on the use of
crowdsourced local language stories
delivered by SMS in education projects.

23. eLearning Africa Debate
"This House believes that Africa needs vocational training more than
academic education."
As opposed to such debates in previous years the arguments weren’t so
focused on false dichotomies because it was recognised that both
academic education and vocational training were needed. Ultimately
the audience vote suggested that the strongest arguments came from the
team in favour of the motion.

26. Overall Reflections: Alice, Gabriel, Jakob
Alice: There is clearly a growing interest in implementing elearning in our
African institutions/organizations and we are moving into a space where
Africa is becoming an innovative contributor…..
Gabriel: the Conference offers a unique opportunity for e-Learning
practitioners and policy makers to network and share useful knowledge
and skills.
Jakob: The conference gave a great opportunity to connect and
supplement online connections with face-to-face, explore practices and
engage with colleagues

27. Overall Reflections 2: Nicola, Sukaina, Tony
Nicola: eLA15 and the bit of Ethiopia that I did experience allowed me to
see through the bubble, that there is a bigger world outside.
Sukaina: It was good to be in conversations where issues, opportunities
and problems in African education were discussed and debated (largely)
by Africans or people working on the ground in Africa.
Tony: The profession and this practitioner focused conference are
maturing.

28. Overall Reflections 3: Mohamed
Mohamed: eLA conference focuses on using
computing technology in the education. Describe the
growing interest in implementing e-learning in Africa
and build the bonds of the cooperation between the
sons and daughters of the continent(Africa). Really I
have learned from this conference many and many
ideas but the main one for me is that ( we cannot
live or learn without each other)......we are
one........African people.