Starting today: Developing World MOOCs – A Workshop on MOOCs in Africa

Dear Colleagues,

It gives us great pleasure to announce the opening of our workshop Developing World MOOCs – a workshop on MOOCs in Africa lead by Andrew Deacon, Sukaina Walji and Janet Small from the University of Cape Town , South Africa., which will start today 17 June and run until 27 June. Come and join us on the landing page for the seminar, which offers a paper a paper by the workshop conveners and Associate Professor Laura Czerniewicz (download here) and a discussion forum for your views on the role of MOOCs. You are invited to join the first of two live meetings which will be held tomorrow (18 June) from 1-2 pm (GMT+2).  Access details to be released by tomorrow morning. Viewing the landing page requires registration to the e/merge Africa live website, which can be done for free here.

Three upcoming events

We would like to announce three exciting upcoming events about Developing World MOOCs (online workshop from 17 June – 27 June), The Web in Africa (online seminar from 18-20 June) and Online Interview Research: Designing, Doing, Teaching (online workshop from 21-27 July).

17-27 June: Developing world MOOCs – A workshop on MOOCs in Africa – Are you curious about MOOCs or already developing or running MOOCs in Africa?  “Developing World MOOCs – a workshop on MOOCs in Africa” is led by Sukaina Walji, Andrew Deacon and Janet Small from the MOOC task team at University of Cape Town, South Africa. The presenters will share a framework for looking at MOOCs as part of a landscape of Higher Education, consider how MOOCs are currently being used by various institutions and discuss how MOOCs and variant MOOC-type courses might influence formal institutional online and blended course design. There will asynchronous discussion from 17-27 June and two online live sessions on Wednesday 18 June Friday 26 June at 1 pm (SAST/GMT +2). Further information is available on our sign up page.

18-20 June: The Web in Africa: Impacting for sustainability? A lot is happening with the web in Africa these years including better access and increased use of web connected devices, but how does the future look for web usage for Africans? These, and other critical issues will be explored in our seminar The Web in Africa: Impacting for sustainability? Dr. Nnenna Nwakanma will convene the seminar in between World Cup matches in Brazil starting with an online live meeting on 18 June. Then we will move into the discussion forums for your input and views. For more information please see our sign up page.

21-27 July: Online Interview Research: Designing, Doing, Teaching – This workshop will  be led by Dr Janet Salmons from Capella University and Vision2Lead. She will will focus on two related areas: designing research studies based on data collected through online interviews and teaching students how to plan and conduct interviews online. Janet will also consider ways to use communication technologies that are readily available for free or at low cost. Resources and sample exercises will be offered that you can adapt for your own classes. During the seminar we will host two live online sessions on Wednesday 23 July and Friday 25th July at 3 pm (SAST/GMT +2) and use asynchronous discussion forums. For more information please see our sign up page.

Live Online Panel: Gendered Perspectives on Educational Technologies

Don’t miss out on our Live online panel at 1 pm (SAST/GMT+2) on Friday 13 June with Dr. Ruth Nsibirano from Makarere University and Dr. Nicola Pallitt from University of Cape Town, discussing Gendered Perspectives on uses of Educational Technologies. Ruth’s paper with  Dr Consolata Kabonesa entitled Time to Change: Gendered Perspectives on Use of Educational Technologies For Teaching in Makerere University is still available for download.