21 – 25 September 2015

Our next online seminar will be presented by Dr. Paul Nyagorme, University of Cape Coast, Ghana and Kafui Aheto, who is currently a doctoral candidate at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa. They will share their findings from a study on perceptions of mobile technologies as a facilitator for teaching and learning. This seminar includes a live online meeting and asynchronous discussion and is free of charge.

Please join us for a live online presentation Wednesday 23 September at 3 pm (GMT+2) – This when it’s 1 pm in Accra, 2 pm in Abuja, 3 pm in Cape Town and 4 pm in Nairobi. To join, please follow this link to the Adobe Connect Meeting Room. At the prompt, please choose Sign in as Guest – then provide your name in the text field and choose Enter Room.

“The purpose of this study was to find out the perceptions of students and teachers towards the use of mobile technology in the teaching and learning process. Descriptive research methodology was used for the study. In all, 375 respondents participated in the study. They were made up of 300 students and 75 teachers selected from senior high schools in the Cape Coast Metropolis. Structured questionnaire was the main data collecting instrument. The study found that majority (84.7%) of the students in Cape Coast Metropolis had mobile phones as compared to those with personal computers and the majority (73.0%) of the students also had their mobile phones with them very often than their personal computers. The study also found that more than half of both the teachers and students also indicated that they would like to use mobile devices to support their teaching and learning. The study recommended a model for teaching and learning using mobile technology tools. It was recommended that school administration should organize in-service education and training (INSET) on mobile devices and technologies for teachers and students.”

	Dr. Paul Nyagorme University of Cape Coast, Ghana
	Kafui Aheto Doctoral Candidate at Cape Peninsula University of Technology

We invite applications from educational technologists and educators based in African Higher Education Institutions to participate in a free five week course in online facilitation funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. A maximum of 50 participants can be accommodated.  Course participation will be entirely online and will require up to 8 hours of participation per week. Facilitating Online was developed by the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) at University of Cape Town and is registered as a short course at the University of Cape Town.  A certificate of completion will be awarded for successful completion of 75% of the assessed activities of the course.

Application for the October – November run of this course will be open until 18 September 2015. We are also planning to offer further instances of the course during 2016. Please contact us on facilitationcourse@emergeafrica.net if you would like more information or for us notify you when registration opens for the 2016 courses.

Target participants

The course is aimed at experienced educators at higher education institutions in Africa who have reliable internet access and the opportunity to run courses or components of their courses online.  Selection criteria include:

• previous experience of online teaching and learning
• at least five years’ experience as a university educator or educational technologist
• willingness to teach future online facilitation courses in their local/regional context or
• willingness to be a conference host for the e/merge Africa online educational technology network across African universities.

All applicants will require a letter of support from their line manager or Head of Department.

To apply, please use our online application form by 18 September 2015

Course Facilitators:

Esther Gacicio is an Assistant Director in eLearning at the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE)

Khanyisile Ngodwana is a Writing Centre Coordinator at Walter Sisulu University and a Tutor for UNISA Language and Study Skills and Workplace English courses

Nicola Pallitt is an Educational Technologist in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at University of Cape Town

Nompilo Tshuma is a Learning Technologist at Rhodes University in South Africa.

Course Convenor:

Tony Carr is an Educational Technologist in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at University of Cape Town and Convenor of the e/merge Africa network.

Deadlines and course schedule

The course schedule includes reflection time and takes account of the complex and busy lives of participants by building in a break of a week after each fortnight of course activity.

5 October – 9 October: Week 0 (Entering site, addressing technical issues, introductions)
12 October – 16 October: Week 1
19 October – 23 October: Week 2
26 October – 30 October: Consolidation Week 1
2 November – 6 November: Week 3
9 November – 13 November: Week 4
16 November – 20 November: Consolidation Week 2
23 November – 27 November: Week 5

Enquiries

You can address queries by e-mail to facilitationcourse@emergeafrica.net .

24 – 28 August 2015

What happens in an higher educational institutional setting when you are suddenly faced with a deadly epidemic such as Ebola that turns everything up side down? In this one week seminar Dr. Daniel Stevens from the University of Sierra Leone will discuss Alternative Learning Modes (ALM) and give some insights into the measures needed to be taken during the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. This seminar will begin on Monday 24 August with an online live session at 12:30 pm (South African time – GMT+2) followed by asynchronous discussions for the rest of the week.

Synopsis: Due to the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, the University of Sierra Leone decides to engage its students on some alternative learning mode. These include uploading lecture notes on the website, burning of lecture notes on CDs/DVDs, provision of hard copies to students, radio programs etc. The ICT directorate therefore created official email addresses for all its students at the university. These students includes; all students from the Fourah Bay College, College of Medicines and Allied Health Sciences and all students from the Institute of Public Administration and Management. The directorate also created official email addresses for all the academic and administrative staffs of the university. Also, mailing lists were created for all the programs and levels in the university to ensure that lecturers can then develop their learning materials and then send these materials as attachment to their respective students. Within the different mailing list, all the students who are registered for a particular module would have their respective email addresses that were created for them. By so doing all the students of the University of Sierra Leone were engaged during the period of the Ebola epidemic as this epidemic prevented them from attending lectures or any other form of learning for more than eight months. The University of Sierra Leone is one of these old universities that have not been using ICT for any purpose whatsoever. There has been no ICT infrastructure in place before the Ebola epidemic hit the country. Looking at the environment and the situation, the only solution to the problem was the use of the Alternative Learning Mode (ALM) in its inception stage. This paper would discuss the different steps taken to accomplish the ALM, the challenges encountered, lesson learns and the way forward for the university

View resources for this seminar on on the seminar landing page

Dr. Daniel Stevens is head of the ICT Directorate at the University of Sierra Leone