We hope that you are well and that all who went to the eLearning Africa conference last week have returned home safely.

Today we are excited to announce the start of our current e/merge Africa seminar “Time to change: Gendered perceptions on uses of educational technologies” which will be led by Dr. Ruth Nsibirano and Dr. Consolata Kabonesa from Makerere University, Uganda. The seminar will run until Friday 6 June.

Ruth and Consolata’s paper entitled Time to Change: Gendered Perspectives on Use of Educational Technologies For Teaching in Makerere University is available for download. We invite you to come and join us in the seminar discussion forum.  Please start by saying a bit about yourself in the Introductions topic.On Friday this seminar will end with a live online meeting led by the seminar leaders and Dr. Nicola Pallitt from the University of Cape Town. More details will be provided later.

All links and resources are available via the seminar landing page on the e/merge Africa website. Please note that in order to access these resources you will need to log in, when prompted. If you haven’t yet registered to the e/merge Africa website, you can do so for free here

We look forward to your input and thoughts!

On the 28 May 2014 the annual eLearning Africa conference officially opened, this year in Kampala Uganda. A perfect opportunity for the e/merge Africa team to move to the physical space for real world conversation on eLearning and educational technologies. It was time for the e/merge Africa team to switch off PCs, smart phones and tablets (or at least bring along) and not just meet each other, but also to meet and introduce new delegates to e/merge Africa.

After months of preparations e/merge Africa Tony Carr left Cape Town armed with leaflets, banners and fancy e/merge Africa t-shirts, literally straight from the printer. E/merge Africa Project Manager Jakob Pedersen is staying behind in Cape Town to keep an eye on the e/merge Africa web site and preparations for the upcoming activities.
From Jos in Nigeria our newly appointed Regional Coordinator for Nigeria and Ghana Jerome Dooga joined after a strenuous travel via Lagos and Nairobi which saw a 7 hour delay in Nairobi. From other parts of the African continent the team has been joined by our other newly appointed Regional Coordinator for East Africa, Alice Barlow Zambodla, Ugandan of nationality and based at South African Institute for Distance Education in South Africa.
Gabriel Konayuma from Zambia joined the team after travelling via Lusaka and Harare and from Egypt the team was joined by Mohamed Ahmed El-bahay.

Once gathered the e/merge Africa team met at the Speke Resort to plan, rest and strategise for the coming days. One task was to set up the rented stand at the conference. Once all was set up at Stand 27 the team attended to one of the most immediate tasks: handing out e/merge Africa t-shirts won by colleagues, either won via the online raffle or at the stand. Latest from the team is that there are still t-shirts to be won today and Friday. So if you happen to be at the conference do come by stand 27!

From left: Tony Carr, Mohamed Ahmed El-bahay, Jerome Dooga and Gabriel Konayuma

Alice Barlow-Zambodla

We are pleased to announce our two forthcoming e/merge Africa events on gendered use of educational technologies by university educators and on use of MOOCs in Africa. If you’re coming to eLearning Africa we’re looking forward to meeting you. You can find us at Stand 27 or enter your details in our contact form to arrange a meeting and enter a draw for one of 25 e/merge Africa t shirts.

1. Our next online seminar runs from Monday 2 June – Friday 6 June 2014. Dr. Ruth Nsibirano & Dr. Consolata Kabonesa, from Makerere University, Uganda will present and lead a discussion and live meeting on “Time to Change: Gendered Perceptions on Use of Educational Technology for Teaching”. Further information is available on our sign up page.

2. Are you curious about MOOCs or already developing or running MOOCs in Africa? From Tuesday 17 June – Friday 27 June 2014 we present “Developing World MOOCs – a workshop on MOOCs in Africa” led by Sukaina Walji, Andrew Deacon and Janet Small from the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Further information is available on our sign up page.