eLearning and Inclusion

Football fever gripped this year’s eLearning Africa conference in Lusaka. With the FIFA World Cup about to start in South Africa, a session on how football can boost learning and make it more fun was greeted with great enthusiasm. However, richly diverse as usual, the conference also covered a variety of other inspiring topics. There was a discussion on how girls and women can be empowered to become ‘Cyberellas’ rather than ‘Cinderellas’. And six leading international organisations attending the conference announced a new collaboration, which aims to support the integration of ICTs in schools.
More
Français

Three solar panels, a battery, ten folding chairs, five tables, fifteen Intel-powered Classmate PCs and two teachers in a small van: This is the basic “equipment” of the Mobile Solar Computer Classroom (MSCC). It has been en route through rural Uganda for two years now with the purpose of teaching pupils and teachers IT and computer skills. The initiator is Eric Morrow, founder of Maendeleo Foundation situated in Kampala and Seattle, who wants to bring Maendeleo (the Kiswahili term for progress) to Ugandan students in close cooperation with local experts. The robust Classmate PCs, powered and designed by Intel, which are run using a 200 Ah Solar Battery, proved to be perfect devices for the local circumstances, which were sometimes rather harsh.
More
Français

At several places in rural Botswana, digital citizenship and participation is becoming more and more tangible through an ambitious national development initiative. With the so-called Kitsong Centres, Botswana has mobilised a project for the establishment of information centres equipped with a broad range of digital services across the country, including access to local and community information; eGovernment offerings such as requesting birth certificates , passport applications and school registration; as well as access to distance learning facilities. At the moment 25 centres are functional – most of them in post offices – and an additional 25 centres are being set up. Leatile Nthaga, an IT consultant from the Botswana Technology Centre (BOTEC), will show how learners can be optimally supported at such a Kitsong Centre.
More

Interview avec Dodji Dovi, Doctorante en sciences de l’éducation à l’Université de Lomé
Dodji Dovi a une formation pluridisciplinaire, à l’intersection entre la sociologie, l’éducation et l’information. Elle a plusieurs cordes à son arc et surtout une passion: « J’aime m’investir dans le social» dit-elle. Quand elle mesure le besoin de ressources pour aider les personnes âgées et leurs accompagnants au Togo, elle fait appel à des amis et des professionnels pour lancer un site internet dédié et toute une palette d’outils. Elle est titulaire d’un DEA en sociologie et d'un master professionnel en information et en communication. Dans le cadre de ce Master son projet professionnel a justement porté sur les TIC et la prise en charge des personnes âgées dépendantes. Elle mène de front sa carrière dans une organisation de développement, la préparation de sa thèse de doctorat en sciences de l’éducation à l’université de Lomé et le développement du projet. Les deux premières lui permettent d’alimenter le troisième en ressources et en financements. Entretien avec une femme de conviction.
En lire plus

Proper training opportunities for teachers are crucial in any educational system.

What role can eLearning play to help deliver efficient teacher training? At eLearning Africa, the MKFC Stockholm College (Sweden) in cooperation with the National Africa Foundation (Ghana) will introduce an exciting way to provide teacher training in order to help them to support Africa’s next generation. Their approach aims to implement global best practice into the curricula and at the same time to take local needs into account.
More

Macha is an area in the rural southern province of Zambia which has experienced tremendous developments following the implementation of a fully networked information technology set-up “in the bush”. Implementing Information and Communications Technology (ICT) there has been a real challenge, says Gertjan van Stam, who has been working in the village since 2004. In Macha, he is currently the Technical Director of LinkNet, an organisation that provides for cost-based building, operations and maintenance of targeted and tailored communications infrastructure and services for special interest groups in rural areas of Zambia. In 2006 we heard from the Macha project for the first time, when Gertjan sent a letter to eLearning Africa. Now Brenda Zulu, eLearning Africa correspondent in Zambia, has followed up with him to see what communications have done for the rural community and how many local people have benefited from the new technologies.
More

Solar panels at
Mwange

Francis Numbi, a Congolese refugee, lives in the Mwange refugee camp in northern Zambia, 95 miles from the capital, Lusaka. He designs lessons and teaches classes in basic computer skills for the refugee community. Classes meet twice each week with two people per computer. Numbi, who is teaching himself programming in his spare-time, has also provided the camp network with its own e-mail and chat programs. A story by Brenda Zulu, Zambia…
More

Shelter for Africa, situated in Hamburg, Germany, is a non-governmental organisation that carries out non-for-profit projects for the people of the Republic of Sierra Leone in West Africa. The foundation is currently in the process of establishing a new radio station in Freetown - “Culture Radio” - to provide distance education programmes for people who would otherwise not be able to receive educational support. Young girls and boys without school education and their families are addressed, as well as school dropouts and young illiterate adults.
More

Ms. Abishag W. Waugombe, a retired Kenyan teacher, knows a lot about the needs and necessities of the elderly people in her community. Long committed to community work, she and her friends have made use of the Internet in a rather unique way. eLA’s Nina Wittrock spoke with Ms. Waugombe about her experience and future plans regarding eLearning, story telling, and the delivery of cultural memory.
More

Over 50 percent of the world's 6000 languages are endangered claims the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). According to the organization’s statistics, 96 percent of the world's 6000 languages are spoken by four percent of the world's population; ninety percent of the world's languages are not represented on the Internet; and one language disappears on average every two weeks.

The languages of African, eighty percent of which are not written, are particularly threatened. The African Languages Technology Initiative (Alt-i) seeks to apply modern Information and Communication Technologies to help ameliorate this situation, seeing them as a way to preserve endangered languages as well as to help confront the problem of literacy in Africa. eLA news editor Nina Wittrock spoke to Dr. Tunde Adegbola, the Executive Director of Alt-i.
More