Interview with Roger Larsen, Founder and CEO of Fronter

eLA: Could you please tell us more about Fronter’s activities in Africa?

Roger Larsen: This will be Fronter’s second year as an active sponsor, exhibitor and participant at the eLearning Africa conference. We have invested in outsourcing product development projects and are successfully operating a development team out of Ghana. Furthermore, Fronter is involved in negotiations to set up a Fronter Ghana office, responsible for the West African market.

eLA: The Fronter Learning Platform is used in many European countries. How do you adapt it for the use in African schools and universities?

Roger Larsen, CEO Fronter

Roger Larsen: The main difference encountered in many African countries has been a lack of technological infrastructure, so we see a pattern of use of the learning platform which is a little different to what we see in Europe. The concentration has been heavier on asynchronous tools - with particular focus on the discussion forums and common resource repositories. Focus on building self-instructional learning resources and learning objects favoured by the constructivist pedagogical method has meant that students are not completely dependent on 100 percent ‘uptime’, but have material to work on during any periods of technical problems.

eLA: Where do you see the main advantages of the Fronter learning platform?

Roger Larsen: Fronter has been created especially for - and in close collaboration with - the education community. This collaboration has lead to the development of nearly 100 tools to support and enhance teaching, learning and collaboration online.

The range and scope of both synchronous and asynchronous tools means that students and teachers around the world can tailor their learning platform experience to meet the needs of their particular situation.

The system is compliant with open standards (SCORM, IMS, AICC and more), accessibility standards (WAI level A), and is available in many different languages. We make the source code available to our licensed customers and guarantee security, reliability, scalability and a zero-bug regime.

With an intuitive user interface, the Fronter learning platform enables efficient operation with minimum training.

The process of development is fundamentally based on open communication and collaboration with our customers. Reference groups made up of customers and pedagogic professionals meet twice a year to share experience and make important decisions about the further development of the learning platform. This process gives us unique knowledge of our users’ requirements and insight into emerging pedagogic trends.

eLA: One of the biggest challenges for the African education system is the lack of skilled teachers. How does Fronter approach this problem?

GVU student collaborating online
and face-to-face

Roger Larsen: Learning platforms have become a way for more knowledge to be shared amongst a wider group of people. A lack of trained teachers is a problem, but with online educational networks (powered by a system such as the Fronter learning platform), knowledge and skills can be transferred to a wide number of teachers as well as students.

Learning solutions and web-based course materials are shared with teachers around the world. The learning platform becomes a way for teachers to collaborate and create content together that can be used online. This increases capacity and helps move educational institutions in line with international standards.

Education is a key to development. A lack of physical capacity for the growing number of African students can be offset by increasing the sizes of the ‘virtual school buildings’. In a modern Africa, ICT can enable a more inclusive education for those who are unable to attend the school’s physical location or fixed class times.

To deal with the capacity problem, many African students seek qualifications from international universities and travel overseas to attend them This practice can lead to a ‘brain drain’ problem, as many students choose to remain overseas. With learning platforms, students are able to earn internationally recognised qualifications while remaining in their country, where the skills could then be invested.

eLA: Are there any success stories in Africa so far?

Roger Larsen: Indeed. One example is the Global Virtual University - an organisation of universities working together to connect students and help promote ‘learning for environmental stability’. Offering distance learning programs and diplomas facilitated by online eLearning technology, the GVU makes courses available to participants on almost all continents in collaboration with local partner universities.

Partnering with many African universities, the University of Agder (Norway) forms part of this network and started the first pilot Master in Development Management in 2004, using the Fronter open learning platform. This degree, as well as other courses in online facilitation and course building, is conducted online via the Fronter platform. More information can be found at www.gvu.unu.edu.

And the Norwegian University of Life Sciences offers a broad range of study programmes that closely correspond with major research issues relating to food, environmental sciences, biology, land use and natural resource management, where about thirty percent of their students complete part of their studies abroad at partner universities.

The Fronter learning platform is being used to coordinate group projects and research carried out by Norwegian and Tanzanian students in tropical field research at Sokoine University of Agriculture. Through discussions and common resource repositories, students are able to collaborate and work from either side of the equator, which I think we can safely call a success story.

eLA: Mr Larsen, many thanks for your time.

For more information:
www.fronter.com

May 16, 2008

Newsportal: eLearning in the School System