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My Personal eLearning Africa 2010 Story

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eLA participants answered the call for personal conference stories and shared what they had experienced, learnt and observed in Lusaka. Their accounts range from catching a lift with a Zambian Minister and being given new opportunities and support to joining the organising team and being overwhelmed by an unexpected record number of registrations.

Presenting at the Teachers’ Forum

My name is Beauty Lweendo from Kabwe, Zambia. I am filled with great happiness as I take this time to thank eLearning Africa and the non-profit organisation VVOB (Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance) for giving me the opportunity to participate in the pre-conference workshop Duplicability of Grassroots Concept to Inspire Educators to Use ICT in Education and to learn how educational challenges can be resolved. One successful example showed that we can reduce teachers’ prejudices towards ICTs by training the pupils first. They can then help their teachers. At this exemplary school, teachers are now feeling left behind as their own pupils can operate a computer. As a result, they have started learning and most of them are taught by pupils.

eLA 2010 Teachers‘ Forum

The main highlight, though, was when I presented my VVOB Grassroots Project during the Teachers' Forum to colleagues from all over the world. Through the Grassroots Project I learnt how to use my IMIS diploma skills (Management Information Systems) in teaching, how to gather teaching / learning materials not only from text books but from various other places and websites, how to make them interesting by adding animations and effects using PowerPoint and how to use Windows Movie Maker. I now even encourage my fellow teachers to use ICT tools in their various areas of specialisation and train them in ICT. It was also this project that brought the attention of the Vice Principal at Kabwe School for Continuing Education to my qualifications; he subsequently requested my services at the Provincial Education Office. I am now an Information Technology Instructor and offer ICT and Office Management courses at this school.

Presenting in front of an international crowd helped me gain  self-confidence and my future presentations will be even better as a result. I am deeply grateful to the VVOB staff, who supported and encouraged me and made me believe that I could succeed.

Beauty Lweendo, Information Technology Instructor, Zambia
http://grassrootszambia.webs.com/

Taking Ministerial Transport

Adam Salkeld

Only in Africa.

I was waiting for my taxi to take me to the conference centre on the morning of the last conference day when a big pick-up appeared.

"Come on, let's go!" said the guy driving. "I'll take you to eLearning Africa."

I was confused until he explained that he had spotted my pass and that was where he was heading. The man turned out to be Hon. Chrispin Musosha, the Deputy Minister for Vocational Training, who had given his driver the day off. We had a good chat. He told me all about rebuilding the Zambian school infrastructure and I told him about African Digital Diaries.

Adam Salkeld, African Digital Diaries, Zanzibar

http://adamsalkeld.blogspot.com/2010/06/lusaka-conference.html

Being a Host and Organiser at the Conference

I attended this year’s eLA conference from a different angle: not as a participant, but as a host and conference organiser. We had planned for and were expecting 1500 delegates to attend the conference. Little did we think we could reach almost 1800! What threatened to be a huge organisational hiccup, owing to the very high attendance, turned into joy as we managed to register everyone who arrived unexpectedly at the last minute and enabled them to participate in the conference.

One of the highlights of the event was the keynote address by Right Rev. Johnson of the Gambia, who spoke about Social Networks and their impact on religion and moral and value systems from an African perspective. Rev. Johnson, who is a frequent Twitter and Facebook user, was very clear, passionate and practical in his speech. I also enjoyed participating in the 4th UNESCO Pre-Conference Summit, which focused on flexible skills development.

Networking with conference delegates was great. During the speakers’ reception at my table, I made some excellent contacts with colleagues from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda (3 East African nations on one table plus my own, Zambia!). I was also able to network with some colleagues from Rwanda, the USA, Kenya and Zimbabwe after the conference when we shared a meal at Arabian Nights at Arcades Shopping Mall. I look forward to attending next year’s conference if I am able. The event is very useful to policymakers, educators, trainers and learners.

Gabriel S Konayuma, Senior TEVET Officer, Ministry of Science, Technology & Vocational Training Lusaka, Zambia

http://www.gabrielkonayuma.blogspot.com

Immersed in a Whole New World

Ingrid Mostert

What I take away from eLearning Africa 2010, besides new friends and new ways of thinking about my continent, are first-hand experiences of what Web 2.0-based, e- and mLearning might look like.

Although I have been coordinating a programme that makes use of a blended learning model incorporating eLearning and, more recently, aspects of mLearning, because of the limited Internet access of my students I have not explored many Web 2.0 or mobile applications. Although I am a ‘borderline’ digital native, and so GTalk, Skype, Flickr and Facebook are a natural part of the way I relate to my friends, not having travelled with my laptop before meant I had never experienced being connected whilst thousands of kilometres away from home.

eLearning Africa, and more specifically the wireless Internet connection at eLearning Africa together with various stimuli, immersed me in ‘a whole new world’ – a connected world. And I loved it.

I loved being able to sit in a parallel session and chat to my friends at home. I loved being able to sit in a plenary session and Google the tools that were being discussed and then use Delicious to save web pages for later reference. Although Twitter has never appealed to me, for the first time I saw a way in which I would actually want to use it – as a live feedback tool in a plenary session; as an expression of the collective mind of an audience; as a way of sharing thoughts while experiencing something together. Perhaps these are obvious applications but until now I have only thought of Twitter as a means for individuals to express thoughts on their own experiences. I overlooked the power of the live interactive communal space.

I loved being able to catch up on a cartoon feed during a session that I did not find applicable to my field of interest. Next time, though, I will slip out between two speakers and attend a different session. In fact, I wish that a friend of mine had been tweeting about the interesting session that he was attending at the same time so that I could have joined him. Of course, this raises difficult questions such as what happens if everyone starts to leave a session half way through to attend another one. But imagine being able to access live feedback on all sessions, rather than having to wait until afterwards when it is too late for the feedback to influence your experience of a conference.

Although I am not sure whether any of the technologies I experienced are appropriate for interacting with my students, they have definitely opened my eyes to the potential of ‘being connected’. I think what I appreciated most was the sense of empowerment – that I could choose where to focus my attention, that I could immediatelyfind out more about the things that interest me, that I could be actively rather than passively involved (even if it was in parallel cyber space) in interactions; i in other words, that I could be an active, self-directed learner.

Ingrid Mostert, Mathematics Facilitator at Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Read what other participants had to say about eLA 2010:

http://alexlittle.net/blog/2010/05/26/elearning-africa-conference-day-1/
http://michaelseangallagher.org/2010/05/24/elearning-africa-and-google-map-driving-directions-from-nairobi-to-lusaka/
http://karynromeis.blogspot.com/2010/06/corporate-learning-at-elearning-africa.html

June 11, 2010

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