This is your chance to present your ideas and expertise to an anticipated audience of two thousand practitioners in the field of ICT-supported education and training in Africa: The Call for Papers for the eLearning Africa 2011 conference programme has been extended! The gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on May 25th - 27th, 2011, will focus in particular on “Youth, Skills and Employability”.

You are cordially invited to submit a proposal for a session, presentation, workshop or discussion. The deadline for proposals is now Sunday, January 16th, 2011.

More information about formats as well as the online submission form can be found at http://www.elearning-africa.com/programme_cfp.php.

“The generation of children aged about 16 or younger have never known a world without the internet. My work over the past decade has shown what exciting things happen when we let these children take learning into their own hands,” says Sugata Mitra,  professor of educational technology at Newcastle University, UK.

Read Sugata Mitra’s article in the Guardian here.

The annual eLearning Africa conference is the key networking venue for practitioners, researchers, experts, professionals and newcomers from Africa and all over the world. Donating to the eLearning Africa Scholarship Programme ensures that as many low-income practitioners as possible from Africa are offered the opportunity to participate in this important conference.

Enriched through the vast knowledge sharing and networking experience the conference offers, their participation helps them to disseminate valuable knowledge to communities throughout Africa. Furthermore their participation ensures that practical challenges and solutions are given the voice these deserve.

Learn more

The two-week winter school “E-Learning in the Age of Globalisation” runs from November, 22nd to 29th. The workshop targets participants from developing countries who work in the field of ICT-enhanced learning at universities, public organisations or in the private sector, such as staff member of e-learning centers or academics, who foster the adoption and spread of e-learning in their departments. Applicants must have spent at least three months in Germany for educational or research purposes.

Participants will receive a comprehensive overview of the strategic, organisational and technological aspects of technology-supported learning. Following the winter school, participants will attend the Online Educa Berlin 2010, the largest e-learning conference for the corporate, education and public service sector.

The Winter School is organised by CeDiS, the competence center for e-learning and multimedia at Freie Universität in cooperation with Online Educa Berlin and the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service).

22 alumni may receive bursaries to attend the winter school, with most expenses for travel, accommodation and the conference fees for Online Educa Berlin being covered by the DAAD and Freie Universität.

Further information on the Winter School programme and the application procedure can be found at:

www.cedis.fu-berlin.de/en/veranstaltungen/winterschool2010/.

Deadline for applications is October, 18th, 2010.

The eLearning Africa Conference in 2011 will focus on young adults in Africa. With the spotlight on Youth, Skills and Employability, Africa’s leading conference on ICT for development, education and training will explore and discuss the vast reservoir of talent, skills and opportunity among Africa’s youth, also looking into the challenges they face on the job market. 

Over 40 per cent of Africa’s population is younger than 24 years old. One hundred and ninety-eight million Africans, 20 per cent of the continent’s population, are aged between 15 and 24 - the largest percentage of young people anywhere in the world. Children under the age of 15 account for another 20 per cent. 

eLearning Africa has opened its call for papers and is inviting education professionals from Africa and beyond to submit their best practices. The conference will take place from May 25th - 27th, 2011, in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. It is organised by ICWE GmbH and hosted by the Republic of Tanzania.

Under the overall topic of Youth, Skills and Employability, the programme will embrace six main topics:

Conceptual Frameworks;

Technology Solutions;

Policies, Partnerships and Resources;

Sector-based eLearning;

Capacity Development and eInclusion

Educational Content, Resources and Intellectual Property Rights.

Suggestions for sessions, presentations, workshops and discussions can be submitted until December 10th. The organising committee invites all those who are engaged in development, education and training in or for African countries to take part in the call. More details on topics and how to submit a proposal can be found at www.elearning-africa.com/programme_cfp.php.

A group of US researchers has found that an automated computer-based reading tutor can improve the reading skills of children in developing countries, even if they are not used to working with a computer. For a proof-of-concept study they provided school children from low-income families in Accra, Ghana and Monu, Zambia, with computers equipped with a programme called “Reading Tutor”. The software analysed the children’s reading abilities using speech recognition, prompting them whenever they encountered problems or missed a word.

The researchers state that for the average child from a rural or low-income urban background in Africa, reading is not part of daily family life, and sometimes, parents are not themselves literate. In Ghana and Zambia specially, most children speak one of a number of local languages at home, but they attend school classes taught in English, the official language for both countries. Typically, under-resourced schools with overcrowded classrooms offer few opportunities for individual attention while students are developing reading skills, and many areas have the additional challenge of inadequately trained teachers.

Their recently published research paper presents findings, observations and lessons learned from the field studies with the “Reading Tutor”. The document can be accessed here.

Source: ICT in Education Newsletter, UNESCO

Opening Plenary eLA 2010

Celebrating the 5th anniversary of eLearning Africa, this year’s conference saw a record number of 1778 participants - more than twice as many as at the inaugural conference in 2006. Delegates from all over the world came to Lusaka, Zambia, to attend workshops, sessions and best practice demonstrations which provided fresh stimuli and new ideas.

Find out more about the facts and figures and who was involved - the post-conference report is now online.

eLA participants answered the call for personal conference stories and shared what they had experienced, learnt and observed in Lusaka. Read their stories here

Find more reports and background information on this year’s conference on the eLA 2010 News Portal.

The Learning Master is a web blog focusing on providing readers with useful information about lifelong learning. Recently, the blog posted a list of top 50 education technology blogs: http://bestonlinemastersdegrees.com/2010/top-50-education-technology-blogs/.

These blogs include writers, technicians and social media experts, all of them being teachers.
The list of the top 50 blogs is divided into three categories according to the “type of teacher”:
- the “movers” are teachers who facilitate learning among other teachers and in the classroom
- the “shakers” teach new philosophies and innovations, and
- the folks “on the ground” offer news, tools and methods of using those tools in the classroom.

Among the top 50 blogs are:

http://creatinglifelonglearners.com/
http://hickstro.org/
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/index.html
http://strengthofweakties.org/
http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/

BBC News recently reported on an interesting study about the positive links between access to technology and feelings of well-being. According to the study, women in developing countries and people of both sexes who had low incomes or poor education were most emotionally influenced by access to technology. These findings also contradict other scientists’ views, which point to negative impacts of technology on people’s well-being due to the blurring of professional and personal time.

Read more at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10108551.stm

Jenny Sanborn from the HITIP Project (Hope International for Tikar People) won the 2nd prize in the eLearning Africa photo competition.

Jenny Sanborn with her certificate and the camcorder she won

This is the photo she submitted to the contest

“Winning the second prize means a lot to HITIP. And the camcorder will be an important way to record all our projects on the ground to show to our donors and supporters.” says Jenny Sanborn from HITIP.

The organisation supports people with immediate and critical health care needs in Cameroon’s Tikar region. Their projects span from education, health, cartoons for illiteracy, agriculture, art and culture and more.

One of HITIPs initiatives even involves cameras: HITIP provided recycled cameras and tape recorders to Tikar school children and youth so that they could interview villagers and document their most pressing needs and the challenges that they face. Villagers were deeply engaged in these interviews and were eager to share their perspectives and ideas on how to improve their own communities.
For more information on the assessment of communities, click here