3. PHEA ETI
Project Background
Vision is “to support interventions in universities to make
increasingly effective use of educational technology to address
some of the underlying educational challenges facing the higher
educational sector in Africa”
One of the Specific PHEA ETI objectives:
• Build academic capacity in quality online course design and
delivery through use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)
(for mounting over 140 online / blended courses)
4. 7 participating sub-Saharan Africa HEIs
Makerere University
Makerere University
(Uganda)
(Uganda)
University of Education
University Education
Winneba (Ghana)
Winneba (Ghana)
University of Jos
University of Jos
(Nigeria)
(Nigeria)
University of Ibadan
University of Ibadan
(Nigeria)
(Nigeria)
Kenyatta University
Kenyatta University
(Kenya)
(Kenya)
University of Dar es
University of Dar es
Salaam (Tanzania)
Salaam (Tanzania)
Catholic University of
Catholic University of
Mozambique (Beira)
Mozambique (Beira)
5. Context & Motivation
• The first experience of engaging with online learning for
majority of academics
• Phase B (Implementation) planned for:
– Initial Sensitisation
– Series of Capacity Building Workshops (over 3 years)
• Interspersed with
– Support for Design & Development of own online course
– Quality Improvement Review process
• Customised for each participating HEI
– Environmental Context
– Specific Project Purpose
6. Capacity Building Programme
Sensitisation
Supporting Online
Learning
Design & Dev of
Effective Online
Courses
(Online Facilitation)
OER Deployment
External Review
& Feedback
Quality Improvement of
Multimedia
Peer
Support
External
Team
Support
Internal Team
Support
Supporting Course
Dev & Internal
Reviewing
Multimedia
Design & Dev
VLE (Moodle) in Depth
Quality
Improvement of
Online Courses
7. Sensitisation – Changing the Mindset
• What is possible using supporting Edu ICTs?
• What are the characteristics of online vs
traditional classroom teaching and learning?
– Collaboration, interaction, resources
– Changed roles of academic and student
• The importance of Learning Design
• Engaging with supporting ICTs
8. Flexible Capacity Building Approach
Facilitated /supported by external project support team
–
–
–
–
–
Academics identify courses for online/blended design
Skills dev / deepen understanding via regular workshops
Customised as required for project purpose
Quality Improvement
Internal and External Review
Facilitated / supported by internal project support team
– Continue to work on courses between workshops
– Practical implementation - phased, mentored
– Respond to feedback from QI reviews
9. Successes Experienced
Course Developers
Internal Project /Unit
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
High degree of enthusiasm
Keen to develop new skills
Shared achievements
Opportunity to interact and
collaborate across disciplines
Peer review a positive
experience
Increasing confidence in the
discourse, concepts, and
practices of using educational
technology
Re-examined own pedagogical
practices
Appreciated external review
opportunity
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Smooth running of the on-site capacity
development workshops
Local support personnel mostly present
and active at the workshops
Good leadership and commitment by local
project leaders led to sustained
motivation
Some centralised eLearning support units
were enhanced by the HEI
Increased capacity for Multimedia support
Increased capacity in supporting use of
the VLE (Moodle)
Growth in deployment of online courses
Increased training for academics and
students wrt online teaching & learning
Increased collaboration with departments
10. Challenges Experienced
Course Developers
Internal project /unit
• Unreliable internet access
and limited bandwidth
(initially)
• Unreliable local power supply
• Quality of courses was
variable – many low-end
• Multimedia development
more difficult than expected
• Academics overextended
time-wise
• On-site workshops meant
that regular work
interruptions could take place
• Support staff changes led to loss of
skills and experience
• Some project leaders left the
institution, gap to be filled
• Support staff overextended due to
increased Ed Tech activity and
support required
• Quality Improvement process
required considerable coordination
• Sustained effort over 4-5 years
required in addition to regular
duties
11. Outcomes
Institutional
• Raised awareness of the potential and practice of delivering
online courses
• Increased focus on what enhancement is necessary wrt
policies, strategies, systems and support for academic staff
Project
• Proportion of courses or parts thereof (learning objects) to
be made available as Open Educational Resources (OER) to
be shared with other institutions
• Capacity Building workshops to become available as OERs
from Saide website for any course developers or support
teams to use or adapt (by end 2013)
12. Lessons Learned
Project Support Team (Saide)
•
•
•
•
•
Conducive institutional environment (Apex support)
Establish pedagogical practice of academics up front
Importance of internal centralized support units
Off-campus venues preferable for workshops
Prepare off-line solutions (e.g. Poodle)
Course Developers (Academics)
•Using supporting ICTS requires a high level of perseverance
•Multimedia development requires considerable expertise
•Takes time (iterations) to design, develop and pilot an online
course
•A blended delivery approach can add value to an on-campus
environment
13. Reflection
• What is the potential impact of online / blended
course delivery on the stakeholders?
•
•
•
•
Institution
Academics
Students
Support Staff
• How can you develop or enhance capacity building
processes at your institution?
• Who should be involved and at what stage?
• Role separation a consideration
14. Thank You
Brenda Mallinson and Greig Krull
brendam@saide.org.za / greigk@saide.org.za
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Notes de l'éditeur
The participating HEIs were largely on-campus institutions who were planning to adopt a hybrid approach to using educational technology, by delivering a blend of online and face-to-face components. The majority of planned online courses were to be deployed at an undergraduate level, with the minority planned for the post-graduate level (PHEA, 2009).
The Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA) Educational Technology Initiative (ETI) supported the use of educational technology at seven sub-Saharan African universities over 4 years. This included 11 projects involving mounting of online/blended courses.
For many academic staff this was their first experience of online learning. The initiative developed and delivered a series of capacity building workshops to support the participants to in course design and development for blended or online delivery. The effect of the capacity building initiative was measured in the progressive design and development of actual online courses and a quality improvement review.Moodle chosen by all 7 HEIs – either migration or new installation.
One of the major activities of the initiative was to build academic staff capacity (skills and competencies) to be able to teach effectively using technology. The initiative adopted a longer term perspective to focus on the development of lasting capacity and enabling systems and processes. Overall Project over 5 years; 3 years capacity building
HEIs need to ascertain how to build the staff capacity to integrate technology and facilitate their online offerings (Wilson and Stacey, 2004). Much of the existing teaching practice on campuses tends to replicate weak pedagogical approaches that often occur in face-to-face courses, most notably by presenting large volumes of content to learners who are perceived largely as passive recipients of that material, whose primary function is to read and memorize the content. Consequently, the initiative placed strong emphasis on developing courses built on effective instructional design principles that make most effective use of the available technology (PHEA, 2009).
Workshops co-facilitated by internal institutional project support team (where possible)
Some units started developing models for the adoption of educational technology on a wider scale
BM: Have made a few additions
Blended model Ran ALL the capacity building f2f, in a lab, but working within a virtual environmentWHY? - The medium is the messageAll the HEIs were predominately on campus, with only a few having distance programmes in addition to their f2fUnreliable internet access – discovered Poodle early on Often facilitated a workshop the whole week with out internet Unreliable power – generatorsWhat are the implications for course delivery?Importance of flexible approach to capacity buildings intranet - justify use of LMS – more accessible on Intranet
