New approaches in interactive learning (How Laptops with Internet access can enhance traditional lecturing.)

Hello Felix,

Under consideration of the socio-technical realities in Africa, the "Interactive Learning" must be adapt to the local realities. The "interactivity" in this context do not means simultaneous interaction but cooperative asynchrounous interaction. Concept based on "offline learning centric model", which refer to an approach which put the control of the learning process, content and services by the learner in an environment independent of an internet connection as opposed to a classical institution or distance learning institution are more adapted to the african context. Though the institution continues to offers content, service and teaching but the control of the process is delegated to the learner on his personal learning environment. The application of this model to a technical system implies a decomposition of learning activities in asynchronous sub process, which can be performed ideally on an sinple and light mobile offline environment (usb stick) and synchronize whenever the connection to internet is available.
The focus in this approach based on the didactic and the modelisation and implementation of learning process in a simple and light mobile learning environement

Erick

I'm not aware of any such research in the USA. However, I'm not convinced that face-to-face learning will remain the primary learning environment or that online communities cannot form and serve the same purpose as in face-to-face settings. Some universities in the USA (Capella University, Union Institute and University, for example), have no face-to-face classes [although some of their programs offer occassional (e.g., three weeks out of a three-year program) colloquia or specialized writing workshops].

One important factor is that online communities require critical mass. In a face-to-face setting, one might strike up conversations in the hallway outside class; in an online setting, institutions sometimes either offer no external discussion form, make accessing an external discussion difficult, or have so few particpants in those forums that the discussions quickly die. Of course, an online class forum can mandate participation and thereby create a short-term "community," but those typically are not sustained in large universities. Even universities with multiple campuses or extensions sometimes experience difficulty in creating a university-wide community (see Patten University Learning Communities: A Strategic Survey at http://home.surewest.net/tcsmith/papers/TCSmith%20ED7692%20Final%20Paper...

Another topic to explore might be the use of resources such as Facebook, MySpace, or other technologies to help foster and sustain online communities.

-- Ted

Hallo Ted,

I don’t know exactly the reality in other african country but in Cameroon, where I come from and where a made some empirical study, E-Learning program programs are developed generally by faculty in cooperation with international  actors (Agence universitaire de la francophonie – AUF,) and technical partner (CISCO Foundation, MTN Foundation, Local Operatos) in order to handle the needs of the local market. The program duration is generally one year, follows a hybrid approach and expects three or four annual presence meetings according to the infrastructure at the local site.The first meeting aims to present the structure of the program, the supervisor and contact person and to become familiar with the eLearning environment. The second and third meeting aim to complete the internship and work exercise, to write some exams and present the work. The last meeting aims to present and/ or defend the final exam or work.

The didactical approach of virtual teaching includes the following activities:

-          Lecture: The technical data of this activity is composed of a presentation of a topic based on text (Office, etc.) or multimedia (Audio, Video, animation etc.) documents. Bibliography and web references complete the topic of the lecture. Exercises in the form of homework or self assessment are associated to different parts of the lecture or to the whole lecture to help the student gain a deeper comprehension of the topic.

-          Exercise: The implementation of exercises depends on the eLearning environment. Usual forms of exercises are multiple choice texts, filling Blank, true – false, matching etc. Homework is edited using a text editor (Office program) and the result may be any document, which can be viewed or edited by corresponding tools.

-           Lab exercise: The labs are designed on the basis of videos or animations or even interactive experiences. The student must repeat the experience shown in the video or animation using the required equipment. Some experience can be made in campus if the required equipment is accessible. Some lab exercises are software projects with source code of a program as the final result.

-          Group project, thesis: These activities aim to introduce or deepen some theoretical concepts, and to test the capacity to handle a scientific topic. The student must be able to work independently with bibliography, to do the research on the topic, to summarize the results of the research in a report and to present the result of his work.  

 On an abstract level, the modules of the eLearning program in Cameroon are organized in courses unit. Typically, a course unit combines several didactical approach describes above