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Tag Archives: Moodle
“Digital development” – the last 100 metres
Tech-solutionism is fairly common in the development sector; we regularly hear that a new widget or (increasingly) the latest app is going to transform some aspect of service delivery or save innumerable hours of time. The same thinking has swamped much discussion on higher education (HE) in the last few years, an issue typified by recent talk about MOOCs. And, as the development sector looks increasingly at the role that higher education has to play in transforming societies and economies, the streams run together. Of course technology plays and has played a vital role in development – in medicine or agriculture for example – and technology and online learning offer huge possibilities for HE. But sometimes it feels like we’re caught in our own hype. Undoubtedly, better broadband connectivity, greater mobile penetration, more students with smartphones and laptops – these are all changing the possibilities for learning, and for the way universities … Continue reading
Tagged Bandwidth, Bangladesh, BanglaJOL, E-learning, E-resources, Ethiopia, Journals Online, Kenya, LAMJOL, Moodle, Nepal, NepJOL, SLJOL, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia
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An eventful year of online courses
After a successful pilot phase in 2011, e-learning became a formal part of AuthorAID at INASP in July 2012 with the launch of our Moodle system. Last year, we conducted two online courses in research writing, which were completed by 58 researchers from about 20 developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They were among 68 researchers who enrolled in the courses following an application and selection stage. Encouraged by the high completion and participation rates (see this post for more details), we began our first collaboration to develop and run a customized course in research writing. Our partner in this effort was Blacksmith Institute, a US-based nonprofit focused on solving pollution problems. Sandy Page-Cook and Anne Riederer from Blacksmith’s Journal of Health and Pollution helped us customize the course to make it relevant to researchers working in environmental health.
Tagged E-learning, Moodle
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AuthorAID in Sri Lanka: Workshop and annual meeting
Last month I was in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to facilitate a train-the-trainers workshop on teaching research writing online. I think that has to be the narrowest topic I’ve ever taught! But the workshop turned out to be more than that. Towards the end of 2012, I facilitated two online courses in research writing over AuthorAID Moodle, our e-learning platform. These courses were taken by nearly 70 researchers from about 20 developing countries. The high completion rate (~85%) and participation (~300 forum posts in each course) assured us that online courses can work in our context.
Tagged AuthorAID, Moodle, Train the trainers
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Update on AuthorAID Online Courses in Research Writing
This was originally posted on the AuthorAID blog on November 28, 2012. Ravi Murugesan is a science editor and AuthorAID consultant. For the last couple of months, I have been facilitating online courses in research writing on AuthorAID Moodle, our e-learning platform. I would now like to share some outcomes. We announced the first online course in research writing in August, and we chose about 40 of the applicants, based on how strong their applications were. We had to limit the number of course participants because this course would be facilitated, much as a workshop is.
Tagged AuthorAID, Moodle, Online training
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Talking about Moodling
Moodle is a popular virtual learning environment (VLE) that’s used in many universities in the UK and abroad. Moodle is not only a great VLE but it’s free, open-source software. I’ve been using Moodle for over four years as a teacher and administrator. When the AuthorAID team at INASP was considering e-learning last year, I made a case for using Moodle because it has many features for creating an active learning experience. That decision paid off: the pilot e-learning course that we conducted was successful, with about 90% of the learners completing the course and giving very positive feedback. The 28 learners were early career researchers at the National University of Rwanda, and they took the course over a period of 6 to 8 weeks towards the end of last year.
Tagged E-learning, Moodle, Rwanda, VLE
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