Training for academics needs to be timely, specific, relevant and appropriate for the technology being implemented.
Universities must do more than just offer online learning: they must make sure lecturers know how to adapt to the technology.
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Longtemps en retard dans le déploiement de L'enseignement à distance, les pays d’Afrique subsaharienne ont dû maintenir les cours tout en respectant les mesures barrières .
Demand for professional development has grown but the pandemic has forced it online. Decades of evidence from online education tells us how to ensure professional development remains effective.
Kenya’s universities face huge challenges going digital.
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Students say they have a hard time studying and cognitive science proves they’re not trying to dodge work: there’s a link between negative emotions and difficulties in concentrating.
COVID-19 has shown that technology is no longer a luxury but an important component of the education process. In presenting solutions, a wide range of factors must be considered.
Many of Kenya’s university students won’t have access to computers.
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Kenya’s high rate of internet penetration does not reflect the barriers students face in accessing learning materials.
Will Springfield, 8, reacts with joy to seeing Ms. Chriss, his Grade 2 teacher, drive by in a teachers’ neighbourhood parade in Suwanee, Ga., March 25, 2020.
(Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
Government initiatives to support student learning during and after the pandemic can’t be effective without an invaluable educational resource: teachers’ expertise and care.
In-class and face-to-face experiences are uniquely valuable for students and should be protected at all costs. Here, Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce speaks at at Queen’s Park in Toronto on March 3, 2020.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn)
Forcing parents or students to opt out of mandatory e-learning will only serve to normalize Ontario’s push to cut costs at the expense of what’s best for young people.
Following a negotiation impasse, Ontario public secondary teachers walked off the job on a one-day strike. Here, striking teachers are seen outside the Toronto District School Board office on Yonge Street in Toronto, Dec. 4, 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston
Ontario high school labour negotiations broke down over student quality of learning — including mandatory e-learning. Ontario has yet to explain how this will work for students with special needs.
If Ontario rolls out mandatory high school e-learning with no in-person class hours, each student will lose 440 hours of face-to-face class time.
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For high school students, e-learning is best introduced in face-to-face classes where teachers can meet a greater range of learning needs – not as a completely online experience.
E-learning is important for Africa, but critics have their doubts.
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MOOCs are an opportunity for African universities to bring the continent’s thinkers and theories to the world. They also have great benefits for full-time students to experience a flipped classroom.
Commonwealth of Learning Chair in ODL for Teacher Education and Full Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies, University of South Africa