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Session Highlights:
Researches in ICT in education: Special session for students and researchers
This special session aims to strengthen links between research and actual practice in ICT in education and development. The emphasis is on providing a space to students and researchers to explore ideas using an eclectic mix of research methods and disciplines. It targets to bring together research, action research and case studies in order to assist in the transfer of best practice, the development of policy and the creation of theory. Students and researchers in the field of ICT and Education are encouraged to share their research endeavours and exchange experiences at this platform, through participation and presentation of their papers.
Panel Discussion on ‘Digital Technologies for Development: Reassessing the Asian Experience’ by National University of Singapore, Singapore
As the E-Asia conference themes correctly imply, digital technologies are having an impact in every facet of life in both developed and developing countries. This impact is most obvious in education, government and health. This panel will address several key issues related to digital technologies for development, including constraints and policy options regarding telecenters in Asia, e-strategies and public health, digital learning, the challenges of providing media literacy in developing countries and the experience of the National University of Singapore as an entrepreneurial university. The panelists are lecturers at the National University of Singapore and seek to engage the audience in a discussion about the impact of digital technologies in the Asian region.
- Telecenter Experience in Asia, Constraints and Policy Options, Dr. T.T. Sreekumar
- E-Strategies for Public Health: SARS and Avian Flu, Ms. Liew Halcyon
- Digital learning for developing countries: A Culture-based Model for Strategic Implementation of E-learning, Dr. Hichang Cho
- Digital Innovations and Entrepreneurial Universities: The NUS Experience, Dr. Millie Rivera
- 'It Takes a Village': Imparting Media Literacy Skills to Developing Country Youths, Dr. Lim Sun Sun
Online courses: challenges of infrastructure, pedagogy and content
What topics lend themselves to online courses? What is an effective instructional design for online courses? How can we select and use synchronous and asynchronous tools to facilitate the interaction essential for learning through online courses? Can online course support advising, library and laboratory facilities? What intellectual properties/ copyright issues must be addressed? Does online courses need continuous interfacing with instructors? What is the role of instructors when students choose online courses? Can online courses be platform independent? How does the choice of technology affect learning through online courses? Can we monitor/authenticate student performance in online course? What funding models should be adopted to support online courses? While online courses struggle with challenges of students retention, the issues of adequate network bandwidth, security and rights of access, language when learners are multi-cultural, mentoring and coaching support, dedicated learning centres, experts point out that only a competitive differentiation in courses offered coupled with new innovative systems can make online courses attractive for students and increase the market share of course providers. This session will showcase popular online courses and appraise the effectiveness and sustainability of such courses. The session will also deliberate on the key questions that surround online courses delivery systems, delve into the key challenges and hear for online course providers and experts how online can be popularized not only among students but also among adult and life-long learners.
e-Learning practices for K-12 education : Scaling models and managing change
Several countries in Asia are introducing ICT-enabled learning environment in schools. While initiatives range from pilots to large-scale interventions, the challenges still remain common and the way forward still hindered by lack of clarity of goals and doubts on the real impact of ICT in education. While various experts have insisted that learning content should be produced and customised by teachers/educator and schools, as ready-made on-the-rack digital content is mostly not pedagogically aligned and can create much discomfort for the teachers, it has been realized that the development of digital learning content is an expensive and labor-intensive proposition for both schools and teachers. So what are the effective processes for an efficient e-Learning in classrooms? What are the procedures that have global utility? What are the elements that have most affect on the learner experience and ultimate success of teaching practice in school education? How to build teachers interest in devoting time and energy to adapt to change in school teaching environment and the school education officers willingness to adopt to this change?
The session will highlight different approaches from around the world to introduce ICT-enabled learning environments in schools and what it takes to put successful innovations in practice. The session will identify key issues in an international comparison of e-learning approaches, discuss scalable models of learning environment, use of IT in schools for education management purposes as well as how to design and implement change management at a school level.
Optimising the potential of e-Learning in higher education
The effective use of e-Learning in traditional higher education institutions has been proposed as a means to increase interactivity, connectivity and convergence of learning and learners, enabling them to receive and interact with educational materials worldwide and to engage with teachers and peers in ways that was not possible in a traditional classroom lectures. Currently, the internet as an education delivery platform for higher education through virtual and open universities and online courses in traditional universities are focused at reaching new learners, interested in advanced education, anytime and anywhere. But how do we evolve from distributed instructor led learning, to interactive technology based learning to collaborative technologies and team centric learning in higher education? The weakest point for any e-learning initiative is the lack of alignment between the e-Learning project objectives and education objectives, as a consequence these initiatives are considered peripheral to core education activities of the institution or organisation. While it is crucial to have sustainable e-learning strategies that is driven by a clear vision of how e-Learning will support education in achieving its goals by adding value, it is also very important to have the right infrastructure, delivery mechanism, technical support and implementation strategy in place. This session will discuss the current models and activities of traditional universities who have ventured into e-Learning, virtual and open universities and private institutions offering training through e-Learning. The session will also deliberate on the key challenges and effective strategies for e-Learning for higher education.
Educating the educators
Adaptability, creativity, communication and social skills, problem solving, organisation, time management, being able to work independently, meta-cognition (ability to reflect on and improve one's own learning processes) etc are the type of transferable generic skills that are expected in an ICT-enabled education process for today's learners and tomorrow's workforce in a knowledge society. So what are the new roles and new skills required of the educators? How can these skill be imparted to the educators for them to successfully and effectively lead the learning process? It is an accepted fact that the role and responsibility of the educator has increased manifold in ICT-enabled learning environments but have the skills and capacity building programme carried out so far been adequate and effective? Are standards in place to act as a framework for teacher professional development? Studies propose that the four key roles of a teacher involved in ICT-enabled education is that of an administrator, facilitator, technical support and evaluator. Then, what are the methods of re-skilling educators to adopt such roles? How can educators be guided on effective use of these new tools that focuses on learning activities, rather than content delivery or general learner management? How to build buy-in and ownership among educators and motivate them to spearhead the ICT-based education process? How to build e-Learning professionalism among them? This session will attempt to answer these key questions through models and practices of teacher's training and capacity building and also deliberate on the best strategies for facilitating the teachers' seamless progress from the traditional role of an instructor to the new role of a facilitator of learning.
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