Introduction to E-learning Methodologies

FAO recently published it’s “E-Learning Methodologies” publication which serves as a guide for designing and developing e-learning courses. More and more it becomes important to focus beyond the mere technological side and understand the importance of instructional design and related processes that are crucial when you want to start with e-learning. The current e-learning debate is still heavily dominated by the choice of tools and technologies.This guide is a good counter recipe that shows you from the methodological side how to go about designing an e-learning course, how to create interactive content and how to manage and evaluate your e-learning activities. Recommended for everybody who is about to start with e-learning in his or her institution. Not only a good overview of the entire instructional cycle but also practical models for content creation, delivery and evaluation. One remaining question: “When is FAO launching an interactive e-learning module about the content which is available in this guide”?

Share, Learn and Innovate

OHCHR initiated in collaboration with ITC-ILO a coordinated knowledge management approach with the goal of making OHCHR work more effective in the fulfillment of its mandate. Based on a KM needs assessment and a review of KM approaches and practices of UN agencies ITC-ILO developed a knowledge sharing toolkit which includes methods and techniques to enhance knowledge sharing within OHCHR and through OHCHR activities. The entire project was called Share, Learn and Innovate and focused on the following objectives:

• Improve understanding of knowledge management and knowledge sharing concepts and their relevance to OHCHR work;

• Enhance participants’ expertise and capacity to use knowledge sharing tools and approaches in their work;

• Strengthen a knowledge sharing culture within OHCHR; and

• Validate the OHCHR Knowledge Sharing Toolkit and promote the use of the toolkit within their sections/field presences.

Feel free to have a look at the final version of the on-line toolkit ! Click HERE

The art of asking questions

This blog has been updating you in the last two years about the most recent participatory learning methodologies that you can use in a learning context. One question always remained a little bit in the background, and that’s the old simple technique of asking a powerful question. Something you need almost always in the application of every facilitation technique whether it’s a  panel expert discussion or a  world café. To answer on what is the art and the architecture of a powerful question we have collected a series of interesting short publications on the topic? Do you have any other interesting resources to add?

Asking effective questions. (The Asian Development Bank)
The art of asking powerful questions. (From the World Café Methodology)
Different question techniques (Changing minds)

 

 

Social media revolution

The importance of social media is a returning element in a lot of interesting video’s that appear on the internet. It all started with the first version of ‘Did you Know‘ and every now and than we see new inspiring video’s (like the one below) to highlight that social media is becoming very important in our daily life and work. To explore the potential of social media in a learning and training the ITC-ILO organises a knowledge lab where different learning professionals will exchange their international experiences. A very rich domain containing a lot of challenging questions: “How are wiki’s changing the way we work and write together? What’s the pedagogical added value of using blogs in learning? How we can manage better our information through using web2.0 tools? How can we support communities of practices with networked technologies? How do we use these tools in low-resource settings?“  For more information surf to the promotion blog: http://webfordev.wordpress.com/

 

Mobile learning toolkit launched

A while ago we have mentioned our mobile learning plans at ITC-ILO. We are now happy to share some of the results of the ongoing mobile learning pilots. First of all Jennifer Parker finished her internship at ITC-ILO successfully and published her master thesis on ‘mobile learning for Africa‘. Part of this project included also the development of a mobile learning toolkit which we will use in the framework of the MyCOOP training package (“How to set up and run agricultural cooperatives“). With adding a mobile component to this training package, MyCOOP trainers will be able to choose out of 15 different methodologies where a mobile device can add value to the learning and training process. Feel free to contact us in case you are interested to pilot some of these mobile learning methods.

View this document on Scribd

Is your thinking pragmatic and systematic?

Nowadays, development organizations are increasingly compelled to show that their programmes produce meaningful and lasting changes for their beneficiaries.

However, such “impacts” depend on many factors, such as behavioural change by those concerned or the relationships among them. This makes assessing development impacts problematic; yet many organizations strive to measure results that go far beyond the objectives of their programmes.

Outcome Mapping[1] offers not only a methodology[2] for monitoring and evaluation but also planning systems that enable organizations to document, learn from, and report on their achievements. It is designed to help with understanding an organization’s results, while recognizing that contributions by other players are essential to achieving the sustainable, large-scale improvements in human and ecological well-being toward which the organization is working. These contributions are planned and assessed in terms of their influence on the partners with whom the organization is working to effect change. In essence, development is accomplished by, and for, people. This is the central concept of Outcome Mapping.

Enhancing learning for Effectiveness

“Enhancing Learning for Effectiveness”  is Train4Dev’s new methodological guide on design, implementation and evaluation of Joint Learning Event. It was presented in Brussels during the last annual meeting of the network and is the result of a truly collaborative process. The assignment was coordinated by the Turin Centre and we could count on the strong commitment of the team that brought this guide into existence: the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, GIZ, UNDP, UNSSC, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, FAO, CEF, and Lux-Development.

The wealth of knowledge, experience and tools embedded within the Train4Dev network, was pulled together or emerged from the hidden corners of complex institutional structures. It took time and patience and endless efforts to ensure that the guide would meet the required quality standards and suit the need for strengthening the learning methodologies, as identified by the network. The aim is to contribute to the shift of Joint learning events from traditional top-down training to purposeful participatory learning events where participants share as well as acquire knowledge, compare and enhance their practices, and rely on process facilitators, not only on subject matter experts. Only after this guide will have been used by a large group of training managers and trainers will we know whether this demanding objective will be achieved.

It is hoped that this small brick in the wall of joint learning for development will contribute to the noble mandate of the network to “add value as facilitators of joint learning, in areas of high priority for aid and development effectiveness”.

Download the guide !

Robin Poppe

E-Learning Africa in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

ITC-ILO will be represented through DELTA in the upcoming E-Learning Africa conference, held in Dar es Salaam this year. DELTA will host an interactive knowledge sharing session which focuses on the rapid growth of Web2.0 technologies within the context of different projects in developing countries (with cases from World Bank Institute, International Training Centre of the ILO, UNHCR and FAO). The session will highlight how these types of technologies can become an important driver of innovation in learning and knowledge sharing from different perspectives.
E-learning Africa is the biggest network event in Africa for developing e-learning capacities in Africa.  Feel free to consult the entire conference programme.

Gamestorming. Do you want to be more innovative?

Practical and inspiring guides with innovative and participatory learning and knowledge sharing methods are always interesting to read. “Gamestorming, a playbook for innovators, rulebreakers, and change“, written by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo is a good illustrative example. The entire instructional cycle of a meaningful learning or working event is documented in a very visual and pragmatical way. It moves beyond the usual participatory methodologies such as ‘fishbowl‘, ‘world cafe‘ and ‘open space‘ and introduces you to a variety of new techniques from ‘bodystorming’ until ‘spectrum mapping’. The book is also structured along the cyclical nature of an event from opening until closing and shows you the different creative processes that occur during an event (diverging, emerging and converging). For facilitators and trainers it is handy because the methods are written in a way that you can apply them immediately on-the-job. The book has a virtual extension on http://www.gogamestorm.com/. Any other must reads in this area of participatory learning and knowledge sharing?

Mobile learning (2)

After introducing the mobile learning theme in this blog, DELTA started to explore how mobile learning could create an added value for learning at the Centre. Therefore we will update you in the upcoming months of the MyCOOP mobile project. The MyCOOP training package is about the management of agricultural cooperatives for cooperative managers and trainers. DELTA is exploring where mobile technologies could enrich the current existing training material. Mobile phones are widely used withing this target group and learning and training could be made more accessible by exploring this mobile track.

The exploration will tackle different important dimensions. What about the technology and infrastructure we can use for this? In this context it is interesting to refer to  new mobile for development report of UNICEF. Not only technological insights will be needed, more and more the pedagogical and didactical strategies that are needed to launch successful mobile learning are important. A good opportunity to explore these dimensions together with a range of mobile learning experts is to participate in the Massive Online Course on Mobile Learning. Click here if you want to learn more about this initiative.