06. Pan-Commonwealth Forum 6 (PCF6), 2010

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Browsing 06. Pan-Commonwealth Forum 6 (PCF6), 2010 by Region "Caribbean and Americas"

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    Open Access
    Creating a Learning Environment using a De-institutionalized Approach to Learning
    (2010-11) Cran, Wendy I D; Cran, Gregory J
    Yekooche First Nation is a small, isolated aboriginal community in British Columbia, Canada which has been working towards finalizing a land claims and self government treaty with the federal and provincial governments. In preparing for the responsibilities that flow with self government, Chief and Council decided to seek assistance from Royal Roads University in helping to prepare the community for this change. This paper is about a partnership that formed between a university and this remote aboriginal community to create a learning environment that would help its members prepare for governance by accessing non traditional forms of learning using technology. // This paper describes the background, benefits and challenges of establishing a learning environment and the lessons learned along the way. The paper also describes different approaches and engagement strategies through three stories of youth, who not only learned how to use the technology, but also revived their curiosity through interaction and mentorship that the Learning Centre provided.
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    Open Access
    Deploying a Successful Learning Content and Student Management System using Open Source Technologies
    (2010-11) MPhil, Anil R; Haniff, Reiza; Beharry, Sacha
    The UWI Open Campus is unique among the four campuses of the University of the West Indies. Unlike the other campuses, the UWI Open Campus operates in a distributed environment through the Caribbean and offers multi-mode teaching and learning services through virtual and physical site locations across the Caribbean region. In this environment, the UWI Open Campus must find ways of meeting the challenges of operating in such a varied environment.
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    Open Access
    Emerging Technologies, Established Communities, & Evolving Universities
    (2010-11) Anchan, John P
    Post-secondary institutions in Canada and around the world are in a constant state of flux due to changing population demographics and newer technologies. With multifarious demands for corollary revenues and bottom lines, universities are being stretched beyond their limits. Increasingly, the ivory towers have lost their gleam and are under constant pressure to respond to a Net generation demanding employable credentials (Cote & Allahar, 2007). Many of these issues are not recent as we see scholars having raised the alarm bells even in the sixties (Coombs, 1985; Dore, 1997). The emerging technologies have begun to challenge our notion of relevant education in relation to pursuit of knowledge. The influence of technology in the way we learn and interact is undeniable. In the meantime, universities have become isolated islands distanced from their immediate communities. With the seeming disconnect that has plagued higher institutions of learning, traditional universities have begun to revisit the notion of production of knowledge for its own sake. This is especially true in Canada. // This paper explores selected studies within a given theoretical framework involving projects and initiatives at the institutional level. It highlights some of the challenges faced by such emerging technologies along with cultural, political, and economic realities that impinge upon community development.
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    Open Access
    Getting Ready: Using Participatory Communication and Learning to Improve Food Security and Climate Change Adaptation in the Caribbean
    (2010-11) Protz, Maria P
    Rural communities in many parts of the world face increasing challenges to survive due to pressures caused by climate change and globalization. This is especially true in Small Island Developing states (SIDS) such as those in the Caribbean. Climate Change (CC) is forcing communities to adapt quickly not only for their own survival but also for national food security. // But “getting ready” demands new skills and the adoption of new practices, both of which can involve steep learning curves. // Participatory communication can play an important role in making this learning transition easier, and in fact, without it, adaptation is not likely to be sustainable. // This paper shares how Communication for Development, or ComDev, is working to improve food security and help rural communities adapt to climate change in the Caribbean. Through the “Communication for Sustainable Development Initiative” (CSDI)’s Caribbean programme, communities are using participatory video, ICTs, radio and other community media to establish backyard gardens and organic farms – practices that are not only helping to improve household health and nutrition, but also helping to improve national food security.
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    Open Access
    Knowing and Growing Network of Organic Women Farmers in the Caribbean: Digital media for learning, networking and farm management
    (2010-11) Tandon, Nidhi
    With no explanation for climate change or the abrupt shifts in weather, farmers may think this is ‘God’s work’ - and beyond the control of mere mortals. By extension, farmers might not consider themselves actors of consequence whose actions could have direct impacts for climate change and for our collective futures on this planet. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth! // We have been working with farmers in the Caribbean region since 2004, developing an e-network support system of organic women farmers – first teaching them about the holistic benefits of organic farming (food and health, management of climate change, biodiversity, local production) but also teaching them technical aspects to using the Internet more broadly and social networking tools more specifically over time. In 2010, six workshops later, the network is at least 180 people strong – primarily but not exclusively, women farmers. What began as a network of farmers seeking to become organic has now extended to farmers concerned about a healthy and resilient food economy in the context of climate change and environmental stress. // A review of current research and documentation shows that there are few comprehensive materials that look at women’s use of and access to ICTs in the context of farming and climate change. Our research indicates that despite the lack of dependable data on the impact of climate change on agriculture, the issue is gaining more attention as climate issues attract more urgency. At the same time, it is clear that the treatment of climate change and agriculture needs to be localized in order for it to be of any value to farmers and policy makers alike. // We will present our work, the challenges, and the particular gender dimensions of working with media and technology tools in a rural and multi-island setting – in a participatory workshop session.
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    Open Access
    Making ODL viable: A model of shared services in the Caribbean
    (2010-11) Blackman, Paul U E; Rowe, Patrick; Woodall, Lora
    One method of meeting the increasing demand for tertiary education in the Caribbean region is through distance education, specifically open and distance learning (ODL). Distance education offers developing countries the opportunity to address the problems of educational funding, access and quality (Perraton, 2007). In order to take advantage of ODL, three tertiary institutions in Barbados have decided to implement a shared services model in order to enable effective service provisioning while at the same time: a) Optimizing efficiency and effectiveness b) Making more effective use of scarce technical resources c) Obtaining the benefits of scale and minimizing costs d) Allowing academic staff and the institutions to focus on core activities and core competencies This paper will describe the educational context for the implementation of this model, describe the challenges in the process of creating a shared services mechanism and will chronicle the lessons learned in the implementation of the shared ICT services for open and distance learning.
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    Open Access
    Mobile Opportunities: Exploring Innovative pathways for Marginalized Communities (A Trinidad and Tobago Perspective)
    (2010-11) Mallalieu, Kim; Sankarsingh, Candice V
    The Mobile Opportunities Research Project is the focal point for conducting studies in pro-poor, mobile application needs assessment, design, development, deployment and evaluation. In this project, Caribbean fisher folk represent the target group for the development and demonstration of local innovative capacity.
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    Open Access
    Quality Indicators of Successful Distance Learning by Educational Leaders: A Caribbean Case Study
    (2010-09) Bartley-Bryan, Jeanette
    While new methods and advanced technologies for delivering educational content have rapidly evolved over the past three decades, there remain questions regarding the quality of delivery and nature of the learning outcomes. Many educational theorists and practitioners, acknowledge the deficiencies of the traditional system, while arguing that these emerging methods bring new and different teaching-learning challenges, requiring rigorous evaluation and monitoring, especially in the context of technology-mediated delivery systems for Open and Distance Learning (ODL). One inevitable question “Is open and distance learning as good as traditional face-to-face learning?” This query gives rise to an increasing demand for external evidence to establish confidence among all stakeholders that there are appropriately planned and systematic activities, policies and procedures to ensure that the ODL products or services will perform and satisfy the given requirements for quality assurance. // By definition, an effective distance learning system requires a totally integrated approach in terms of the official organizational framework and arrangements, including quality assurance systems for providing instruction, through print or electronic media, to persons engaged in planned learning, usually for accreditation, in a place and/or time different from that of the instructor (Adapted from Commonwealth of Learning Resources Publications (n.d). Some ODL proponents argue that if the same rigorous quality assessment measures were applied to more traditional modes of learning, one would discover that many current face-to-face practices are not of acceptable quality standards. In this context, Ragan (1999) posits that ‘good teaching is good teaching’ and that effective learning results from the implementation of certain essential conditions, regardless of the mode of delivery. These essential conditions will be discussed in relation to the emerging quality learning indicators, which were demonstrated in the Caribbean case study.
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    Open Access
    The relationship between teacher certification and instructional practice in a tertiary institution in Barbados
    (2010-11) Medford, Gwendolyn E
    The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between teacher certification and instructional practices at one of the three tertiary institutions in Barbados that falls under the aegis of the Ministry of Education – the BCC. // This paper seeks to examine the following research questions:  What is the relationship between teacher certification and the effectiveness of teachers’ instructional practice?  What is the effect of certification on the competence of teachers’ instructional practice?
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    Open Access
    Supporting Online Learners with New and Emerging Technologies
    (2010-11) Mann-Cross, Ave
    There has been an increase in the use of Web-based ‘collaborationware’ in recent years. These web 2.0 applications in particular wikis, blogs, podcasts and facebook are being adopted by many educational institutions. These tools offer the opportunity for powerful information sharing and ease of collaboration. The Distance Education Unit of the Ministry of Education is attempting to these emerging technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts and facebook as a natural element in the tutoring in the National Open School of Trinidad and Tobago. (NOSTT) // It was decided due to financial considerations that these alternative solutions be adopted to deal with students who were out of the natural school system or who had spent limited time in the classroom. // Notwithstanding the apparent digital divide that exists and other issues of accessibility the question of using the appropriate technology was at hand. // It was hypothesized that if learners had additional and easy access to their tutors and to other learners that the collaborative effect would result in greater participation and increased averages. // It is in this regard that a pilot is being run using the technologies in question. These include blogs, wikis, facebook, elluminate vroom. // Wikis are Web sites that can be edited by anyone who has access to them. The word “blog” is a contraction of “Web Log”- an online Web journal that can offer a resource rich multimedia environment. Podcasts are repositories of audio and video files that can be ‘pushed’ to subscribers, even without user intervention. These audio and video files can be downloaded to portable media players that can be taken anywhere, providing the potential for “anytime, anywhere” learning experiences. // A blog is a website where entries are made in a journal style and displayed in reversed chronological order. Whereas a wiki is a website that allows users to easily edit, add, remove and change the content of pages, sometimes without the need for registration. Facebook is another social networking website that was originally designed for college students but is now open to anyone over the age of thirteen years. . : Elluminate, the company offers live web conferencing and e-learning solutions for academic and corporate markets. // These were selected because they were proven to very effective tools that support asynchronous and synchronous online learning / teaching.
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    Open Access
    Transitioning to online education in the Caribbean: The Open Campus, University of the West Indies
    (2010-11) Woodall, Lora
    There is an increasing demand for tertiary education in several regions of the world (Kanwar & Daniel 2008), despite the often limited economic resources in developing countries. One method of meeting the demand is through distance education, specifically online education. For the purposes of this paper, the term online education will be defined as a means of instruction where contact between students, the instructor and the course material is mediated by the computer through the internet (Larreamendy-Joerns & Leinhardt, 2006). Courses can be blended (both online and face-to-face) or completely online. // Online courses are particularly important for educational provision in small states and regional universities who cater to a diverse student body in many different locations (Ezenne & Cook, 2002; Marshall, 2005). In the Caribbean, online education can provide education that is scalable, responsive to Caribbean needs, designed in collaboration with others and economical (Marshall, 2005). // The University of the West Indies (UWI) serves 16 developing countries in the Anglophone Caribbean and has been providing distance education since 1978 (Marrett & Harvey, 2001). The newest campus of UWI, the Open Campus was created to provide the non campus countries with increased access to education (Thurab-Nkosi & Marshall, 2006) by leveraging the opportunities offered by the Internet. // Transitioning to online delivery necessitates considerable changes in organizational structure, and technology use, but more importantly, it requires significant changes in teaching, in learning and in organizational culture. Several factors that have been identified as being important in educational change include a focus on teaching and learning (Stoll & Fink, 1996; Murphy & Hallinger, 1993), leadership (Anderson, 2006, Campbell & Fullan, 2006; Vogel & Muirhead, 2007) and organizational culture (Stoll, 2003). In addition, preparing a strategic plan for technology integration is essential for success (Vogel & Muirhead, 2007; Sife, Lwoga & Sanga, 2007). Levy (2003) and others (Bates, 2007; Haughey, 2007; Kuboni & Martin, 2004; Thurab-Nkosi & Marshall, 2006;) suggest that vision, curriculum, staff and student training and support, and copyright are all issues that must be addressed in successful transitions to online modes of delivery. // Stakeholder attitudes towards teaching and learning online can also severely impact the success of the transition (Kosak et al., 2000; Haughey, 2007; Hope, 2006). Davis (1989) measured attitudes based on the hypothesis that people will use technologies if they believe that it will help them to perform a task more effectively (perceived usefulness) or if they believe that the technology will be easy to use (perceived ease of use). Research on student attitudes generally shows that a more positive attitude towards online education results in an increased use of online education (Drennan, Kennedy & Pisarski, 2005; Liaw, Huang & Chen 2007; Panda & Mishra, 2007; Yuen, Allan & Ma, 2008). // Online education has the potential to increase access to tertiary education in developing countries, although the shift will require significant changes in organizational culture and methods of teaching and learning. This study examines how the Open Campus, University of the West Indies is coping with the some of the issues involved with transitioning from traditional means of distance education to the use of online courses
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    Open Access
    Using Social Networks to Assist Learners in Open Schooling in Trinidad and Tobago
    (2010-11) Warner, Steve C
    At present the National Open School of Trinidad and Tobago (NOSTT) operates many centres in several parts of Trinidad and Tobago. From its inception in 2007, the author has been a part of NOSTT in two different areas – first as a Mentor/tutor of Mathematics and more recently as a Learner Support Officer for central schools in Trinidad. Every August NOSTT begins a new cycle of registration for new learners in all its centres. The classes which follow are well populated and then as the weeks and months progress and the lives of learner’s change, the class sizes begin to decrease. The reasons for this are based on several factors, such as work related activities and responsibilities, domestic and social challenges and environmental situatedness. It is because of this reason that using a social network, like Facebook, was conceptualized to harness instruction, whereby all who wanted to continue can be catered for. The two major subjects of Mathematics and English Language were chosen as these groups were the hardest hit by the dropout ratio, they are also the largest classes. NOSTT has been struggling with its mandate to have a blended learning approach and create an Open and Distance Learning environment (ODL), but to date has only managed face-to-face classes. It is hoped that this paper will begin that transformation and showcase the need and importance of ODL as a necessary facet of Open Schools to its clientele in Trinidad and Tobago.