UWI Information Technology in Teaching Learning and Research Forum

Richard M. Thelwell - IT Advisor
Ministry of Education & Culture
January 14, 2000

Introduction - IT In Education

Sector Management

• Sector - Schools - Teaming - Collaboration Access - Infostructure - Equitable - Affordable
• T&L Open & Distance Ed - Driving Forces - Penetration

Learning Goes Real Time, All The Time

New technologies will create classrooms in which the students may be in 100 different locations, all different from that of the teacher.

There are several key drivers in the growth of online education:

1. The rapid change in skill sets required. (Obsolesce)

   With the growth of the knowledge economy, more and more corporate assets are developed, maintained, warehoused, managed, and distributed using information technology. Life Long Learning vs. Lifetime Jobs

2. The cost of training.

   About 70 percent of a company's training costs are tied up in getting people to classes: transportation, meals, lodging, and instructors.

3. Employee recruitment and retention (and re-training)

   Recognizing that they can no longer guarantee long-term employment-and that the workforce is increasingly mobile-companies have discovered that training programs can act as an effective employee retention tool.

4. The explosion in adult learners.

   Roughly 40 percent of all people pursuing degrees in the US today are over 40. The Chronicle of Higher Education estimates that every institution will be teaching online by the year 2000.

5. Penetration

   Electricity 40-50 years - Telephone 30-40 - TV 30 - Internet 4

Challenges

• The Digital Divide - The haves & have nots
• Cultural Shifts - Nobody Told Me! I didn’t know! I never saw that! => Professional Responsibility
• Individual Effort vs. Team Collaboration
• Ownership & Control - Private email Addresses
• Teaching & Learning WITH Technology

Vision

MOEC Teaming / Empowerment - UWI - Stakeholders

UWI - Intellectual Capital - Industrial => Knowledge Economy Connected Schools - Master Teachers

Expatriate JA Kids - Home & Abroad - Diaspora (Anancy)

"the beginning of a series of forums - Harmonizing efforts and building bridges in charting a course - defining a road map - a memorandum setting out the most effective manner for collaboration in leveraging the capacities, competencies and capabilities of persons and institutions"

Targets

Min Managers, Academics, Teachers, Students, Parents, Alumni, Public, Community, NGOs

The National Effort

Bits'N'Pieces - Parallel / Serial

Policy

MOEC - ICT Policy, GreenPaper 2k - Tel99 Conf - Senate - MOEC Corporate Plan - Web Sites - EduLinks

UWI - Policies, Principles & Procedures - Strategic Plan

National IT Strategic Plan - Telecom Act - National Association ADE (Barrett & Irving)

International - CoL - Tel99 Conf

MOEYC Key Policy Objectives

Coordination / Empowerment / Partnerships / Teaming / Sharing

Knowledge Management - Corporate Learning

EduLinks - Cyberversity

Areas of Focus

Training - Trainers / Teachers / Parents / PC & Info Literacy - IT Professionals

Curriculum - ROSE - CXC Maths - CAPE IT

Admission / Certification / Quality / Standards / Effectiveness

Materials - MS Teachers Toolkit - Aptech, CIE

Authorware / Software - Selection

Support - Hardware / Software / Pedagogic

Next Steps

Who Else - How / Web Event => Process - Policy Instruments - Commonwealth of Learning

Professional Development & Training

To provide materials and support for face-to-face training as well as self-instruction modules in online techniques for teacher training, professional development, improved communication and operational management. An arrangement for financial assistance to Teachers for the acquisition of PCs and Internet access will be implemented.

Deliverables/Outcomes:

Provide the integrated development and collaborative delivery of educational products and programmes from MOEC, JCSEF, JBTE, UWIDEC, HEART and private sector providers.

The programme for training of trainers, teachers and other groups listed below will be coordinated as shown in the matrix. These interventions will focus on the seven skill areas shown in the first column below.

A Pyramid approach will be used to maximize the rapid replication of skills, and several modes of delivery will be employed as appropriate:

• Material Distribution - Print, Disk, CD-ROM, FTP, WWW
• JBTE/VirtualU - Teachers College Courses etc.
• Instructor led Online Web Based Training (WBT) (CD-ROM)
• Self paced WBT Workshops and Tutorials
• Software Simulation Tutorials
• Supplemented Face to Face Sessions

EduNet Training Matrix

References

Jackie Cousins, Re-purposing Printed Curriculum Materials to Integrate Multimedia Technologies - Presented at TELisphere '99 Conference

The Development of Virtual Education: A global perspective - A study of current trends in the virtual delivery of education, conducted with funding provided by the Department for International Development, London, UK Dr. Glen Farrell, Study Team Leader and Editor

Chap 4. Distance and Virtual Learning in the Caribbean Dr. Peter J. Dirr (pages 49 - 58)

COL hosted a "Knowledge Management Roundtable" at its Vancouver headquarters 19 - 21 October 1999. Experts in distance education libraries and information databases discussed the changing nature of knowledge management and available technologies and examined how COL and its Information Resource Centre can best meet the needs of stakeholders around the Commonwealth. The following results are now available (posted 21 December 1999):

• Roundtable Summary
• Roundtable Report [participants]
• Proposal for a Commonwealth Open Learning Interactive Network for Knowledge Sharing (COLINKS) and draft mission statement

Caribbean Waves - The Newsletter of the Distance Education Centre of the UWI