Quality online education: Bringing Educational Resources For

Teachers in Africa - BERTAPanel: TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA 11 April 2014Gard Titlestad

Secretary GeneralInternational Council For Open and Distance

Education, ICDE

• The leading global membership organization for open, distance and online education

• An NGO official partner of UNESCO, and shares that agency’s key aim – the attainment of quality education for all

• ICDE believes that in pursuing education as a universal right, the needs of the learner must be central.

• Members in all regions of the world

25 Years SupportFrom Norway

Academic trackPolicy – governmental trackBlended learning trackNorth – South – South track

The BIG picture

The BIG Picture

• Online and distance education is steadily increasing all over the world

IndiaSweden

Russia

South America

The US

AfricaAustralia

China

The BIG picture

• The growth in higher education is massive

20442030

320

4002007 - 2030

Mill. students

EU/OECD projections the need for HEby 2030: 400 mill.

New teachers needed in classroom (??) by 2015

And the need For new teachers by 2030……….

The BERTA project

BERTA: Background

Need for qualified teacher trainers in ODLNeed for teachers offering quality ODL

Need for quality ODLNeed for teachers

BERTA

Bringing Educational Resources For Teachers in Africa

An idea consulted among stakeholders:

• To develop a high quality Open Educational Resource, OER, as open online courseware for training teachers/ faculty in open, , distance and online learning.

• Target group for the project result: Teacher trainers.

• The first regional area of priority should be Africa. • A regional focus on Asia will be considered when

the project has delivered.

The Consortium

• Fundació per a la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (FUOC) – Spain

• South African Institute for Distance Education, SAIDE, South Africa

BERTA: Objectives• 1. Collate a set of OER organised into a course format that will enable

teacher trainers in African higher education institutions to learn about the potential of distance and eLearning to support teacher development and empower them to adapt existing OER to suit their own contexts of practice.

• 2. The set or collection of themed resources will be in a form that promotes flexible delivery options of the full set or a selection thereof by the target audience.

• 3. Offer teachers the possibility to participate in a pilot of the HANDSON ICT project: http://handsonict.eu/.

• 4. The resource and its constituent parts will be developed in consultation with the target stakeholder community but the final version will be published under a creative commons CCBY licence and hence will become available to anybody with an interest in using distance and eLearning provision to support expanded quality teacher development.

Stakeholders

Cooperaiton: Knowledge network

Stakeholders invited• African Council for Open and

Distance Education (ACDE)• The African Virtual University• The OpenCourseWare Consortium. • UKOU TESSA • Cambridge’s oer4schools project • Distance Education and Teacher

Education in Africa (DETA) • Active members of the OER Africa

African Teacher Education Network:– Mauritius– Tanzania– Zambia– Kenya– South Africa– Togo– Ghana

• Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU)

• China Open University • Contact North, Canada• Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia• Open University, UK• UNISA, South Africa• Open University of Netherlands• The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) • The European Association of Distance

Teaching Universities (EADTU) • The Sloan Consortium• UNESCO• The European Commission• The African Commission

Timeline

Phase 1

IdeaConsult

CallConsortium

1/2012 2/12 1/13 2/13 1/14

ProjectDeliver

Implement

2/14 1/15 2/15

Effect

Expand

Cooperation

Awareness

Anchoring

Improvement

Fundraising

Phase 1

A few reflections

MOOC – MOCDiversity

Fundamental principles - education

The Appendix

Paul Stacey, Associate Director of Global Learning, Creative Commons, Oktober 2013

MOOC or MOC

Mind to MOOCsOverview, reflections and brainstorming in whitening water

Think tank 20 October 2013, Open Universitty of China, Beijing, China

To be reported to the ICDE Standing Conference of Presidents meeting and Policy Forum

Excerpts from ICDE Mind to MOOCs reportA few of the issues and recommendations Equity. • Consider this initiative as an opportunity to rethink our role as universities and take

up MOOCs. . • Integrate open MOOCs in our respective institutions• National, regional and transnational cooperation is a great opportunity in developing

MOOC and MOOC-alike concepts. Diversity. • Undertake contextualized strategies when implementing MOOCs • Be aware of cultural and language aspects → anglo-centric core, colonialism • OER and OCW as the basis for MOOC will ease contextual, cultural and language

adaptationInnovation and Quality. • Improve and innovate on pedagogical aspects: methodologies, content formats,

assessment. • Provide learning analytics as a tool for improving the courses. Connect the learning

process and research for new knowledge and improvements.• Promote research about MOOCs. • Keep moving towards quality. Beyond quantity of MOOCs and users, the focus on

quality is essential for sustainability.

Dr Qian Tang, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO (8/11/2013).It is necessary to repeat the confirmation of fundamental principles:

• Education is– A fundamental human rights– A public good– A basis for man's attainment of peace, sustainable development, gender

equality and responsible global citizenship– A key factor in reducing inequality and poverty.

• And further: Imperative for Education for post 2015 agenda must be:– Equitable access to education for all and at all levels– Quality of education and learning– Fairness– Gender equality– Lifelong learning

Thank you!titlestad@icde.org

www.icde.org

Bali, Indonesia from 19-21 November 2014, hosted by Universitas Terbuka.

Academic trackPolicy – governmental trackBlended learning trackNorth – South – South track

From the UNESCO OER Declaration

• Foster awareness and use of OER• Encourage the development and adaptation of

OER in a variety of languages and cultural contexts• Encourage the open licensing of educational

materials produced with public funds.ICDE work shouder to shoulder with UNESCO and other stakeholders to have this implementet

OER and Open and Distance Learning can increase the impact of

investments in knowledge

OER &ODL

Open Access – open scienceResearch based OERResearch based teaching

Innovation in education – open innovationInnovate the learning system – flip the classroomKnowledge supply for innovation

High quality educationResearch based educationResource based educationOpen education