Casablanca, the heart that beats with simplicity and hospitality, forced me to fall in love with it after a couple of hours of my arrival. I left my hotel room discovering the surrounding environment and looking for a restaurant to eat; I was quite starving. It was very different than where I live Evry, France. This made Casablanca more interesting and desirable.
The actual work started when Adel and I met Mr. Andalussi. He was waiting for us in the hotel’s lobby. He is such a person who anyone enjoys his company from the first minute. He is kind, pleasant to be around, humble and very passionate about his work. We talked for few minutes then we went to pick up Mrs. Valerie Hannon, Director of Innovation Unit who happened to in Casablanca to meet Mr. Andalussi regarding the projects he founded but mainly INJAZ. I truly enjoyed her company as well. She was quite intelligent, critical and pleasant to be around.
More than three hours has passed talking to Mr. Andalussi and discovering more about his impressive experiences. I was very interested in knowing as much as I could about his life and how as former banker for many years he is spending his time and effort giving back to the community and trying to create a valuable impact in Morocco. Mrs. Hannon, Adel and I were all eager to know details and asked as many questions as we could.
As a result of his experience, valuable management abilities and strong connections, he founded a project called Al-Jisr in 1999 and another one in 2007 called Injaz. Both of the projects share a main aspect of connecting the privet capital to be involved in developing education and trying to help the future of youth in Casablanca and Morocco on general. However, Injaz is more likely focusing on the aspect of entrepreneurship and creating the essential tools for young people – 3rd year university students- to become owners of their own enterprises based on their innovative ideas.
Al-Jisr is mainly getting the enterprises to have actual involvement in the schools, rather than only supplying the financial needs. This was implemented by forming “support committees” in the schools formed by the enterprises representatives, school officials and parents of the students. They all try to find the needs and meet them.
The projects defiantly have more than what was said today or even mentioned in on AL-Jisr’s website. I’m quite excited to meet other stakeholders.
Tomorrow, we are starting the day at 9:00 AM. I only have few hours to sleep.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog.
Mohammed
I can say that this second day of e-learning Africa was much brighter than the first one. Some of the sessions I attended were more of a discussion rather than have some people speak on behalf of others. Just as it was in the first day we divided ourselves to attend different sessions so that we could later combine the information. But before we attended these sessions we made sure we had worked and uploaded the previous day information.
The first session I attended with Ali was more focused on the topic about “Teachers competence development in the context”. One of the speaker contended that the teachers have to be motivated to use technology in their daily teaching carrier. Some of the ways in which the teachers can be motivated to do this is through introduction of e-learning incentives were by the teachers get remuneration for designing new e-learning mode, also by introduction of e-learning competition where by those who win are given an award. I agree that these mode may work to motivate teachers use e-learning but again my worry is when there will be no award again the teachers may decide to stop these mode since they get nothing out of it. I think the teachers should be self motivated for the benefit of their students and themselves.
I attended another session which was in a discussion mode focusing on different ICT problems in their diversity and how can these problems be solved. This was the best session I attended during e-learning Africa. It is for one reason that, problems were aired and solutions given right away. I wished that all the other sessions were carried out like this one.
The day ended up by a very exiting debate which was chaired by very motivated and experience individuals who gave a lot of points for and against the motion which among others suggested that with the introduction of technology, we do not need teachers anymore. I think we as learners should also discuss this topic though my stand will be that ICT should not replace the teachers but rather compliment what they are doing. The only thing that made us laugh during this debate was when we were debating about the importance of ICT electricity went of in the conference room for about ten minutes. This got me thinking, If the development of ICT in Africa a soon possibility?
I may say that the e-learning conference was a success in its own way but still there a lot of so many questions that remain an answered on how can e-learning help in access to education in Africa. I am so happy to be one of the learners who attended this conference and I thank Ali and Aleksandra for being such good mentors and advisors throughout the conference.
Viva Learners’ Voice, Viva WISE, Viva Qatar Foundation!
Martha
We had a late start to Day 3 because we spent most parts of the evening of day two working on our blogs, tweeting and discussing some of the issues that were raised in the open plenary session of day one and the sessions in day two. Interestingly we all ended up sharing the same views on the fact that the conference so far was not interactive enough and did not entirely address the issues in details. We absolutely enjoyed the presentations given because they were very informative, however we just felt that they did not go further than a presentation; they did not open the floor for open discussions and sharing of information or experiences.
Our day did not particularly go according to plan. The debates we originally selected to attend because of their focus on access to education did not run appropriately. This was because, some speakers were either not present, or the topics were slightly altered. In addition, it was quite difficult to understand the translators in sessions which were conducted by French speakers so we had to move around a bit to other sessions, which were more language friendly. Aleksandra was also very helpful in these situations.
After lunch, we spent time conducting interviews because we wanted to delve deeper into the minds of some speakers to find out more practical ways of how ICT tools could be used to improve access to education. To be really honest, these one on one interviews gave us more insight into the problem than the debates since most presenters mainly presented on their research findings into the problem and did not quite discuss the implications as well as options for it to be replicated in other countries. We wanted to focus on the bigger picture and not just the research ‘in the moment’ and we achieved it! More details on the sessions coming soon!
Naa
So Day 2 of E-Learning Conference has come to an end. Today was very interesting and eventful. The morning started with the Opening Plenary Session, which started late again with technical hitches and problems with translation. The theme was: Towards an Inclusive knowledge in Africa; Chaired by the Minister of Higher Education & Scientific Research. The focus of this session was to highlight the importance of the use of ICT to promote and improve access to and transfer of information/knowledge in order to improve development in Africa, especially in the rural areas. This notion was captured throughout the speeches of all four key note speakers who included: Gilletta Gbanhoun Mouyabi, Directpr AGeNTIC, Benin, Theophilus Mlaki, Consultant, ICT for Development (ICT4D), Tanzania, Fasil Bekel, Microsoft Shape the Future and Father Godfrey Nzamujo, Founder, Songhai Regional Centre, Benin.
The presentations did not start as well as they could. There was an initial distraction by an inexperienced interpreter who could not quite effectively translate the speeches from French into English. This created an uproar, which was quickly resolved by the Chairman. The speaker on the floor, Madam Gilletta had to translate her own speech, which was a real challenge. This language barrier is one of our major limitations since it somewhat influences some of the sessions we attend. This is because, in as much as we have interests in certain sessions, our goal is also to maximize our participation. Thus, there really is no point to attend a session in French, where we would not have maximum benefits, only because we may have strong interests in the subject area being discussed.
After the opening session we all attended different sessions; again in attempt to maximize our participation in e-learning 2012. The sessions generally went in two opposites; they were either great or not great, despite the speakers or themes. Some of the themes were even quite misleading as the speakers did not stick to what they were meant to be discussing. My first session was ok, but even got better when I followed up with the speakers at their stand the exhibition centre. It was a presentation/discussion by WYSE Technology on their innovative product; Cloud Computing.
The highlight of my day was during the Networking Café Session with, dubbed getting to know each other at e-learning conference. It gave me the opportunity to meet and interact with other participants and speakers as well as enabled me to talk about WISE and Learners Voice, emphasizing on the relevance of this conference, which is line with our goal of improving access to education through innovation. ICT is also a form of innovation. This was a very interesting and informative session because of the different discussion/interaction opportunities, which enabled me to learn and share information.
My general impressions on Day 2 were good. We had a very fruitful day. The speakers in the opening plenary session did a fantastic job with their presentations. They all touted and gave a broader view of education since they did not only focus on education in the classroom, but looked at the bigger picture. They looked at access to education from the point of view of farmers getting access to knowledge, which helped improve farming practices and hence increase yields and thus profits. Also ICT tools can be used to improve disease prevention by using it as a medium to transfer information to people living in the rural areas and providing educational materials through ICT.
We concluded the day with a much sought after interview with Mr Theophilus Mlaki, an ICT consultant in Tanzania who worked for the Tanzanian government for over 40 years so do watch out for it! We had to embark on a short trip to his hotel too, so this was also an interesting part of the whole experience. So far Ali and Aleksandra have been phenomenal with their support and Martha and I have made a great LV team to so far. We miss Sulaiman very much! I am looking forward to day 3!
It’s past midnight and my bed is calling! I’m out!
Naa
I arrived in Benin Contonou on Tuesday 22 May. I had a good flight only that no meals were served so I arrived very hungry and lunch had already been served! Quel dommage! I was the first to arrive and it felt very lonely. I had dinner alone at the adjacent hotel and went to bed. A very uneventful first day. I must say though that I was really tired and needed to gain my energy for the conference!
Day 1 of the conference was unique a real Benin experience. It was short, highly entertaining and insightful. The opening plenary session itself started at 6pm so I had a chance to spend most parts of my day with Ali and Aleksandra, who make a fantastic team! We spent most parts of the morning dealing with logistics (well mainly Ali and Aleksandra). I became quite bored so I decided to help them out. We had some challenges with Sulaiman because he could not make it unfortunately. We tried to resolve this problem, however it just happened that he could not join us, despite the measures put in place. Ali took me though the program and we prepared for it as we waited for Martha who arrived later that afternoon. We quickly went through the program with her and then attended the opening session. We also received some emails and guidelines from our mentor Tom Cassidy, which was nice and encouraging. The opening session, which started an hour late and ended an hour and thirty minutes late, was attended by high profile personalities including the His Excellency Dr Thomas Bon Yayi, the President of the Republic of Benin. The focus was on the fact that Benin was determined to become Africa’s ICT hub and this would help them greatly improve access to education via ICT. The conference was finally opened by the Minster for communication, who spoke extensively on the importance of ICT use for access to education, using data from research conducted. Other speakers included Mark Jordan, the Vice President/General Manager EMEA, WYSE Technology and Prof Sugata Mitra all advocating the importance of ICT if we want to improve access to education. Aside all the presentations, there were several performances by cultural troupes, which exposed us to the culture of the people of Benin. That was very entertaining! One important quote from Prof. Sugata Mitra, that got me thinking was “can a learner learn to read on his own?” Can you—- try it but in a different language?… It goes to say that education truly is important! I am looking forward to day two! It should be even more exciting!
Naa
