E-LEARNING: A GUIDEBOOK OF PRINCIPLES, PROCEDURES AND PRACTICES

This guidebook will help readers to systematically approach their engagement with e-learning, irrespective of the educational sector or level within which they may be working. The content of this guidebook has been carefully selected to enable readers to consider all the issues in relation to e-learning. Besides the great deal of resources that are included in this guidebook, its unique feature is the opportunity it provides readers to “tell us a story” about their experiences in relation to the issue or subject under discussion. Telling a story requires readers to pause, slow down, reflect, learn, access and share their experiences or connect in a meaningful way with others. These are opportunities designed to remind readers of relevant experiences, which will enable them to reflect upon their experiences and those of other colleagues. These will enable readers to make better sense of what this guidebook recommends.

Divided into nine chapters, this guidebook discuss issues related to attributes of e-learning, Contemporary trends and practices, e-learning management systems, collaborative designs for e-learning, assessing learning outcomes, e-moderation, and evaluation of e-learning environments.

Chapter 1: E-learning definition, scope, trends, attributes & opportunities
Chapter 2: Pedagogical designs for e-learning
Chapter 3: Assessment, feedback, and e-moderation
Chapter 4: Online learning management systems
Chapter 5: Digital learning objects
Chapter 6: Online learning course development models
Chapter 7: Management and implementation of e-learning
Chapter 8: Evaluating the impacts of e-learning

By : Som Naidu

e-Learning for Development Free Course

In the sustainable development and agricultural community, there is a large gap between the number of people espousing the promise of the Internet to increase access to education and training and the number of people actually developing relevant and instructionally sound content.

This course is designed to address the gap between the number of people espousing the promise of the Internet to increase access to education and training, and the number of people actually developing relevant and instructionally sound content.

Development organizations are making tremendous investments that will link people in remote locations to learning opportunities on the Internet. But where is the content to deliver over these links? The problem is not one of demand or lack of suitable content. Rather, the people best positioned to add value to knowledge by packaging content in Internet-accessible and educationally sound ways lack the skills to do so.

The link:

http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/eLearningForDev/

A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources

This Guide comprises three sections. The first – a summary of the key issues – is presented in the form of a set of ‘Frequently Asked Questions’. Its purpose is to provide readers with a quick and user-friendly introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER) and some of the key issues to think about when exploring how to use OER most effectively.

The second section is a more comprehensive analysis of these issues, presented in the form of a traditional research paper. For those who have a deeper interest in OER, this section will assist with making the case for OER more substantively.

The third section is a set of appendices, containing more detailed information about specific areas of relevance to OER. These are aimed at people who are looking for substantive information regarding a specific area of interest.

Prepared by Neil Butcher
for the Commonwealth of Learning & UNESCO
Edited by Asha Kanwar (COL) and Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić (UNESCO)

A higher-resolution print version is also available from COL

http://www.col.org/resources/publications/Pages/detail.aspx?PID=357

Open Training Platform From UNESCO and many Free courses

A good resource for free courses and Researches, It is apart from UNESCO.

The objective behind this platform is to empower trainers or/and trainees with free resources, offer them a structured collaborative space to share their training but also to promote and value the “open” training materials, which are freely and openly accessible for trainers and self-learners to use and re-use for non commercial purposes such as teaching, learning and research.

It offers a central access point to non-formal education resources and training which may be relevant to them according to their needs, knowledge, language and culture, with special emphasis on developing countries’ people. This is at the service of end users (through community centers, IT kiosks, equipped libraries, etc.) but also helps trainers in their guiding and facilitating role to make people, including women and young, adapted to actively participate in knowledge societies and economies where their future stands in their ability to be active opportunity seekers

http://opentraining.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/page.cgi?d=1

Mobile Learning in Developing Countries

Mobile learning, or m-learning, is a personal, unobtrusive, spontaneous, “anytime, anywhere” way to learn and to access educational tools and material that enlarges access to education for all. It reinforces learners’ sense of ownership of the learning experience, offering them flexibility in how, when and where they learn. In developing countries, mobile technologies potentially deliver educa- tion without dependence on an extensive traditional communications infra- structure, leapfrogging some of the intervening development phases encoun- tered in developed countries such as installing extensive electricity power grids, and building multiple computer rooms in educational institutions. Although m-learning experience remains limited, it is becoming a credible, cost-effective component of blended open and distance learning (ODL) provisions, adaptable to an institution’s needs and situation. M-learning devices are lightweight and handheld, including: • Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and palmtop or handheld computers. • Mobile phones, also called cell phones or handphones. Consider mobile phones, which are cheap and widely available, alongside other wireless communication devices; and handhelds, which are more expensive and scarce, alongside desktop and laptop comput- ers. Mobile devices are educationally interesting because they offer: • Several communications channels on one device, for example, email, voice, and text messaging. • Cheaper, comparable functionality with desktops or laptops. • Wireless access to educational materials, other students and Internet resources. Handhelds are currently the dominant mobile devices, apart from basic mobile phones. These technologies are converging, creating power- ful all-in-one tools such as “smartphones,” mobile phones with the func- tionality of a handheld; and handhelds with mobile phone capability. This guide focuses on the use of handheld computers or smartphones in m-learning.

By

John Traxler , Agnes Kukulska-Julme

The source site and download

http://mobileactive.org/research/mobile-learning-developing-countries