There are many different issues surrounding online education, for and against virtual learning. First I’m going to concentrate on ‘Zambia’ and an issue I found on the website (link below) in how e-learning is beneficial to the African culture. After a breakout of cholera earlier this year, schools in Zambia had to be closed. “The government found itself unprepared to provide alternative means of education to school children.” Therefore, this is offering e-learning as an alternative to an area like Zambia which is prone to outbreaks of diseases which consequently restricts some of the children’s education. The technological developments allow for Zambia to have options when it comes to teaching, whereas beforehand teaching and learning was jeopardised to some extent when outbreaks of disease etc occurred because of the poverty as such they didn’t have the developments for alternatives. The hegemony of the African culture is being developed parallel with the technological expansion to give the culture more options for certain elements via the new media of the internet. However, there are disadvantages of e-learning within this culture as highlighted in a book I found (Human resourse Management in South Africa: Warnich et al: page 519) because of factors such as access to computers and whether the culture is prepared as "not all trainees may be ready for e learning" and "not appropriate for all training content."
Generally speaking, with reference to the lecture there are other factors which can in some ways, discourage the use of e-learning in Africa. For example, as mentioned a couple of weeks back, the internet is dominated by the English accent. Therefore African users are at a disadvantage because of the lack of familiar content. Moreover there is the factor of “educational elitism” (lecture) where countries such as America and Australia have had greater experience and success within online learning. There is also the cost factor with online learning, which is an identification of capitalism expressed through the internet through businesses mainly in Britain, U.S.A and Australia, obviously which countries like Africa lack.
http://www.elearning-africa.com/newsportal/english/index.php
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I think this is a website that promotes e-learning's attributes and effectiveness. Can you think of any reason that the authors have to see the 'positive side of e-learning' rather than dwell on the problems?
ReplyDeleteBe skeptical of everything you encounter (including this!) It is only by immersing ourselves in multiple opinions that we can start to get a feeling for the interests involved. Then we need to be looking for the quality of evidence people use.