With an explosion in the use of collaborative tools for business and the rise of mobility, the traditional ‘top-down’ model of training, whether classroom-based or delivered via distance learning, is outmoded. Today’s workforce must be able to learn continuously, whether this is to improve performance in the workplace or to prepare for career progression.

A typical day in the life of a 21st century learner :

• 8am: Micro-learning on a smart phone on the tube or bus on the way to work.
• 9am: Catching up on reading from a selection of professional websites via RSS feed in the office.
• 12.30pm: e-learning class before lunch.
• 3pm: One-to-one with a mentor to discuss a new post and to analyse a real situation.
• 6pm: Online exchange with a web-based community about an operational problem.

New technologies must adapt to this new trend and provide learning environments which are centred around learner needs, rather than training catalogues. Beyond the dichotomy of classroom training or e-learning, new technologies must facilitate formal and informal learning (online chats, blogs, etc.), long term and ‘just in time’ training, and allow learners to connect from their mobile or a PC in a completely integrated way. CrossKnowledge’s vision of learning as shared with its clients has profoundly shaped the development of the new version of the CrossKnowledge Learning Suite.

The CrossKnowledge Learning Suite is a next-generation ‘learning portal’ – customisable, social and mobile. It allows the participant to access all learning activities in one place, learning paths, e-learning resources, messages from a mentor, group or communities, RSS feeds, etc.

The project will directly target some 117,000 unemployed youth in the Unguja and Pemba islands in Zanzibar and will build on the success of ALSDP I pilot phase completed in 2010. It aims at reducing unemployment among the youth and women by enhancing their skills through improved access to technical and business skills required by the labour market. It is consistent with the Bank’s commitment to pro-poor human resource development programmes and inclusive growth in Regional Member Countries including Tanzania.

The ADF loan will cover 71.4 % of USD 32.8 million (UA 21.02 million) total project cost. The project’s other financiers are Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (21.3%) and Tanzania’s government (7.3%). The project, to be implemented in five years, would be completed by April 2014.

Tanzania has a land area of 945000 sq. km, a population of 43.7 million growing at the rate of 2.9%, and USD 440 GNP. Since 1971, the Bank has approved 103 operations in Tanzania, with a total commitment amounting to UA 1.55 billion or USD 2.5 billion, net of cancellations. At end 2010, the bulk of Bank Group commitments were financed by ADF (95.4%), followed by AfDB (3.4%), Nigeria Trust fund (0.8%) and Private Sector window (0.4%).

Bank Group impact has been particularly felt in infrastructure, agriculture, and, more recently, in human resource development and budget support. Recent successfully completed operations include the Agriculture Sector Development Program I, Alternative Learning Skills Development I, and Poverty Reduction Support project II.

Source: Afdb.org

Opening Africa’s leading conference on ICT-supported education, eLearning Africa, in Dar es Salaam on May 25, Dr Bilal said, “We are now witnessing increasing investments in ICT on our Continent, the enthusiasm of the youth in adapting new technologies and bridging the geographical barriers brought by fast changing converging technologies. These initiatives attest to the fact that Africa is now moving from being a spectator to a participatory role in the development of technologies.”

This was demonstrated on Wednesday at the eLearning Africa conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 25 ministers and deputy ministers and more than 50 high-level government officials from from 21 countries* throughout Africa convened at the eLearning Africa Ministerial Round Table to discuss the future role of ICTs in African education. During the conference, 322 speakers from 57 countries have been discussing and demonstrating best practices in 65 parallel sessions, presenting new ways of learning on the Continent and in other parts of the world. An accompanying exhibition shows a wide range of innovative technologies for learning. The conference has attracted more than 1,700 participants from all over the world.

In line with the central conference theme, “Youth, Skills and Employability”, Vice President Dr Bilal pointed out that young people in Africa make up 37 per cent of the working age population and 60 per cent of the unemployed. But whilst remarkable achievements have been noted in terms of access and expansion of infrastructure for schools, colleges, vocational training institutions and polytechnics, the rapid increase of student enrolment has posed a number of challenges, such as a shortage of qualified teachers and limited access to library and Internet facilities. Dr Bilal said that to address these challenges, it was imperative for African governments to invest in ICT in schools, colleges and job-related training programmes.

Dr Shukuru Kawambwa, Tanzania’s Minister of Education and Vocational Training, highlighted his Government’s drive to improve standards. He pointed out that the country’s newest university, in the capital Dodoma, only started four years ago and is now accommodating 20,000 students. He said, “My hope and vision is to see Dodoma University spearheading ICT in education.”

Michael Trucano, Senior ICT and Education Policy Specialist at the World Bank, embarked on a tour of innovative uses of ICTs around the world, from novels published on mobile phones in Japan to Uruguay, which is the first country in the world to provide every single student with a computer. Mr Trucano said that the effectiveness of ICT-supported learning could not always be measured but he was optimistic that soon “all the world?s content will fit in the palm“.

The Tanzanian publisher and political commentator Jenerali Ulimwengu made a case for modern pedagogy, including a more ‘democratic’ teacher-student interaction. He stressed the importance of local content and local
languages: Education and training, especially in complex fields such as science and IT, can be made more effective if students are enabled to learn in their mother tongue. ICT can provide easier access to knowledge: “All learning requires technology, all technology requires learning“, he added.

In another first for eLearning Africa, the conference was addressed by a senior NATO Lieutenant General, Karlheinz Viereck, who is responsible for Joint Force Training at the world’s largest military alliance. At a special session on improving cooperation and crisis response, he spoke about the need for “global training” for emergencies and said that NATO was keen to develop joint initiatives with the African Union.

The conference concluded on Friday with the eLearning Africa Debate about the potential of Open Educational Resources.

*Tanzania, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Burundi, Kenya, South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Benin, Senegal, Namibia, Ethiopia, Congo, Djibouti, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Liberia.

Source: Press Release

Serving as a pan-African platform, eLearning Africa links a network of decision-makers from governments and administrations with universities, schools, governmental and private training providers, industry and important partners in development cooperation.

Each year a different country hosts the event. At the 2010 event, 1778 teachers, educators, trainers and ICT professionals from 78 countries, the majority coming from Africa, convened in Lusaka, Zambia. Conference languages are English and French.

www.elearning-africa.com

When: May 25 – 27, 2011
Where: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Organisers: ICWE GmbH, Leibnizstrasse 32, 10625 Berlin, Germany, www.icwe.net
Tel: +49 (0)30 310 18 18-0, Fax: +49 (0)30 324 98 33
Contact: Katharina Goetze, info@elearning-africa.com, www.elearning-africa.com

Source: Press Release

Thousands of people read his Internet Time Blog every day. He co-authored the book “Implementing eLearning” and writes a column on effectiveness for Chief Learning Officer magazine. His new book, which is just about to be published, is called “Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance”. In advance of his presentation at Online Eudca Berlin, he offers a vivid outline of his thoughts on informal learning.

Nothing is more important to business success than continuously improving the know-how of workers. In the industrial era, management’s role was training workers what to do: formal learning. In the knowledge era, workers want to learn but hate to be trained; telling them how to do something insults their intelligence; they want to learn for themselves: informal learning.

Formal learning is like riding a bus. The driver decides where the bus is going; the passengers are along for the ride. On the opposite end, informal learning is like riding a bike: the rider chooses the destination, the speed, and the route. The rider can take a detour at a moment’s notice to admire the scenery or go to the bathroom.

Informal learning happens outside of the bus and the classroom. There’s no curriculum and no certificate of completion. It goes on all the time. Informal learning includes things like trying and failing, asking a colleague, reading a book, or watching television. Informal learning is how we learn about life. It’s how we make sense of things.

Formal learning–riding the bus–is great for novices. It’s efficient to have help getting the lay of the land and getting to the destination. Training departments are very talented at setting up bus routes.

Informal learning, like bicycle riding, is most appropriate for people who already know the territory. They want tips on the new short cuts and the essence of a topic. They want what they want, to plug the holes in their knowledge, and they won’t sit still for bus rides to their destinations. Been there, done that. Training departments don’t devote much effort to helping cyclists.

Here’s the irony: The cyclists are the high performers. Raising their performance 5% blows the roof off. (Whereas raising the performance of novices 5% doesn’t even register.) When it comes to learning, corporations spend most of their money where it does the least good. It’s all bus routes and no bike paths.

Some training departments justify treating everyone as a bus passenger by saying that works for both novices and the old pros. This is flat-out wrong. The bike riders will always find a reason not to take the bus ride. Workers with the most upside potential rarely receive any focused learning at all.

Informal learning is natural. It occurs when we treat people and organizations as organisms in nature. It is the pathway to business success in our emerging world.

Jay Cross’ Blog

Informal Learning Blog

Source: Icwe.net

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People seeking education opportunities, those searching for right courses, who need special training with special time requirements, educational institutes seeking cooperation with foreign education institution, Professionals working for international educational exchanges, University and college graduates seeking higher study opportunities abroad. Companies, entities.

Visitor registration

EXHIBITOR’S PROFILE

Universities, Colleges, Institutes, Polytechnics, Computer Schools, Business Schools, Technical institutes, Management training centers, Medical Schools, Tertiary institutions, Hotel Management institutes, Schools of fine arts, Language centers, Aviation Schools, Professional examination bodies, Distance Learning institutes, Career guidance centers, Student publications, International Schools, Other education services and supplies providers, Large companies with academic.

Source: Biztradeshows.com

The centre will be financially and administratively subordinate to the executive council and will aim to boost training and educational opportunities and develop human resources plans for the sector.

The new centre will also be responsible for setting standards, conditions and controls for vocational and technical education and training in the emirate.

Source: Ameinfo.com

Wikipedia’s definition is concise
LMSs range from systems for managing training and educational records, to software for distributing courses over the Internet with features for online collaboration. Corporate training uses LMSs to automate record-keeping and employee registration. Student self-service (e.g., self-registration on instructor-led training), training workflow (e.g., user notification, manager approval, wait-list management), the provision of on-line learning (e.g., Computer-Based Training, read & understand), on-line assessment, management of continuous professional education (CPE), collaborative learning (e.g., application sharing, discussion threads), and training resource management (e.g., instructors, facilities, equipment), are dimensions to Learning Management Systems.

Criteria for Choosing an LMS
Many large companies have their own LMS system and many small training providers don’t need one at all. I should say here that because an LMS is not “needed” in order to begin offering e-learning and because they are generally quite costly, they are somewhat outside the scope of my goals, as stated at the outset of this article. However, in the interest of understanding the full scope e-learning, I’ll share these few brief notes.

If you’re looking to differentiate among the many LMS providers, you’ll probably want to consider price, service, ease of use, number of users and/or learners it accommodates, whether you host on your own server or the provider’s, inclusion of course authoring software, inclusion of conferencing software, ability to work with other software you have, and general sophistication of the system.

Vendor Options
As I said, many LMS systems are quite costly. Of the few I list here, some look like a pretty good value for trainers who can’t afford a large, robust system; others are providers whose names came up most frequently over the course of my research. Because this was outside of my scope, the notes are a bit more scant.

Moodle
Moodle is a free and open source LMS. Some say Moodle is quite cumbersome—but it’s free! Some LMS vendors work off the Moodle platform and enhance it, giving users a low-cost solution but with better service, such as the two listed below:

Pricing
Free
Vendor-enhanced option: EasyCampus by Educadium
$29 per month
Based on Moodle, EasyCampus includes course templates and wizards; enrollment and reporting tools; social networking tools; payment services; etc. The Professional version features unlimited courses, 500 user accounts, and 2 GB storage.
Vendor-enhanced option: Remote-Learner
Remote Learner advances the capabilities of Moodle and offers support.
$795 per year for the entry-level package, called Sandbox.

Odijoo
Odijoo lets you develop and post online courses for free, and takes as its fee 10 percent of your revenue income.
Odijoo’s service includes a tool to create courses online or import Articulate courses, which you can conduct as facilitated or self-paced courses.

Pricing
10 percent of the revenue you take in from charging for courses (paid monthly)

Atlantic Link
Atlantic Link offers the whole package: an LMS plus rapid e-learning software. Based in the U.K., Atlantic Link has been in the U.S. since 2007. Its platform enables concurrent developing (two users can give feedback at once). It also lets you record and edit audio, and it works with Captivate and Camtasia. A host of fun interactive activities are built into the software.

Pricing
$2,700 + $6,000 + 18 percent update fee for the Perpetual package
$3,300 per year for the hosted LMS version

Course-Mill by Trivantis
Course-Mill is an affordable, lower end LMS for unlimited users.

Pricing
$14,995 (software)
$7,500 setup + monthly fee for the hosted solution

Source: eLearn Magazine

Source: AfDB

Features include: chat, specific application sharing, recording, phone and computer audio, share either whole screen or select applications, plus pen, highlighter, and spotlight tools. Users say it’s ideal for 15 (personal version) or 25 (corporate version) people, and is among the easiest and least expensive.

Citrix also offers Go To Webinar, which is ideal for groups of around 1,000 attendees. It allows host polling, but is focused more on participant listening than on participating and chatting. You can choose to “mute all” or selectively “unmute.”

Go To Training, recently launched, lets you send content to attendees prior to training, post downloadable documents that can be viewed and referenced during sessions, and welcome up to 200 attendees.

Claims to fame

• Instant meetings with a single click
• Invite others on the fly and/or instantly change presenters
• Transfer keyboard and mouse control
• Integrated scheduling with Microsoft Outlook

Pricing

• Free 30-day trial
• GoToMeeting: starts at $49 per month
• GoToWebinar: starts at $99 per month
• GoToTraining: starts at $149 per month

Source: eLearn Magazine