[UgaBYTES] Telecentre academy | learners experience & Kampala wasn't built in a day

[FELICIAN NCHEYE]

Thank you Pete.
   
  This is a clear indication that we have the necessary resources for the academy to take place. Let us make use of all what we have gatthered to plan for a strategy. So that the Sudan meeting come up with a concretized plan of action.
   
  We are in the right direction.
   
  Ncheye

Pete Cranston <pete.cranston at btinternet.com> wrote:
  Hi

Another good discussion on this list that I want to join, for three reasons:

1. I have been talking to Sulah, Meddie and Shaddy about management training
ideas 

2 I spent years in adult education in the UK, doing both basic skills and
management training and I think there is a lot of learning we can use. 

3. I think so far the discussion has mainly been about supply-side issues:
what can the academy do, how should it be structured, what certification
should be available. I think it's useful also to talk about users, learners,
and how they might experience and learn through the academy. 

Thinking about some principles might help develop concrete ideas. I wonder
what people think about these suggestions:

1. Learning is a social process. People learn best when they interact with
other learners and instructors or facilitators. I have done online and
distance learning as a student, and it is an isolating experience, making it
hard to keep motivated. Certification is one stimulus, but it seems a long
way off when you are trying to complete an assignment on your own.

2. The process of learning is more important than the products such as
training materials or technologies used. There are lots of materials already
available that could be adapted and used.

3. Programmes for part-time students in work need to deal with issues and
activities that have immediate applications in their everyday lives, that
involve their actual work situations.

Adult learning and training, both on and offline, uses four tools to address
these principles:

A. Learning sets: enabling and encouraging people to learn together through
sharing their experiences, problems, and successes, done in a structured way

B. Tutorials: tutors deal with issues on an individual basis, provide
personal support and help structure learning and activity. In part-time
and/or distance learning this can use appropriate communications technology
- phones, online fora, email etc. 

C. Mentoring: people - it could be volunteers for the academy - with
experience of the field, who provide a fixed quota of time in which they
will answer specific queries, track and talk to learners. This is about
motivation and morale as much as subject expertise. For the telecentre
community the activity on this list suggests there are lots of people - me
included - who would put some hours to this, talking to people as they work.


4. Content is work-based: assignments and learning activities involve
applying theory or good practice to participants own work-place. Everyday
work is the basis for sets of activities and people's learning grows from
being encouraged to think and comment on their real situations. 

Kampala wasn't built in a day, nor was any school or academy. Could there
be a small-scale programme in East Africa, testing out these kinds of ideas
and beginning to develop ideas and skills about how to manage the process,
recruit and support people etc? It could focus on one concrete activity:
such as developing a business plan, or running a needs assessment process,
or developing and testing a revenue generating product? 

Best wishes to all, and especially to the star managers and staff of
Nakaseke tc

Pete Cranston


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Manager
Sengerema Multipurpose Community Telecentre
P.O.BOX.399 Sengerema-Mwanza Tanzania
E-mail:ncheyefb at yahoo.com
Cell:+255 784 799630
Tel: +255 28 2590146
Web: www.Sengerema.or.tz
       
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