With the generous support of the Hurford Foundation, Kabissa is carrying out a pilot project this year to explore ways to extend the benefits of our Time To Get Online training program with more Kabissa members through E-Learning. E-learning, courses conducted mainly over the Internet and/or on a computer, can give a tremendous boost to African organizations seeking to make more effective use of ICT. The two e-learning courses we developed and are piloting, in response to a poll of our members, are:
- Running an Online Course
- Emerging technologies
The first course was run via two Google Groups itself and has been completed successfully by two sets of participants, one in East Africa and the other in Nigeria. The second will be provided as a self-paced online course via our new online community site. A full report on the outcomes of the pilot project will be published in January. In the meantime, the executive summary of our proposal to the Hurford Foundation is published below.
Executive Summary from Kabissa E-Learning Pilot Proposal
Around the globe, civil society organizations work tirelessly to ensure the universal rights to freedom, social justice, and peace for their own communities. Too often, however, these organizations face major obstacles in their fight for social change. Government-controlled media, poor infrastructures, and a lack of resources all work against these activists and isolate them from the rest of the world.
New digital technologies, in particular the Internet, present an opportunity to break that isolation. The Internet allows civil society organizations to exchange knowledge and information, share experiences, and build relationships across borders on a scale that otherwise would be next to impossible. Unfortunately, many African civil society organizations lack the capacity to effectively take advantage of the many resources and opportunities the Internet provides. Indeed, in a recent survey of Kabissa members, nearly 50% listed lack of skills as a major barrier to using Internet.
Over the past six years, Kabissa has been working with hundreds of African civil society organizations to make the Internet a force for change. Back in 2003, Kabissa developed a training curriculum, called Time to Get Online, to enable African organizations to integrate new Internet technologies into their work. To date, over 500 organizations have been trained through Time to Get Online workshops and over 1,500 copies of the learning materials have been distributed. Feedback on this curriculum has been extremely positive and the workshops have a lasting impact on the participants. In the words of one survey respondent, "There is an increased level of knowledge in using the internet. It has also enabled us to enhance our partnership base. Interaction with other member organizations has become relatively easier. It also has increased the mileage of the organization in terms of working with the target group - we've been able to part the same knowledge to some of our collaborators hence making the working relationship much easier."
However, we need to dramatically expand the reach of this program to impact more of our members. In the last two member surveys, the most asked for improvement to Kabissa services was more training opportunities, either via more face-to-face workshops or "eLearning" - courses conducted mainly over the Internet and/or on a computer. We implemented a Training-of-Trainers program in 2004 in West Africa in order to building a network of training partners. In turn, these partners replicate the face-to-face workshops in their own communities to reach an ever widening circle of people. While this program continues to be successful, it cannot satisfy the demand throughout the continent and is a slow, labor-intensive, and expensive process.
Now, with the support of a grant from the Hurford Foundation, Kabissa would like to launch a pilot program to turn our face-to-face workshops into eLearning courses. Elearning has the potential to deliver the same impact, but on a much larger scale, when and where members want it. At the same time, eLearning can contribute to the sustainability of the entire Time to Get Online program, by impacting members in the most cost-effective way, and by encouraging member participation and contributions.
Our objectives for this pilot program are to:
- Understand the impact of eLearning courses vs. self-learning and face-to-face workshops
- What formats and activities work best?
- Are there certain types of organizations/participants that can benefit more than others?
- How well are participants able to master skills for the benefit of their whole organization?
- How can these eLearning courses improve an organization's work in the long-term?
- Develop a sustainable model for eLearning courses, and potentially the entire Time to Get Online program
- Better understand the demand for courses in general, and topics in particular
- Understand effort that goes into creating and facilitating each course as compared to impact/number of people reached
- Assess willingness of members to pay for courses
To accomplish these goals, we will run two eLearning courses under different models and different topics in order to test our assumptions and assess different eLearning approaches.