Nalin Abeysekera

Dear Lawrence , thank you to bring out my one of the favorite topic on board. We did few seminars to schools principals and teachers on e-learning and I discussed about m-learning with them. In most schools in Sri Lanka students are not allow to bring mobiles to their school. There is an attitude among teachers that mobile always harmful because of their perception. (They thought students always see pornographic pictures etc)…so we have to change that first…and most teachers thinking that they need phones like PDAs in the context of mobile learning. But we tried to convince that even by using basic Nokia 1200 and give a explanation to students about social studies also comes under m-learning….<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

So I think cultural background as well as awareness level is important in M-Learning. Since this is good area because, it is now in growth stage  in product life cycle in sri lanka (mobile penetration is growing!!!).

I think it is worthwhile to discuss barriers as well as how to overcome this…..for this politics always plays a major role. But you need to find out way to overcome those barriers. For that you need success stories. In Africa they use instructional radio…if you understand the needs and wants and your level of resources easily you can overcome it. Again directly we can’t point out that all developing countries having same problems. They may be unique to each country. That’s why I suggested a need assessment as more important point. But once you are considering the awareness level for that we should have some mechanism.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Action Plan to overcome Barriers in e-Learning in developing countries (special reference to Sri Lanka)<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

1.     Identification of problems-infrastructure, resources, utilization of resources, leadership-for this it can conduct research to take information-

A) primary data- Can do survey within the population to measure the awareness of e-learning, how to promote e-learning etc(can use clusters like school children, policy makers, general public etc)

B) Secondary resources-Can be used central bank reports(Apex body in Sri Lanka),other statistics to measure up the utilization of resources

2.     Design A Plan –

a) Short term-First year increase the awareness level of the students ,general public

b) Long term-10 years program with Mission of “To become a number one among developing countries in literacy of e-Learning”

3.     Implement a Plan

§  For that Government  can appoint a body(institution) to implement a Plan(this can be  formulated  under ministry of Education)

§  Can get  foreign experts

§  Can use some benchmarks(China, India as well as Canada as developed country using e-learning and how forums like scope networking people in different locations)

§  Leadership-can appoint the leader/leaders with inspirational qualities

§  Starting within school as well as university system

§  Take the expert view of those who already in the sector(DLC in Sri Lanka, DEMP etc)-can appoint member from these organization as members of steering committee)

§  Looking for possibilities of grants(expertise, resources) from donors

4.     Controlling

§  Financial controls-purview of utilization of resources(every quarter of the year)

§  Review meetings–every months

§  Government Audit

§  Performance Measurements-every year-can do small survey to review the performance in term of literacy rate, resource allocation for all regions of the country

I put forward this as action plan to overcome barriers in developing countries)-special reference has been given to Sri lanka. I focused on barriers like resource, resource allocation as well as human factors, success stories. I think your ideas important for the value addition to this. This is a framework and if we can put some ingredients then I hope we can come up a with a nice work.

….In sri lanka Open University with the help of donators try to establish centers throughout the country…Because there are more than 20,0000 students working with OUSL. So we can assume them as potential e-Learners….Other universities are also doing well with their undergraduate. More importantly DLC (Distance Learning Center) in Sri Lanka conducted series of seminars on on-line learning focusing school heads as well as teachers..It was a successful project….because our future will be the young people whch those teachers taught…..there I think the inspirational motivation of the people…(champions) at DLC  with mission and vision for the future…Now they are doing this for the private institutes too...And Distance education modernization project(DEMP) too helping private as well as other institutes to build-up some e-learning courses…I think every organizations will have their success stories…

Nellie,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Thanks for your kind words. I will look for the possibilities and I think in the future you can contribute to the development of e-Learning in a constructive way.