Addressing The Learning Battle at the eLearning Africa Conference 2022
Highlights and key takeaways from the plenary session.
Last week, thought leaders, entrepreneurs and policy decision-makers descended upon the Land of a Thousand Hills – Rwanda – earlier this month, to attend the continent’s largest conference and exhibition in EdTech and eLearning, the 15th International Conference & Exhibition on ICT for Education, Training & Skills Development.
The Niflink sales team had the honour of exhibiting at this annual event to showcase Niflink Teach and educate attendees on how its suite of hardware and software components work together to provide a robust learning solution for schools in any setting, including remote schools with low broadband connectivity.The Result:
Following the success of the P.O.C, Niflnk’s partnership with Vodacom led to the launch of the first fully mobile streaming box, allowing teachers to broadcast their lessons anywhere in the world for the first time. Additionally, Vodacom’s foundation project continued to pilot Niflink’s e-learning solutions in 84 Teacher’s Centers and 12 Schools of Excellence.
The Niflink Teach e-learning platform and data compression technology solved both cost and accessibility issues for remote and budget-restricted schools thanks to its collaborative partnership with the Eastern Cape Department of Education and Vodacom. Without the need for the latest smartphones or devices, the solution was designed to be compatible with entry-level smartphones, 2G and 3G connectivity.
During the 3-day conference, our sales team attended a plenary session titled The Learning Battle, hosted by Tom Wambeke, the Chief of Learning Innovation at the International Training Centre of the ILO (ITCILO), a ‘UN training institution promoting decent work for all’. During the session, attendees pitched ideas around learning methodologies and defended the merits and viability of these preferred approaches in a practical debate with their peers. While the learning battle in this context was to encourage attendees to scrutinize each presented approach to learning, the other learning battle is one teachers know all too well.
Teachers are faced with the important and complex challenge of preparing their students for a world in constant transition, meaning teaching methodologies, education strategies and resources need to be updated accordingly, much of which relies on sustainable access to the Internet and communication technologies. Teachers also recognize that how students learn bears as much consequence to their future readiness as what they learn; the tools provided to enable these two factors is where much of the learning battle exists.
The eLearning Africa plenary session led to thoughtful, topical questions that served as possible opportunities for stakeholders to explore. As an organisation that shares an appetite for digital transformation and leverages EdTech to address the learning battle in schools in Africa, Niflink explored some key considerations around the following topics presented during the session.
1. Is the current e-learning methodology addressing the African journey in digital transformation?
Africa’s digital transformation is a journey that has been expediated by the current pandemic and increased funding in the education sector. However, it’s a complex one marred with infrastructural shortages and low connectivity that, as a consequence, threaten to slow the adoption of relevant online teaching methodologies in distance or remote environments.
While schools shift to more hybrid education systems, teachers need to become familiar with Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Learning Experience Platforms (LXP) to modify their approach to teaching. Facilitating this transition will mean providing the necessary tools and training for teachers to improve their digital literacy for an online future.
Read our post on Embracing microlearning to drive better results.
2. Are teachers involved in developing e-learning solutions?
When it comes to e-learning readiness and preparation, there are stark differences in student and teacher needs in an urban setting versus a rural setting: consistent broadband access, available technology devices, a conducive learning environment at home, parental support, up-to-date educational content, technical familiarity and adaptability, performance management tools, teacher shortages and digital literacy, to name a few.
With so many Edtech providers seeking to offer advanced resources in e-learning, developing human-centred learning experiences that place the teacher as well as the student at the heart of any online solution, is critical.
Read our latest case study on how Niflink addressed teacher shortages in South Africa.
3. Is the content available matching African curriculums?
While Niflink Teach was developed to address the lack of reliable connectivity in rural areas, the eLearning Africa plenary session offered more insight into how its proprietary Nif compression framework could further tech-assisted collaboration and content creation on existing LMS platforms. Beyond saving users and organizations server space and costs through its data compression technology, empowering teachers with the necessary resources to keep pace with the knowledge economy within the African school curriculum will be essential.
Addressing the above questions requires a nuanced understanding of the barriers African countries face within their own education systems, as well as collaborating with private and public sector stakeholders to develop a learning ecosystem that is inclusive, sustainable, and progressive. With such a high youth population eager to enter the workforce, adapting current EdTech solutions that meaningfully transform the education sector, is a battle worth fighting.
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We offer education technology that goes the distance, with our Niflink Teach end-to-end solutions designed to connect any classroom or learning environment through our proprietary NIF data compression technology. Our inclusive, smart education platform can be customised to your needs, no matter where you are in your e-learning journey.
Learn more about Niflink Teach here.