Computer Aid hosts week long e-learning Moodle course for Ethiopian lecturers

Moodle e-Learning Course at Mekelle University

Mekelle University has been hosting Moodle e-learning this week for its own lecturers and those from other universities in Ethiopia. The training has been delivered together by Computer Aid with its training partner the Worcester College of Technology. I flew up on Friday morning to see how the training had been going, to sit in on the last few sessions, and to thank and congratulate the 56 participants.

For those unacquainted with Moodle, it supports the lecturer to set up e-Learning courses, using a blend of web and non-web properties, such as presentations, YouTube videos, Twitter feeds and Facebook sites, mixed with the lecturer’s own notes or content. It’s open source, so no high software and maintenance fees, but it’s widely applied, so there is a community of users and supporters to maintain it. We take students through a week’s training, sufficient to allow them to develop, during the course exercises, their own e-Learning packages and courses.

A visit to Computer Aid’s partners in Ethiopia

Children at the Cistercian School in Ethiopia using PCs donated to Computer Aid and distributed by Computer Aid’s partner the EKTTS

Partners and partnerships are the lifeblood of Computer Aid and all that we do, and visiting Ethiopia this week to meet with Computer Aid’s existing and prospective partners shows both the problems and the possibilities.

A very full day started at the Axum in Addis Ababa with a press conference on Computer Aid’s visit and our search for new partners to extend the reach of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) across Ethiopia. Computer Aid has supplied Ethiopians with about 1,000 PCs or laptops every year of our existence, to such widely varying partners as EKTTS (Ethiopian Knowledge and Technology Transfer Society), GACD (Global Action for Community Development), Prospect Ethiopia, and Consortium for Christian Relief and Development Association (CCRDA), as well as smaller beneficiaries – the Menelik II Secondary School, Oromia Regional Government, Amhara Development Association, Information Technology Development Association, Tigray Disabled Veterans Association, and Welfare for Street Mothers and Children.