Telecentres and eLearning

Our short paper "Telecentres and eLearning" is now published in the British Journal of Educational Technology (Colloquium) volume 44 issue 5 (September). This paper was the result of a set of interviews I did with distance learning students in Sri Lanka as part of my PhD research.

The paper describes the issues faced by students; in this case study, in using telecentres for eLearning. It questions whether telecenter implementations have actually considered their users' needs when defining telecentre operational guidelines.

I was shocked to hear that the students who used telecentres were supposed to produce a letter from the vice chancellor of their university if they wanted to borrow a set of headphones to listen to a video lecture.

"There is no point in just watching a video note; we need to listen to it too. Sometimes when we ask for headphones to listen to a video note, they [staff at telecentre] tell us to get a letter from the Vice Chancellor. How can a student obtain a letter from the VC, produce it to the NAC head [telecentre head] and listen to a video note? It is such a bother [very disheartening] for the student." (translated from Sinhala).

Is it practical to ask the vice chancellor of the university to issue letters to students for this purpose? or is it practical to expect the student to carry it around every time they visit the telecentre? As an outsider I saw it as cumbersome and felt that it would deter students from using these facilities meant for them. Perhaps there is a reason for this enforcement - perhaps they had such high demand for headphones that the telecentre could not meet? This was just one of the many obstacles that students had to cope with in using telecentres.

Whatever it may be, a facility that implements excessive administrative policies and procedures that inconvenience users unnecessarily is likely to have fewer number of users. So if the purpose is to popularize eLearning among students, providing them access to the wealth of information available online, I am not sure whether this strategy would work to attract learners.

"When implementing eLearning in countries where many depend on public access services such as telecentres, flexibility offered by them is a key factor determining the success of such system. Thus it is vital to make telecentres student friendly and welcoming. Careful attention is also need to the precise location and opening hours of telecentres, to ensure maximum benefit towards the goals for the investment costs. Though these seem obvious it is worthwhile questioning how many telecenter implementations have actually considered these."

I like to invite you to read our full paper here.
Authors' final version is available from here.

Citation for the paper:
Liyanagunawardena, T. R., Adams, A. A., Rassool, N., & Williams, S. (2013). Telecentres and eLearning, British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(5), E156–E158 , doi:10.1111/bjet.12020.

Using non-Personal Computers for eLearning

In most of the developed countries many learners taking eLearning courses have their own computer and connectivity. However, the situation is drastically different in developing countries where computer and Internet penetration is low. In those countries communal facilities (such as telecentres, libraries, or even internet cafes) provide access to students who do not possess their own computers and/or connectivity. 

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23015607@N00/148160389/in/photolist-e6mVt-EM9mQ-EM9nq-EM9nu-EMfir-EMfiF-EMg4f-EMg4o-EMg4s-EMg4w-EMg4J-EMg5f-4miLQt-a1vUav-a1vTwD-a1vU8M-a1yMkG-a1yMom-a1yMdj-a1vTMz-a1vU9k-a1yMpL-a1vTTr-a1vTxH-a1vTkZ-a1vTCP-a1yLLN-a1vTPt-a1yLRs-a1yLHm-a1yMqS-a1yLM5-a1vU9D-a1yLTL-a1yMcq-a1yLTb-a1yM25-a1yLES-a1vTx2-a1vTqc-a1vTHn-a1yLMU-a1vU5D-a1vU2i-a1yM8q-a1yM87-a1yMa5-a1vUb6-a1yLNQ-a1vU7R-a1yLVJ

(Translation of the major text: The spread of the global village project - The services supplied to you: Internet facility, email, local telephone calls, international telephone calls, information and advice on finances for self employment, fax, photos, photocopy, information queries, computer classes)

Are we aware of the difficulties the students face in engaging with eLearning using these communal facilities? During my PhD research I talked to many students (enrolled in either fully online or blended programmes) who were using communal access facilities to engage with the online component of their degree programmes. The paper Using non-Personal Computers for eLearning: Sri Lankan Experience published in the Journal of Education and Training Studies discusses the experiences of Sri Lankan students. I am delighted to have co-authored this paper with my advisers/supervisors: Prof. Andrew Adams - Meiji University Japan, Prof. Naz Rassool - Institute of Education, University of Reading, and Prof. Shirley Williams - School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading.

The paper discusses various issues faced by students such as: cost, excessive administrative procedures, logistics, connection quality and the list goes on. These centres have blocked access to some websites such as Facebook and YouTube claiming that it was a) due to limited bandwidth b) due to students using these sites for chatting, viewing videos etc. However, in my interviews I found students who wanted to use YouTube for educational purposes. They were designing a product and wanted to investigate other similar designs on YouTube videos. But because the site was blocked they could not access it. Sadly none of these students had home internet connectivity, which meant that they had no other way of accessing these blocked resources.

I am not going to spoil the fun of reading the paper by discussing it all here again. But I am going to end this blog with a quote from one of my interview participants who said
“Well if you don't have an Internet connection at home it is very difficult. In my opinion it is compulsory that one has a home Internet connection [in order to take up a course that uses eLearning]” (Translated to English from Sinhala).

We know that generally MOOCs use multiple learning spaces: YouTube videos, Slideshare, Blogs to name some. What does this mean in terms of accessibility to MOOCs? Even when MOOCs are free to enroll and learn, still these students who do have 'access' (in terms of motivation, access to internet - well partly due to restrictions, skills - to use computers for learning) do not have provision to fully engage in them. If these students who are using communal access centres wanted to study in a MOOC, would they be able to access the wealth of resources generated in a MOOC with these restriction in place? 

Liyanagunawardena, T.R., Adams, A.A., Rassool, N., & Williams, S.A. (2013). Using non-Personal Computers for eLearning: Sri Lankan Experience, Journal of Education and Training Studies, 1 (2), 152-158. http://dx.doi.org/10.11114/jets.v1i2.96