ADC holds a Community of Practice in Ouagadougou
The partners of the Africa Digital Campus (ADC) project organised a “Community of Practice” on E-Learning in Ouagadougou. This workshop, addressed to the UV-BF teachers involved in the project, aimed to create a community of learning and practice in Burkina Faso to support the deployment of distance learning in higher education.
A day for community building
Following the series of training sessions held between July and September 2022 on the scripting, design and implementation of courses and on the evaluation of learning, thirty teacher-researchers from the Virtual University of Burkina Faso met again on Wednesday, 1 March 2023, at the University’s offices in Ouagadougou for a day of exchanges and experience sharing. This meeting aimed to create a sustainable community of practice on E-Learning in Burkina Faso to support the deployment of distance learning at the Universities in the country and beyond.
Towards an African Digital Education Community
The participants first discussed the notion of communities of learning and practice through alternating plenary presentations and examples. They then worked individually and in groups to define their “E-Learning” community in Burkina Faso. Finally, they debated the perspectives and success factors of an African digital education community.
One participant said: “I will now be able to benefit from the experiences of my e-learning colleagues to improve my performance in my online courses”. Another agreed that “there is a strong need to create a community of practice to boost digital education. Alone, it is difficult, but together, there is no reason we can’t succeed!”
ADC, an innovative project for teachers and students
About 70 teacher-researchers from the Virtual University of Burkina Faso are involved in the Africa Digital Campus (ADC) project. They produce online training modules to enrich the UV-BF training courses in Bachelor’s degrees (Mathematics, Physics, Geomatics, Software Engineering) and Master’s degrees (Health and Telemedicine, Cybersecurity, Training and Education Technology).
Led by the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD) and the West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN), in partnership with the University Agency of the Francophonie (AUF), with funds from the European Union (EU) delegated to the French Development Agency (AFD), the Africa Digital Campus (ADC) project aims to :
– to provide access to students from West and Central African universities, including the Virtual University of Burkina Faso, to a quality online training offer;
– to strengthen the use of online training on a local scale.
The two-year project aims to pool resources and promote knowledge exchange between the various stakeholders.