Virginie+Aimard

Dr. Virginie Aimard http://www.elearningeuropa.info/directory/index.php?page=doc&doc_id=7644&doclng=6 Learning eLearning: Empowering educational stakeholders through strategic cpacity building (and patience)


 * We are thinking about empowerment, to be creative with new technology and processes of learning.
 * Strategic capacity building – what is it? Not just a concept, something we feel. We have a tool, learning processes and what we are trying to do is make the best out of it, to created added value and new ways of implementing it.
 * With a strategic view, it is not only the individuals who are empowered, but the whole learning institution has to learn elearning. What to do with it, how to integrate it.
 * Time is an important factor. “Patience et longuer de temps Font plus que force ni que rage.” Lafontaine, Fables. I felt like the little rat, taking away bits and pieces of the obstacle to free the lion, the potential of creativity, people to do things that are meaningful and adaptive.
 * Virginie asks if people have tried implementing eLearning. What kind of challenges? Lack of interest, fear of technology, power struggle, institutiona e-readiness deficit?
 * Gilly Salmons map of eLearning – capacity building is all these little islands and parts to come together to become empowered to use elearning.
 * Gap while I fixed a technical glitch and dealt with a blogger problem. (ARGH) Sorry Virginie
 * Context, story, lesson learnt from a variety of cases.
 * BIG GAP
 * ELearning is changing the way we learn and teach. We can’t just bring it in and say it works. We have to change the relationships between the teachers and the learners. A paradigm change. It has to be together with the organizational structure, objectives and culture of the university. Elearning puts the question to the university, what is it for. To transfer knowledge. Is it to make people competent, or to invent penicillin? It is questioning us. This innovative process ..
 * About developing competences and institutional capacity to empower all actors within the institution.
 * Professional development has to be embedded in the strategy. Cannot go alone – Jordan University example. If it is not embedded in the strategy and include creation of elearning, instructional design, subject matter experts, project management.
 * There is nothing more difficult ot plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous o manage than the creation of a new system. For the intiigator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who should gain by the new one

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince 1513
 * Different attitudes towards change – innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards (Geoghegan, 1994)
 * Attitudes to change – didatctical dimension, technological dimension, organizational dimension, economic dimension and cultural dimension. (From Euler and Seufert, 2004). Have to look at all these aspects when you look at the strategy. How are we going to change the culture?
 * Colombian university USB bracelet story. All first years given a USB on a wrist band. They feel a part when they wear it.
 * Embedding strategy establishment of an eLearning center with coordination responsibilities. Development of a capacity building plan, Development of a pedagogical freamwork and instrumental guidance toolkit. Implementation of an integrated learning environment (elearning platform). Development of a business model (ROI)
 * Elearning is about empowering people to develop
 * Patience and strategy
 * Another gap as I uploaded photos to flickr and tagged them so I could do a tag demo during my talk.