NAIROBI, Kenya
Distance Education for Africa (Deafrica), a vocational training institute, has launched journalism and mass communication courses in Kenya. The e-workshops are targeted at journalists, journalism teachers and public relations and communications practitioners seeking to sharpen their skills with modern trends.
The workshops are offered live by a professor at Indiana University in Pennsylvania. “The training is geared to enhance the participants’ journalistic skills,” said Mr Sidiki Traore (pictured, above), the founder and president of Distance Education Africa. “This will help journalism teachers make their classes a more exciting experience.”
He said a number of journalists from the Nation Media Group have enrolled in DeAfrica’s e-workshops in journalism and mass media. Participants are connected to the virtual class without leaving the office. “They are trained at their workstations. The idea is to get a minimum disruption of their work process as much as possible,” said Mr Traore. He said it is also open to individual participants as well.
The e-workshops cover a wide range of topics including analysing statistical information, developmental and environmental journalism as well as public relations. The training incorporates the latest trends in the use of information and communication technologies in classrooms and covers research, documentary, live reporting and English language skills.
“These e-workshops are also ideal for journalism and mass communication school administrators, lecturers, curriculum developers as well as professionals in political science, Ministry of Information, media managers seeking to strengthen ICT use within their institutions and aspiring journalists,” he said.
Deafrica (www.deafrica.org), which is based in Nairobi, delivers world-class training and education courses to communities in Africa from American and Canadian universities. It is currently collaborating with Indiana University in Pennsylvania, USA, Laval University in Québec; Canada and Maestro, in Washington DC.
The courses are taught real time live on Blackboard Collaborate, the delivery platform. All the sessions are recorded and available for students who miss the live sessions. Blackboard Collaborate creates virtual classrooms that expand possibilities for student communication. Students communicate using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), text chat, webcam, virtual whiteboard, screen sharing and guided web tours.
The blackboard platform allows for up to six simultaneous visual and voice speakers, fostering real-time collaboration and interactivity. Mr Traore said DeAfrica also provides capacity-building to African institutions of higher education and community-based organisations.
The courses fill skills gaps in public Universities that have a shortage of lecturers. Kenyatta University, for example, has 27 professors, 60 Associate professors and 120 senior lecturers for 61,928 students. The courses also help in increasing access to universities that have overcrowded classes and strained facilities.
Many high school students are left out because of lack of facilities in universities. Only 53,010 students will be admitted to public Universities out of over 100,000 who sat for their KSCE in 2012. Deafrica helps universities integrate ICT in their teaching. Deafrica has already trained some lecturers from the English Department of Kenyatta University and Multimedia University on how to use Blackboard.
Traore said DeAfrica Executive e-Workshop Series provides live sessions on a variety of cutting-edge topics on ICT, journalism and English language. They help teachers to upgrade teaching skills, provide professional development opportunities and skills on social media.
“We are bringing innovation in teaching and learning. Our English courses are taught with e-books,” said Traore. “If schools and universities are trained on how to teach with ebooks, that will be a huge saving for them because with ebooks there is no shipping costs, no storage room and they are up-to-date and increase learning.”
Leave a comment