Conquering the oceanic divide: 12 centers one link – ICT

Chandra, Shaneel (2012) Conquering the oceanic divide: 12 centers one link – ICT. UNSPECIFIED. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The University of the South Pacific, one of only two regionally-owned institutions in the world encompasses twelve nations in the South Pacific Ocean. The institution provides education delivery through a total of seventeen campuses, with at least one in each country. To be able to overcome the physical divide and distance, while ensuring the quality of learning and teaching, the University utilizes internet bandwidth with student/staff interfacing applications such as Moodle, together with satellite and mobile phone technology to provide virtual classroom experience to students irrespective of location. The university has been a successful in these endeavors since the 1990s. This paper outlines the approaches adopted in offering a first year chemistry course (CH 101) in dual mode; through face-to-face teaching as well as distance and flexible learning. The course enrolls 393 students, of which 25% are registered in distance learning mode hundreds of kilometers away from the lecturer, who they will certainly never see during the delivery of the course. Yet, the course ensures delivery of course content, while students are able to share and access materials irrespective of location and mode, and have participative interactions with the teaching team and each other. The virtual classroom setup is aided by an educational support tool developed in Australia – Moodle. Moodle not only delivers their content, but allows assessment, real-time grade information, communication, performance analysis and intervention and upload of content for sharing with the class. In addition, the use of mobile phones in learning has been instrumental in ensuring students receive grading information on their mobile phones as and when they need, including while on a night out! Furthermore, these attributes of bridging the physical divide will be presented, and the paper will conclude with a discussion of new innovations that will further bring the classroom to the student irrespective of where the student is on the planet.

Item Type:	Other
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Divisions:	Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment (FSTE) > School of Biological and Chemical Sciences
Depositing User:	Shaneel Chandra
Date Deposited:	23 Apr 2014 04:10
Last Modified:	20 Jul 2016 02:32
URI:	http://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/6015

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