Share ICT Training (E-Education Component)

A team of UNIMAS members went to Tanah Datar, West Sumatera, Indonesia from 21 – 23December 2014 to conduct the final workshop for the ICT training (e-Education component). The UNIMAS team members included Associate Prof. Dr Fitri Suraya Mohamad, Prof. Dr Alvin Yeo Wee, Syaryfah Fazidawaty binti Wan Busrah, Adam Francis and Jaya Laxshmi

Handbook for ICT Projects for Rural Areas

This handbook identifies guidelines and fundamental requirements that can be of use to project managers and teams who are keen on initiating ICT projects in rural areas. Contents are based on the experiences by the authors when rolling out ICT projects in remote areas within Asia Pacific. The handbook is an accumulation of ideas and experiences from SHARE projects, an initiative driven by Telecommunication Technology Committee Japan (TTC) Japan, in which four countries, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, have rolled out various technology-based projects in remote and rural locations. The book describes a narrative of guidelines, which are organised according to phases of development for a technology-enabled solution. The writing of the handbook takes into account the unique considerations for accommodating to local needs and competencies in remote and rural communities

Learning at Telecentres: A Study on Indigenising Instructional Design for Communities at Remote Rural Sarawak

Disparities among the communities with access to ICT development are especially apparent for those located in geographically remote and rural areas. Governments, agencies, and organisations worldwide have rolled out various ICT-related projects, with telecentres being the most widely adopted and deployed model in developing countries. Although many learning activities have been implemented at these telecentres for the communities they serve, most of the literature has focused primarily on user acceptance, human development, sustainability, telecentre performance, and impact assessment, rather than the delivery of learning and training activities at the telecentre. By first studying the initial ICT literacy training programme at the telecentres, the study focused on examining the potential to build culturally inclusive instructional design and how it could stimulate knowledge sharing and co-creation among indigenous community members. The study then examined how a community-led learning programme was implemented at two research sites, focusing on culture-based aspects that were not adequately considered in ICT literacy training programmes, such as culturally-specific instructional strategies, culture-specific assessments, and a focus on cultural artefacts, history, and knowledge. The study also looked into the benefits of using an indigenous instructional design at these telecentres, and self-determination theory was used to see how well the indigenous instructional design could satisfy the three psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness to strengthen intrinsic motivation. The study also examined the role of telecentres today in supporting the learning needs of indigenous communities, especially in fostering knowledge sharing and co-creation

Preserving Cultural Knowledge through Community-Led MOOCs

Kulathuramaiyer, Narayanan & Pariyar, Amit & Bala, Poline & Laxshmi, Jaya & Chuah, Kee-Man. (2020). Preserving Cultural Knowledge through Community-Led MOOCs. 16. MOOCs have cultured a knowledge exchange phenomenon at a global scale making its strong presence in developing countries to pursue certain development goals, particularly to serve the rural indigenous communities. The current MOOC model, however tends to be inhibitive when it comes to integrating the complex realities of the under-served communities and their way of life. The growing commercial interests, increasing corporate partnerships, the ‘outside in’ course focus, one-way knowledge transfer, threats to local knowledge and decontextualized innovation are some aspects that questions its relevance to serve a social purpose. This paper aggregates the inadequacies of the current linear model of MOOC with a function model and exemplifies our ‘Community-Led MOOCs’ as a model to preserve cultural knowledge. The novel case of preserving the knowledge on threading and stringing Kelabit beads provides a compelling evidence that intergenerational knowledge sharing can be reestablished by giving the community the center stage in producing MOOCs and connecting the youths to the elderly population

Investigating Possibilities to Provide Collaborative Learning Spaces in Libraries for Children with Special Needs

While opportunities for technology-based collaborative learning have reached out to a large majority of the community, not everyone has been able to benefit from the growth of collaborative learning. Computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL), in particular, has great potential for children with special needs in terms of building social interaction and collaborative skills through the use of various information and communication technology (ICT) tools. This paper presents a preliminary investigation on how library spaces could be utilised to encourage collaborative learning skills for children with special needs. Gaps in literature with regards to the usage of library spaces for this purpose as well as the limitations of current tools in terms of language diversity are also explored. Future research directions are also presented to position plausible strategies to use libraries as spaces for collaborative learning for children with special needs, using appropriate tools to support their learning process and experience