A Multiple-Impact Social Partnership Model to promote Educators’ Development, Youth Empowerment and Poverty Alleviation in Mauritius

The organization Helping Our People has been setup in 2011 by a team of education professionals working at the Virtual Centre for Innovative Technologies (VCILT) at the University of Mauritius. In 2009, the VCILT embarked on the SIDECAP project, funded by the EU-ACP in a consortium regrouping the Open University of the UK, the University of the West Indies, the University of the South Pacific and the University of the Highlands and Islands. The work of the VCILT in the context of the SIDECAP project was essentially focused on the repurposing of Open Educational Resources to fit in the local Mauritian Context.

At the same time, the VCILT received an internal grant to work on the development of interactive learning materials using the integration of text-to-speech technology in instructionally designed PowerPoint presentations. In this presentation we show how the research activities of the two projects led to a series of development and applications in the real-world context for the continuous professional development of educators, the establishment of a social entity, an NGO called Helping Our People, a partnership with Microsoft Indian Ocean and French Pacific under the Partners in Learning Program and the Youth Empowerment Program to alleviate the suffering of those living in vulnerable conditions in the country.

UoM : Un haut cadre accusé de plagiat

Link to original article

• http://www.defimedia.info/defi-quotidien/dq-actualites/item/49892-uom-un-haut-cadre-accuse-de-plagiat.html

This article is really intriguing - I will use the approach of a soccernet.com blogger - the famous ''Three things'' article...

Three things 

1.Brilliant students or Whistle-blower colleagues?

Students have realized that the 'haut cadre' has had recourse to plagiarism in Journal Science and Royal Society of Biological Services. This suggests that UOM is finally playing dans la cour des grands as apparently many students (the press article refers to ''un groupe d'etudiants") are active in this area and have been strangely looking at such kinds of articles. Or is it that information has leaked from colleagues who knew about any kind of procedure that was ongoing with respect to the alleged case of plagiarism? Could academics be becoming whistle-blowers to the student community nowadays? it seems possible!

2.The timing of the press article and the timing of the release of such information 

In the press article it seems the University authorities have conducted some background checks and its revealed nothing was found that is linked to plagiarism...Therefore could someone knowledgeable enough with respect to the issue have chosen the ''right'' timing to leak .....

3. The culture of mistrust and to some extent backstabbing has not yet been overcome at the UoM 

Sadly though but this is the reality. The article of the press demonstrates clearly that we have still a lot to surmount in this aspect of professional life and inter-collegial trust and support. Backstabbing is becoming by far the most notorious way to do away with those whom you see as challengers or opponents rather than fair competition. 

Let us pray for a better UoM and that backstabbers take the time to sit and think of what would they feel like if they were backstabbed one day .......

A reflection on Education for Development in the Mauritian Context

In developed countries, Finland serving as an excellent example, it is widely said and proven that research has been the driving force behind innovation that led to the socio-economic developments of the countries through industrialization, the design and development of new products and services to the global markets (OECD 2010). Research and development in the context of developing countries should also embody community service as an important and key element to promote social justice and alleviation of poverty.

The University is more and more called upon to assume a preponderant role in the socio-economic development process of the country through sustainable initiatives to promote community building, social progress and inclusion for all.  Unfortunately the reality in Universities at least in the developing world and in our local context that research takes another priority dimension – that of getting publications for promotion. The University of Mauritius had an external academic audit in 2005, which was conducted again in 2012, followed by a Visitor (appointed by the Prime Minister) in 2012 itself to look into the operational challenges being faced by the University in the 21^st Century. The common critique of all the three successive reports was the lack of research being undertaken at the level of the University. At the same time the two external audits commended a Faculty in particular for its very high research output. This is a type of contradiction, which calls for a broader debate into the issue of research and development in a small university of a small developing island surrounded by the ocean. Research leads to the exploration of new ideas, which in turn are developed into products and services that can be commercially exploited or that can lead to significant improvement to the community (common good).

Naturally speaking, research and development activities often span over years, even decades and in some cases more than that. On the other hand, when research is evaluated on the number of publications an academic achieves over a pre-defined period of time to be promoted, a rat race of research and publications gets underway. And, when people engage in such a race of research and publications we often end up with little or no applications of the research. Researchers are driven by the mindset where after a paper is successfully published in a peer-reviewed journal, then they move on to undertake the next ‘research’ with a publishability prospect. The other route many will take to distort the value of research is to fit themselves into all possible situations where their name could figure out on a published work to earn some marks. Hence we find ourselves being a bit the jacks-of-all-trades under the umbrella of ‘multidisciplinary research’.

Research and Development is also seen as the number of patents a University and its personnel can file. While this could have been a real value addition for developed countries with a variety of natural resources and extensive scientific advancement, over-emphasis on this element for a country like Mauritius is a misconception about research. Filing a patent is one thing and the ability to sustain it and convert it into a successfully commercial product or service is a completely different element. While the aim should not be to discourage this aspect, the real issue in developing countries is that less and less value is attached to research for development. In a country like Mauritius where free primary, secondary and tertiary education has been a landmark in the socio-economic development and political stability in the country, it is deplored that research in education for development has long been a sidelined issue despite having three public universities and one dedicated institution for teacher training.

Recently the concept of ‘Maurice Ile Durable (MID)’ has been put forward as the new leitmotiv for promoting socio-economic development, social justice and education in a framework respecting the environmental eco-system. Such an ecosystem that the MID concept is trying to promote is perfectly in line with the concept of Living Labs model. The Living Lab is essentially a research lab that fundamentally departs from the closed and restricted nature of research laboratories working on ‘closed’ innovation to the concept of an ‘open’ user-centered innovation system where all stakeholders form an integral part of the process. Hence the ‘living’ concept being embodied and replacing the term research in research labs.

LiveCode : Deploy your first Android App using these simple Video Tutorials

The LiveCode programming language (formerly the "Revolution" programming language) is both an open-source and proprietary cross-platform rapid application development language inspired by HyperCard's programming language HyperTalk. LiveCode runs on iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Windows 95 through Windows 7, and several variations of Unix, including Linux, Solaris, and BSD. It can be used for mobile, desktop and server/CGI applications. The iOS (iPhone and iPad) version was released in December 2010

The following video tutorials will help you to get started with this 'very high level programming language'.

Special Thanks to Kaylash Ganeshe and Ravi Rajputh for working on this tutorial.

Step 1:  Download Livecode Community Edition at: http://livecode.com/

Step 2 :  Installing LiveCode Community Edition (Part 1)

 

Step 3 : Coding for Android with LiveCode  (Part 2)

 


Step 4 : Testing your application using an Android Virtual Device  (Part 3)

Yet another recognition : The Africa Education Leadership Award and the Africal e-Learning Leadership Award to VCILT

On this Wednesday 27th November 2013, the Africa-India Summit was held at the Labourdonnais Waterfront in Port Louis. Some eminent and distinguished personalities were present during this summit which looked at achieving organisational excellence in a sustainable manner. 

A number of awards were given and among them, the VCILT through Dr Santally and Mrs Gunness landed the Africa Education Leadership Award and the Africa e-Learning Leadership awards.

As the Head of the VCILT, I dedicate this award to my staff and our students as without them working in the shadows, neither myself nor the VCILT would have been in the limelight. 

Educational 1min Video by Young Mauritius in Finals of TveBiomovies International Competition

Young Mauritians (age 15 to 26), have submitted a 1min educational digital video for the finals of the International tvebiomovies2013 environmental online competition, supported by United Nations Environment Programme among others. The video, entitled "Anti-Climate Change Missiles", may be viewed below


The 1min video begins with a metaphor, showing "climate change" as a meteorite, which is approaching the earth and threatening to end the human race, not unlike that of the dinosaurs. The video, then, creatively highlights the causes, effects and possible solutions to destroy the menacing "climate change meteorite" with "missiles".

Quote from the team leader, Jalal Laloo
 
"As the team leader, I would like to mention that  the Educational Technology (ILT2000) module at the University of Mauritius, for which you were the module coordinator, was instrumental in initiating me to the world of digital video making"

The team is competing with one other international participant in the "climate change" category and the winner will be the video with higher number of public views till 19th Dec 2013.
 

Stopping Violence in Schools - A guide by UNESCO (Converted to a Video Lecture by VCILT)

This Guide examines various forms of violence in schools and their consequences for education. It offers ten actions to prevent and stop violence in schools with practical examples that teachers can adapt in the classroom. 

 
Moreover, the guide brings suggestions to involve the international community to take action in order to build non-violent school culture and implement school safety mechanisms.

The guide in PDF and in four different languages can be downloaded on this address or you can simply sit down and watch at this video to get a very informative summary of the guide. It is a 30-minute video lecture.