Key insights from the project with a focus on ICT4D/communication for development education in Swedish higher education in connection with global partnerships.
For example:
- more research is needed for developing a ‘hybrid space’: Creating user-friendly learning platforms, mobile phone apps and an e-repository for learning materials.
- To enhance student learning, the glocal classroom experience should combine different forms of learning, such as ‘learning by doing’, engaging the community and incorporating simulation exercises using collective problem solving methods.
- When designing for online interaction and new teaching practice, cultural factors as an underlying and often hidden defining element should be taken into account, the same way that it is given precedence in the field of Communication for Development.
- The success and achievements of this project can be attributed in large part to its consortium based, global partnership framework. Therefore, continued international collaboration, pooling together and sharing of ideas and materials, and perhaps with the addition of more partners, especially in the global south, can strengthen the intent for posterity for the project
This 2-year project led by the Communication for Development team at Malmö University set out to bridge the existing gap between web-based learning (often understood as distance learning) and conventional forms of education on campus, by exploring innovative ways to combine the two. The project focused on the pedagogical application of ICTs in teaching and learning in the area of international development and social change. Just as the former division between “old” and “new” media has been overruled by convergence media, this project aimed at enhancing what might be called convergence pedagogy.
Four universities on four continents decided to build a global platform for collaboration and interchange in web-based learning. Led by Malmö University, Sweden, and featuring partners Stellenbosch University in South Africa, University of Guelph in Canada and Flinders University in Australia, the project included an interactive set of workshops and conferences at all four places.