Share Paper: Leveraging Open Educational Resources (OER), Social Media, and Mobile Learning in Africa: A Study of Six Classes with 450 Learners

  1. Kristin Palmer, University of Virginia, United States

Abstract: In the past three years in partnership with Distance Education of Africa (DEAfrica) and Coursera, the University of Virginia (UVA) has delivered six online business courses to 450 learners in twenty countries in Africa. Lessons have been learned through over 2,200 support emails for effectively leveraging open educational resources (OER), massive open online courses (MOOCs), social media platforms (WhatsApp and Facebook), empowering mentors and developing support teams. There is opportunity to create regional online learning readiness resources, develop residential flipped classroom cohorts, partner with businesses to train within industries, and continue offering more courses to this region building on the ...