Week 7: E-Learning for farmers in Africa

The practicality of E-Learning is very important in Africa, as although it may sound a little extreme, it can mean the difference between life and death. This has been the case for children who have to go to school in areas prone to cholera outbreaks. Similarly it can have a positive effect on the livelihoods of Kenyan farmers as they can learn new ways to grow crops ‘rural farmers in Kenya face huge constraints on a daily basis due to an inability to access information that would boost proper crop and livestock husbandry’ (http://www.elearning-africa.com/newsportal/english/news163.php).
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The site and web page content has a community feel, because it details a range of issues debated at the 4th International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training. It could even be said it is a community of practice as a group of people share a concern for something, and learn how to make it better by interacting regularly (Wegner circa 2007). The BioVision Foundation is the ‘expert’ of the CofP and leads the way in producing free information relevant to farmers needs (http://www.infonet-biovision.org). Although the article on the website says there has been a ‘mobile phone penetration in rural areas’ (ibid), it does question the accessibility of this portal and its information for poorer, remote farmers; surely not all farmers that need the information have access to the Internet or a mobile? Hopefully, it will spur produsage between supporting foundations and farmers, eventually opening communication channels and getting the word to those without access. This should also reduce the digital divide between RL and the virtual.
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Another discrepancy with E-Learning is that it involves ‘educational elitism’ (Lecture slide 12) where a majority of online education is written and delivered in English- which for a majority of Africans will not be their first language; It would prove difficult for them to read and cost a lot for website translation facilities. In terms of quality, it is an environment whereby people are to an extent free to provide information, but all that is published is quality controlled so the foundation is shown to provide truthful and reliable information.