Webinar Recording: Addressing COVID-19 in LMIC by Strengthening Distance Education

This webinar featured stories from multiple perspectives: faculty (academic staff), professional staff, and student. The panelists shared their experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, lessons learned so far, and the questions that still remain unanswered for the future of online education in LMIC.  This took place on May 14, 2020. 

Panelists:

Sheila Jagannathan is Lead Learning Specialist and Program Manager of the OLC which is part of the Development Economics Knowledge Management practice of the World Bank.  She serves as the organization’s focal point on digital learning and issues at the intersection of technology use and education in emerging countries.   She is an innovative and strategic educational leader with over 30 years experience in designing and managing distance learning programs/knowledge products and transforming the use of online and classroom pedagogies and technology. Sheila also provides policy advice and technical assistance to World Bank country-level capacity building programs (both government and training institutes seeking to introduce technologies in their educational systems)  in, East Asia, China, the Middle East and North Africa, Africa and South Asia.

Dr. Masego Kabaetse is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Botswana in the Faculty of Medicine. Her research interests include learner-support especially in the first year, students experiences with problem-based learning, mlearning, general teaching and learning practices. She has over 10 years of experience in instructional design for online education.

Gloria Ibrahim is an enthusiastic e-learning specialist working with Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College (KCMUCO) she holds a Masters degree in Public Health from University of Glamorgan, UK and a Bachelors degree in Sociology from the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. She has been utilising her skills to embrace technology in improving medical education in Tanzania by putting her efforts in introducing and implementing Learning Management Systems at KCMUCo since 2012. She enjoys being a part of and leading a successful and productive team to success. Gloria with her background in sociology accumulates bundle of experience in utilising her experience to interact with the noble empirical professional, health professional and calmly enable curriculum delivery, will remarkably contribute to social changes. Before Joining KCMUCo in September 2016 Gloria served as a Learning Management System Specialist for Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) a PEPHAR funded project, which aimed at improving medical education by strengthening Information Communication Technology. In that position, she successfully led the e-learning activities including managing of the curricular materials, software adaptation, maintenance of LMS servers and training of the system of usage to medical students and faculty members.

Jan Andrew Zubiri is a graduate students in the Learning Design and Technology Program, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Georgetown University, Washington DC.  To address the COVID-19 pandemic Mr. Zubiri developed an app to crowdsource resources on COVID-19 in the Philippines.