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Der Forschungstag bietet die Chance, verschiedene Themen in interdisziplinären Runden zu diskutieren.

Dieser Workshop bringt deshalb diejenigen zusammen, die sich mit den Forschungsbereichen Lernen in Unternehmen, Lernen in der Hochschule, Lernen in der Weiterbildung, Lernen mit Kindern & Jugendlichen beschäftigen. Sie können die Themen aus HR-Sicht, aus lerntheoretischer  Perspektive, mit lerntechnologischem Interesse als Forscher oder Praktiker ansprechen.

Eine Liste mit einigen aktuellen Stichworten: e-Learning, Mobile Learning, Learning in the cloud, Learning analytics, Lifelong Learning, Gamification, adaptive & persuasive Learning environments, Lernen in der Industrie 4.0

Das Organisationsteam des World Café: Sabine Moebs (DHBW Heidenheim), Kay Berkling (DHBW Karlsruhe), Dirk Reichardt (DHBW Stuttgart)

Wir laden Teilnehmende aus allen Fachbereichen der DHBW , anderen Hochschulen und Duale Partner ein zu einem Workshop im World Café Format, um uns und die jeweilige Forschung kennen zu lernen, potentielle gemeinsame Themen zu finden und Wissen und Erfahrungen auszutauschen.

Wir wollen im World Café die folgenden 3 Fragen diskutieren:

An welchen Forschungsthemen und Projekten arbeiten sie derzeit?
Vorstellung aktueller Aktivitäten und Erfahrungen mit Forschung, nicht nur an der DHBW.

Welche (interdisziplinäre) Themen stehen ab 2015 auf ihrer Forschungsagenda und welche Partner wollen sie einbinden?
Haben sie schon Ideen und suchen noch nach einem oder weiteren Kollaborationspartnern?
Welche Erfahrungen haben sie mit interdisziplinären Projekten gemacht oder haben sie Fragen dazu?

Welche Förderprogramme haben sie im Auge und welche weitere Unterstützung benötigen sie?
Forschung braucht Geld – wie haben sie ihre Finanzierung gesichert, welche Wege können sie empfehlen oder auch nicht?
Forschung braucht Support. Forschung an der DHBW ist relative neu. Was funktioniert gut, wo sind noch Lücken, wie können wir Ressourcen als eine Hochschule effizienter nutzen?

Sie können sich einen der begrenzten Workshop-Plätze sichern, wenn sie vorab bereits die Antworten zu diesen 3 Fragen in den virtuellen World Café Rahmen eintragen. Unter allen, die sich vorab anmelden wird eine Kopie des aktuellen Buches “Der Teufelsfürst” der Heidenheimer Autorin Silvia Stolzenburg verlost. Oder sie kommen am 5.2.2015 einfach zum Workshop auf dem DHBW Forschungstag.

Anmeldung zum Workshop im virtuellen World Café Rahmen

Für das World Café werden mehrere Tische für 4-5 Personen bereitgestellt. Dort besprechen die Teilnehmenden 3-4 Fragen, je Tisch eine Frage. Die Gesprächsergebnisse werden auf den Tischen dokumentiert; die Tische sind mit Papiertischdecken oder Flipchert-Papier abgedeckt. Nach 15-20 Minuten wechseln die Teilnehmenden an einen anderen Tisch zu einer neuen Frage - ins Thema und die bisherigen Ergebnisse eingeführt durch den Gastgeber, einen Teilnehmenden der Vorgruppe. Die kleine Gruppengröße ermöglicht einen intensiveren und interessanten Austausch von Ideen und Sichtweisen und unterstützt das Interesse in andere Ansichten und das gegenseitige Zuhören. Es geht nicht darum, eine Position zu verteidigen, sondern sich intensiv mit den Themen auseinander zu setzen. Die Ergebnisse der Tische werden am Ende der Veranstaltung durch die Gastgeber vorgestellt.

Weiterführende Links:

The World Café Method

World Café auf de.wikipedia.org

World Café Community

Last Thursday we had a house meeting - just like every Thursday. All volunteers get together with Johnson and it is a chance to bring up topics that need discussion.
Usually this means that Johnson puts one or two items on the agenda, talks about them, asks for feedback and doesn’t get any. Well, not much anyway.
Last Thursday he had just one item on the agenda, one question for all of us:

Why do people get involved?
What is the motivation for people to take their time, money and talent to become involved?
What does it take for volunteers to get involved and stay involved?

He gave that question to the group of about 16 volunteers and the answers were quite different:

• Some said they were here, because their university send them to research volunteer work and they needed the work done to finish their studies.
• Some said they were here, because they had the summer off after graduation and wanted to see what Africa is like.
• Some said they were here, because a friend had been here and they also wanted to get involved and offer the skills and experience they have.
• Some said they were here, because they have been here before and liked coming back and working with the people at the organisation and in particular projects and to see friends they made during previous stays.
• Some said they were here, because they want their children to experience different countries and living situations.
• Some said they were here, because they want to help the poor children.
• Some said they were here, because they want to experience everyday life in Africa to understand the situation better when collaborating with African partners in business or research.
• Some said they were here, because they had been exposed to similar conditions as those in some of the projects during previous travels and wanted to give something rather than just looking at people.

The reasons vary, but for me there are a number of facts that are valid for all of us, no matter what our motivation:
The local staff knows a lot more about the situation and the bigger picture than you do.
Setting up a project is not an easy and simple process, if it is to produce sustainable results.
Volunteers can support local staff and follow their lead, not take over the project.
Donating money to the need identified by the local staff in the project not by ourselves has the biggest impact.
Making a kid happy with some expensive item or brand from your world at home is not very sustainable.
When in doubt: Africa needs more business, not more charity. Buy locally, reduce your luggage to what is really not available locally.

We got a very warm welcome from Sadock, who picked us up at the airport on Saturday. Much appreciated, as I know how busy he is!

It is very different this time and it isn’t. It is slightly chilly in the mornings, warming up in the afternoons around 3pm. So far we only got a short glimpse of Kili – better than nothing I guess.. I am traveling together with a friend this time – this is much more relaxed, I have to say. There are many new buildings in Moshi, including a brand new shopping mall, which I have only seen from the outside so far. Dee and Christina in the Foot2Afrika office I finally met in person, while Deb, who I have been in touch with on facebook a lot, and I have not managed to meet up yet – a good half-way through the 1^st week.

The way into town hasn’t changed though and I didn’t have any problems finding it. The service at Union Coffee has gotten a lot slower, their wireless has gotten worse and a lot more expensive, while the „new kid on the block“ (as far as I’m concerned..), Kilimanjaro Coffee Lounge has good wifi, very good food and much faster service. The kids are still lying around at the hostel half of the day, busy using the now free wifi to give long reports to frineds and family back home on skypeor chilling together.

It is interesting to see how Sascha has a lot of experiences I had last time: it is a bit unreal to actually be here, the information overload with the unfamiliar food, living situation, smells and noises, e.g. rooster and imam from the mosque, both to be heard around 5 am every morning.

We have spent most of our time getting started: we had a look at the room at the ‘Msamaria Orphange for Street Children’ were the trainings for the orphanage staff and the Rudisha Women Group are starting next week. We collected the laptops they received from a sponsor. Sascha is literally cleaning them, putting new software on the laptops, updating it and I have been looking at OERs and doing some excel, power point and wordpress training with Foot2Afrika.

 It is all good

Just had an idea: I will be in Moshi from next weekend for three weeks.

I will take pictures of Rudisha products and publish them in the Rudisha Women Group on facebook.

If you like something and want to buy it: order in the comment section of the particular item on facebook, then I’ll send you my paypal details and as soon as I can see the money in paypal I’ll confirm in the comment.

I will bring the things back with me in mid-July and send them to people.

Interested?

And before you know it, it’s time to pack the boxes and leave…

I am moving back to Germany next month. I managed to squeeze in 3 weeks in Moshi (Yeah!) with Foot2Afrika , before I start my new job. Preparations for both events keep me very busy, never mind wrapping up my research in Dublin, finalizing all kinds of things and saying good bye to all my friends in Dublin. Gonna miss you guys - don’t be strangers, Germany is just a short trip away

This time a German friend from college is coming as well, so IT training is the flavor of the month.. Over a glass of (good!) wine the idea came up in spring and now, just a few months later we are getting ready for the trip.

We have done some fundraising: both of us online at betterplace and me offline with a coffee morning at DCU and with my sponsoring card “harrassing” pretty much everybody I talked to the last 4 weeks.. So far we have raised about € 1300; another €80 and we have reached our goal.

We also asked for a list of things Foot2Afrika send us. Friends gave us some of the items and we got some donations or vouchers from stores. Thanks to all of you!

Now I am pretty much done with the preparation. Started with the Lariam, so all set..

Now I just need to get my boxes picked up by a moving company. Sounds trivial, but indeed it took 2 weeks to get an offer from 3 companies. Now there are four days left before I am leaving the country and I still haven’t had the chance to arrange a time with the company with the lowest offer. But that’s just a little problem I will probably laugh about in max 1 weeks time

Next week at this time I will be back in Moshi - looking forward to the Foot2Afrika crowd, familiar and new faces.

Thanks to the people who put in the work to provide us with the selection of home-made cakes; here is what you missed if you didn’t make it:

Polish Chocolate cake from Joana - BIG succes again
Lemon Cheesecake from Jie
Banoffi Pie from Evans
Linzer Torte
Marble cake
Chocolate brownies from Tony
Apple crumble cake
Paula’s special cake
Romanian Space cakes - just kidding.. , Ramona brought a variety of fruit cake, delicious as always
Home-made cookies from Jenny
Lemon Cake from Trudy

Thanks to the staff of the chaplaincy for helping with setup and providing the space.
And finally thanks to all who attended the coffee morning.

We raised a fantastic 365 € - a big chunk of the funds we are trying to raise and which I will take with me to Tanzania.

If you couldn’t make it on Wednesday morning, but would like to support the fundraising and online isn’t your thing, there are also these 2 options:

I am still collecting funds with a sponsoring card - just talk to me when you see me on campus - I usually have the sponsoring card with me at all times

AND

Piggy, a money-hungry piglet (aka money bank), has moved in with
Breda McManus, EEng, Room 348, DCU
until Wednesday 19 June.
Piggy prefers paper money, but will eat coins of all sizes as well:)

I have been canvassing among the engineers at DCU for a couple of days and so far we have come up with a fantastic 370€! There is still plenty of room on my fundraising card - feel free to talk to me at any time
Thanks a lot to all supporters: Tarik, Jogile, Tian, Yann, Conor (both ;)), Owen, Evans, Tamas, Joe & Susan from the Inter Faith Center, Sarah (from NDRC), Philip, Gabriel (both ;)), Noel, Paddy and Stephen.
The amount has been added to the total and we have come a lot closer to our target.

Next week’s Tanzania Coffee Morning (5 June, 10am to 1pm, Inter Faith Center, DCU) with a long list of extremely yummy home-made cakes is coming up. So hopefully many will enjoy the cake and feed Piggy (the glorified pink shoebox aka Piggy Bank).

Also, if you live in Dublin, you are on Facebook and you are in need of some kitchen utensils, have a look at Piggy’s Kitchen Sale
Have a good week and spread the word about our fundraising.
Feel free to share the link  to our online fundraising page

Sabine

If you are in Germany or Ireland, preferably either near Stuttgart or Dublin:

we are putting together a number of things needed in some of the orphanages and nurseries in Moshi. We will take these things with us at the end of June.

Here is the list:

• knitting needles & wool,
• slippers,
• bed sheets,
• writing pads,
• nursery teaching resources,
• clothes and underwear for boys & girls 6 to 8 years
• used, but usable digital cameras
• used laptop, but usable with Windows 7

There is a lot out there - particularly about OER Africa.

Here a list with some recent publications.

1. A special issue on Distance Education for Empowerment and Development in Africa including Catherine Ngugi’s paper on OER in Africa’s higher education institutions.
2. The Commonwealth of Learning and UNESCO have just published Open Educational Resources and Change in Higher Education
3. An empirical investigation of the emergent issues around OER adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa by Pauline Ngimwaa & Tina Wilson
4. The OER mix in higher education: purpose, process, product, and policy by Samuel Nikoi & Alejandro Armellini from the special issue on OER and Social Inclusion
5. CORRE: a framework for evaluating and transforming teaching materials into open educational resources by Samuel K. Nikoi, Tania Rowlett, Alejandro Armellini & Gabi Witthaus
6. Special Issue: Open Educational Resources from 2009 (!) of Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning
7. OER Knowledge Cloud

My favorite clearly is the Knowledge Cloud. I guess I am having my girlie 5 minutes - the logo does look a bit like a cloud. But mostly I like the idea of this website. Go and have a look!

Now the big prize question is: are all these papers also available off-campus OR are they “protected” and safely stored behind a login?? Wouldn’t that be ironic, to say the least…

I will try as soon as I get home and I will report back. I promise.