digitalLEARNING-Jan-2010-[6-12]-Event Report-eAsia 2009

event report

50th issue special ASIA

2009

Asia's Premier ICT Event

eASiA 2009: Deliberations, Dialogues, Debates and Knowledge Sharing in ICT4D 2-4 December 2009, Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, Colombo, Sri Lanka www.e-Asia.org INAUGURAl session eASiA is the annual International Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) event with the objective of reinforcing technology and knowledge-centric growth and needs of Asia vis-à-vis globe, through capitalisation of market economy and boosting human development.

The eASiA 2009, with a thrust on ‘Opportunities for Digital Asia’, provided the right opportunity for all stakeholders in the ICT arena to come closer and share a level-playing ground through active conferencing and networking.

Ushering in a new wave of technology in development, the eASiA 2009 Conference and Exhibition witnessed a three days of active conferencing and exhibition with ground breaking discussions on various issues of ICT4D, new and emerging technology in strengthening the various developmental models for a progressive society, standards and measures, various strategic policy frameworks, the pressing

issues in the region and need for a richness of enablers. e-Asia 2009 was held between December 2 and December 4 2009, at Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. The event brought together all the stakeholders including thought leaders, industry players, policy makers, Community of Practices spurred by their necessity, common purpose, enthusiasm and collaboration.

The event marked a need for a grand vision to manage the changes in the eeducation progress level, changes in the technology developments, and changes in the surrounding environment where technology needed to be integrated.

The three-day conference was coorganised by joint efforts of Centre for Science Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), Elets Technomedia, Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA), Sri Lanka and Presidential Secretariat, Government of Sri Lanka.

Centre for Science, Development and

HE Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka delivering his Keynote Address at the opening ceremony of eASiA 2009 in Colombo

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HE Mahinda Rajapaksa (centre); Dr Ravi Gupta, Executive Director, CSDMS; and Dr M P Narayanan, President, CSDMS inaugurating eASiA 2009

Media Studies (CSDMS), a leading Asian non-governmental institution engaged in advocacy, research and community building in e-Government, ICT for Development and knowledge management issues through capacity building and media initiatives. Elets technomedia is a media and events company mandated to provide effective information on different media and ICT tools and their stake in solving social problems through premiere print publications, online portals and premier events like seminars, conferences and summits. Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka, which is the single apex body involved in ICT policy and direction for the nation.

Wholly owned by the Government of Sri Lanka, ICTA is the implementing organisation of the e-Sri Lanka Initiative.

The vision of ICTA is to harness ICT as a lever for economic and social advancement by taking the dividends of ICT to every village, to every citizen, to every business and to re-engineer the way government thinks and works. The organisations worked together to enable

50th issue special all the stakeholders to come together for briefing all about the opportunities available presently in field of Information and Communication technology.

With five seminal and parallel tracks including eGov, Digital Learning, eHealth, Telecentre Forum and Emerging eTechnologies, the three-day conference cum exhibition was attended by more than 3,000 delegates from 30 countries across globe, including a 300-strong group of IT professionals from the host country, Sri Lanka. The eASiA 2009 exhibition witnessed more than 30,000 footfalls across all the three days.

First day of the conference saw a grand inaugural ceremony consisting of launch by the Honourable President of Sri Lanka, HE Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The ceremony was followed by plenary sessions consisting of eminent experts, commenting on importance and advancements of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in fields of Learning, Governance, Health and Telecentre Forum, in addition to Emerging e-Technologies. These people consisted of Suren Amarasekara, CEO Mobitel, Sri Lanka; Jaewon Kim, Deputy General Manager, Samsung Networks Inc.; Ng Fook Seng, SVP Security Business Asia, Gemalto; Par Botes, CTO APAC & Japan, EMC; Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, VP, WiMAX Forum; Dr. Xuan Zengpei, Director ICT & DRR Division UNESCAP; Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, Founder, Chairman & CEO, WSO2 Inc., Founder, Director & Chief Scientist, Lanka Software Foundation; Florencio Cebellos, telecentre.org, International Development Research Centre, Canada; Bash Badawi, Government Industry Technology Strategist, Public Sector, Microsoft APAC; Kevin North, Business Development Executive, IBM Global Technology Services AP Public Sector Business; Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO GeSCI, Ireland; HE Prof. J.B. Dissanayaka, Ambassador for Sri Lanka in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos PDR; and Md. Abdul Karim, Honourable Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Delivering the keynote address at eASiA 2009, post grand inauguration, the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa averred that Sri Lanka is moving ahead in ICT literacy with national IT literacy crossing the level of 30 % in comparison to 4% in 2004 and assured that the Government was committed to ensure that it goes up to 60% by 2012.

Rajapaksa said: ICT is the future driving force of economies. It is the tool and the

enabler that will push the boundaries of the future. Such interactions will positively socio-economic development in countries contribute to the progress of the entire such as Sri Lanka. It is with this aim that Asian region. There has never been this Sri Lanka has given priority to ICT, and much commitment and focus for ICT led mainstreamed ICT in all its development development.” activities. It is in this regard that Sri Lanka The day one ended with a Gala Night firmly pushes ahead with pioneering Celebration! initiatives such as e-Sri Lanka.

He underlined that these efforts have THE DIGITAL LEARNING ASIA resulted in numerous achievements and 2009 SESSIONS: PERSPECTIVES ON successes in the field of ICT in Sri Lanka, ICT ENABLED LEARNING given the fact that country’s percentage ranking in the Network Readiness Index Following the grand inauguration by has moved up from 72 to 53 in a span of the Honourable President of Sri Lanka, three years. Voicing his concern over the Mahinda Rajapaksa, the successive impact of Internet on young population of two days saw five parallel track the country, he cautioned, “Our children conferences, each having nine thought must be protected from the dangers in provoking sessions, in the domains the cyber space at any cost. Our culture of digitallEARNING, eHealth, eGov, also should not be harmed due to any Emerging e-Technologies and Asian advances in ICT. I am therefore appealing to all the Asian leaders to take precautions in this regard.”

He laid emphasis on the unmistakable need to urgently equip the people, especially the youth, with proficiency in the English language on the one side and Ashish Garg charing the session with the distinguished to provide them with speakers including Thushani A Weerasinghe, Dr Ravi K Mahajan, Mathias Hatakka and Prof. Robert Ramberg access to computers and internet facilities, through the rapid development of use of Telecentre Forum. The digitalLEARNING information technology, on the other. He track was spread over a period of two shared with the distinguished delegates days with a huge turnout and sought to that the government has successfully bring together experts and stakeholders implemented a unique network of from education sector working together ‘Telecentres’ known as the Nenasalas towards making optimum use of ICT for with over 600 centres He reiterated that profiting the associated beneficiaries.

ICT should be used as “ instruments of rural empowerment; as powerful tools SESSION I that could make each village in the country a meaningful part of the global The digitalLEARNING Asia was village.” He also said that the present declared open on December 3, 2009 Government recognises that “ICT is with its first session on the theme the only tool that will cross or break ‘Challenges: Planning, Managing, geographical barriers, social barriers and Standards and Quality in e-Learning’. reach out to the rural, disadvantaged and The session was chaired by Ms. Ashish vulnerable communities.”

Garg, the Asian Regional Coordinator for Dr. MP Narayanan, President, CSDMS Global e Schools & Communities Initiative. thanked the Honourable President, for The keynote speaker for the session Prof. gracing the occasion with his presence Robert Ramberg, Stockholm University, and the eminent dignitaries for their Sweden spoke on ‘Deterring Plagiarism: gracious participation; while expressing Assuming a pedagogical Approach.’ hope that the three day conference would He centered his talk around the need prove to be enriching and enlightening for addressing the issue of plagiarism experience for all participants. He said, encouraging students to know and “A conference of this nature gives understand what is expected to them. us further opportunities to share our He emphasised on the need to design experiences and harmonise our efforts for assessments and reliable means to digital LEARNING

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50th issue special

Audience intrigued by presentation in one of the sessions of digital LEARNING Asia track

methodology. He highlighted the three major design guidelines to design OLEs for learner satisfaction and learning effectiveness – a) structure and organised learning content; b) present content with multimedia; and c) designed teacherstudent interactions.

Session 1: Keynote speaker Prof. Robert Ramberg addressing the audience

discover cases of plagiarism.

Mathias Hatakka, from Örebro University, Sweden spoke on ‘A Model for a Learning Object Repository Metadata Set.’ He spoke about the metadata model that is based on need analysis for University of Colombo, School of Computing (UCSC). He highlighted on the need to have a metadata designed to optimise re-usability, searchability and user-friendliness for content stored in a learning object repository. Dr. Ravi K Mahajan, University School of Open Learning, Panjab University, India, spoke on ‘Students’ Perception or Teachers’ Profile: What restrains eLearning?’ He based his talk on highlighting the issues that restrain the growth of eLearning.

His presentation mainly focused on two empirical studies: a) mapping students’ perception on their `preferred mode of study’ with special reference to e-Learning; and b) Teachers’ profile with special reference to gauge their potential in harnessing ICT components.

Thushani A. Weerasinghe, Stockholm University, Sweden spoke on ‘Guidelines to Design Successful Online Learning Environments.’ He emphasised that design of an Online Learning Environment (OLE) can influence the success of the programme it would deliver. Therefore, it is important to design it with appropriate 8

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SESSION II The session ‘e-Learning in Classroom: Process, Pedagogy, and the Opportunities’ was chaired by Dr. Latha Pillai, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India.

This session included Col. K J Singh Kang, Director, Designmate, speaking on ‘Innovating through Content’; Manish Sharma, Vice President Marketing, APAC, Ncomputing, presenting on ‘Innovating through technology’; and S. Rajeev, Vice President, Strategic Alliance, Everonn, presenting on ‘Innovating through Connectivity and Content’.

While each of the industry leaders in the session spoke about the specific features of their respective products, they also emphasised on the need for a National vision on ICT and education with an articulated role of the eLearning industry.

SESSION III The session on ‘Opportunities: Moving forward in e-Learning’ was chaired Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO, Global e Schools & Communities Initiative (GeSCI), Dublin, Ireland. The keynote address was given by Prof. Jeff Haywood, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, on ‘Scanning the Horizon of Digital Learning: Options for the Future’. He shared that last 20 years have brought enormous technological opportunities and challenges to all levels

of education. He then briefly reviewed the progress in digital learning and stressed that the various technologies available should be adopted more importantly their pedagogical potential. Adrian Hall, Okapi Consultancy Ltd, United Kingdom made his presentation on ‘New Technological Applications to Enhance Teaching and Learning.’ He talked about the work undertaken within the UK education system to embrace the usage of ICT teaching and learning to engage and motivate students through the use of a range of new technological tools and applications.

Isuru Wimalasundera, Informatics Institute of Technology, Sri Lanka, talked about ‘MATHVIS’, which is a researched and developed software application that is capable of uplifting the educational background of visually impaired children. Damitha Sandaruwan, University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka, spoke on ‘A Ship Simulation System for Maritime Education’. He shared with the audience his views on the development of a simulation system for maritime education which simulates six degrees of freedom ship motions under different conditions.

SESSION IV The session ‘e-Learning in Higher Education and Professional Development’ was chaired by Dr. Ravi Gupta, Executive Director, Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) and Dr. Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, CSDMS. The Keynote address for the session was given by Dr Gihan Wickramanayake, University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka on ‘Effectiveness of Online learning in Sri Lanka’ with emphasis on the use of commercial and institutionally developed Learning Management Systems (LMS), that produce virtual learning environments for the students. However, these environments are exploited mostly through teacher centric study centres.

Trisha Dowerah Baruah, Krishna Kanta Handique State Open University, India spoke on ‘Effectiveness of ICT in Enhancing the Learner Support Services in Open and Distance learning.’ She shared a regional case study of Assam on the use of ICT in providing learner support services in Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU), the premier open university of India. K. M. G. B. Nishakumari, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom presented on ‘Effective Strategies to Motivate Students in Online Discussion Fora. The highlight of her presentation was that

50th issue special the lack of student motivation to actively participate in online courses affected all types of online learning. She called for a need to identify and use different learning strategies in activities to promote motivation for student engagement. T.C. Sandanayake, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka spoke on ‘Emotional Reactions of Undergraduate in Digital Learning Environment.’

She analysed the learner’s emotional condition during the introductory session of online learning into the course study by sharing the results of an empirical study conducted by her. The highlight of her presentation was to show that learner motivation factor would enhance the seamless integration of digital content in to the conventional face to face session.

SESSION V The session ‘Empowering and Enabling’ was chaired by Rajen Varada, Resource Person, ICT for Development Community, UN Solution Exchange, India. The Keynote speaker for the session was Greg Young, CEO Sri Lanka Telecom, who spoke about ‘Enabling Digital Education via next Generation Networks.’ He spoke about bridging the digital divide between people through connectivity (broadband, reliable sources, affordable connectivity and ICT diffusion); and education (technology to be used in schools, for teacher training and providing opportunities beyond classrooms). Dr. Vikum Senanayaka, Country Manager, Oracle, spoke on ‘Cloud Computing for Distance Education.’ He discussed that there are five drivers for distance education – economic, social personal, global and infrastructural. He defined for the audience, cloud computing with discussion on ‘Hype Cycle of emerging technologies’, service and deployment model and Oracle’s Cloud Computing objectives, strategies and offerings to the Educational community. The session also marked the end of the day.

SESSION VI The session six themed ‘e-Learning in Secondary Education and Community Development’ was chaired by Dr. Shironika Karunaratne, Open University of Sri Lanka. The Keynote address was delivered by Dr Henrik Hansson, Stockholm University of Sweden on ‘Technology Enhanced Learning, Teaching and Validation of the Scientific Process and Outcomes – Sci-Pro.’ He highlighted that the major challenge in the

process of learning is boredom and one The highlight of the report was that a) of the suggested ways of overcoming developing countries are benefiting from it is ‘engaging and motivating’ the ICT exports and there is room for new students. He gave an interesting entrants, b) broadband contributes to example of how use of web games can growth and opens up new opportunities, enhance the children’s interest regarding for which it deserves a central role mathematics. He emphasised the use in development strategies, c) Publicof pictures, especially of the role models with illustrations of their work to make memorising process fruitful. Following Dr. Hansson spoke Dr. K.Nachimuthu from Periyar University, Tamilnadu, India on ‘ICT Enabled Teaching and Learning in Teacher Educators Enosha Hettiarachchi, Prof. Brian Hudson, Prof. M M Pant, of Tamil Nadu.’ Dr Gihan Wickramanayake and RVSPK Ranatunga He highlighted the importance of teacher education and private partnerships can leverage the shared various productive ways for private sector to meet ICT infrastructure teacher training. Withanage Chaminda development objectives, d) Cross-sector Priyashantha, University of Colombo leadership and institutions are essential School of Computing, Sri Lanka, spoke on to realise the benefits from investing in ‘SCHOOLNET: Impact on Learning and e-government, e) Public interventions to Teaching’ by sharing that SCHOOLNET is promote IT and IT-enabled services can a network connecting secondary schools be good investments irrespective of the in Sri Lanka, working with support and success of the IT initiatives. effective use of the ICT (particularly the Internet). P D Ariyadewa, University of SESSION VIII Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka spoke on ‘Deploying and Managing The session ‘Certification: Role Techno-Social Network for OLPC.’ His of Assessments in e-Learning’ was presentation mainly covered the five core chaired by Dr. Gihan Wickramanayake. principles – child ownership, low ages, The keynote address on ‘Educational saturation, connection and free and open Design to Support Technology Enhanced source software.

Assessment for Learning in Higher Education’ was delivered by Professor SESSION VII Brian Hudson, Dundee (UK) and UMEA (Sweden). He examined the technology The session set the launch of ICT4D enhanced assessment for learning from Report for Asia by The World Bank. an educational design perspective, which The session was chaired by Reshan drew on traditions within the applied Dewapura, COO, Information and educational sciences and from distance Communication Technology Agency education theory. R V S P K Ranatunga, (ICTA), Sri Lanka. The sectoral trends University of Colombo School of were floored in the session and it Computing, Sri Lanka, spoke on ‘An was highlighted through graphical Integrated Framework for Detecting representations that convergence Plagiarism in eLearning Systems.’ is already a widespread and market He proposed a framework that could driven reality. The panelist of the session accelerate and improve the efficiency of included Ashis Sanyal, Senior Director, the human plagiarism detecting process Department of Information Technology, called the Machine Assisted Plagiarism Government of India; Tenzin Norbhu, Detection System (MAPDetect). The Senior ICT Policy Specialist, The user is the final decision maker in such a World Bank; Priyantha Kariyapperuma, system. Prof. M M Pant, Former Pro Vice Director General of Telecommunications, Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open Telecommunications Regulatory University, India, deliberated on ‘eLearning Commission of Sri Lanka; Oleg Petrov, Assessment: Emerging Challenges Coordinator, e-Development Thematic and Opportunities by comparing Group, The World Bank ; and so on. the traditional and transformational digital LEARNING

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50th issue special learning metrics. He also highlighted on the need for generic skills needed in future. He pointed out at various ideas such as GPS model of assessment, Fuzzy assessment of techniques, Data mining and Warehousing for learner assessment, eLearnability Quotient, and Knowledge Economy Readiness Index. Enosha Hettiarachchi, University of Colombo School of Computing spoke on ‘SCORM Based Online Assessment Objects for Computing Skill Evaluation.’

She described the meaning and stages of assessment – formative and summative. She discussed the features of eAssessment objects to be consisting of randomisation, monitoring interactivity and output. Peter Muessig-Trapp, Head of Information Systems and Open Source, Higher Education Information System Agency (HIS) spoke about the ‘Use of Information and Statistics in Higher Education Policy Planning’. He highlighted the Hochschul-InformationsSystem GmbH Higher Education Information System and eduSTORE (the open source data warehouse).

SESSION IX The final session of the DigitalLearning track was chaired by Dr. A. R. Ariyaratna, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. The session theme was ‘Path in “Education for All”.’ The keynote address on ‘Changes in the learning process and the impact on education’ was delivered by Bert Geers, Delft University, Netherlands.

He spoke about the resource learning process, traditional teaching process, re-orientation of the training approach, non-linear learning process, elearning environment and impact, traditional and e-Library, role of IT policy and integration of the ICT in learning. Peter Mozelius, Stockholm University, Sweden, spoke on ‘eNOSHA - Design and Development of a Learning Object Repository.’ He emphasised on the importance of building a constructive environment connecting all stakeholders in the content development process.

He discussed eNOSHA Open Source with regard to three key concepts - flexibility, reusability and userfriendliness. Niranjan Meegammana, Shilpa Sayura Foundation, Sri Lanka, spoke on ‘Knowledge outside class rooms: Wisdom of Rural Sri Lanka.’

He shared with the audience that there are 150 rural Nenasalas in Sri Lanka using the Shilpa Sayura Local Language e-Learning platform. The foundation facilitates self-learning for the National Curriculum helping over nine thousand 10

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rural youth learning outside classrooms and improving their knowledge.He mentioned that Shilpa Sayura and the Nenasala telecentre system demonstrate the importance of “Knowledge outside classrooms” as an emerging social education model enabled by Local elearning. The final talk was delivered by Ms. Ashish Garg on the ‘Role of ICT in fulfilling the objectives of ‘Education for All.’ She mentioned that ‘Education for All’ is one of the ambitious but realisable goals of the eight identified Millennium Development Goals(MDGs).

She discussed the impact of ICT in Education and limitations of the current research being done by stakeholders.

VALEDICTORY SESSION Near the end of the event, the valedictory session saw closing remarks from the eminent speakers including Dr. Ravi Gupta, Mr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, Ashis Sanyal, Dr. MP Narayanan, Reshan Dewapura, Hatem El Kadi, Attique Ahmad, Anir Chaudhary and Dr. I H K Mahanama. The track chairs of all the track conferences gave a brief account of their respective tracks. The conference was well attended by more than 3,000 delegates across all the three days. The footfalls in the exhibition were more than 30,000. The conference certainly helped in generating businesses, collaborative partnerships, and institutional alliance amongst the various stakeholder

Harsha Wijewardana, Telecentre Forum Asia Trach Chair, summing up his track

practical sessions where we discussed issues and ideas away from theory. The sessions were very enduring and indeed, thank you very much for arranging this conference!” India’s Department of Information Technology Senior Technical Director Ashis Sanyal said, “I have attended all the e-India and all the e-Asia conferences and exhibitions. I say that from all aspects including hospitality from the security personnel at the entrance to the head table e-Asia 2009 is by far the best”. Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies President M. P. Narayanan said that e-Asia 2009 did not end with the final session but would continue through other modes such as e-conversations, the Internet and e-Conferences. Delegates from Bangladesh, Brazil, Egypt, Pakistan, and Portugal etc. too were full of plaudits for e-Asia 2009. The valedictory session marked the end of the three day saga of the Asia’s Premier ICT event. The Valedictory session was concluded with the promise that discussions,

From right to left: Dr. Ravi Gupta, Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, Ashis Sanyal, Dr. MP Narayanan, Reshan Dewapura, Hatem El Kadi, Attique Ahmad, Anir Chaudhary and Dr. IHK Mahanama

participants. Many comments regarding the three day conference were shared by the speakers and the audience. Mr. Mathias Hatakka from audience said that the conference was “enjoyable, had

debates and issues emerged in the eASiA 2009 would be carried forward and deliberated upon at eINDIA 2010, Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), Hyderabad, India from

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Exhibition Asia's Premier ICT Event

August 4-6, 2009. \\

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