On Designing Blended Learning Environments for Resource-Challenged Communities

Authors

  • Shaimaa Lazem City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications, Alexandria, Egypt

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v14i12.10320

Keywords:

Blended Learning, ICT4D, Resource-Challenged Communities, Developing Countries

Abstract


The growth of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) adop-tion in emerging economies and more broadly Resource-Challenged Com-munities (RCC) motivates the exploration of Blended Learning (BL), a learning mode that mixes face-to-face and technology-mediated instruction. BL has the potential of broadening accessibility to quality learning anytime and anywhere. This article contributes a theoretical perspective for design-ing BL environments in RCC. It synthesizes findings from BL literature and lessons distilled from iconic educational technology projects in RCC to envision a pathway forward that consists of three design heuristics to ad-dress that the contextual challenges in RCC: localizing the problem, em-bracing the complex and nuanced use of technology, and balancing autono-my and scaffolding to support students.

Author Biography

Shaimaa Lazem, City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications, Alexandria, Egypt

Shaimaa Lazem is an academic researcher at the City of Scientific Research and Technology Applications (SRTA-City), a research institute in Alexandria, Egypt. At SRTA-City she established a research program in human-computer interaction (HCI). Her research interests include participatory design, cross-cultural collaborations, post-colonial computing, and decolonizing HCI. Her previous projects included designing low-cost education and health technologies and applying learner-centered and flexible learning pedagogies for teaching computer science and HCI. Lazem has experience working with rural communities. She is the Egyptian lead of a UK-Egypt project (https://www.hilali-network.com/) to engage Egyptian Bedouins in self-documenting their intangible heritage using mobile phones. One of the project outcomes is a mobile application that allow the non-Bedouins to ask questions about the Bedouin culture, which authenticated Bedouins could then choose to answer either using text, audio, or video. She was recently awarded the Leaders in Innovation Fellowship with the Royal Academy of Engineering in London to design an archival platform for marginalized communities to self-document their indigenous knowledge. Lazem is the Chair of the Cairo ACM SIGCHI Professional Chapter in Egypt CairoCHI (https://cairochi.acm.org) and the Cofounder of the Arab HCI community (https://arabhci.org/).

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Published

2019-06-27

How to Cite

Lazem, S. (2019). On Designing Blended Learning Environments for Resource-Challenged Communities. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 14(12), pp. 182–192. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v14i12.10320

Issue

Vol. 14 No. 12 (2019)

Section

Short Papers