Meet the Virtual Community

Makumbi Ibrahim
Master’s Student, Makerere University
Instructional Design & Technology

I really enjoy the Virtual Community. It provides vital information and skills that are within my career of Instructional Design and Technology. The five sessions I have attended had a positive impact on my career and day to day life.

The issues discussed and solutions presented were handled with a professional touch. The case presenters and subject matter experts were very knowledgeable and skillful. They leave no stone unturned.

The sessions opened up doors for me to create networks. I have a connection to a number of individuals with different knowledge and skills that can help me as I grow in the field of e-Learning and instructional design and technology.

I believe it [the virtual community] will last as long as it is opened to other people who are not in the current cohort but have interest in the subject matter. It [the virtual community] connects individuals from different parts of Africa to learn remotely in order to transform their society.

Eliane Teclaire Etobe

Mrs. ETOBE Eliane Téclaire leads the E-learning department at the Catholic University of Central Africa - Catholic Institute of Yaoundé (UCAC-ICY) in Cameroon and is the project manager for the implementation of a UCAC-ICY-based distance learning system. She has a master’s degree in technopedagogy from the University Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg with formal training in the utilization of information communication technologies in teaching and training.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic confinement, AFROHUN decided to build the capacity of university teachers in active pedagogy through the training of trainers. We attended webinars, then a meeting in Ngaoundéré, and webinars after this meeting to implement what we had learned in order to pass it on to our peers. It was a bit of a slow process, but it was a good initiative, and four of my fellow teachers took the last few webinars and came away enlightened.

My experience with vCOPs and ECHOs was very rewarding. In addition to my own experience in the field of technology education, the experience and knowledge shared by the facilitators is very useful for those working in this field. My two trainings are more than ten years old, there are new skills to learn.

The potential of the ECHO/vCOP model is that it has succeeded in bringing together academics and specialists in technopedagogy from different countries around the concept of technopedagogy. This is important because it allows not only capacity building but also exchange of experience.

The part I really enjoyed was the practical part on Moodle (an open source learning platform and course management system) because it is something I haven’t done before, and since in our university we also use Moodle, it gave me additional skills.

I think these sessions are a success because they allow teachers to discover what E-learning is and to break all the preconceived ideas about this teaching modality.

What I learned or rather what I improved, is my knowledge about the use of ICT in teaching and training, especially the problem situations that so far I am struggling to put into practice. But it’s starting to come. Now that a WhatsApp group has been created, if this group is well facilitated, I think it will strengthen the relationship between the participants. Because no matter what you say, anything that is virtual needs a facilitator to make it live.

To prepare a skilled and competent workforce, we must develop and disseminate knowledge about pressing issues in the One Health framework. Though development of skills for collaboration and partnerships is essential for disseminating and translating One Health knowledge, it is difficult to accomplish because of the wide range of schedules and differing priorities of the various professionals and disciplines that the One Health framework demands.

Learning for the Age of Social Distancing

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted delivery of in-person education and training programs worldwide, severely challenging conventional mechanisms for knowledge sharing and acquiring technical skills. Though digital transformation of training delivery started before the pandemic, the rapid pace of adoption and implementation of online education was unprecedented, necessitating the development of best practices for digital online teaching and learning (eLearning).

Empowering Virtual Communities of Practice (vCoP) is a major strategy that the One Health Workforce – Next Generation project emphasized for disseminating One Health knowledge. In Year 1, we successfully deployed the ECHO platform for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and trained AFROHUN and SEAOHUN Secretariat staff on managing ECHO programs. In Year 2, together with AFROHUN, we succeeded in identifying key topics of regional and national interests and the AFROHUN Secretariat embarked on semi-independent management of ECHO programming.

Over the past year, the AFROHUN Secretariat planned and implemented an eLearning ECHO vCoP with participation of more than 80 individuals across nine countries. Pre- and post-assessments of outcomes indicate that these sessions added to participant knowledge and supported the sharing of best practices (Figure 1).

Building Sustainable Communities of Practice to Address Antimicrobial Resistance Antibiotics are used extensively in human and animal health care, and antibiotic residues in wastewater have contributed to environmental pollution, which fuels the development of resistance among pathogenic microorganisms.

The trans-sectoral impact of antibiotic resistance renders it a quintessential challenge for the One Health framework. If the scourge of antibiotic resistance is not tackled now, one human death could occur every three seconds by the year 2050, and the annual death toll would increase from 700,000 to 10 million at a cost of >US$100 trillion in global production.

The Africa sub-continent is expected to bear a particularly heavy burden of diseases due to failing antibiotic therapy against communicable diseases. Improving stewardship of antibiotics is a multisectoral challenge, encompassing several professions and academic disciplines, including agriculture, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, environmental science, behavioral science, and community engagement.

Proposed remediation strategies hinge on improving antibiotic stewardship, defined as stringent and appropriate use of antibiotics. Educating pre-service trainees and in-service professional is a crucial strategy for improving antibiotic stewardship, as is building sustainable communities of practice, which would reinforce the benefits of stewardship by promoting and disseminating best practices among collaborating professionals.

This year, AFROHUN Kenya successfully planned and implemented the “One Health ECHO: Antimicrobial Resistance & One Health” with support of the Global Team and the American Society for Microbiology. More than 150 participants from 21 institutions representing different sectors of One Health joined the vCoP (Figure 2) and pre- and post-assessments indicated that participation increased knowledge