December 2005
Bridging the Digital Divide in Kabul
Kabul University, Afghanistan, DLC Global Pilot Site
While many of us were giving thanks over turkey on November 24, Michael VanHenley, the DLC's Educational Support Coordinator, was in Kabul, Afghanistan, talking 21st century skills.
VanHenley was facilitating a workshop hosted by Afghan eQuality Alliances: 21st Century Universities for Afghanistan.
Helping to bridge the digital divide
The DLC was invited to attend the workshop by Lisa Holmes and Maria Beebe of Washington State University's Center to Bridge the Digital Divide (CBDD). The CBDD is, in part, helping to build an educational infrastructure in Kabul.
Since the DLC has been working to bridge the digital divide in Washington State and has a history of success with helping schools adopt online resources as part of their curriculum, it was a natural fit.
21st century skills and e-learning
The five-day workshop in Kabul focused on 21st century skills and e-learning. There were sessions on open-source courseware and applications, digital resources, and effective teaching principles of e-learning.
VanHenley introduced workshop participants to the DLC's online resources, focusing on teaching resources, including MarcoPolo and Apex Learning ClassTools.
Faculty members were excited to learn about resources that they could use to reach their goal of instructing in English within the next four years. (English fluency is one of Kabul's targeted 21st century skills.) They also saw AP ClassTools as a way to offer introductory college-level courses in a variety of subjects. Via the DLC, faculty will also have access to high-quality materials for lesson plans that will help them teach a number of other 21st century skills.
VanHenly trained two students in the administration of ClassTools so that they can train teachers and fellow students to use these resources. "I think the students definitely saw the potential for integrating ClassTools into their university's curriculum, and they picked it up really quickly."
Getting up to speed technologically
While faculty and students in Kabul are excited about building an educational infrastructure that will ensure that students learn the skills they need to succeed in this century, some are also skeptical.
One faculty member summed it up: "We don't always have electricity. Even when we do prepare a PowerPoint presentation, when there's no power, we can't use it. So you're talking to us about e-learning and online courses and it seems like an impossibility."
While e-learning is currently an impossibility in many schools, there are a number of countries and organizations putting a lot of time and effort into building a technological infrastructure in Kabul. The goal is to teach faculty and students the skills they'll need now so that they don't have to play catch-up once the infrastructure is in place. Or as VanHenley puts it: "They'll have their Mercedes ready to go when the road is built."
Kabul through the eyes of a Seattleite
VanHenley points out that back in the 70s, Kabul was a tourist destination. Today, it's as if the city has been stuck in the same era for 20–25 years and, depending on where you look, has gone backward or forward in time from there.
Kabul University has a computer lab, which was set up by the University of Berlin, that has high-speed Internet and runs on a generator. Businesses in Kabul that are dependent on electricity also run on generators. But businesses that don't have generators are often in the dark. Yet, many Afghans communicate regularly via cell phones.
VanHenley describes Kabul like this: "It's almost as if somebody had taken a bunch of different cities in the world from different time periods, put them in a blender, and then just dropped the mixture in the middle of Asia."
"Making your way through Kabul is an incredible experience. During a 40-minute drive to the university—which would only take 10 minutes without traffic—you see businesses springing up, you see people pulling carts, you see nice houses, apartment buildings, mud huts on the hills…Since the Taliban left, a lot of people have come to Kabul because it's a relatively safe place and there are more opportunities than anywhere else in Afghanistan right now."
Moving forward…
To ensure that Afghans have even more opportunities in the future, the Afghan eQuality Alliances, which involves the CBDD, the DLC, and many other organizations, will continue to move forward.
Post-workshop, VanHenley is helping to create an action plan, which includes a pilot of DLC teaching resources at Kabul University.
For more information about the Afghan eQuality Alliances and the Center to Bridge the Digital Divide, go to http://www.elearning.net.af/index.html and http://cbdd.wsu.edu.
View some photographs of Kabul from Michael VanHenley's trip:
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