The OER Knowledge Cloud makes use of cookies. By continuing, you consent to this use. More information.
Localizing OER in Afghanistan: Developing a multilingual digital library for Afghan teachers
Oates, Lauryn and Hashimi, Jamshid

PublishedApril 2016
JournalOpen Praxis
Volume 8, Issue 2, Pages 151-161
Publisher2016 Open Education Global Conference Selected Papers
CountryPoland

ABSTRACT
The Darakht-e Danesh (‘knowledge tree’) Online Library is the first open educational resource (OER) initiative in Afghanistan, established to enhance teacher subject-area knowledge, access and use of learning materials, and to foster more diverse teaching methodologies in order to improve learning outcomes in Afghan classrooms. This paper describes our experience developing this local language digital library, buildings its responsiveness to our audience of users as we progressed, customizing both the interface and the resources for Afghanistan’s education environment. We innovated methods to devise relevant local content, localized usability, developed different access models to reach different populations of users, integrated impact measurement, and opted to openly license material in the library’s collection. By making digital educational content open from the first introduction of digital repositories of learning objects in Afghan languages, we have an opportunity to establish the principle of openness and to promote open practices in teacher professional development in Afghanistan. The paper aims to share lessons on how OER can be customized for multilingual, resource-scarce contexts drawing from our experience to date in Afghanistan, and seeking to contribute to the literature on localization and multilingual OER.

Keywords Afghanistan · language · localization · OER · open access · teacher education · teacher professional development · teaching and learning materials

Published atKrakow
ISSN2304-070X
Other number2
RefereedYes
Rightsby/3.0
URLhttp://www.openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/288
Export optionsBibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar



AVAILABLE FILES
288-1301-2-PB.pdf · 304.3KB32 downloads



Viewed by 125 distinct readers




CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.

Click a star to be the first to rate this document


POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS

An early stage impact study of localised OER in Afghanistan
Oates, Lauryn; Goger, Letha Kay; Hashimi, Jamshid; Farahmand, Mubaraka; et al.
This study evaluates a group of Afghan teachers’ use of Open Educational Resources (OER) from the Darakht-e Danesh Library (DDL) – a digital library comprised of educational materials in English, Dari and Pashto – ...
Match: oates, lauryn; hashimi, jamshid; afghanistan; language; oer; teacher education

Darakht-e Danesh Online Library revolutionises education in Afghanistan
Oates, Lauryn
We created the Darakht-e Danesh (‘knowledge tree’) Online Library, Afghanistan’s first comprehensive digital educational resource collection. We saw technology as offering a shortcut to building the quality of ...
Match: oates, lauryn; afghanistan; oer

Multilingual media components directly embeddable in open educational resources in science and technology
Fernández-Vindel, J L.; Wilson, Tina
The use and reuse of OER (Open Educational Resources) depends on several conditions. Amongst others, the richness of their metadata, their granularity and the languages ​​in which they are made available. This ...
Match: multilingual; oer

Crowd-sourcing (semantically) Structured Multilingual Educational Content (CoSMEC)
Tarasowa, Darya; Auer, Sören; Khalili, Ali; Unbehauen, Jörg
The support of multilingual content becomes crucial for educational platforms due to the benefits it offers. In this paper we propose a concept that allows content authors to use the power of the crowd to create ...
Match: multilingual; oer

Parlez-vous OER? Open Educational Resources in multilingual contexts
Gruszczynska, Anna
The majority of OER are in English. This web article discusses efforts made to create OER in other languages.
Match: multilingual; language

Can new modes of digital learning help resolve the teacher crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa?
Moon, Bob; Villet, Charmaine
Sub-Saharan Africa, more than any other part of the world, is experiencing a crisis in finding sufficiently qualified teachers to meet the needs of expanding school systems. The professional development support provided ...
Match: oer; teacher education

Open access scholarly publications as OER
Anderson, Terry; McGreal, Rory; Conrad, Dianne
This article presents the rationale, common practices, challenges, and some personal anecdotes from a journal editor on the production, use, and re-use of peer-reviewed, scholarly articles as open educational resources ...
Match: oer; open access

MOOCs, Open Access repositories: New ways to embed learning in professional networks
Truyen, Frederik; Ubachs, George; Konings, Lizzie
In this paper I will discuss how Open Access repositories developed in the context of large networks such as Europeana and the delivery format of MOOCs can together offer a promising new strategy to connect learning to ...
Match: oer; open access

Developing open practices in teacher education: An example of integrating OER and developing renewable assignments
Van Allen, Jennifer; Katz, Stacy
This manuscript offers a reasoning for and example of integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) and open pedagogy within a teacher education course. We highlight a collaborative partnership between library faculty ...
Match: oer; teacher education

Impact of integrating OER in teacher education at the Open University of Sri Lanka
Karunanayaka, Shironica P.; Naidu, Som; Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl; Arinto, Patricia B.
This chapter reports on a research project implemented in the Faculty of Education at the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) which investigated the impact of integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) in the ...
Match: oer; teacher education