Project Manager: Awejan Emmanuel
Project Coordinator: Mbulle Lorena
Project Sponsor: GoGreen Technologies(GG TECH)
Resource Manager: Mapong Louise
Introduction
Digital learning is replacing traditional education methods more and more each day. With how rapidly classrooms are changing, it is best to forget methods one may remember from when one was in school and start thinking about newer teaching and learning techniques based on digital learning tools and technologies.
The inclusion of digital learning in the classroom can vary from simply using tablets instead of paper to using elaborate software programs and equipment as opposed to the simple pen. Digital learning and technology enable youths to develop effective self-directed learning skills.
They are able to identify what they need to learn, find and use online resources, apply the information on the problem at hand, and even evaluate resultant feedback. This increase their efficiency and productivity. In addition to engaging youth, digital learning and technology sharpens critical thinking skills, which are the basis for the development of analytic reasoning.
Objectives of the training
Training is a learning activity aimed at acquiring knowledge and skills necessary to successful perform particular job or task. This includes changes in specific areas of knowledge abilities, skills, behavior and even attitude in order to prepare for better job performance.
The basic concept of the project “Educating Youths on Digital Sustainability” is for the beneficiaries to gain necessary knowledge and skills in digitalization implementation procedures through work and learning and to raise the level of the public awareness of the significance of E-learning in this our generation and the good part in it precise here in Buea.
Thus in to bring out the building capacity of the participant in the trainings, and from where they are coming from making all that to be achieved. Objectives include the following:
- Develop the skills and confidence of educators in the appropriate and effective use of digital technology to support learning and teaching.
- Improve access to digital technology for all learners
- Ensure that digital technology is a central consideration in all areas of curriculum and assessment delivery.
- Empower youths of change to drive innovation and investment in digital technology for learning and teaching.
Host Organization: GOGREEN TECHNOLOGIES
Executive Summary of Organization
GoGreen Technologies is a Non-governmental Organization that provide young people with necessary skills needed to survive in this our challenging world. It focuses on empowering young people with skills in the agricultural, digital, leadership, entrepreneurial, education and voluntarism sectors. GoGreen Technologies works on building youth who will lead the future not as an option but as a responsibility.
Objectives of the Organization
- Training youths as green world builders that can develop a sustainable life.
- Educating youths on technological sustainability which will help ensure positive impact in the digital world.
- Bringing into their minds adequate information that can cause a turnaround in their perception.
- To awaken the skills and potentials of leaders that can manage the future.
Organization Capacity
GoGreen technologies has a team of human resource who are well qualified and experience for project implementation. The Organization follows regular monitoring, share experiences and immediate action for the successful implementation of project activities. It target is to ensure support to the development of youths to build their digital capacity and skills.
Legal Status
Registered as nonprofit Organization under the service of social and cultural affairs
Date of registration: 24th of November 2020
Registration Number: 1425/G.37/084/VOL, I/SASC
Partner: YOUTH FOR VISION
Youths with Visions Global is a Developmental and Humanitarian Civil Society Organization which is out to bring to reality visions of youths. The initiative came as an idea in 2015. The founder – Teke Spencer Tafon gave a lot of thoughts about it, went through individual and self-development empowering and acquire knowledge to make to make it work. And it finally came to existence on the 26th of June 2017. Since then we’ve been working with wonderful team and now, we are working to expand it to other parts of the world.
Youths with Visions Global Has Eight Human Development Programs and four Humanitarian Programme.
Development Of The Training Programme
In the development of the training programme “Educating youths on digital sustainability”, a Team from GoGreen Technologies and Youth for Vision visited areas in order to come out with points on how to go about with the program. Met with key personnel in the public sector, private sector and civil society organizations to discuss the development the training programme and specifically the course content and curriculum, learning objectives of the course and proposed participants, Agree on key areas of emphasis for the training manual based on the agreed curriculum, Agree on timelines as well as location for the delivery of the training programme.
About the Program: Educating youths on digital sustainability Cohort 1
The project “Educating youths on digital sustainability Cohort 1“was designed as a two weeks-day, 5 courses covering a range of topics towards:
- Enabling participants to understand the importance of energy efficiency and conservation
- to national development.
- Equipping participants to be able to develop relevant strategies that could help countries
- advance their renewable energy agendas.
- Enabling participants to understand the core elements required to develop efficiency and renewable energy policies.
Training Location: Municipality of Buea from the 6th of June to the 24th of June 2021 at University of Buea/ Cameroon
This report on the training held in the municipality of Buea precisely in the university of Buea is structured as follows:
- Background and Introduction
- The Learning Product
- Training Delivery
- Participants
- Certificate awarding
- Training Evaluation.
Learning Product
Course Description:
This project was designed for the youths within the municipality of Buea whom we know have responsibility for guiding the country’s technological policy and digital management framework.
The course provides insight into all aspects of digital management with specific emphasis on technology and technology sustainability. Emphasis has been placed on highlighting issues and challenges that youths face in pursuing the right technological skills and digital sustainability strategies.
Best practices within the studied area were highlighted as a means of showcasing how various youths are lacking with digital knowledge into to acquire for them a proper and decent job without making abuses of the negative side of technology so the courses have been designed in such a way that youths will be open to the importance of have technological skills that will better their lives in the outside world.
The curriculum is divided into five Courses and is designed to be covered over a 2-week period. The course also was designed to ensure practical application of the learning and to enable the youths to demonstrate leadership in digitalization practices and the adoption of digital sustainability strategies, serving as a model for other youths outside the city.
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
1.Knowledge:
Understand the importance of digitalization and sustainability conservation to national.
2. Development
Understand the importance of moving from the traditional form of technology to a more sustainable form of technologies to advancing national
3. Develop agendas
Understand the core elements required to develop computer basis in this new era of development.
4. Performance:
- Develop relevant strategies that could help countries advance their technological skills
- Know how to develop web app and web site for ease of invention and innovation and to bridge barriers and secure chances of acquiring a job while reducing the challenges associated with lack of technological skills.
5. Attitude:
Appreciate the importance of pursuing digitalization options to support national development.
Courses
- Course 1: General computer (GC)
- Course 2: Web development (Word Press) (WW)
- Course 3: Social Media Management (SM) and Blogging (BG)
- Course 4: Graphics Design (GD)
- Course 5: Web development (Programming) (WP
Curriculum
The curriculum for the course is presented below:
Course 1: General Computer
- Introduction to computer
- Microsoft Word
- Excel
Course 2: Web development (Word Press) (WW)
- HTML5 and its Document Object Model (DOM)
- Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
- JavaScript (ES 6)
- HTML, CSS Development
- Responsive Websites with Bootstrap 4 and Flexbox
- Personal Portfolio and Cloning Exercise
- HTML Elements, Layout and Structure
- CSS Styling and Positioning
Course 3: BLOGGING and Social Media Management (SM)
- Introduction to Blogging
- Who is a Blogger
- Concepts of Blogging
- Different features of Blogging
- manager reputation gatekeeper
- responsibilities
- personal grooming
Course 4: Graphics Design (GD)
- Interface introduction to Adobe Photoshop
- Panels and workspace in Adobe Photoshop
- Image size, dimension and resolution.
- Layers in Adobe Photoshop
- Common file type in Ps(Photoshop)
Course 5: Web development (Programming) (HTML, CSS, and JS)
Training Delivery
The course was delivered over the period June 06 to 24, 2021.
Total number of who successfully completed the training was 11 with 7 being girls and 7 being boys.
Orientation of the training
On the 6th of June when the training began, orientation was given to participant on how the training was going to run and the importance of them having the training alongside the benefits they are going to have in course of the training as time goes.
Some of the important point mention include the following;
- An illiterate in our days is not someone that doesn’t know how to write but the person that lack IT skills.
- Getting skills and knowledge on IT gives you an upper hand in the job market as in our days many company employ people with some basic digital skills.
- Someone digital skills can operate in almost all field as the world is going digital, so having these skills will benefit in self-building.
Training Methodologies
The training approach is based on principles of adult learning with a focus on peer review during all the steps of planning, organizing and conducting a training/learning event. The course models a variety of effective training methodologies, including demonstration, practice, discussion, brainstorming and presentation. The process of delivery of training includes group work exercise, group discussion and review session.
Taking into account all relevant and available information about the training subjects, topics and participant, the trainers decided to use the following methodology:
- teamwork and group work: since the participants of the training were adults, who would sometimes find it difficult to listen much to other people, the team and group work chose to guide the participant through the training content and particular topics during the learning session. The participants provide with the opportunity to discuss their work experience and problem related to the particular domain of choice.
- Interactivity: this approach might be more suitable for participant familiar with the hosen Courses, rather than for real beginners, sine and beginners would not possess adequate knowledge and as such should be more supported and guided by trainers.
- Practical example: considering the fact that the trainers were experienced and exceptionally acquainted with the training Courses, one of the most desirable ways to learn some uncertainties among participants was drawing attention to the previous real life situation which the trainers witness in the past.
- Practical work: after each topics presentation and explanation from the Courses, the participants were provided with an opportunity to do some practice. Assignment on the topics touches was assigned to the participants in order to develop their preparation, communication and presentation skills
- Transfer of knowledge and previous experiences through discussions: sharing of experiences session were included for better understanding of problem and challenges for proper implementation of assignment and ideas.
Training Process
The training was carried out through 5 training days in a duration of 2 weeks. Training program cover 5 training 5 Courses: each Courses have a introductions and implementation of the topics listed for training. Each session includes an introduction, learning objectives, participatory methodologies and activities and duration of each of the training Course session was 2 hours for proper follow up and quick participation.
Delivery Of Training
This session includes two phases that is preparatory phase and implementation phase.
1.Preparatory phase which included organization of training logistics, and determining expectation of participants included in the project. During this phases, topics were developed to the level of project application, were determined.
Participants’ expectation, as articulated at the beginning of the training program. Participants brainstormed their personal expectation and the trainer collected these expectations and organized below:
- New knowledge and skills; improving knowledge and skills about digitalization and technological management in overall; strengthening skills for importance in the IT advancement and management and many more.
- New partnership that is networking and making new contacts; improving knowledge and skills in identifying partner and managing partnership; successful cooperation with other youths, share knowledge, experiences and ideas with other youths.
2. Implementation phase
The training project on “Educating the Youth on Digital sustainability in the municipality of Buea is composed of three interconnected parts.
- The first part relates to training where participants acquire practical knowledge about of moving from the traditional form of technology to a more sustainable form of technologies to advancing national. The training was carried out through 5 training session in duration of 2 weeks. The training program cover 5 training Courses with each Courses to implemented throughout that 2 weeks of intensive training so that the trainees could entirely acquire knowledge and skills for digital sustainability procedures which focuses on a 2 hours session for each Course.
- The second part was focused on introducing training participant (the youths) to implement procedure in Buea and everywhere they find their selves.
- The third part is learning through work, where the training participants, after completing the course, assignment, with support of trainers, on a specific problem and ideas of interest for their selected Courses. Monitoring of work of the participants after each of the hand-on-support was aimed at providing support to the participants regarding developing phases of the project proposals. Hand-on-support was realized in the form of consultation that is follow up. Support include private assistance in assignment when not understood.
All participants were asked to come along with their machine since it was a digital learning programme. A variety of learning delivery and assessment methodologies were employed, in an attempt to enable the course to be participatory and interactive and to allow participants to effectively assimilate the new ideas and learning.
Importantly, emphasis was placed on adult learning methodologies and over the duration of the course there were a combination of:
- Students.
- Graduates.
- Group Discussions.
- Individual and group work/assignments.
- Oral presentations.
Assessment Methodologies
Participants were required to undertake pre – and post-tests (note that the questions of the pre and post-test were in the form of assignments and this what was done to really assess how much the participant knew before the training and how the training built their capacity).
Participants
A total of 34 persons register into to the training program using a link hat was provided on the platform for registration. Among the 34 that register only 25 successfully benefited from the training program. Participants were from the municipality of Buea basically youths from within the environ. Both males and females were given equal opportunity to attend the training.
The selection of participants was done through a registration link which was send into the public through groups on the WhatsApp forum and on status of different members in the organization.
Awarding certificate to participants
During the awarding of the certificate, many of the participant didn’t show up just 11 of them shown up and this was due to heavy rain that fell during the closing of the program. After the awarding of the certificate to the participants, photos were taken and send to the forum created for those who could make it there so they could come for their certificate.
Training Evaluation
There are several approaches used to measure the effectiveness of training. At the project “Educating youth on Digital Sustainability” was applied Kirkpatrick’s four level of evaluation approach. In this model, each successive evaluation level is built on information provided by the earlier lower level. The evaluation consists of the four different questionnaire to measure learning. This evaluation level will be demonstrated on the table below
| level | Measures | Evaluation description and characteristics | Tools and Methods | Utilization |
| 1 | Participant reaction | Reaction evaluation is how the trainees felt about the training or learning experience. | Daily evaluation form was containing question to see if participant understood what they were doing. By their trainers | At the end of each training session |
| 2 | Participant learning | Learning evaluation is the measurement of the increase in knowledge before and after the training. | Individual pre and post-training assignment for comparison. | Pre-assessment: at the beginning of the training course. Post-assessment At the end of the training course |
| 3 | Knowledge transfer | Behavior evaluation is the extend of applied learning back on the job-implementation. | Focus teams and groups to gather information with regards to what was taught. Facilitator observation. | At the end of the training course |
| 4 | Organizational impact | Result evaluation is the effect on the business or environment by the trainees. This evaluation measures the success of the training program. | Facilitator Observations | At the end of the training |
Evaluation Level 1 – Participant Reaction
All participant of training actively attended the training course with curiosity and actively participated in their group work and team work. Overall, the response from participants was positive. After each completion of Course, the participant was asked to assess the overall performance and the extent to which the training objective were met, the relevance and usefulness of the training’s content, performance of the trainers, performance of trainers, the appropriateness of the training methodologies used, usefulness of the material used and logistic of the training.
The question related to the impact of the training on the increased knowledge and benefit for the organizations was asked as well. The methodologies used as the evaluation questionnaire with mostly in an interview on one on one with the participants.
Evaluation Level 2 – Participant Learning
Assessment of knowledge and skill acquired or improved during the training was conducted on the basis of pre-test and post-test, using the method of participants’’ self-evaluation. Immediately before training pre-test had been filled in, identifying their level of knowledge about training topics.
Evaluation Level 3 – Knowledge Transfer
This measure helps determine how learning from the training project has been applied to the workplace. The intention was to compare post-training knowledge, skill and activities with what had or had not been done prior to the training. A method “focus group to gather information” was applied for this purpose.
Evaluation at this final level helps both partners too understand how the learning impacted the participants in terms of either increasing their skill and improving their knowledge on digitalization and also some factors that might have led to good results. The purpose fr obtaining post-training feedback from that foal point was to understand how the training impacted the participants’ work environment. This evaluation measures the outcome, success and some draw backs of the training.
Outcomes of the training program
- identify, escribe and apply emerging technologies in teaching and learning environment.
- demonstrate knowledge, attitudes and skills of digital age work and learning.
- develop technology-enable assessment and evaluation strategies.
Success of the training program
- Most of the participant were encourage on knowing more about technology and related issues regarding it.
- Some participant had to design a flyer for their upcoming restaurant business.
- Some could even develop web app making the training more encouraging and worth attending.
Drawbacks of the training program
- Lack of training hall; due to lack of training hall, it made the training learning session to be not too effective as participant will have to move out each time a class is to hold at the university campus which was not good enough for the environment of the participant. Also due to this factor, the training period was short whereas if the was an already rented hall the training would have been prolong for better understanding of the training curriculum layout.
- Publicity; the lack of effective publicity about the program was a challenge to us as many people didn’t get to know about the programs and this was too due to lack of finances to go to other media possible to pass out the information. Here in our milieu, passing information on some media require finance that was a challenge to both the partners that carried out the activities.
- Stipends for trainers; most of the trainers in the program offered their skills and knowledge for free since they were no stipends for them while others could not continue with the program as many of them had to purchase their training manuals themselves which was also a burden on them.
- Purchase of material; most of the pedagogic material needed were absent because the finance to get them was not enough, the partners had just a projector which made learning to ineffective as there were 5 Courses that needed 5 projectors as the Courses were taught by 5 different facilitators. Also manuals for participants were absent as well as those of the facilitators which was a challenge on both the partners of the program. With this pedagogic material the partners of the program saw that program will be a great success if they are to go on holding seeing the eagerness of the participant as they gave in their time and effort of the program.
Appendix
Pictures during the course of the training
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