News Story

Knowledge Media and Thai Cyber Learning

Peter Scott, Monday 22 Nov 2010

KMi Director, Peter Scott spent this week visiting with the Thai Cyber University Project courtesy of the Office of Higher Education Commission, Thailand. The visit involved a number of University visits, talks and meetings, and an excellent opportunity to experience some of the unique culture and heritage of this wonderful country.

Monday 22nd November 2010 opened the formal week of the visit with a marathon full day workshop for the Thai Cyber University in historic Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand – north of Bangkok. The workshop sessions included the work of the Open University in Learning, Teaching and Quality; open learning with mobile technology and learning analytics; and then jointly creating the future of technology enhanced learning with hot current research projects like STELLAR, TELMAP, OpenScout and iCoper.

In the afternoon research project workshop session participants were asked to contribute to the Grand Challenge thinking of the STELLARNet community, and it was very useful to get an asian perspective on the future of Technology Enhanced Learning & encourage this new community to share this thinking further with the http://teleurope.eu/ platform.

Peter was a guest of the President of the Phranakhon Si Ayutthaya Rajabhat University at the opening of the new Historical Centre exhibition. In addition, the visit included a number of strategic discussions with University executives and colleagues such as at the Learning Innovation Centre, at Thailand’s oldest tertiary institution, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

During the week Peter was able to experience the Loi Krathong Festival in historic Ayutthaya city, visit the Winter Palace there, and the Grand Palace in Bangkok – and see many ancient and current temples. These look very different from the back of an Elephant, certainly!