In its Strategic Plan 2015-2021, “Learning for Sustainable Development,” the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) introduced a new initiative — Technology-Enabled Learning (TEL). There has been a significant increase in access to technologies, particularly mobile technologies, in developing countries in the past decade, and more educational institutions, teachers and students in the Commonwealth now have access to digital tools and the Internet. However, this increase in access to and use of these technologies is not evenly distributed across all countries, and technologies are not being used to their full potential in some areas. The interventions planned under the TEL initiative will allow more government and educational organisations to “adopt policies and strategies for, and devote resources to, technology-enabled learning for innovation and skills.” In order to achieve these outcomes, COL has embarked on several activities with governments and educational institutions to promote policy, technology and capacity building.
The Technology-Enabled Learning Implementation Handbook has been developed to assist educational institutions in adopting appropriate policies, strengthening technology infrastructure, building the capacities of teachers, helping learners to take advantage of the available technology and open educational resources (OER) for learning, and undertaking a rigorous approach to the assessment and evaluation of TEL. The objective is to provide both a systematic approach and evidence of improved learning outcomes in a TEL environment. We expect that institutions implementing TEL will use this handbook to gather data for evidencebased decision making. This handbook provides you, our partners, with a strategy to engage in a systematic process of critical thinking, decision making, implementation and reflection not just to promote but also to demonstrate improved student engagement and learning. Temporary link (just for this trial) is available here