Virtual Workshop for tourism educators and curriculum specialists

"The collaboration between CTO and COL is expected to reap benefits for Caribbean students in the long term by providing greater access to tourism and hospitality courses throughout the region, through online delivery mechanisms."

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) have launched a virtual workshop for tourism educators and curriculum specialists on a computer package which allows course developers to place their material online.

The 40-day workshop on 'Atutor Course Development and Delivery' started in early October 2004 and ends in November. 'Atutor' is a web-based Learning Content Management System which allows educators to quickly assemble, package and redistribute web-based instructional content; easily retrieve and import pre-packaged content; and conduct courses online.  

Bonita Morgan, CTO's Director of Human Resources, said: "At the end of the workshop, 25 curriculum specialists and tourism educators from tertiary level institutions across the Caribbean will have gained valuable practical experience in developing an online course using 'Atutor'. They will also have developed an awareness of how to transfer the skills learned from this course to other Learning Management Systems and e-learning (electronic learning) initiatives." 

Participants of the workshop include educators and course specialists from universities, colleges and institutes in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, British Virgin Islands and Suriname. CTO aims to utilise the skills of participants to help develop an online course in Sustainable Tourism in 2005.  

This programme is a follow-up to a five-day workshop conducted in Barbados in May 2004 called 'Instructional Design Processes for Online Learning', which focused on developing the skills of participants to create multimedia courseware.   

Ms Morgan stated: "The collaboration between CTO and COL is expected to reap benefits for Caribbean students in the long term by providing greater access to tourism and hospitality courses throughout the region, through online delivery mechanisms."

 Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, COL was created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development of open learning and distance education.