‘Partnership and Opportunity’ with E-Learning was the
motto of the 2-day seminar and workshop, Thai-UK Education Festival 2003,
held last week in Chiang Mai.
Two hundred delegates from Thailand and many well-known
names from the UK combined their strategy to move E-learning forward in
Thailand.
(From
left) Stefan Frenzel, lecturer at Payap University and manager of Crystal
Spring Hotel, Sunisa Frenzel, MSc, Tourism and Hospitality Education, Martha
Butt, vice president for International Affairs from Payap University, and
Michael Vogt, MD of Chiangmai Mail, enjoy the chilly evening at the British
Council.
Dr. Nipon Tuwanon, president of Chiang Mai University,
Dr. Tatchai Sumitra, chairman of the Council of University Presidents of
Thailand and president of Chulalongkorn University, as well as Dr. Bhaskar
Chakravarti, director of the British Council Thailand, were a few of the big
names present.
David
Hopkinson, director of the British Council Thailand Chiang Mai thanked all
participants of the conference in E-learning and expressed his warmest
wishes to the ministry of university affairs Thailand and the UK for the
tremendous effort they did in the lectures and workshops in moving
E-learning forward in Thailand.
Chaithawat
Saowapon, director at Chiang Mai University at the Information Technology
Service Center relaxing with Professor Paul Bacsich, one of the main
lectures of the Education Festival 2003. Prof Paul is the HOD of Networks
and Multimedia and Head of Telematics in Education Research Group at the
School of Computing and Management Sciences in Sheffield Hallam University.
Paul is best known internationally for his work on the costs of E-learning
and studies on virtual universities. Both of them together are a team hard
to beat.
The conclusion of this two-day seminar was to make
E-learning more fun and more attractive for students. They should click on
an E-learning program as often or as much as they enjoy playing around on
websites such as sanook.com
But to reach this goal, E-learning has to be implemented into mainstream
learning. To deliver UK E-learning globally, it has to be made more striking
and modern, and with all that education perspective in Thailand, it can fly
as high as the khom loys which were set free at the Garden Party in the
magnificently illuminated gardens of the British Council where the British
Council Chiang Mai invited all lecturers after the seminar.
