Inter-American Development Bank
facebook
twitter
youtube
linkedin
instagram
Abierto al públicoBeyond BordersCaribbean Development TrendsCiudades SosteniblesEnergía para el FuturoEnfoque EducaciónFactor TrabajoGente SaludableGestión fiscalGobernarteIdeas MatterIdeas que CuentanIdeaçãoImpactoIndustrias CreativasLa Maleta AbiertaMoviliblogMás Allá de las FronterasNegocios SosteniblesPrimeros PasosPuntos sobre la iSeguridad CiudadanaSostenibilidadVolvamos a la fuente¿Y si hablamos de igualdad?Home
Citizen Security and Justice Creative Industries Development Effectiveness Early Childhood Development Education Energy Envirnment. Climate Change and Safeguards Fiscal policy and management Gender and Diversity Health Labor and pensions Open Knowledge Public management Science, Technology and Innovation  Trade and Regional Integration Urban Development and Housing Water and Sanitation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Caribbean Development Trends

  • HOME
  • CATEGORIES
    • Agribusiness
    • Antigua and Barbuda
    • Barbados
    • BehaviorChange
    • Belize
    • Bermuda
    • biodiversity
    • Blockchain
    • Caribbean
    • Caribbean Culture and Media
    • Climate Change
    • Creative Economy
    • Crime Prevention and Citizen Security
    • Data and Knowledge
    • De-risking
    • Dominica
    • Dutch
    • Early Childhood Development
    • Economic Growth
    • Education Policy
    • energy
    • entrepreneurship
    • Environmental and Climate Change
    • Events
    • Extractives
    • Finance
    • Fiscal Rules
    • gender
    • Governance and Regulatory Policy Reforms
    • Grenada
    • Guyana
    • Haiti
    • Health
    • Health Policy
    • Hurricane
    • Hurricane Irma
    • infrastructure
    • Innovation and change
    • Intellectual Property
    • IWD
    • Jamaica
    • JumpCaribbean
    • Labor
    • Labour Markets
    • MOOC
    • Music
    • Natural Disasters
    • Nurturing Institutions
    • OECS
    • Podcast
    • Poverty
    • Private Sector and Entrepreneurship
    • Saint Kitts and Nevis
    • Saint Lucia
    • Saint Vincent and Grenadines
    • skills
    • Sports for Development
    • Suriname
    • Technology
    • The Bahamas
    • The Blue Economy
    • Transportation
    • Tourism
    • Trinidad and Tobago
    • Uncategorized
    • VAWG
    • Webinar
    • women
    • Women for Change
    • youth
  • Country Offices
    • Bahamas
    • Barbados
    • Guyana
    • Jamaica
    • Suriname
    • Trinidad and Tobago
  • Press Releases
    • Bahamas
    • Barbados
    • Guyana
    • Jamaica
    • Suriname
    • Trinidad and Tobago
  • Authors

Online education for the Caribbean’s educators

September 13, 2019 by Stella Porto Leave a Comment


As I learned about Veola Stewart’s story one week after the unprecedented destruction by hurricane Dorian, I was reminded of how distance education started out as a necessity, and not just a convenience. “I am a product of online education”, says Veola. A few years ago, she was a teacher in a rural area in her home country of The Bahamas. Online education enabled her to complete her master’s degree in Education.

“I wouldn’t have been able to achieve my goal of obtaining a master’s degree without online education as there wasn’t any tertiary institution at the graduate level on my island,” she says.

Veola Stewart of The Bahamas earned a master’s degree in Education online.

Geographic characteristics have made online education a challenge but also a necessity for many in the Caribbean. Veola is the Subject Coordinator for the School of Business and Technology at C.R. Walker Senior High School in Nassau. As part of her professional development, Veola has seen the need to get proper training in online learning. “I believe that online learning is vital in my line of work as an educator. Online learning provides an avenue for learning to take place regardless of a person’s geographic location.  It changes how people learn and participate in professional development training.”

Veola reminds us of the limitations of island countries. “The Bahamas is comprised of 700 islands and Cays. Teachers might not be available physically to educate persons on every island, but fortunately, with the use of the internet and technology, students could still have access to quality education. In my region and country, The Bahamas Virtual School has recently been introduced. The Ministry of Education is utilizing teachers to educate students that don’t have an available teacher on their island. I believe that online education is constantly increasing in my region and throughout my archipelagic country.”

Veola has come full circle with online education. In 2018, she participated in a life-changing course that was offered fully online through IDB. She wishes to become an online professor. “The Online Teacher Training course has given me the fundamentals to prepare me to be an online professor. I am now pursuing becoming an online professor with the University of the West Indies (UWI).” She will now be able to help students, like herself, to overcome the limitations of their surroundings and advance in their careers.

Like Veola, Samantha Roach has always been interested in online education. With over 14 years as an educator, Samantha was the Lead and Senior lecturer at a National College in Trinidad and Tobago that offered bachelors and associate degrees, as well as certificate programs in blended format (a combination of online and face-to-face delivery). The college was going through a significant transition to fully online classes. For her, the course offered through IDB, provided her with the “foundational skills necessary to build an online class, which created a sense of community as well as the key skills in online assessments for online courses and knowledge of the various tools used in online learning.” She was so pleased with the experience that she recommended the course to many of her colleagues who were also going through the same kind of transition to online teaching.

Samantha Roach, an educator from Trinidad and Tobago, completed the Online Teacher Training Course offered by the IDB.

Samantha agrees with Veola on the importance of online learning in her region: “Given the geographical constraints of the Caribbean region, many people resort to working, and later on, re-enter the education market to earn a college diploma or university degree. Many who have desired to return to school, will have access, with no one being left behind in accessing higher education. This builds capacity and can stimulate growth and development in the region through the increase in human capital.”

This coming October, IDB will once again offer its online training course fully online. It is a great opportunity for various professionals in higher education, government and corporate sector to acquire key competencies in delivering quality online education in their professional settings.

To see more and apply to take the course, click here: https://cursos.iadb.org/en/indes/online-teacher-training.

 


Filed Under: Innovation & Change, Labour & Learning

Stella Porto

Stella Porto is a Learning and Knowledge Management specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, DC. Prior to IDB, Stella was the Program Director of the Master of Distance Education & E-Learning (MDE) at University of Maryland University College, having also had other leadership roles since she joined UMUC in early 2001. Earlier in her career, Stella was Professor in Computer Science at Universidade Federal Fluminense in Brazil. Stella received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, then obtained Master's and Doctoral degrees in Informatics in 1991 and 1995, respectively, from the same institution. In 2008, she also added the MDE to her academic background. Her interest areas include educational technology, learning design, e-learning methodologies and related topics. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stellaporto/)

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

Subscribe

Search

Caribbean Dev Trends

We provide unique and timely insights on the Caribbean and its political, social, and economic development. At the IDB, we strive to improve lives in the Caribbean by creating vibrant and resilient economies where people are safe, productive and happy.

Similar posts

  • Online teacher training for the Caribbean: Talking to Paul Blackman
  • Online learning: the next frontier for education in the Caribbean?
  • New Computer Labs Enrich Learning Prospects at Bahamian Schools
  • If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it: ensuring quality education and training to ride the digital wave (Part 2)
  • Rewiring primary education in Suriname

Footer

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
facebook
twitter
youtube
youtube
youtube

    Blog posts written by Bank employees:

    Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank ("IDB"). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. (CC-IGO 3.0 BY-NC-ND) license and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC- IGO license. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.


    For blogs written by external parties:

    For questions concerning copyright for authors that are not IADB employees please complete the contact form for this blog.

    The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDB, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.

    Attribution: in addition to giving attribution to the respective author and copyright owner, as appropriate, we would appreciate if you could include a link that remits back the IDB Blogs website.



    Privacy Policy

    Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

    Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

    Aviso Legal

    Las opiniones expresadas en estos blogs son las de los autores y no necesariamente reflejan las opiniones del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, sus directivas, la Asamblea de Gobernadores o sus países miembros.

    facebook
    twitter
    youtube