Between Tanzania and Finland

A pilot project between two institutions of computer science, one in Finland and the other in Tanzania, reveals potentials and risks of a collaborative learning framework. Two groups, one from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and the other from the Computing Centre of the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, were designing a web-based environment for learning the Java programming language. Preliminary experiences indicate that the challenges of the scheme fall into at least four categories, namely those of technicalities, organizational aspects, attitudes, and cultural differences.