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The South African Council for Educators (SACE) recently hosted a seminar on the theme: Online professional development activities for educators – current issues and debates. Tony Mays presented at the workshop.
It was noted at the outset that with more than 400 000 educators in the South African system, print- and contact-based approaches to supporting professional development were neither efficient nor cost-effective. On the other hand, SACE had few registered providers of online professional development services. The seminar therefore sought to understand the issues and debates regarding online professional development.
Mr Theo Toolo (the SACE CPD coordinator) outlined the criteria used for the endorsement of contact- and print-based professional development provision which include: relevance, teaching methods employed, learning and teaching support materials, equity, assessment, monitoring and evaluation and post-training participant support. In reflecting on the emerging criteria for online provision, Mr Stefaan van de Walle (Education Advisor at VVOB, the workshop funders) made the point that most of the criteria already in use were also applicable to online provision but needed to be nuanced accordingly. He observed, however, that online provision raised a few additional issues such as the need for general information that oriented the student to both the content and the delivery system, accessibility and the selection of appropriate media and technology, the design of collaborative learning activities, and data protection and privacy.
Mr Enoch Rabotapi and Ms Trudi van Wyk from the Departments of Basic and Higher Education and Training respectively then helped to contextualise the discussion within the wider national policy framework of the integrated plan for teacher development, the DBE’s action plan and the drive towards a more open learning approach.
The following session then focused on current issues in online teacher professional development. Alice Goodwin-Davey from Unisa spoke about the need to learn about the uses of technology through using technology to learn as well as the need to develop online communities of practice. Tony Mays from Saide then argued the need to develop a professional development ecology by bringing together open, distance and e-learning methods, open educational practices and open educational resources. Finally, Dr Johan Hendriks from the University of Pretoria presented findings from recent studies on the changing technology profile of teacher learners at the institution. He noted the growing access to computers and connectivity, the prevalent practice of Googling on smartphones and the fact that students rarely made use of more traditional technology such as the university website and email facilities.
Participants learnt about some exciting initiatives to integrate appropriate technology into teaching and learning in appropriate ways. Ms Phuti Ragophala spoke about how teachers in her school were making use of resources such as animations and YouTube videos to bring the classroom to life and a presentation was made about the ways in which Hatfield Christian School was supporting 45 other schools with digital teaching and learning tools, thus creating the opportunity to develop an online community of practice.
After a late lunch, participants learnt about some of the innovative practices in online teacher education in South Africa. Ms Janet Thomson from Schoolnet SA spoke about some of the common quality issues that emerge as lessons of experience from multiple projects such as the need for a reliable ICT platform, the need to dedicate time and energy to the design and development of appropriate learning resources, the need for online support tools and tutors, and the need for templates, guidelines and rubrics to help support good practice. Mr Goodman from Mindset demonstrated the power of video as a medium for learning and observed that practices such as Vodacom’s zero-rating for use of the Mindset website would hopefully become more prevalent in future. In closing the session, Mr Malcom Mooi introduced participants to an interesting new initiative called Zibuza.net which encourages teachers to share examples of teaching materials and experience through an online community of practice.
Towards the end of the day, Dr Jacqueline Batchelor from the University of Johannesburg, argued that we should think about online learning not in terms of devices and technology but rather in terms of the possible pedagogic opportunities it presented. She argued for a move away from a Bring Your Own Device approach to a Bring Your Own Mind approach and noted the high take-up among UJ students of online learning opportunities such as MOOCs. She argued that such engagement happens when there is a compelling purpose to learn, a community of learning, content presented in a variety of ways, opportunities for students to provide evidence of having met intended learning outcomes in different ways, multiple methods of engagement, and flexibility in course design allowing students to drop in and out as they fitted their learning around their other life commitments.
In closing, SACE colleagues committed to offering an integrated model for teacher professional development, including online variations, by the end of January 2016.
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