Saide Current Awareness
21 August 2023

 

Distance education 

• Research, Writing, and Creative Process in Open and Distance Education Source:Open Book Publishers (OBP) This collection of reflective essays is a treasure trove of advice, reflection and hard-won experience from experts in the field of open and distance education. Each chapter offers tried-and-tested advice for nascent academic writers, delivered with personal, rich, and wonderful stories of the authors’ careers, their process, their research and their writing, and the struggles and triumphs they have encountered in the course of their careers.

 

 Education: South Africa 

• Teen mums in South Africa: largest ever study explores what it takes to go back to school Source: The Conversation Detailing findings from the largest adolescent mother cohort study in sub-Saharan Africa, this article sheds light on some of the challenges they face, potential entry points for interventions and programmes, and opportunities to support adolescent mothers and their children.
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• NSFAS boss placed on leave after students protest against direct banking system outside Parliament  Source: Daily Maverick Following student protests against the National Student Financial Aid Scheme on Wednesday outside Parliament, it was announced that the scheme’s CEO, Andile Nongogo, would be placed on leave while the scheme investigates allegations against him.
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• Clerah Sethole tackles children’s learning difficulties with her ‘Exclusively Inclusive’ model Source: Daily Maverick Using a mix of training workshops and curriculum literature Sethole aims to roll out the programme to schools in the community of Mohlakeng in Gauteng. 
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• UCT Online High School announces ‘Learning Liberated Scholarships Programme’ for eligible learners Source: News24 " ....with the kind and generous support of numerous corporations and sponsors, the ‘UCT Online High School Learning Liberated Scholarship Programme’ has now launched with the purpose to invest in the education of talented and deserving learners across the country from economically-disadvantaged families - who demonstrate academic potential, have tertiary education aspirations, and the intent to make a positive and impactful contribution to our nation."
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• Should education department develop a universal hair teaching curriculum? Source: TimesLive From time to time, a row over hair in school dominates the headlines — and in most cases, the hair in question is African hair. A recent grievance, reported by Sowetan, is of a 13-year-old pupil who was suspended from attending classes at Crowthorne Christian Academy because her dreadlocks violated the school’s policy. 

 

Open Education and Open Educational Resources

• Generative AI, Synthetic Contents, Open Educational Resources (OER), and Open Educational Practices (OEP): A New Front in the Openness Landscape Source: Research Gate This paper critically examines the transformation of the educational landscape through the integration of generative AI with Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP). The emergence of AI in content creation has ignited debate regarding its potential to comprehend and generate human language, creating content that is often indistinguishable from that produced by humans. This shift from organic (human-created) to synthetic (AI-created) content presents a new frontier in the educational sphere, particularly in the context of OER and OEP. The paper explores the generative AI's capabilities in OER and OEP, such as automatic content generation, resource curation, updating existing resources, co-creation and facilitating collaborative learning.

 

Language and Literacies  

• UCT lauded after a recent Language Resources Audit Source: UCT News The University of Cape Town (UCT) was lauded for its commitment to multilingualism, including teaching/learning of African languages, at a recent Universities South Africa (USAf)-supported Language Resources Audit. This after a USAf delegation conducted interviews with staff and students in a bid to assess UCT’s implementation of the New Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions in South Africa. 

 

Post Schooling

•  VitalStats Public and Private Higher Education Data 2021 Source: CHE This report provides comprehensive insights into the data concerning both public and private higher education for the year 2021
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• High praise for Future Professors initiative from its fellows Source: University World News The Future Professors Programme (FPP), is a national, collaborative initiative with the goal of developing excellence and leadership in a select pool of academic staff, and one of the South African Department of Higher Education and Training’s staff development programmes.
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• Young woman’s passion for technology, environment pays off Source: University World News Zimbabwean student Muongeni Tamara Manda has made history as the only woman from Africa to make it to the global top 30 emerging young space leaders.
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• The importance of post-school education in an unequal society Source: IT Online Dr Emma Whitelaw believes post-school education is a powerful tool for catalysing social mobility in South Africa, and it’s for this reason that she dedicated her PhD research to the topic – to demonstrate its importance, identify gaps that need to be addressed, and showcase the long-term benefits for the next generation. Whitelaw, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU), graduated with her PhD in economics last month.
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• South Africa’s science, innovation pipeline nears retirement Source: ITWeb South Africa continues to witness a decline in innovation and R&D expenditure in some key sectors. outh Africa’s science, technology and innovation (STI) landscape is faced with the conundrum of an aging workforce. 
  The proportion of STI human resources increased from 7.3% in 2011 to 10.4% in 2020/21. However, this is mainly staff over 60 years of age (both men and women), reveals higher education, science and innovation minister Dr Blade Nzimande.
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• UCT’s new student academy answers global call for ethical, humane young leaders Source: UCT The University of Cape Town (UCT) will answer the African and global call for well-equipped, ethical and humane young leaders when it launches the Leadership Academy (UCT Lead) on 15 August. The academy will target all UCT students and not only those in formal leadership roles.

 

Skills and Employment 

• SA jobless rate dips slightly in Q2, but is still sky-high at 32.6% Source: Daily Maverick South Africa’s unemployment rate fell slightly to 32.6% in the second quarter (Q2) of this year from 32.9% in Q1. The best that can be said is that at least the trend is going the right way, but there are worrying signs, such as a significant decline in manufacturing jobs.
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• A-L career guide Source: Daily Maverick A two part  alphabetical listing of careers which are also categorised according to the following descriptions i.e Professional, Practical, and Creative. 
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• Curious about the cloud? Amazon’s new centre provides the young with a world of opportunities  Source: Daily Maverick The Cape Town-based centre provides fun, interactive exhibits in the Cloud Discovery Space, and offers free foundational training for anyone curious about cloud computing.
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• Comparative Skills Profiling Surveys and Assessment of Skills Recognition Opportunities Facilitating Refugees and Asylum Seekers’ Access to the Labour Market in South Africa and Zambia Source: JET This report forms part of the consultancy Comparative skills profiling surveys and assessment of skills recognition opportunities facilitating refugees and asylum seekers’ access to the labour market in South Africa and Zambia. JET Education Services was commissioned by the ILO and the UNHCR to undertake the research, which forms part of the Southern Africa Migration Management (SAMM) project. 

 

Teaching and Learning- Local and Global

• The good news - we’ve reached 'peak human'. The bad news - now AI will destroy our ability to work and learn Source: Diginomica A group of academics praise AI’s transformative potential, but warn it may come at a terrible cost for human society and education.
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• The same people excel at object recognition through vision, hearing and touch – another reason to let go of the learning styles myth Source; The Conversation The idea that individual people are visual, auditory or kinesthetic learners and learn better if instructed according to these learning styles is one of the most enduring neuroscience myths in education.
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• Keeping human values at the heart of AI in higher education Source: University World News In the rush to get ahead of the accelerating curve, and adopt new technologies into practice, universities are at real risk of compromising those most human of skills, factors such as compassion and emotional intelligence. Yet university networks such as Universitas 21 are finding that it is precisely those values that can offer the key to making machine learning technology serve educators better.
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• Decolonising Education In South Africa -- A Reflection On A Learning-Teaching Approach Source: MENA FN  It has been seven years since students in South Africa began protesting in a bid to“Africanise” the country's university curricula. They viewed what they were learning as too neoliberal – characterised by Western values pushing the marketisation of education. They wanted universities to become more relevant to students in an African country and more connected to their own lives.
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• ‘Empowering students through sustainable learning environments’ Source: Nigerian Tribune At a recent gathering of educators in Abuja, hosted by the ‘Phenomenon-Edu Impact’ and ‘1-Million Teachers’, Adeyemi Ojo, the Business Development Manager of BIC, Nigeria stressed the importance of the role of the private sector in empowering youth and supporting self-expression. Starting from within the classroom, moving into the education environment, and extending to the wider landscape, the approach to be taken needs to focus on nurturing a culture of innovation, creativity, and critical thinking.

 

Technology Enhanced Learning

• AI, ethics, and academia Source: The Future Trends forum Bryan  Alexandra talks to  Donald Clarke, lifelong educational technology innovator and teacher, entrepreneur, CEO, professor, author of Artificial Intelligence for Learning, and blogger.
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• E53: The AI Revolution in Education with Shawn Jansepar, Director of Engineering at Khan Academy Source: Cognitive Revolution AI  In this episode, Nathan sits down with Shawn Jansepar, Director of Engineering at Khan Academy, to discuss their GPT-4 powered Socratic tutor, Khanmigo.
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• AI and L&T week 2023 Source: UTS Youtube channel. The playlist comprising 5 recorded sessions and the blog post on 5 things we learned at the AI x L&T week. 
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• Why AI Literacy is So Important Source: Soveral Youtube Channel AI Literacy (consisting of Awareness, Knowledge, Capability, and Critical Thinking) is extremely important and an imperative that we must address in academia. This video describes specific reasons why AI Literacy is so important to students, faculty, and everyone.  
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• What to do when you’re accused of AI cheating Source: Washington Post AI detectors like Turnitin and GPTZero suffer from false positives that can accuse innocent students of cheating. Here’s the advice of academics, AI scientists and students on how to deal with it.
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• Helping teachers bring AI to the classroom critically, ethically, & responsibly.  Source: The AI Pedagogy Project A curated collection of assignments bringing a critical lens to Artificial Intelligence (AI), built collaboratively with educators. We give teachers the tools to examine AI’s dangers, benefits, and inevitable impact in the classroom.
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• ChatGPT’s code interpreter redefines generative AI Source: IT Online ChatGPT took the world by storm in November 2022 and since then cutting-edge software updates have been announced – including a code interpreter which has the potential to transform the world of data science and programming, rendering the field more accessible, efficient, and flexible.

 

 

• Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions: Call for Chapters August 25 2023
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• Call for Abstracts FULLY ONLINE DISTANCE EDUCATION SYMPOSIUM 19 & 20 October Abstract Deadline 31 August 2023
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• Call for Contributions! NORRAG Special Issue 10: Education for Societal Transformation: Alternatives for a Just Future 15 September 2023. 
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• Unpacking the "Black Box" of AI-assisted Feedback: Students’ feedback perceptions, emotions, actions, and literacies Abstract Deadline 31  August 2023 
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• Climate Action Pedagogy (CAP) Design Challenge: Live Co-Working Session 16 August 2023
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• Fully Online Distance Education Symposium 19-20 October 2023
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• Four special issues Call for Papers on Generative AI in Education 
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• Open call for Distance Education themed issue proposals (2024)