Saide Current Awareness
12 February 2024

 

Distance Education

• The advantages and disadvantages of online learning Source: Mail & Guardian  Distance learning is now used in all fields. Axel Lindholm looks at the pros and cons of this method
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• Top Tips For Distance Learning  and Technology Source: AAACDE Commission for Distance Learning and Technology A googlesite with a host of tips to enhance the distance learning experience. 

 

 Education: South Africa 

• Gauteng education opens research, innovation-focused school Source: ITWeb The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) yesterday opened a new school that will focus on research and innovation. Sikhululekile Maths, Science & ICT School of Specialisation, which is located in Temba, Hammanskraal, was opened by Gauteng  education  MEC Matome Chiloane. The school is the 31st such school to be launched in the province, says GDE. It’s also the first of six specialisation schools that will be launched between February and March 2024.
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• Legacy of apartheid still haunts pupils fighting for a decent education in South Africa, 30 years later Source: Daily Maverick Children in townships and rural areas struggle to access quality schools in affluent neighbourhoods because of gatekeeping policies, according to Yolisa Piliso, a junior attorney at the Equal Education Law Centre. 
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• ‘Divorced from reality’ – Ramaphosa’s Tintswalo analogy leaves sour taste in mouth of the youth Source: Daily Maverick Youth activists across South Africa argue that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Tintswalo analogy ignores the challenges faced by the youth in education, employment and access to basic services.
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• SILENT REVOLUTION HAPPENING IN BASIC EDUCATION SECTOR Source: Parliament of RSA Government will concentrate its focus to improving and expanding access to early childhood development, President Cyril Ramaphosa told a joint sitting of Parliament yesterday when he delivered the State of the Nation Address. President Ramaphosa said improvements in early-grade reading were immediately being realised and progress was evident.
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• Evolution of SA’s education landscape Source: IOL Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said there has been an improvement in Matric results over the years.
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• What’s gone wrong with education in South Africa Source: BusinessTech South Africa’s matric (grade 12) class of 2023, which wrote final school-leaving exams late last year, has been hailed by the country’s minister of basic education for achieving “extraordinary” results. Of the 691,160 candidates who wrote the National Senior Certificate exams, 82.9% – that’s 572,983 – passed, up from 80.1% of the class of 2022. And more candidates than ever before obtained marks that allow them to study for a bachelor’s degree.
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• SONA PAINTS A BRIGHT FUTURE OF EDUCATION IN SA Source: eNCA Equal Education researcher Mahfouz Raffee reflects on what wasn't said.
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• IAEA Empowers African Teachers with Educational Science Kits to Enhance Learning Source: IAEA Twelve schools across Africa have received educational science kits from the IAEA as part of an initiative to promote scientific exploration and inspire students. The initiative aims to cultivate interest in nuclear science and technology among students and to provide a pathway for fostering innovation across the African continent, by encouraging students to pursue nuclear-related careers.

 

Language, Literacies and Research Writing

• Copyright Amendment Bill ‘bad news’ for South Africa Source: University World News The South African government is forging ahead with plans to pass the Copyright Amendment Bill (CAB) despite its legal flaws and contradictions, seemingly oblivious to the ongoing public debate on its provisions that has been raging for years. Should the bill become law, it will negatively impact especially educational book publishing, as well as risk violating authors’ rights and international treaties. It will also harm South Africa’s research economy, and the country could become a haven for servers hosting pirated content.
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• How Much Time Should Teachers Spend on a Foundational Reading Skill? Research Offers Clues Source: Education Week  A reading block in an elementary school classroom can feel like a carefully choreographed 120-minute dance.Time is a finite resource, and it often falls to teachers to make decisions about how much instructional time to devote to the many interrelated components of reading. What’s the dosage of each that will ensure kids get it?A new study offers insight into that question for one key component of early reading development: phonemic awareness. It finds, in essence, that you can have too much of a good thing.

 

Open Education and Open Educational Resources

• The Open Pedagogy Student Toolkit Source: PressBooks This toolkit is intended as a guide for students who are engaging in open pedagogy. The toolkit defines open pedagogy, the benefits of open pedagogy, and the rights and responsibilities that come with being a student creator. Instructors may wish to use this toolkit as a resource to scaffold conversations about open pedagogy with their students and to appropriately prepare them for working in the open. [Version 1.1 updated December 4, 2023]
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• Certificate in Open Educational Practices Source: Open Education Network. A public-facing version of the course on CANVAS which is a supportive professional development experience. It inspires you to create accessible, inclusive, student-centered pedagogy. You’ll work in pairs as one librarian and one faculty member, collaborating to make education more equitable and sustainable through innovative pedagogy. 

 

   Post Schooling

• Stellenbosch University introduces Spanish to its curriculum Source: IOL Stellenbosch University (SU) in the Western Cape, along with its Department of Modern Foreign Languages, announced on Friday it will be introducing Spanish to its curriculum, thanks to an agreement with the Spanish government.
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• University’s outreach work cracks code for student success  Source: University World News The Tangible Africa team at Nelson Mandela University (NMU) in South Africa is a small group of passionate people working to change the narrative for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. To date, more than 100,000 children on two continents have been exposed to Tangible’s coding outreach, and more than ZAR80 million (US$4.2 million) has been raised for bursaries to enable them to study after school. Tangible is an engagement project of the Leva Foundation, a non-profit organisation, in partnership with NMU, with AWS InCommunities its largest sponsor.
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• Study lists factors that impact researchers’ mental health Source: University World News  Stress, uncertainty about their scientific career pathway, being perceived as a student even though they might have worked for many years before embarking on their PhDs, and the lack of sufficient locally based role models and mentors are factors that influence researchers’ mental well-being.These and the inherent difficulties associated with performing science in Africa have been identified as major contributors to mental health challenges among researchers affiliated with the Sub-Saharan African Network for TB-HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE), a new study has found.
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• Efficiency, public trust and leadership on USAf’s radar Source: University World News Despite ongoing controversy over South Africa’s troubled National Student Financial Aid Scheme’s (NSFAS) potentially tumultuous start to the 2024 academic year, the new head of the vice-chancellors’ body, Universities South Africa (USAf), Professor Francis Petersen, says he wants to work towards operational efficiencies, addressing leadership gaps in the sector and strengthening the higher education system. The country’s Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and the student funding or bursary scheme both face challenges that are impacting on education delivery.
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• NSFAS opens online applications for ‘missing middle’ Source: ITWeb The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) says online applications for its loan scheme for “missing middle” students kicks-off today, closing on 15 February.This comes as the NSFAS board and the South African Union of Students agreed to extend the 2024 bursary application period. Applications for the NSFAS bursary scheme were previously meant to close on 31 January.
   

Skills and Employment 

• Ramaphosa touts ‘thousands’ of renewable energy jobs Source: ItWeb South Africa’s abundance of solar, wind and mineral resources bodes well for job creation in the renewables energy sector, says president Cyril Ramaphosa. As a result, government plans to “create thousands of jobs in renewable energy, green hydrogen, green steel, electric vehicles and other green products”. Ramaphosa last night delivered his seventh State of the Nation Address (SONA) as president of the Republic – the last one under the sixth administration.
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• SA skills shortage, a major spanner in the works for country’s mining projects Source: Citizen A number of renewable projects in SA are delayed due to a lack of skilled workers.
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• What’s so wrong with working with hands? Change your mind on TVETs Source: Timelive In Jonathen Jansen's opinion piece he writes "If you want to see South African citizens agree on anything with respect to education — and that’s not easy — talk about sending more students to study for a trade. Let more of them become useful by going for training as electricians, plumbers and welders. This redirection is usually made because of the now familiar inverted pyramid argument: that too many students want to go to university (the broad base of the pyramid) and too few to technical college (the small and sharp apex of the pyramid). We need to turn that scenario upside down, with most going to what we now call technical and vocational education colleges (TVETs) and the elites into universities... "

 

Teaching and Learning- Local and Global

• Is Montessori education all it’s cracked up to be? What science says Source: The Conversation "Walk into any bookshop these days and you will find Montessori-labelled books and games galore. Born at the start of the 20th century, Montessori teaching methods have enjoyed increasing popularity in Europe over the past 20 years. But what does the science tell us about the effectiveness of Montessori education compared with other forms of teaching? Is the method, which is now more than 100 years old, still relevant to modern life?"
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• Decolonizing academic integrity: knowledge caretaking as ethical practice Source: Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education Author Sarah Elaine Eaton writes: "The purpose of this article is to explore theoretical and practical considerations for decolonizing academic integrity. I explore values associated with academic integrity, including both Western and Indigenous perspectives. I draw from scholarship on decolonizing research methods and practices, contemplating the transferability to academic integrity practices and policies. Synthesizing key concepts from the literature, I theorize strategies for decolonizing academic and research integrity in broad terms, focusing on four principles, which can translate into concrete actions: (a) centering marginalized voices and perspectives in knowledge production; (b) recognizing the interconnectedness of knowledge and the importance of contextualization; (c) resisting the perpetuation of historical oppression in academic integrity, and (d) knowledge caretaking.
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• HIGHER EDUCATION FOR GOOD WITH CATHERINE CRONIN & LAURA CZAJKOWSKI| Source: Teaching in Higher Education . In Episode 504 the authors of the recently published open-access book share their insights with host  Bonni Stachowiak.   
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• How entrepreneurship education can be more inclusive Source: The Conversation When entrepreneurship programs do consider inclusion, most focus on gender without considering age, ethnicity, race or other identity factors.The authors of this article discuss their reserach which is  concerned with equipping entrepreneurship educators with resources to identify biases within programs to support all learners.
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• The war in Gaza is wiping out Palestine’s education and knowledge systems Source: The Conversation Assistant professor of  Education at the University of Toronto expounds on the issue of scholasticide in Gaza.

 

Technology-Enhanced Learning

• Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence and Education. Source: UCL The International Symposium of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence and Education took place online on 2 February 2024. The symposium involved (i) keynotes by Kyungmee Lee (Seoul National University) and Ilkka Tuomi (independent researcher, Finland), (ii) a panel discussion on Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence and Education, and (iii) a symposium-wide discussion of ways forward. 
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• GenAI The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Source: UNISA DropBox. Presentation by Dr. Dan Remenyi presented to the Department of Information Systems,UNISA      
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• New online platform to address Africa’s online safety issues Source: ITWeb Cape Town-based social enterprise development platform, Impact Amplifier, in collaboration with Google’s charitable arm,Google.org, has introduced the African Online Safety Platform (AOSP), to address online safety risks on the continent. According to a statement, the AOSP is an Africa-wide project that forms part of Impact Amplifier’s broader intention to address online safety issues on the continent at a systemic level. The platform, launched at an event this week, is intended to address the complexity of understanding what online safety issues are affecting different parts of Africa, how to keep everyone and particularly young people safe online, how to teach online safety formally in schools and at home, funding opportunities for safety innovators, and how to get help if an online crime or other violation has occurred.
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• Generative AI in the classroom risks further threatening Indigenous inclusion in schools Source: The Conversation "It is well documented that Australian teachers face challenges incorporating Indigenous perspectives and content in their classrooms. The approach can sometimes be somewhat tokenistic, as if the teacher is “ticking a box”. We need a more culturally responsive teaching workforce. Generative AI is advancing at a fast pace and quickly finding a place within education. Tools such as ChatGPT (or Chatty G as the kids say) continue to dominate conversations in education as these technologies are explored and developed."
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• Using technology to support neurodiversity and education Source: UNDP "Education is vital to ensure a better future for children. But can we provide the same educational tools for everyone? The answer is complex. On this International Day for Women and Girls in Science, I want to share the importance of using technology to support children's learning." writes Yejin Choi, CEO of Dubu and Generation17 Young Leader, who volunteered as a tutor for under-resourced children after realizing that many, especially those with learning differences, lack proper educational resources.  
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• How academics can counter ‘AI thinks, therefore I am’ Source: University World News The year 2023 will be remembered as the year that artificial intelligence (AI) – or, more specifically, large language models (LLMs), led by their brash poster child, ChatGPT – changed the world forever. LLM-assisted writing will indelibly alter many writing tasks, offering speed and efficiency, and even automating-away many tasks. However, academic, scientific and intellectual integrity are at risk: not only due to mistakes that may creep in, but, more importantly, owing to the loss of the ability to construct well-crafted arguments.