Saide Current Awareness
13 May 2024

 

Distance Education

  • Emeritus Professor Otto Peters Source: Leaders and Legends of Online Learning Otto is the creator of the term 'distance education' & one of the founding theorists in the field. It's also his 98th birthday! Discover Otto's work through his last PhD student, Professor Olaf Zawacki-Richter

 

   Education: South Africa

 

Language, Literacies and Research Writing

 

Open Access, Open Education and Open Educational Resources

  • OE Awards 2024 Focus on Student Awards and Open Pedagogy Awards Source:OEGLOBAL "We hope you are thinking now of possible people, projects, or resources to nominate for a 2024 Open Education Award for Excellence. The nomination process launches May 13, but you can find guidelines and up-to-date information on the awards web site. This is the first of a weekly series to highlight the categories to provide some context and inspiration from previous winners aimed to inspire you to think about making a nomination for 2024. We are only able to do this with support of the community to create a pool of nominees and the past winners who volunteer to review the nominations."

 

   Post Schooling

 

Skills and Employment

  • MultiChoice, University of Pretoria drive AI skills Source: ITWeb The partnership between MultiChoice South Africa and the University of Pretoria (UP) has helped students to develop  artificial intelligence  (AI) and machine learning (ML) skills. Established in 2018, the collaboration between the higher learning institution and the video entertainment group sought to apply AI and ML at various points throughout MultiChoice’s value chain.
  •  
  • Business analyst skills in the age of AI Source: ITWeb In today’s rapidly evolving workplace, there are concerns that in-demand skills are evolving more rapidly than people can keep pace with. However, some skills are fundamental and will remain the same, despite the future of work being shaped by the rise of new technologies, such as those around artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation. While these innovations promise efficiency and workforce optimisation, they also usher in a pressing question: what skills remain uniquely human – and therefore timeless – in a world dominated by technology?

 

Teaching and Learning: Local and Global

  • The Art of Annotation: Teaching Readers To Process Texts Source: The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast Annotation — marking up and making notes on a text — can be an extremely effective tool for improving comprehension and increasing levels of criticality and engagement. By making these metacognitive markings, students are able to process a variety of texts in unique and meaningful ways. The thing is, it can vary in effectiveness, depending on which classroom you look into, if it’s being taught at all. You may have personally found that you aren’t getting the results you want from your approach. 
  •  
  • How Students Can Annotate the Text Together Source: California Community Colleges A recording of the workshop held on the 9th May. Assigning collaborative annotation makes engaging with textbook material much more social and enjoyable for students and teachers even as it supports critical reading. It is also an opportunity for open pedagogy when we invite students to comment on and suggest changes to learning materials. We can do this with OER texts and not with commercial ones. We will look at examples of collaborative annotation of OER texts in reading and writing pedagogy and tour some platforms that allow for this.
  •  
  • Instructor Toolkit Source: ASC Office of Distance Education A helpful set of reviewed online learning tools ( with guidance ) that are supported and can be used for instruction in Ohio State courses
  •  
  • Advancing Knowledge NPC’s inquiry-based science education training for InterSen (grades 4-7) Natural Science teachers Source: Mail and Guardian Advancing Knowledge NPC (AK NPC) is an experienced outreach, support, training and research non-profit company in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Education. It offers a range of training opportunities to STEM teachers throughout the year. The members of AK NPC are highly experienced practitioners in STEM Education and have over the years developed a comprehensive approach to STEM teaching and learning. 
  •  
  • Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions Source: Utah State University  With the rapid development of Generative AI, teachers are experiencing a new pedagogical challenge—one that promises to forever change the way we approach teaching and learning. As a response to this unprecedented teaching context, Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions provides interdisciplinary teachers, librarians, and instructional designers with practical and thoughtful pedagogical resources for navigating the possibilities and challenges of teaching in an AI era. 
  •  
  • Five Tips for Writing Academic Integrity Statements in the Age of AI  Source: Faculty Focus Author Rie Kudan received a prestigious Japanese literary award for her book, The Tokyo Tower of Sympathy, and then disclosed that 5% of her book was written word-for-word by ChatGPT (Choi & Annio, 2024).  Would you let your students submit a paper where 5% of the text was written by ChatGPT What about if they disclosed their use of ChatGPT ahead of time?  Or, if they cited ChatGPT as a source?  The rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Gemini, DALL-E, and Meta AI has created a pressing new challenge for educators: defining academic integrity in the age of AI.  

 

Technology-Enhanced Learning

  • Information Age vs Generation Age Technologies for Learning Source: Open Content A blog by David Wiley who writes " It is absolutely critical that everyone who cares about technology-mediated learning understand this point. There is a seismic shift in perspective necessary from pre-generative AI technologies to generative AI technologies. It requires changes in the way we think about everything – from pedagogy to supporting infrastructure. I’ve been writing and speaking about this for months now, and I’m not alone. "
  •  
  • A Compassionate Approach to AI in Education Source: Knowledge Maze  A  A2K4D Knowledge Maze blog by Maha Bali in whihc she articulates how she employs her approach from a feminist lens that "that centers socially just care and compassionate learning design. "
  •  
  • AI + Education Tools Folder A list of AI tools with free versions and real applications in the classroom
  •  
  • Special Section on Generative AI and Learning Analytics  Source: Learning Analytics Info The deployment of Generative AI (GenAI) in education has sparked a vibrant discourse, highlighting a spectrum of opportunities and concerns (Hernández-Leo, 2023; Yan et al., 2024). Among the positive developments that many have proposed, GenAI promises to offer a more personalised learning experience, 24/7 support for diverse learners to resolve frequently asked questions, partial automation of some tasks to give educators more time with students, and instant, dialogic feedback to learners. For many (e.g., Lodge, et al. 2023) GenAI is the tipping point to accelerate the transition to more robust assessment practices. There are, of course, also valid concerns. Foremost are concerns about the integrity of conventional assessment in the age of AI (Lodge, et al. 2023; Swiecki et al., 2022) if students rely on GenAI to complete assignments, undermining the learning process (e.g., Cotton et al., 2023)
  •  
  • The AI-Augmented Professor of 2024 Source: Inside Higher Ed "It is early August 2024. " am about to begin the fall term of teaching, research, administrative tasks and advising with the help of generative artificial intelligence tools and assistants" The writer foretells  what will be the reality for tech savvy faculty members 
  •  
  • Advancing Online Graduate Education: Integrating Quality Matters Feedback to Enhance Course Templates  Source: Faculty Focus In the dynamic landscape of online education, the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications online graduate programs (UF CJC Online) stands at the forefront of innovation and quality. With a commitment to ensuring educational excellence and student success, in 2020, UF CJC Online developed a comprehensive course design strategy to elevate its online courses, a mission mandated by the State University System of Florida’s 2025 Strategic Plan for Online Education.