Saide Current Awareness
24 June 2024

 

Distance Education

  • Exploring the current dynamics of OPM and UK university partnerships Source: Neil Mosley Blog This blog describes the current UK landscape regarding the offering of online learning programmes with external  partners amongst which mentioned is HEP -  the same company that is providing services to some South African higher education institutions. The author suggests that this revenue share model may continue 'due to the financial and other motivations driving a steady stream of UK HEIs to enter the online education market.' 
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  • Implementing distance learning design approaches: lessons from six impact narratives Source: Distance Education Higher education institutions are increasingly looking to implement online and distance learning (ODL) options for students. Professional development for the design of ODL is needed to support these strategies. This study explores how, in what ways, and to what extent, design for ODL approaches from a series of Learning Design & Course Creation (LDCC) Workshops were implemented. The LDCC Workshop is a mature and substantial professional development activity which adopts a constructivist and student-focused pedagogy and is based on design for ODL approaches embedded at the Open University (UK).
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  • “Welcome to my backyard”: an intersectional approach to inclusive teaching in the asynchronous learning environment Source: Distance Education The following teaching brief advocates for the integration of lived experiences in course design as a means to facilitate equity, inclusion, and culturally responsive teaching. To address persisting inequalities and colonized structures, the authors propose an actionable insight and strategy by sharing a discussion activity in which students share photos and videos of their “backyards” as a vehicle to accentuate similarity within difference—the celebration of a diverse learning community that can only exist online. The proposed instructional activity, “Welcome to My Backyard,” is informed by an understanding of how power dynamics, cultural biases, and lived experiences intersect in online education. By outlining how instructors can facilitate online discussions that drive a meta-awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion among online learners, digital learning can be leveraged to build connections and community while encouraging critical thinking and active engagement with course materials that subvert traditional, colonial models of education.
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  • The motivation to earn digital badges: a large-scale study of online courses Source: Distance Education Digital badges as a recognition for learning, can motivate, provide a means to demonstrate credibility and professional development, and allow learners to showcase their skills and interests. They are an important means to recognise non-accredited learning and can be delivered in agile, educational or professional settings. The Open University UK (OU), has issued over a quarter of a million digital badges via their free online learning platform OpenLearn as recognition for completing and passing free, assessed online courses. This study examines data from over 25,000 survey responses completed by learners who had studied a course that offers an OU OpenLearn digital badge. It builds on previous studies and explores badge earning motivation, related demographic profiles and desire for demonstrating achievements. Data supports the key message that digital badges have a role in supporting employment goals and personal fulfilment, and are an important tool in motivating engagement in lifelong learning.

 

   Education: South Africa

  • Building the next generation: How coding and robotics can transform SA classrooms Source: Mail and Guardian Many educators have welcomed the news that the basic education department has gazetted changes to the national curriculum, adding coding and robotics​ as an additional subject​ to school curricula for grades R to nine. This move will modernise the school curriculum and bring a much-needed focus to the development of 21st-century skills. While the focus of the curriculum, especially in the foundation phase, is on unplugged coding, many have expressed concern about those schools that don’t have computer laboratories or high-speed wi-fi connections for their learners from grades four to nine.
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  • ‘Trolley for trolley’: Mobile libraries paving the way to improved literacy in SA schools Source:The Citizen The AVBOB Road To Literacy trolley library campaign has a mother tongue focus and provides books in all 11 written official languages.
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  • The State of Teacher Education in South Africa Source: Critical Reflections on Teacher Education in South Africa. This chapter presents a historical perspective on teacher education within South Africa as a backdrop to the current policy informing the development of newly qualified teachers. The transformation of teacher education from a fragmented and racially segregated system to a more inclusive teacher education framework is presented to illuminate key insights and a critique of teacher education in South Africa. The current teacher education framework is also reviewed to show that the curriculum for teacher education has not changed substantially over the last five decades. The chapter argues that teacher education, through its policy framework, is, at best, tentative and may not meet the needs of a transforming developing country.

 

Language, Literacies and Research Writing

  • South Africa's Literacy Crisis and the Role of Mother Tongue Instruction Source: UWC According to a journal article published in January last year, children who began their education in their native language were more likely to develop strong cognitive and linguistic foundations. This meant a smoother transition to learning in additional languages. But the challenge is a lack of resources and trained teachers who are proficient in various languages. The Centre for African Language Teaching (CALT) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) hosted a Reading Indaba this June to address some of these challenges. The event was aimed at fostering collaboration among key stakeholders to develop strategies to improve literacy rates in the country. A significant focus was to revitalise indigenous languages, particularly isiXhosa, in the educational sector. 
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  • First-of-a-kind study measures children’s utterances in Southern Bantu languages Source: Biz Community A study published by the Child Language Development node of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) is the first of its kind to measure children’s utterances in isiXhosa, Sesotho, Setswana and Xitsonga. The research team, led by node manager and principal investigator Prof Heather Brookes, published their results in the Journal of Child Language, a peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of the scientific study of language behaviour in children. “Our study is the first study to try and measure children’s utterances in the four Southern Bantu languages of isiXhosa, Sesotho, Setswana and Xitsonga,” says Brookes. “We looked at whether using the three longest sentences a child said could indicate their language development and we found that it could.”
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  • Students’ perceptions on using an isiZulu web-based learning tool to improve communication skills in an MBChB programme Source: SAMA Journal African language teaching and learning is critical in a healthcare context to enhance effective doctor-patient communication. In this context, the University of KwaZulu-Natal recognises the importance of proficiency in isiZulu and has been a forerunner in developing isiZulu within the health sciences setting. This pilot study reports on students’ perceptions of using an isiZulu web-based learning tool to improve communication skills in an MBChB programme.

 

Open Access, Open Education and Open Educational Resources

  • New MoU signed to foster open science and digitise research Source: University World News The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) and the West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN) have signed a four-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at fostering a mutually beneficial relationship to promote open science and deliver advanced digital services to African universities. Under the MoU, the two bodies will work together to promote and enhance open access to scientific publications and research outputs for students, researchers and faculty. They will also implement training programmes to build the capacity of higher education institutions and related actors to use digital technologies to deal with agricultural and climate-related challenges.
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  • Towards AI Literacy: 101+ Creative and Critical Practices, Perspectives and Purposes Source: Creative HE This is the second open crowdsourced collection by #creativeHE which presents creative and critical practices, perspective and purposes from educators, researchers and students between September 2023 and January 2024. It comprises 119 contributions from 22 countries: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay. As the collection is made available under the Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-SA licence, anybody can use the collection as open data to further interrogate the use of AI in Education. Please share any resulting outcomes with the editorial team and the wider community. 

 

   Post Schooling

  • HE’s role in healing trauma post-apartheid, post-genocide Source: University world News 
    Templeton Prize laureate, the 2024 Professor Pumla Gobodo-MadikizelaClinical psychologist and research chair  is renowned for her profound work on the psychological and social impacts of historical trauma, particularly in the context of post-apartheid South Africa. Her groundbreaking research on forgiveness and reconciliation, especially her engagement with perpetrators of apartheid violence, has garnered international acclaim. As the founding director of the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ) at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, Gobodo-Madikizela has been working with an interdisciplinary team of researchers and postdoctoral fellows to develop the unique intellectual life of the centre and to establish it as a site for critical scholarship.
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  • Women in engineering can help build a better South Africa Source: Mail and Guardian "We need to enable more women — and men — to become engineers who possess the skills and resources to drive positive change. ...As we celebrate the role of women in engineering on International Women in Engineering Day (23 June), we should also acknowledge that it remains difficult for women to advance in the engineering profession because many barriers still exist."
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  • Huawei Seeds for the Future programme is now accepting applications for its 2024 programme to be held in China Source: Biz Community Seeds for the Future, Huawei's globally-recognised CSR flagship programme is now open for 2024 applications in South Africa. The annual programme provides training opportunities for outstanding students, including a cross-cultural exchange and advanced training in technologies such as 5G, Cloud, AI and IoT. This year 15 South African students will be chosen and will be welcomed back to China for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic.
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  • VUT among twelve universities to receive the Kresge Foundation funding grant to improve student success Source: VUT The Vaal University of Technology (VUT) is proud to announce its selection as one of the 12 new institutions in the Siyaphumelela network, a prestigious initiative funded by the Kresge Foundation to improve postsecondary student success in South Africa”. This significant investment marks the third phase (Siyaphumelela 3.0) of grant support aimed at systematically transforming how universities serve students, both nationally and within their institutions, to improve student outcomes. Over the next three years, VUT will receive targeted funding to enhance student success through several key initiative. These initiatives include strengthening data capabilities to better understand and improve student success, enhancing student retention and success rates through comprehensive support systems, and implementing support for high-risk modules to drive student success and improve throughput rates.

 

Skills and Employment

  • Revolutionising skills: The future of vocational training in South Africa Source: Biz Community The Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) stands ready to revolutionise vocational education in South Africa.
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  • Indebted graduates battle to find jobs after universities withhold certificates Source: Daily Maverick It’s a vicious circle: universities withhold the graduation certificates of students with outstanding fees, and the graduates are unable to find jobs without proof of their qualifications, rendering them unable to pay off their debt.
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  • Young South Africans innovate and hustle to beat unemployment Source: Media Online To solve South Africa’s dismaying youth unemployment challenge we must end the pervasive narrative that South Africans, and particularly young unemployed South Africans, are reliant on the government. It’s quite simply not true, as a recent African Response survey has revealed. Among the respondents who classified themselves as unemployed and looking for work, 41% are earning up to R15 000 a month through income-generating activities such as baking, building and hairdressing.

 

Teaching and Learning: Local and Global

  • The Deeper Agenda Behind Social Emotional Learning Source: Psychology Today SEL programs train children for autonomy. But they shouldn't be unquestioned.
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  • Exploring Neural Networks with Quick, Draw! Source: AI Pedagogy Project Introduce students to machine learning concepts by engaging them in a fun hands-on activity using Google’s Quick, Draw!
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  • What TED Talks Teach Us About Teaching Source: Faculty Focus Why do TED Talks captivate us so consistently? TED Talks captivate us because their speakers apply fundamental principles of communication that, I believe, 99% of speakers fail to follow. Because teaching is first and foremost about communication, these principles apply just as well to teaching, especially to online teaching with videos. 
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  • Out of Sight, Out of Mind Debunked: Humanizing Asynchronous Online Courses Using an Inclusive Survey Source: Faculty Focus An educator shares some  effective pedagogical approaches one can use to humanize  online teaching practices and diminish many perceived limitations associated with the asynchronous online space.  
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  • A Guide for Creating an Empathetic Learning Environment  Source: Faculty Focus Empathy, in course development, refers to an educator’s ability to understand the problems, needs, and desires a group of learners faces through research and inquisition. An inclusive learning environment is one where all students feel academically and intellectually supported, feel a sense of belonging and respect, and do not feel closed off from the rest of their peers. This article aims to identify and describe ways that educators can create an inclusive learning environment while also crafting content that is empathetic to the needs of the diverse nursing student population. 

 

Technology-Enhanced Learning

  • Blindsided by AI: "The bigger picture." Source: Blindsided by AI Youtube "This documentary is an eye-opening journey through the confusing first school year with generative AI. The film spotlights an education community united by the same quest but struggling to balance the need to go fast and slow simultaneously. Blindsided puts a human face on the unique obstacles this dilemma created for everyone in education, including teachers, students, administrators, parents, professional associations, and ed tech companies. Drawing from 15,000+ interviews, the film captures the epic thinking, gut feelings, and overlooked questions shaping how AI is impacting teaching and learning. As big as Gen AI is, the documentary reveals a bigger picture, and seeing it changes everything."
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  • Do you have AI dependency? The roles of academic self-efficacy, academic stress, and performance expectations on problematic AI usage behavior Source: International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education Although previous studies have highlighted the problematic artificial intelligence (AI) usage behaviors in educational contexts, such as overreliance on AI, no study has explored the antecedents and potential consequences that contribute to this problem. Therefore, this study investigates the causes and consequences of AI dependency using ChatGPT as an example. Using the Interaction of the Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model, this study explores the internal associations between academic self-efficacy, academic stress, performance expectations, and AI dependency. It also identifies the negative consequences of AI dependency. 
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  • Digital natives’ … the concept that refuses to die Source: Education Technology Society Pocasts. Pekka Mertala (University of Oulu) talks about a new exhaustive analysis of nearly 1900 articles that charts the evolving use of the ‘digital native’ concept in academic literature.  Neil Selwyn serves as the episode's host as they discuss the origins of the concept of "digital natives," why its pervasiveness is harmful, and how we should actively campaign against its use in the future.
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  • AI Plagiarism Considerations Part 2: When Students Use AI Source: Substack Lance Eaton's blog series on Gen AI usage.This one provides some guidance and insights about how faculty might engage with students once they suspect that a student might have inappropriately used generative AI.
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  • Policy and Practice of Artificial Intelligence in Teaching and Learning at Post-secondary Educational Institutions in the Commonwealth Source: COL The report presents the findings of a survey findings about the use of AI in teaching and learning amongst post-secondary educational institutions in the Commonwealth. It indicates a clear need for policies to guide the acceptable and ethical use of AI among faculty, staff and learners. Furthermore, all stakeholders need training and development to navigate the use of AI in teaching and learning.
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  • Assessing Online Learning and the Digitalization of Assessment Source:RIED Assessment and its digitalization are key elements of both online learning and emergency remote teaching. On its own, assessment is a complex subject, but add digital technology and this complexity increases tenfold. Far from a mechanical action, the assessment of online learning and the digitalization of this process involve more than just the incorporation of technological systems; as this special issue will show, they are concepts whose role in and impact on teaching must be understood at a pedagogical level. Based on empirical analysis and pedagogical reflection, the papers in this special issue seek to construct an irrefutably important line of work that poses the question, how does the digital environment transform sensitive processes such as ICT-mediated learning assessment and the assessment of online learning systems, and how do we in turn transform it? The issue tackles this question from four different angles: by highlighting the new digital demands placed on assessment in times of pandemic; the renewed role of educational feedback in the ICT-based self-regulated learning required; the need to move towards e-assessment as a guarantee of performance, and the evaluation of the quality of online learning as a watchdog mechanism. 
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  • Artificial intelligence, research and internet blah blah Source:University World News Prof Chantelle Gray, who is Chair of Institute for Contemporary Ethics at North-West University in South Africa  provides a marxist take on the price of abdicating our memories as externalised databases: the loss of "savoir-faire"(work-knowledge) ushering in a Taylorism-Fordism approach to learning, then a loss of  'savoir-vivre' (life-knowledge ), leading to a generalised proletarianism with the loss of savoirs théoriques ( conceptual- knowledge) unless we "decolonise the algorithmic unconscious in each of us", which the author describes as "reparative hermeneutics".
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  • AI and education Guidance for policy-makers Source: UNESCO An essential resource for national policy makers which has been updated and should be used with the Guidance for generative AI in education and research