Browsing by Subject "educational technology"

Now showing 1 - 12 of 12
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    Development of the Monitoring Disability in Society Post Graduate Diploma Course for Online Delivery
    (2016-04-04) Nwanze, Ikechukwu
    The Monitoring Disability in Society (AHS4118 MDIS) postgraduate diploma course has been adapted with a blended online component using teaching and learning technologies. This online component ran from when the students were at UCT physically (July 2015) to end of the course (November 2015). The course had a total of 18 students from within South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. The engagement of the postgraduate students in the online space has been remarkable and at the end of the course in November 2015, there was a 93% participation level for the forum and blog Vula online engagements. This was measured based on student posting and comment engagement with their peers for the 4 online activities we had in the course. This resource contains a report on the process of moving the course to a blended model and ten student outputs.
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    Distinguishing the field of educational technology
    (Academic Publishing Limited, 2008) Czerniewicz, Laura
    Drawing on what researchers and professionals in the field internationally report, this paper reviews educational technology as an emergent field. The review reveals the continuum of perspectives on what the field is, and how it is bounded or fragmented. The paper describes the field from two perspectives: the professional and scholarly and considers how the forms of knowledge differ and overlap in each domain. It posits some dichotomies which may frame the field such as science/social science and positivist/post-modernist. Finally the paper provides conceptual frameworks for distinguishing fields from each other and suggests what the categorisation of the field might mean, especially considering its emergent status in a rapidly changing context.
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    e/merging across Africa: five papers on the use of educational technology in African Higher Education
    (Kennesaw State University, 2013) Carr, Tony
    This guest editorial comments on the rapidly changing environment for the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in African Higher Education Institutions (HEI), introduces the e/merge online conferences and gives a brief introduction to the papers in the special issue.
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    Educational technology - mapping the terrain with Bernstein as cartographer
    (Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2010) Czerniewicz, Laura
    This paper uses the literature of educational technology as the site of analysis in order to map the field of educational technology. Having considered Kuhn and Bourdieu's theories, the paper frames the analysis of the field in Bernsteinian terms as a horizontal knowledge structure in a vertical knowledge discourse. Using the concepts of interacting discursive planes, the paper maps the field in terms of its general approach planes and its problem planes. Finally, the paper shows that researchers in the field themselves acknowledge its weak grammar, and calls for commensurability of approaches to be acknowledged in order for robust knowledge to be developed and the legitimacy of the field to be enhanced.
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    Efficacy of Zulu indigenous games in enhancing perceptual-motor skills in pre-schoolers: a qualitative study of two informal settlements in Kwa Zulu Natal
    (2024) Brand, Nicolette; Ng'ambi, Dickson
    An increasing number of learners entering formal schooling lack essential learning readiness skills, such as perceptual-motor development, and are therefore underprepared for learning. Although indigenous games have the potential to enhance perceptual-motor development, there is a paucity of research on the use of indigenous games for school readiness among Grade R learners. This study evaluates cognitive and perceptual-motor skills in Zulu indigenous games, drawing on Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory, Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory, and Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory, to enhance the school readiness of Grade R learners in a resource-constrained context. Data was collected using a qualitative methodology and analysed within the interpretive paradigm, incorporating interviews, observations, and field notes. The study employed structured and semi-structured interviews to investigate the educational characteristics of Zulu Indigenous games from the community's perspective and adults' perceptions of their benefits for holistic development. Participants aged twenty to thirty from two regions recognised the beneficial effects of Zulu Indigenous games on physical, cognitive, and social abilities. However, they indicated that demanding work schedules, particularly in corporate environments in Durban, limited their participation in traditional games. Participants reported primarily using English at work and leisure, influencing their cultural practices. Despite these challenges, there is hope that incorporating traditional games into school curricula will preserve cultural heritage for future generations. Concerns about adequate teacher training were expressed, particularly among younger educators unfamiliar with these games. Physical and group interactions, skill development, cultural history, and group dynamics emerged as key themes, emphasising the multifaceted benefits of Zulu Indigenous games in promoting community bonds, personal growth, and cultural preservation. The research concludes that incorporating Zulu indigenous games with educational value from Zulu culture into the school curriculum can be extremely beneficial for addressing the impact of delayed perceptual motor development on school readiness and promoting holistic child development. By incorporating Zulu indigenous games into the curriculum, schools can simultaneously promote cultural inclusivity, respect, and appreciation while fostering the perceptual-motor development of children.
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    An inequality lens on educational technology focusing on institutional policy
    (University of Lancaster, 2017-03-06) Czerniewicz, Laura; Rother, Kyle
    Presentation on how educational technology can impact upon inequality, focusing on institutional policy.
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    Lecturers' perceptions of enhancing student engagement through anonymous online engagement strategies
    (2024) Mdanyana, Lungile; Gachago, Daniela; Shanali Govender
    Student engagement is widely acknowledged as significantly impacting academic accomplishment and learning in higher education, and it is frequently theorised and researched. However, institutions of higher learning have historically grappled with effective and sustainable ways of engaging students online in the teaching and learning process. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its extensive lockdowns and instant shift to fully online teaching and learning, created a more challenging context for student engagement. During this time, faculties and departments shifted from face-to-face to online teaching to continue teaching and learning activities. The emergency remote teaching context impacted student engagement in a wide range of ways and created an opportunity to understand student engagement in different contexts. This dissertation seeks to explore lecturers' perceptions and experiences of student engagement in online learning, with a particular focus on anonymous engagement as a strategy to enhance student engagem
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    Pedagogic strategies to support learning design thinking in a masters course
    (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2013) Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl; Deacon, Andrew
    The demand for further skills and qualifications in the educational technology field remains strong as the range of technologies increases and their potential use in educational contexts becomes more compelling. Students registering for the University of Cape Town (UCT) Masters level courses are employed in schools, government agencies, universities, non-governmental organisations, or in the corporate sector, where their role in designing educational technology interventions represents part of their responsibilities. Because they have varying levels of experience in designing educational materials and/or using educational technologies, they need to develop learning design thinking and gain practice with a broad range of pedagogic strategies, theories, and technology tools to be productive in the workplace. Over the past four years we have developed and adopted a course for the needs of people who are keen to apply these skills in their work contexts. We describe here, the pedagogic strategies we explicitly adopted to model and support learning design thinking in one of four modules, Online Learning Design. The module adopts a learning design framework developed by Dabbagh and Bannan- Ritland (2005) to introduce students to design processes, and uses the same framework as a loose structure for the module and assignments. We apply Dabbagh and Bannan- Ritland's classification of pedagogic strategies to model and analyse approaches to cultivating learning design thinking amongst the students. As an analytic advice, we draw on Engeström's (2001) Activity Theory to describe the evolving learning context and our changing pedagogic strategies over four years. We focus on key tensions that emerged from the adoption of a range of pedagogic strategies to cultivate the students' learning design thinking when developing learning activities to communicate complex design issues. The key social change highlighted in this paper is that educational technology educators aiming to cultivate students' learning design thinking, need to apply their design thinking to their own practice.
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    Position Paper: Personal Mobile Devices and Laptops as Learning Tools
    (2015) Brown, Cheryl; Pallitt, Nicola
    This document was originally co-authored as a position paper for Higher Education South Africa (HESA). It discusses the usefulness of personal mobile devices and laptops as learning tools in higher education learning environments, examining the affordances of these devices both in and beyond the classroom. It provides an overview of current uses in South African universities (where laptop and tablet initiatives are still relatively novel) and offers recommendations for the successful implementation of such projects.
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    Position Paper: ePortfolios
    (2015) Pallitt, Nicola; Strydom, Sonja; Evala, Eunice
    This document was co-authored as a position paper for Higher Education South Africa. It offers a broad overview of the current ePortfolio landscape. It discusses various definitions and characteristics of ePortfolios, forms of online showcasing often confused with ePortfolios, challenges and opportunities associated with ePortfolio integration, current international trends and presents a regional perspective on local uptake of ePortfolios across Higher Education Institutions in the Western Cape.
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    The role of ICTs in higher education in South Africa: one strategy for addressing teaching and learning challenges
    (University of the West Indies, 2007) Jaffer, Shaheeda; Ng'ambi, Dick; Czerniewicz, Laura
    One of the most common problems of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in education is to base choices on technological possibilities rather than educational needs. In developing countries where higher education is fraught with serious challenges at multiple levels, there is increasing pressure to ensure that technological possibilities are viewed in the context of educational needs. This paper argues that a central role of educational technology is to provide additional strategies that can be used to address the serious environmental and educational challenges faced by educators and students in higher education. The educational needs manifest in South African universities include addressing general lack of academic preparedness, multilingual needs in English medium settings, large class sizes and inadequate curriculum design. Using case studies from one higher educational institution, this paper shows how specific and carefully considered interventions using ICTs can be used to address these teaching and learning concerns. These examples serve to demonstrate some ways in which teaching and learning may be enhanced when uses of educational technology are driven by educational needs. The paper concludes that design of educational technology interventions should be driven by educational needs within the context of a broader teaching and learning strategy which requires buy-in of both educators and learners.
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    Towards a Shared Understanding of emerging technologies: experiences in a collaborative research project in South Africa
    (Kennesaw State University, 2013) Ng'ambi, Dick; Gachago, Daniela; Backhouse, Judy; Bozalek, Vivienne; Ivala, Eunice; Bosman, Jan Petrus
    While the practice of using educational technologies in Higher Education is increasingly common among educators, there is a paucity of research on innovative uses of emerging technologies to transform teaching and learning. This paper draws on data collected as part of a larger study aimed at investigating emerging technologies and their use in South African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to improve teaching and learning. The research employed a mixed method research design, using both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods—quantitative data from a survey of 262 respondents from 22 public HEIs in South Africa and qualitative data gathered from 16 experts/practitioners on their self-reflective definition of the term "emerging technologies". The paper concludes that levels of institutional development, access to resources, discipline, group belonging and individual motivation of respondents influenced the way they defined emerging technologies including what constituted an innovative use of technology, foregrounding the contextuality of emerging technologies.