26 November 2024
Saide Current Awareness
26 November 2024
Distance Education
Source: IJODEL This paper aims to find rationality in course design and structure, given the learners’ background and academic program tracks, as well as the teaching tools and instruments necessary in a combined learning modality. The challenge is how learners can be more engaged in discussions and provide participatory feedback. Another objective of this work is to provide documented experience of the issues and challenges in hybrid platforms as seen from the lens of development studies. Pedagogical approaches conform to the changes through case presentations that otherwise solicit lesser attention span and absorption. Teaching methods should complement the approaches by ensuring that the lessons from thematic discussions are reinforced through a learning synthesis. Synthesizing the discussions on development issues consolidates salient points that usually emerge from cross-cutting concerns that are characteristics of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary studies. Recent studies explored how innovation may translate into the creative use of tools and their application in digital space learning, from which institutions of higher education and government may draw lessons from.
Source: LinkedIn Distance learning has transformed education from its humble beginnings with correspondence courses to today's advanced, technology-driven platforms. In his latest article, Dr. Steven Yoho, Chancellor of South University, explores this incredible evolution. From radio lectures to online degree programs, and the role of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the piece highlights how innovation has shaped accessibility and inclusivity in education.
Discover how distance learning continues to break barriers and prepare students for the future. Read the full article now!
Education: South Africa
Source: Mail and Guardian By focusing on scarce skills, the Katlehong schoolchildren are being primed to have a competitive edge in the job market. (Behind Paywall)
Source: The Spokesman Review The six young children had just shared snacks bought from a corner store when they began convulsing. The children, all of them under 8, died moments later, adding more victims to a wave of food poisoning that authorities say has killed nearly two dozen children in a few months.
The South African government on Thursday declared the poisonings a national disaster, taking action after President Cyril Ramaphosa laid out the scale of the danger.
Source: OFM The importance and benefits of play were celebrated on Saturday (23/11) at the Regional ECD Play Festival at Tjhebelopele Primary School in Bloemfontein.
The festival – from 09:00 to 15:00 – aims to engage parents, educators, and local stakeholders in Early Childhood Development (ECD), another aim is to celebrate and promote the developmental benefits of play – an important part of ECD.
Source: Mail and Guardian An opinion piece by Chrissy Dube head of governance, insights and analytics at Good Governance Africa,that echoes a call for a re-evaluation of the system in order to align with the transformative goals in the recently published Unesco report: Reimagining Our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education
Source: Licence Global Onyinye Nwaneri will assume her role at Sesame Workshop South Africa in January.
Source: BizCommunity South Africa’s rural schools face unique educational challenges, from limited infrastructure and lack of resources to connectivity barriers.
Source: Space in Africa The Departments of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) and Science, Technology, and Innovation (DSTI), alongside state entities Sentech and the South African National Space Agency (SANSA), have provided an update on South Africa’s National Communication Satellite Strategy (SatCom). The ambitious project seeks to narrow the country’s digital divide, enhance connectivity in underserved areas, and establish South Africa as a leader in satellite technology.
Source: The Conversation - Africa The first 1,000 days of a child’s life – pregnancy and the months leading to their second birthday – are a critical time. Expectant mothers need good antenatal care. The better their physical and mental health, the greater the likelihood of giving birth to a healthy baby and being able to nurture that baby through the first two years of life. There’s a large global body of evidence to show that what happens during this period has lifelong effects on a person’s health, growth and well-being.
Less attention has been paid to the “next 1,000 days”, when children are between the ages of 2 and 5. But what public health and child development experts do know is that this, too, is a crucial time. Within this period, there are opportunities to build on investments made in the first 1,000 days, as well as to help put children who did not get the input they needed earlier in life back on track, setting them up for school and a healthy childhood and adolescence.
Language, Literacies, Research Writing and Publishing
Source: STEM education Despite the recent attention given to multicultural and bilingual teaching, several studies indicate that teacher education programmes in South African higher education institutions continue to instruct pre-service Mathematics teachers in Foundation Phase predominantly in English. This poses difficulties for learners when they start teaching in schools. Thus, this study examines the strategies employed by Mathematics teacher educators (university lecturers) in preparing Mathematics student teachers (teacher trainees) for mother-tongue-based bilingual teaching in the Foundation Phase. Underpinned by an interpretivist paradigm, this study employed a qualitative research approach and a case study design.
Source: The Conversation African book publishing is in a rare moment of transformation, according to a new report. It’s an industry that has historically survived at the mercy of multinational publishing houses and donor funding. These arrangements, subject to the dictates of capitalism or aid, have not been sustainable.
A newly published British Council study concludes that a new generation of African readers and writers has been disrupting traditional publishing. They’re using new technologies and social media, holding public events, promoting indigenous languages and changing consumer behaviour through savvy self-publishing methods. But the report is only a snapshot covering a small fraction of the continent.
Source: Leon Furze H
e writes: 'Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Victorian Association for the Teaching of English (VATE) conference and presenting on ‘Writing Against AI’. I’m a VATE Council member, and it’s always my favourite conference of the year and an opportunity to catch up with English teachers and academics in person.
In this brief post, I’m sharing the resources from the conference session in full. I have annotated the slides so they make more sense as a standalone resource, and I’ll also share links here to the articles and other posts mentioned throughout the session.'
Open Access, Open Education and Open Educational Resources
Source: LinkedIn
When MIT decided in 2001 to open its curriculum to the world — sharing virtually all of MIT's course materials on the OpenCourseWare platform, now part of MIT Open Learning — it helped pioneer an open education movement. This week, discover how MIT continues to imagine and invent new ways to open learning.
Post Schooling
Source: Inside Higher Education
A number of factors are converging to create a huge storm. Generative AI advances, massive federal policy shifts, broad societal and economic changes, and the demographic cliff combine to create uncertainty today and change tomorrow.
Skills and Employment
Source: Inside Higher Education
A new report finds that costs vary widely, from free to more than $20,000 per month.
Teaching and Learning: Local and Global
Source: Times Higher Education Enthusiasts claim that authentic tasks boost work-readiness, promote inclusion and diminish cheating, but the evidence remains unclear, says Tim Fawns
Source: Faculty Focus Too often, faculty make content coverage the focus of lesson planning. They plan their courses around the topics they need to cover, which usually leads to them motoring through information that their students are supposed to write down and retain. When students do not retain the information, it must be that they were not paying attention.
But we teach students, not subjects, meaning that our job is not to cover content but rather to produce learning. Producing learning requires an understanding that our minds are not databases that can simply store whatever information gets thrown at them. Significance matters. Millions of years of evolution have molded our minds to retain only information that is meaningful to us. This means that students will have a hard time retaining content that is sent to them without significance attached to it.
Technology Enhanced Learning
Source: Youtube A celebration(by Anna Mills) of Janelle Shane's AI Weirdness blog and the way it shows how AI doesn't get it.
Source: Inside Higher Education
Michael S. Palmer considers generative AI’s potential as a pedagogical innovation.
A bibliography of open resources, selected for all working in digital education in South Africa, is curated by Universities South Africa’s Digital Education CoP. All the resources are freely available via https://bit.ly/Digital_Education_Open_Bibliography.
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