Saide Current Awareness
15 July 2024

 

Distance Education

  • The Relationship between Academic Self-Efficacy and Emotional Intelligence with Anxiety in the Students of Distance Education Source: Journal of Research in Educational Systems The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between self-efficacy, emotional intelligence and anxiety in distance education students.  The results of this study showed that there are an inverse and significant relationship between the components of emotional intelligence and academic self-efficacy and anxiety variable, which means that by increasing the level of the components of emotional intelligence and academic self-efficacy, anxiety levels are reduced. According to the results of this study and considering that the promotion of emotional intelligence and academic self-efficacy are related to the reduction of anxiety and anxiety is one of the reasons for mental health disorder and reduction of students' learning ability, these areas should be strengthened.
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  • Two Takeaways from ICDE’s Leadership Summit on Ethical Leadership in the Age of AI Source: OLC Insights Dr. Madeline R. Shellgren , Director of Global Outreach, Online Learning Consortium, shares her reflections and takeaways from the ICDE Leadership Summit 2024.
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  • Call for Papers: Special Issues on Systematic and Meta Studies in Open Online and Distance Education Source: OpenPraxis The ecosystem of education in general and Open Online Distance Education in particular is evolving and transforming due to both rapid developments in technology and changes in the socio-economic context. In order to understand these changes, we think that we are at a time when it is important to evaluate the current situation from a holistic perspective and to plan the future by looking at the past. In this context, Open Praxis journal will prioritize systematic literature review, scoping review, meta-analysis and meta-synthesis studies in its 2025 issues.

 

   Education: South Africa

  • Advocacy for Ethical Leadership in South Africa’s Basic Education Committee Source: Cape Town Today Equal Education, a prominent advocacy group, has criticized the appointment of politician Zizi Kodwa for South Africa’s Basic Education portfolio committee due to his alleged involvement in corruption. The organization argues that individuals with clean records should be appointed for roles that demand high levels of ethical integrity and governance, especially in education. Equal Education stresses the importance of ethical leadership and integrity in the government of national unity and the education sector as a whole.
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  • Innovative educational platform set to bring about economic change launched Source: IOL A new platform set to drive change in job creation and educational support for students has been launched by two South African entrepreneurs this week. Study Start is an innovative online education tool founded by Jason Adriaan and South African journalist and TV talk show host, Shahan Ramkissoon.
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  • MTN SA’s Y’ello Care Bus takes edtech to rural schools Source: ITWeb MTN SA’s Y’ello Care Bus has returned to base after celebrating the company’s 30th anniversary by helping more than 4 700 South African school children get their hands on digital educational technologies.  According to a statement, the ‘tech library on wheels’ initiative forms part of MTN SA’s flagship employee volunteerism programme, 21 Days of Y’ello Care, now extended to 30 Days of Y’ello Care.
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  • The Business of Higher Education Source: HSRCPress A study of public-private partnerships in the provision of higher education in South Africa The phenomenon of partnerships between public higher education institutions and private providers of higher education in South Africa began in the early 1990s. While partnerships emerged in the distance education sub-sector, they soon became a feature of the broader higher education landscape as many residential institutions began to venture into distance education. Private institutions, for their part, realised the opportunity to mediate distance education with face-to-face support. However, the phenomenon has since spread to include other types of partnerships. This monograph, based on an empirical study of the public-private partnerships that existed between 2002 and early 2003, offers the first compelling account of a hitherto under-researched phenomenon in higher education provision in South Africa.

 

Language, Literacies and Research Writing

 

Open Access, Open Education and Open Educational Resources

  • We need to put Open Access journals at the heart of academic publishing Source: LSE The current system of academic publishing only works for a select few. It needs to be overhauled and replaced with a system that is more in tune with academic ideas and offers better value for money, writes Tim Glawion.
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  • Open educational resources can address inequalities in HE Source:Faculty Focus Despite significant progress in expanding global access to higher education, profound inequalities persist. Teaching and learning resources remain prohibitively expensive, creating financial burdens and retention barriers for students. Furthermore, paywalled, copyrighted content limits academics’ ability to adapt materials for local relevance, particularly in the Global South.

 

   Post Schooling

 

Skills and Employment

  • South Africa leads in AI adoption, but at what cost? Source: Ventureburn When Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s former president, spoke of an African Renaissance in 1999, he likely didn’t envision artificial intelligence as its harbinger. Yet today, South Africa stands at the vanguard of a technological revolution that’s reshaping the global workforce. The country’s workers are adopting generative AI tools at rates that surpass many Western nations, embodying a spirit of innovation that belies the continent’s outdated technological stereotypes.
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  • Altron to launch ICT skills-focused education trust Source: CreamerMedia Altron is pursuing a new broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) ownership transaction that will result in the launching of a sustainable information and communications technology (ICT) skills-focused education trust.
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  • StudyStart to tackle South Africa’s skills mismatch and graduate unemployment Source: Youtube South Africa faces a significant skills mismatch. The graduate unemployment rate continues to rise, reaching 11.8% in the first quarter of this year, according to Statistics South Africa—an increase of 2.3 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2023. Despite this, there is a shortage of skills in some professions. These are the issues that entrepreneurs Jason Adriaan and broadcaster Shahan Ramkisson want to tackle with their new education-focused platform called StudyStart. In an interview with BizNews, Adriaan explained that their online tool is designed to help students plan their educational and career paths. StudyStart offers a web-based application optimised for accessibility on mobile devices. Jason emphasises the need for vocational training options alongside traditional university routes, noting the importance of various skill sets in the job market. He also highlights the challenges startups face in South Africa, including tax burdens and slow procurement processes with large corporations. Their goal is to effectively bridge the skills gap and reduce unemployment in the country.

 

Teaching and Learning: Local and Global

  • Digest #175: Authentic Assessments Source: Learning Scientists The idea of authentic assessments has been around for over 30 years now. In 1990, Grant Wiggins coined the term ‘authentic assessment’ (1) and in recent years this assessment approach has received a considerable boost. The pandemic as well as the rise of AI in education have required educators to explore more innovative ways to assess knowledge and skills in their students. Specifically, there is a call for assessments for learning – the idea that students need to apply their knowledge and skills to complete an assessment which, in turn, leads to increases in their knowledge and skills. There are many definitions and approaches to authentic assessment and so today’s digest provides an overview of the concept with examples. 
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  • The world cannot afford to short-change education. Something has to change. Source: LinkedInPulse Ahead of September’s Summit of the Future and November’s Global Education Meeting, António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations  puts forward a four-point plan to end the global education crisis.
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  • The Rhetoric of Purpose: Conversations For Our AI Era Source: Substack One of the most powerful tools we have in curbing AI misuse and shaping its ethical adoption is also one we struggle with employing. Talking with students is harder now than it was before the pandemic. Talking with one another is likewise strained with increasing political tension. And, yet, the power of a persuasive conversation can be a far more powerful tool than any AI detector.
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  • Policies, Pedagogies and Technologies to Complement MOOCs for Teacher Professional Development Source: COL This report explores innovative uses of digital technology to support and deliver teacher development in low-income countries and disadvantaged regions while utilising global MOOC provision. The report emphasizes flexibility, sustainability, and cultural sensitivity through social media, emerging pedagogies, and technological solutions. It addresses the challenges of delivering scalable, cost-effective solutions while working with diverse, hard-to-reach communities. Recommendations include the need to promote resilient, adaptable learning that avoids privileging already advantaged groups. Strategies include improving MOOC platforms, leveraging local technologies, and developing community-specific resources. The report, co-authored by Professor John Traxler and Dr Betty Ogange, underscores the need to decolonize the curriculum and emphasizes a gradual, inclusive approach to change. It aims to balance global digital resources with sustainable local practices, encouraging lifelong learning and professional development for teachers in underserved areas.
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  • When Students Don’t Like What They’re Doing: Applications for Group Work Source: Faculty Focus From a well-designed and well-implemented group activity, students can have rich encounters with the content and learn the value of working collaboratively. When the group project goes poorly, the content is compromised, and students turn their backs on group work.  Those negative attitudes about groups lead to a larger question: Can students still learn even if they don’t like the instructional approach, activity, or assignment? 
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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. It is, therefore, invaluable to identify ways 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

  • Postdigital Learning Spaces: Towards Convivial, Equitable, and Sustainable Spaces for Learning Source: Springer This edited collection brings empirical, theoretical, and conceptual work related to learning spaces and practices that draw on the convergence of nature, humans, and the digital, in order to contribute to transformative action (that is likely) to effect change. The book asks, how can learning spaces be more convivial, equitable or sustainable, considering the challenges our world is facing? With a view to extending the reach and impact of existing postdigital scholarship, the book explores learning spaces beyond higher education. This includes learning spaces associated with cultural heritage, creative arts, refugees and displaced persons, schools, outdoor education, the city, and elsewhere.
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  •  The platform economy of GenAI in education Source: Automated Online  A blog by Carlo Perrotta, Associate Professor of Digital Education who interrogates the question of how  generative AI is finding its way into education systems, off the back of pre-existing economic and institutional arrangements. He provides a general reflection on the current state of GenAI in education, informed by preliminary and scattered “moments” of discussion, reading and empirical engagement. In particular, he shares thoughts on the “innovation model” of OpenAI’s custom GPTs and AI assistants in education.
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  • Who is an AI Ethicist? An Empirical Study of Expertise, Skills, and Profiles to Build a Competency Framework Source: Over the last decade the figure of the AI Ethicist has seen significant growth in the ICT market. However, only a few studies have taken an interest in this professional profile, and they have yet to provide a normative discussion of its expertise and skills. The goal of this article is to initiate such discussion. We argue that AI Ethicists should be experts and use a heuristic to identify them. Then, we focus on their specific kind of moral expertise, drawing on a parallel with the expertise of Ethics Consultants in clinical settings and on the bioethics literature on the topic. Finally, we highlight the differences between Health Care Ethics Consultants and AI Ethicists and derive the expertise and skills of the latter from the roles that AI Ethicists should have in an organisation.
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  • Handbook on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence Source: GoogleBooks This engaging Handbook identifies and critically examines the moral opportunities and challenges typically attributed to artificial intelligence. It provides a comprehensive overview and examination of the most pressing and urgent problems with this technology by drawing on a wide range of analytical methods, traditions, and approaches.
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  • How to Use Digital Learning with Confidence and Creativity Source: ElgarOnline  An accessible guide to key topics in the complex field of digital learning. It offers advice and insights on a range of ethical, pedagogical, ideological, and strategic challenges arising at the intersection of digital technology and teaching practice.
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  • Calling B.S. on the AI Education Future Source: Inside Higher Education " Far be it from me to call bullshit on a legendary venture capitalist known as the “queen of the internet,” but having read through Mary Meeker’s “AI & Universities” report, recently covered by Lauren Coffey here at Inside Higher Ed, I’m calling bullshit.", write John Warner
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  • Beyond Co-Intelligence: 𝑨𝑰 𝑳𝒐𝒈 Reviews "Teaching with AI" Source: Substack Nick Potkalitsky provides a commentary on Dr. Rob Nelson's  thoughtful review of José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson’s new book on Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning, and the "larger call for the AI x Education community to historicize their AI-adapted and -infused practices as they engage in them."