Technology Enhanced Learning(1)

Convening Committee Members

Convenor

Dr Nicola Pallitt (RU)

Nicola PalittDr Nicola Pallitt coordinates the efforts of the Educational Technology Unit at Rhodes University. She offers professional development opportunities for academics to use learning technologies effectively in their roles as educators and provides learning design support and consultation in relation to teaching with technology (technology integration) and blended and online teaching and learning. Nicola is passionate about using her Media Studies and Educational Technology background to support lecturers in Higher Education to design innovative technology mediated learning interventions for their students. She believes in creating online materials and opportunities to enable meaningful and memorable learning experiences. She also supervises postgraduate students and co-teaches on formal courses in Higher Education.

Broadly, her research interests pertain to expanding critical perspectives on educational technologies in Higher Education. In particular, Nicola’s research focuses on online facilitation and networking, learning design, online professional development, teaching portfolios, student video projects, networked scholarship and digital storytelling. Her curiosity driven research area related to her PhD research is digital games and she is one of the few Game Studies scholars in Africa.

Nicola is also a visiting lecturer in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at the University of Cape Town and co-convenes the fully online course, Facilitating Online, as part of e/merge Africa’s online offerings. e/merge Africa is a project hosted at UCT, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. It is an online professional development network for educational technology researchers and practitioners based in African Higher Education.

Co-convenor

Alanna Riley

Alanna Riley is a Teaching Development Consultant with the Teaching and Learning Centre at the University of Fort Hare. She has a Social Science and Education background and completed a Masters in Education in 2012 which focused on the use of a Learning Management System for the teaching and assessment of large classes. Alanna is currently involved in a number of different research projects including a PhD in Social Sciences. In so far as technology adoption and integration is concerned, she is driven by the soft stuff, the people behind the technology and how they are using it rather than the technology itself.

The TEL CLC aims to provide a national platform for members to engage in an emergent Community of Practice, drawing on the strengths of its members to facilitate cooperation, collaboration and ongoing development in relation to teaching and learning strategies for integrating technology into curricula in a meaningful way. Key themes for discussion identified thus far include:

  • contextually appropriate approaches to blended and online teaching,
  • the need to go beyond solutionist approaches to TEL,
  • fostering sound pedagogical approaches to T&L through the use of TEL initiatives,
  • building capacity for digital teaching amongst lecturers and fostering digital fluency of staff and students,
  • TEL initiatives and designs for learning that advance social justice, are ethical and inclusive, and take the decolonisation of knowledge into account,
  • local approaches to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and  whether this is a realistic in our highly unequal society,
  • fosters critical and scholarly perspectives and provides opportunities to generate and share case studies and research related to TEL that goes beyond ‘show-and-tell’ formats, and
  • takes a theoretical stance and is informed by global and national research.
  • This CLC is for lecturers, academic development practitioners, educational technology researchers and professionals  (instructional or learning  designers, etc.) working in South African higher  education  who are involved  in or interested in TEL.

What you may want to approach the TEL CLC for:

  • Professional development opportunities related to the above
  • Opportunities for collaborative research and sharing local case studies
  • Opportunities for sub-groups within the broader TEL CLC eg. Learning Management System (LMS) user groups, LO & IDs group, etc.

Updates

Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) CLC: Announcement

Please complete this form to join the CLC and inform future activities

Publications:

Belluigi, D., Czerniewicz, L., Khoo, S., Algers, A., Buckley, LA., Prinsloo, P., Mgqwashu, E., Camps, C., Brink, C., Marx, R., Wissing, G., & Pallitt, N. 2020. “Needs Must”? Critical reflections on the implications of the Covid19 ‘pivot online’ for equity in higher education. Digital Culture and Education. https://www.digitalcultureandeducation.com/reflections-on-covid19/needs-must

Czerniewicz, L.; Agherdien, N.; Badenhorst, J.; Belluigi, D.; Chambers, T.; Chili, M.; de Villiers, M.; Felix, A.; Gachago, D.; Gokhale, C.; Ivala, E.; Kramm, N.; Madiba, M.; Mistri, G.; Mgqwashu, E.; Pallitt, N.; Prinsloo, P.; Solomon, K; Strydom, S.; Swanepoel, M.; Waghid, F. & Wissing, G. 2020. A Wake-Up Call: Equity, Inequality and Covid-19 Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning. Postdigital Science and  Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00187-4

For further information or to add to the conversation, please reach out to Nomfundo at info@heltasa.org.za.