2015 Events

19 Nov 2015- Teaching portfolios: the Whys and Hows

Online Teaching Portfolios offer a more public and professional view of teaching as a scholarly activity. They provide an overview of your development as a university teacher, helping you and others to see your teaching as an ongoing process of enquiry, innovation, and reflection. Creating such a portfolio involves thinking about your teaching in context, as well as in selecting and organizing evidence of your teaching. As particular and augmented forms of representation of what an academic CV might look like, teaching portfolios have the following features. They are:

• concise (e.g. 10 pages + appendices),
• highly personalized and critically reflective,
• evidence-based,
• intentionally and thoughtfully integrated, organized, and presented.
• They are focused on teaching practices and student learning.

Some examples of teaching portfolios here.

However, developing a teaching portfolio is sometimes experienced as a daunting task, and a digital portfolio even more so. This seminar offers the chance to explore the genre of teaching portfolios, consider opportunities for use, and describe the value of the teaching portfolio as a process and product.
 
This seminar is presented by Dr Nicola Pallitt, who co-facilitated a workshop on teaching portfolios coordinated by CHEC (details here) earlier this year. As part of the Curriculum and Course Design team Nicola’s work involves assisting lecturers with integrating ePortfolios in curricula. More info here.

Date: Thu 19 Nov (13:00-14:00)
Venue: Green Meeting Room (Rm 7.69), PD Hahn Building, UCT Upper Campus

Link to video recording and PowerPoint slides of this presentation

13 Nov 2015 - Powerful knowledge and knowledge of the powerful: what can social realism offer to support social justice in higher education?

Higher education is now and always has been implicated in reproducing social inequalities in society. But can higher education contribute to social justice, and if so, what does this mean for the way we think about curriculum? Arguing for a theory of access to higher education without an accompanying theory of knowledge can contribute to naturalising new forms of social inequality. Is there value in distinguishing between powerful knowledge and knowledge of the powerful, which is a key distinction made by those in the ‘social realist’ school in the sociology of education?

This session will debate and discuss what is meant by a ‘theory of knowledge’ to underpin curriculum. It will consider whether, and if so how, social realism in the sociology of education can make a contribution to developing a curriculum that supports social justice. This seminar will be presented by Leesa Wheelahan.

Leesa Wheelahan commenced as the William G. Davis Chair of Community College Leadership at OISE at the beginning of 2014. Prior to that she was at the University of Melbourne in Australia where she was an associate professor in adult and vocational education. Her research interests include the role of knowledge in vocational qualifications, the links between tertiary education and the labour market, tertiary education policy, social justice and student equity, professional development of teachers in vocational education and training, the blurring of the divide between the vocational and higher education sectors, and student pathways, qualifications frameworks and credit pathways in tertiary education. She has researched and published widely on these topics, and is currently leading a number of research projects on pathways in education and work in Canada. Her role includes coordinating a PhD program for community college leaders at the University of Toronto.

Date: Fri 13 Nov (11:30-12:30)
Venue: Green Meeting Room (Rm 7.69), 7th Floor, PD Hahn Building, UCT Upper Campus

Link to video recording and PowerPoint slides of this presentation

21 Oct 2015 - LX Design: Mapping the journey

The emerging concept of learner experience design, or LX Design, is all about creating better experiences for learners. By combining traditional learning design methods with new user experience design techniques, learning designers can add powerful tools to their toolkit. In this session we will take a look at learner journey maps. What are they, how do you make them and when can you use them?

Joyce Seitzinger is a learner experience designer, open badges advocate, digital presence coach and founder of Academic Tribe. Working with a distributed network of education specialists, Academic Tribe has worked on projects for education and research organisations, such as RMIT University, the University of Melbourne, the Australian Institute for Training and Development and the Dutch AIDS Foundation. Joyce co-facilitates the Open Badges Australia and New Zealand community group (@ob_anz) and is editor of the LXDesign.co blog. Joyce has worked in corporate and higher education in the Netherlands, New Zealand and now Australia and is a frequent speaker at edtech conferences and events around the globe. You can find Joyce on Twitter as @catspyjamasnz

Date: Wed 21 Oct (13:00-14:00 - with time for questions afterwards)
Venue: Prof Cronje from CPUT has kindly offered his house as a seminar venue

*PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SEMINAR HAS BEEN CANCELLED*

20 Oct 2015 - Inclusion and exclusion in global contexts: education, democracy and dialogue

In this seminar I want to provide a basis for discussion about inclusion and exclusion in education, including the context of struggle in the UK and internationally in which they are situated. I propose also to reflect on the extent to which democracy and dialogue are supported or suppressed in contemporary developments in open and distance education, especially with regard to change driven by digital technologies.
 
Alan Tait is a values-led educator, committed to the use of distance e- and open learning for social justice and inclusion. He is Professor of Distance Education and Development at the Open University UK, and has a long record of practice and publication. Alan retires from the Open University at the end of 2015 in the position of Director of International Development and Teacher Education. He was Pro-Vice Chancellor (Academic) at the Open University UK 2007-2012, and was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Education and Language Studies. He was Editor of the European Journal of Distance and E Learning (EURODL) 2005-2013, was from 1989-1998 Editor of Open Learning, was President of the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) from 2007-2010, and Co-Director of the Cambridge International Conference on Open and Distance Learning 1988-2013.

In 2012 Alan was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Moscow State University for Economics, Statistics and Informatics, and appointed Visiting Online Consultant at the Open University of China in 2013. Alan will continue his professional activity as Emeritus Professor at the Open University; founding Editor of the Journal of Learning for Development, produced from the Commonwealth of Learning; Visiting Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark; Visiting Fellow of the Centre for Distance Education at the University of London; and transformation advisor to Botswana Open University.

Date: 20 October (13:00-14:00)
Venue: Green Meeting Room (Rm 7.69), 7th Floor, PD Hahn Building, UCT Upper Campus

*PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SEMINAR HAS BEEN CANCELLED*

20 Oct 2015 - An open conversation with Ulf Olsson: Distribution of responsibility in postgraduate supervision

Undergraduate thesis writing is a complex work that needs a compound interaction between the student and the supervisor. The presented study strived to find answers to how the distribution of responsibility between student and supervisor is perceived by each group respectively. Gaps and overlaps relating to the distribution of responsibility were identified and compared at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) and the Department of Child and Youth Studies (BUV), both at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Stockholm University. Altogether, 344 supervisors and students participated in the survey. Undergraduates and supervisors indicate where they believe the responsibility lies between themselves and the other party in the thesis writing process.

The presentation will also give an example of how the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University makes use of an IT-support system to handle the problems perceived by bachelor and master students about too little instructions as well as infrequent and insufficient supervisor feedback. Supervisors on the other hand face the problem of not having time to provide the feedback needed, especially when students are beginners and there are many students to supervise (Hansson & Hansen 2015).

Ulf Olsson has been teaching and doing research in higher education for 20 years at Karlstad University and since 2008 at Stockholm University, Sweden. Access to education, flexibility and different kinds of online education have been the focus. His PhD dissertation investigated factors that could predict study success before the concept of learning analytics become popular. In recent years, open courses as professional development and higher education institution strategies for open education and the use of technology enhanced learning have come to the fore. Ulf's current work involves professional development for university teachers and research projects.

Date: 20 October (10:00 - 12:00)
Venue: Green Meeting Room (Rm 7.69), PD Hahn Building, UCT Upper Campus

*PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SEMINAR HAS BEEN CANCELLED*

19 Oct 2015 - Open education

Within higher education and research, collaboration between universities is increasing in order to create platforms for marketing and conducting MOOCs (open, flexible online courses, harboring many participants) (Daniel, 2012). These courses are believed to provide a great opportunity for more people to acquire access to higher education, and to develop new models for education, although no novel forms of the education have as yet been pinpointed. A common preconception among researchers and debaters is that MOOCs are changing the preconditions of the universities’ operations. Other researchers and debaters are more apprehensive (Karsenti, 2013). Publishing in open access journals is a current parallel development (Carroll, 2013). Research results are thus made available outside the journals of commercial publishing houses, increasing the access to research results for people outside academia. Even though many teachers in academia view MOOCs and IT within teaching with scepticism, new commercial stakeholders exist today, who may influence the operating models (Bokor, 2013; Karsenti, 2013).  
 
The rapid development of knowledge requires highly educated employees to develop their expertise continually, not least in high-tech companies. For such companies, this applies in particular to the need of taking advantage of relevant research-based knowledge from academia (Benner & Sörlin, 2015; Perez Vico, Fernqvist, Hellsmark, Molnar, & Hellström, 2014). A new way for businesses to exploit such knowledge is offered by the development of open flexible web-based courses. There are several initiatives where the development of such courses is based on co-creation between universities and companies. In these courses, the business development areas of companies are linked with research areas of HEIs.

The study and presentation raises questions about:

• attitudes among teachers in higher education towards open courses
• attitudes among managers and HR specialists in business towards open courses as professional development
• the ”openness” as a potential problem in professional development
• whether open education and MOOCs might be a way to reinforce research collaborations and research environments.

Ulf Olsson has been teaching and doing research in higher education for 20 years at Karlstad University and since 2008 at Stockholm University, Sweden. Access to education, flexibility and different kinds of online education have been the focus. His PhD dissertation investigated factors that could predict study success before the concept of learning analytics become popular. In recent years, open courses as professional development and higher education institution strategies for open education and the use of technology enhanced learning have come to the fore. Ulf's current work involves professional development for university teachers and research projects.

Date: 19 October (12:30 - 13:30)
Venue: Green Meeting Room (Rm 7.69), PD Hahn Building, UCT Upper Campus

12 Oct 2015 - Harnessing the power of the crowd: Futurelearn’s vision of MOOCs potential in Africa

Mark Lester (FutureLearn’s Global Head of Education Partnerships) will take a look at how FutureLearn, the UK’s pioneer of massive social online learning, and its partners are beginning to use MOOCs to enhance access to education, harness the power of the crowd to improve learning, address major national skills challenges and devise business models that will help make these activities sustainable. It will offer a perspective on what is working and how FutureLearn hopes to work in partnership with African institutions to develop courses and pathways relevant for local populations.

Mark Lester is the Global Head of Education Partnerships at FutureLearn. Futurelearn is a British based MOOC platform created as private company wholly owned by The Open University. It has 72 partners from around the world, including many of the best UK and international universities, as well as institutions with a huge archive of cultural and educational material, such as the British Council, the British Library, the British Museum, and the National Film and Television School. There are 2 million learners taking courses through FutureLearn.

Date: Mon 12 Oct (13:00-14:00)
Venue: Green Meeting Room (Rm 7.69), PD Hahn Building, UCT Upper Campus

Link to video recording and PowerPoint slides of this presentation

1 Oct 2015 - An Afternoon of Exploration: Habitable Worlds - the case for Adaptive eLearning in Education​

Smart Sparrow in collaboration with the Center for Education Through Exploration (ETX) at Arizona State University is developing a suite of next-generation courseware, inspired by Habitable Worlds, as part of the Inspark Science Network project. This courseware has the potential to impact positively on learning and teaching across a broad range of disciplines. 
 
In this particular seminar we will explore how this courseware was used in the online course, Habitable Worlds, a gen-ed astrobiology themed course, which explores the formation of stars, planets, Earth, life, intelligence, technological civilizations and, ultimately, is a quest of exploration as we attempt to answer one of the most profound questions: are we alone in the universe? Produced by Prof. Ariel Anbar and Dr. Lev Horodyskyj from Arizona State University, Habitable Worlds is also available for faculty to teach as a full course or separate learning modules.

Please join Professor Ariel Anbar on October 1 at 4PM (South Africa time) for a demo of the courseware and discussion about the curriculum and technology innovations that make Habitable Worlds unique. Please note that this is a virtual seminar.

Date: Thu 1 October 4-5pm South Africa time, 7-8am Pacific time
Venue: Green Meeting Room (Rm 7.69), PD Hahn Building, UCT Upper Campus

8 Sep 2015 - Emerging scholarly practices in digital spaces

What do networked scholars do online? What are their habits and what activities do they engage with? In this presentation, I will examine the day-today realities of social media and online networks for scholarship and illuminates the opportunities, tensions, conflicts, and inequities that exist in these spaces. This seminar will be presented by George Veletsianos.

George holds a Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology and is an Associate Professor at Royal Roads University. His research has been dedicated to understanding the practices and experiences of learners, educators, and scholars in emerging online settings such as online social networks and digital environments. Individually and collaboratively, George has published more than 40 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters and given more than 70 talks at conferences and events worldwide.
- See more about George at: http://www.veletsianos.com/about-2/

Date: Tues 8 Sept 1-2pm
Venue: Leslie Social Science (LS1C), Upper Campus

You can find the link to the presentation on Slideshare here

7 Sep 2015 - Emerging Trends in Online and Hybrid Education

As online and hybrid education enter the third decade, there are significant efforts to move beyond the virtualization of traditional face-to-face classroom and move more towards learner-centric approaches. This shift has the potential to change the discussion of whether online and hybrid approaches “can be as good as” traditional approaches to a discussion of how online and hybrid approaches “can provide better learning opportunities”. During this talk we will explore this long-term trend, several of the drivers enabling the change, and the implications for current and future educators. This seminar will be presented by Phil Hill.

Phil is Co-Publisher of the e-Literate blog, Co-Producer of e-Literate TV, and Partner at MindWires Consulting. As a market analyst, Phil has analyzed the growth of technology-enabled change for educational institutions, uncovering and describing the major trends and implications for the broader market. His unique graphics and visual presentations have been widely used in the industry. As an independent consultant, Phil helps educational institutions, technology and content vendors, and policy makers as they consider and implement new initiatives. Phil’s clients have included Western Governors University, California Community College System, Iowa State University, Bournemouth University, Pearson Education, Coursera, and others.

Date: Mon 7 Sept 1-2pm
Venue: Leslie Social Science (LS1C), Upper Campus

You can find the link to the presentation on Slideshare here

20 Aug 2015 - Visual Literacy in Higher Education? Why and How?

"Literacy” usually means the ability to read and write, but it can also refer to the ability to “read” kinds of signs other than words — for example, images or gestures. The proliferation of images in our culture — in newspapers and magazines, in advertising, on television, and on the Web — makes visual literacy, the ability to “read” images, a vital skill. But what does it mean to read an image, and how can teachers/lecturers help students develop the skills to do so thoughtfully?

Visual literacy is the ability to see, to understand, and ultimately to think, create, and communicate graphically. Generally speaking, the visually literate viewer looks at an image carefully, critically, and with an eye for the intentions of the image’s creator. This seminar will focus on relating visual literacy to Higher Education and why it is so important to understand how visual literacy impacts learning and teaching. We will also focus on the different levels of visual literacy and how it can develop critical thinking skills. This Seminar will be presented by Rondine Carstens from the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching.

Date: Thu 20 Aug 1-2pm
Venue: CILT Conference Rm (7.63), Level 7, PD Hahn Building

Link to video recording and PowerPoint slides of this presentation

7 May 2015 - The power of story: Digital storytelling in the academy and beyond

Digital stories are short first-person videos that combine images, text, narration and other sounds. The product is simple; but the process of digital storytelling, through which these stories are produced, spans a wide spectrum - from largely technical software training to a deep reflective practice that can help people discover and communicate the meaning of important life experiences. Digital storytelling is used in education to create portfolios and build technical skills; in NGOs as a tool for debriefing, advocacy and training; and by artists and activists as a way to amplify unheard voices, build bridges and spark dialogue. This seminar will examine a variety of different perspectives on digital storytelling, with a particular focus on low-tech production techniques, ethical issues and the different ways it can be incorporated into curricula.
 
This seminar will be presented by Pam Sykes who has two decades of experience in listening to and telling diverse stories. A digital storytelling facilitator since 2010, she has worked with NGOs and companies as well as with students in a variety of settings.

Link to video recording and PowerPoint slides of this presentation

9 Apr 2015 - Networked literacies and agency: an exploration
Link to video recording and PowerPoint slides of this presentation

Amidst the changing higher education landscape, the current discourse in higher education is flooded with notions of different types of literacies, the notion of metaliteracy, fluencies, intelligences and of course, skills and attributes needed by students. In responding to the tensions and anxieties of, but not limited to, the increasing inequalities of the 21st century and the increasing number of claims and counter-claims by a range of stakeholders, we increasingly reflect on and redefine the purpose of higher education and notions of graduateness. Each new day therefore sees yet another set of literacies, skills, or propositions being introduced, replacing the lists received last month and acclaimed yesterday. Possibly underlying our anxious search for definitions  of “literacy” lays an unease that the knowledge maps of the past have, to a large extent, been proven to be fragile and (possibly/mostly?) the illegitimate offspring of unsavory liaisons between ideology, context and humanity’s gullibility in believing in promises of unconstrained scientific progress. Our continuous search for definitions, frameworks, and taxonomies of literacy has become our hope for creating a center that holds…

There are many possible lenses through which we can engage with literacies. In this seminar I would like to reflect on literacy-as-agency as basis for a critical consciousness through which we are empowered to ‘read the world”; a world characterised by the changing nature of knowledge and the production of knowledge, rising inequalities and networks. Using Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, and capital I will propose the notion of performing metaliteracy using the broad tenets of actor-network theory. 

Performing metaliteracy involves an embodied and agentic understanding of the cognitive, technological, social, affective and metacognitive dimensions of metaliteracy. I conclude by proposing metaliteracy as agency in the service of hope, moving from “a rhetoric of conclusions towards a rhetoric of contentions” in a time “when the old is dying and the new cannot be born”.

Paul Prinsloo is a Research Professor in Open Distance Learning (ODL) in the College of Economic and Management Sciences, University of South Africa (Unisa). His academic background includes fields as diverse as theology, art history, business management, law, education, online learning, and religious studies. Paul embraces social media and actively engages in digital scholarship through Twitter (@14prinsp), Facebook, Linkedin and a blog dedicated to open distance teaching and learning (http://www.opendistanceteachingandlearning.wordpress.com).

26 Mar 2015 - Blended Statistics, what next?
Link to video recording and PowerPoint slides of this presentation

The Statistical Sciences Department put its largest first year course online in 2014. Having emerged from the experience of dragging, pushing, urging and tripping over 1400 first year students all the way to the finish line, we look forward to sharing some thoughts with colleagues in this seminar.

The seminar will be presented by Leanne Scott.