Does not really matter. Most work and students should eventually pass if they get ‘into’ it – they decided on this qualification because they have some will to succeed.

The main factor, in fact the only factor is to identify as early as possible those who may be “At Risk” and then start doing something about it – that means we need “realtime information” To hold marks and progress discussions after the fact is just senseless, as it will be too late to do something about it – the damage is done!

• Identify Risk factors
• Set up an early warning system – all modern LMS’s will be able to do that.
• Identify the students at risk
• Identify shortcomings
• Start remedial or other interventions immediately

EISR Workshop Presentation

•      Why that one? – I don’t like the look and feel
•      Why can I not use my own? I can manage it alone.
•       Why not use social media platforms such as Google+ or Facebook, or Twitter? – This is where my students live.

 Sometimes you feel like a parent who needs to guard children against that new funny boyfriend. When you lean too hard, they will sneak out and meet them in some obscure venue, or they will elope, or they will resist criticism as they see only love. I can remember the days when my parents tried to give guidance and then stayed to pick up the pieces after another failed experience.

What can you say but – try, (please use protection), be careful and remember we still love you.

Because it is a jungle out there!

Conference Presentation

How to change digital dinosaur mindset.

Managing and balancing the fads and the so-called emerging technologies and determining those technologies that can add value to the learning environment. Understanding the value and pitfalls of social media in education. It is not easy to support the new digtal wave of initiators, who flies from one technology to the next like moths to a light, without burning a few wings on the way.

Surveys on use and perceptions see the light and the turn-around time for technologies are unpredictable and shorter by the day. New mobile technologies become mainstream faster than anticipated. Administrators and academic support units pool together to share best practice and adoption strategies and to share insight on all related emerging trends in e-learning.

Workshop slideshow presentation

Government ministers are getting uptight about the fact that ICT’s turned out to NOT be the Holy Grail and saviour of education for the masses with unprecedented improvement in pass rates. It becomes clear that a newly defined gap, called the digital divide, between the digital natives and the digital dinosaurs are actually widening. Academic support units realises that the only solution to work with technology laggards in education is to retire them.

Education purists are pumping out educational research papers and publish paradigms and conceptual theory that can kill if orally digested – outcomes based education fails – or did the implementation of another educational pedagogy fail?

Conference presentation

Unfortunately nothing comes from any initiative to establish benchmarks to measure effective utilisation and incorporation of technology in mainstrean education. Administrators are looking at the cost of educational technology and getting very upset when touring university corridors to the see the age-old practice of talk-and-chalk dominating teacher-centric activities in old-fashioned classrooms still overpowering spaces that should be learning-centric communities of learning.

Institutions are fightinh each other – primarily proprietory LMS versus open-source LMS. One thing that academics are not good with is to try and understand ROI or TCO. – Eish!

Academic development workshop presentation  

Regional governments have strategies in place to to bring computers into all schools and connect the schools on the world wide web. The Khanya project of the Western Cape is a good exxample of this type of project.  It is now important to position HE within this national framework and to define the role of e-learning at HE.

Conference presentation

As administrator on the institutional LMS it becomes apparent that we have to move away from a project management thinking and move over to a change-management thinking. So the next is now to investigate all the best practices available to cultivate this institution-wide adoption of technology and implement new adoption strategies.

National Workshop presentation

After an active investigative period were we evaluated the effectiveness of placement tests it became clear that the palement tests can best be used as diagnostic. Students show shortcomings and it it can be used in any system where proper analaysis of results can be used to develop interventions geared towards the individual.

An adaptive learning environment is taking shape.

Research paper and Slideshow presentation

Re-usable content.

It becomes clear that, although the computer-based-training models were not taken up by all, there is some value in the design of an institutional learning environment that can easily be transported to and incorporated into other learning objects and that this learning object adds value without placing strain on lecturers to design their own.

One model that works extremely well is to have a general module on entrepreneurship that can be incorporated into most under graduate career-focused curriculum.

Research paper 

It dealt with the online teaching methodologies used to teach project management to engineering students using online technology. Most of the technology at the time were static html and client installations required on their own desktops. That meant lecturers had to set up and prepare before the time and hand a CD to students to install on thier own PC. Communication used email accounts – not really any synchronous activity here. Most of the problems experienced were around connectivity.

Research Paper