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In the last 20 years, the South African higher education has changed significantly, influenced by global trends national development goals and pressure from local educational imperatives, in the context of a digitally networked world. Shifts in technology enhanced pedagogical practices and in discourses around information and communication technologies (ICTs) have had varying degrees of influence in higher education. This paper takes a rearview of a 20-year journey of technology enhanced learning in South African higher education. An analysis of literature view is presented chronologically in four phases: phase 1 (1996-2000), phase 2 (2001-05), phase 3 (2006-10) and phase 4 (2011-16). In phase 1 technology was used predominantly for drill and practice, computer-aided instruction, with growing consciousness of the digital divide. In phase 2 institutions primarily focused on building ICT infrastructure, democratizing information, policy development and research; they sought to compare the effectiveness of teaching with or without technology. During phase 3 institutions began to include ICTs in their strategic directions, digital divide debates focused on epistemological access, and they also began to conduct research with a pedagogical agenda. In phase 4 mobile learning and social media came to the fore. The research agenda shifted from whether students would use technology to how to exploit what students already use to transform teaching and learning practices. The paper concludes that South Africa's higher education institutions have moved from being solely responsible for both their own relatively poor ICT infrastructure and education provision to cloud-based ICT infrastructure with 'unlimited' educational resources that are freely, openly and easily available within and beyond the institution. Although mobile and social media are more evident now than ever before, teaching and learning practice in South African higher education remains largely unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the pedagogical benefits and challenges of podcasting as a teaching and learning practice are well researched, sometimes with contradictory results, literature on the potential of podcasting as a socially inclusive technology is scanty. Using a quantitative survey design, framed by concepts such as emerging technologies, low-threshold applications and nontraditional students, this study investigated students perceptions at a large institution in South Africa on the access and use of podcasts. Findings indicate that podcasting was well received by all students. Particularly nontraditional students, with specific reference to gender, age and home language, were the ones who engaged most extensively with podcasts. Regular recordings of difficult, content-heavy lectures were perceived as the most effective use of podcasting, showing that course design matters in terms of podcasting usage. Findings also challenged the view of podcasting as facilitating passive learning. In our context, which is defined by severe resource constraints and fear of technology among both lecturers and students, the simplicity and accessibility of podcasts promises a successful mainstream adoption of a low-threshold technology for African higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports the findings of a collaborative digital storytelling project titled 'Being Human Today,' a multimodal curricular initiative that was implemented simultaneously in both a South African and an American university classroom in 2015. By facilitating dialogue and the sharing of digital stories by means of a closed Facebook group, instructors were able to investigate students' critical awareness and social consciousness regarding notions of 'self' and 'other' across continents. Case study methodology was applied as a research framework to collect, code, and triangulate data gathered from student-driven texts, Facebook entries, and student-produced digital stories. Framed by Giroux's border pedagogy and set within social justice education, findings provide evidence of our students' desire to be connected to each other, both locally and abroad, which we found to be the heart of what it means to be human today. Further, data revealed how sharing stories as cultural and personal artifacts worked to demystify notions of otherness in both local and global contexts. In particular, the comparison of personal stories shared in this space allowed for critique and a raised awareness of how students are impacted by global hegemonic discourses. Implications of practice for this study include breaking down the barriers-both real and imagined-as they relate to how educators conceive the use of technology in classroom spaces and student engagement across continents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is now widely accepted that the transmission of disciplinary knowledge is insufficient to prepare students leaving higher education for the workplace. Authentic learning has been suggested as a way to bring the necessary complexity into learning to deal with challenges in professional practice after graduation. This study investigates how South African higher educators have used emerging technologies to achieve the characteristics of authentic learning. A survey was administered to a population of 265 higher educators in South Africa who self-identified as engaging with emerging technologies. From this survey, a sample of 21 respondents were selected to further investigate their practice through in-depth interviewing using Herrington, Reeves and Oliver's nine characteristics of authentic learning as a framework. Interrater analysis undertaken by five members of the research team revealed both consistencies and differences among the twenty one cases across the nine elements of authentic learning. The highest levels of authenticity were found for the elements authentic context and task, and the lowest for articulation. Furthermore, there was a moderate correlation identified between levels of authenticity and the role played by emerging technologies in achieving the authenticity, showing a potentially symbiotic relationship between them.