Search

Common to all the cases included in this special issue, we observed a degree of collaborative decision-making that is human-centered and shows empathy. Through it, multiple voices are acknowledged and heard. These cases demonstrate the beginning of a process of contextualization of Design Thinking in K–12 and teacher education. We hope that this special issue will prompt conversations to explore and critique the possibilities and imagine the real change that it might bring.

This paper reports the findings of a dialogical narrative analysis conducted by two white academics in distinct higher education contexts – one based in the United States and the other in South Afr...

In the early stages of the ‘pivot online’, various conceptions of inequalities and their relations to educational equity peppered the discourses of higher education practitioners and the promotional discourses of their institutions. Concerned with what conditions subjectification and action within micro- and meso-curricula, this paper explores the cultural and structural discursive positions in which such agents are entangled, and the discourse conflicts they negotiated about what to adopt, shape, defer or resist. Offering deliberations on the possibilities and problematics for equity in higher education were insiders’ perspectives of those who operate in the thresholds between academic and professional communities within South African and UK higher education—learning technologists, academic developers and Higher Education Studies scholars—in the period from March to June 2020. Careful not to provide a monovocal nor hierarchical interpretation of these discourses at that early stage in the pandemic, our analysis rather juxtaposes complex and at times conflicting local accounts and negotiations of three schisms around which their narratives skirted: (i) the substantial fault lines under and in societies, institutions and practitioner communities; (ii) the complexities which intersect with digital divides; and (iii) the in/visibility of differentially impacted individuals and groups during that period. As people with often strong ethico-political commitments, and responsibilities as members of evanescent interpretative communities, their acts of narration drew from and at times against the dominant discourses situated within particular socio-economic and ideological higher education contexts.

Curriculum design is a complex undertaking that requires both epistemological and ontological work. While there is an increased need for academics to develop and strengthen their capacity to design curricula, particularly in the context of Universities of Technology, which have gone through an intense period of identity finding and re-curriculation, there is little support for academics involved in this kind of work. This paper reflects on four iterations of an academic staff development intervention aimed at supporting academics engaged in curriculum design and renewal, with a particular focus on designing flexible curricula. Using a learning design model along with eleven design considerations developed by Gachago, et al. (2020) for online academic staff development and Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory – in particular the dimension Specialization - we show how curriculum work and learning design is iterative, contextual and messy. Most importantly, it is relational and involves collective sense-making. We recommend that each context needs to be carefully considered when designing courses, both face-to-face and online, and design considerations (such as motivation, facilitation, structuredness, level of collaboration) impact strongly on participants’ engagement and consequently experiences.

Introduction (Networked Learning Editorial Collective): Since the turn of this century, much of the world has undergone a tectonic socio-technological change. Computers have left the isolated basements of research institutes and entered people's homes. Network connectivity has advanced from slow and unreliable modems to high-speed broadband. Devices have evolved: from stationary desktop computers to ever-present, always-connected smartphones. These developments have been accompanied by new digital practices, and changing expectations, not least in education, where enthusiasm for digital technologies has been kindled by quite contrasting sets of values. For example, some critical pedagogues working in the traditions of Freire and Illich have understood computers as novel tools for political and social emancipation, while opportunistic managers in cash-strapped universities have seen new opportunities for saving money and/or growing revenues. Irrespective of their ideological leanings, many of the early attempts at marrying technology and education had some features in common: instrumentalist understanding of human relationships with technologies, with a strong emphasis on practice and 'what works'. It is now clear that, in many countries, managerialist approaches have provided the framing, while local constraints and exigencies have shaped operational details, in fields such as e-learning, Technology Enhanced Learning, and others waving the 'Digital' banner. Too many emancipatory educational movements have ignored technology, burying their heads in the sand, or have wished it away, subscribing toa new form of Luddism, even as they sense themselves moving to the margins. But this situation is not set in stone. Our postdigital reality results from a complex interplay between centres and margins. Furthermore, the concepts of centres and margins 'have morphed into formations that we do not yet understand, and they have created (power) relationships which are still unsettled. The concepts … have not disappeared, but they have become somewhat marginal in their own right.' (Jandrić andHayes 2019) Social justice and emancipation are as important as ever, yet they require new theoretical reconfigurations and practices fit for our socio-technological moment. In the 1990s, networked learning (NL) emerged as a critical response to dominant discourses of the day. NL went against the grain in two main ways. First, it embarked on developing nuanced understandings of relationships between humans and technologies; understandings which reach beyond instrumentalism and various forms of determinism. Second, NL embraced the emancipatory agenda of the critical pedagogy movement and has, in various ways, politically committed to social justice (Beaty et al. 2002; Networked Learning Editorial Collective 2020). Gathered around the biennial Networked Learning Conference,1 the Research in NetworkedLearning book series,2 and a series of related projects and activities, the NL community has left a significant trace in educational transformations over the last few decades. Twenty years ago, founding members of the NL community offered a definition of NL which has strongly influenced the NL community’s theoretical perspectives and research approaches (Goodyear et al. 2004).3 Since then, however, the world has radically changed. With this in mind, the Networked Learning Editorial Collective (NLEC) recently published a paper entitled 'Networked Learning: InvitingRedefinition' (2020). In line with NL's critical agenda, a core goal for the paper was to open up a broad discussion about the current meaning and understandings of NL and directions for its further development. The current collectively authored paper presents the responses to the NLEC's open call. With 40 contributors coming from six continents and working across many fields of education, the paper reflects the breadth and depth of current understandings of NL. The responses have been collated, classified into main themes, and lightly edited for clarity. One of the responders, Sarah Hayes, was asked to write aconclusion. The final draft paper has undergone double open review. The reviewers, Laura Czerniewicz and Jeremy Knox, are acknowledged as authors. Our intention, in taking this approach, has been to further stimulate democratic discussion about NL and to prompt some much-needed community-building. lict

While the adoption of blended or online learning has been spreading across the world, it is not always implemented in a way that transforms teaching and learning. More often than not, technology is used to support traditional ways of teaching and learning. At our institution we have adopted a blended learning definition, that rather focusing on tools and technologies, highlights the importance of pedagogical considerations. Following Gilly Salmon’s Carpe Diem design process we encourage lecturers to carefully think about learning design, emphasizing learner needs and disciplinary and institutional context. This study follows six lecturers in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, who are known as so-called ‘eLearning champions’. eLearning champions are "individuals who emerge to take creative ideas (which they may or may not have generated) and bring them to life. They make decisive contributions to the innovation process by actively and enthusiastically promoting the innovation, building support, overcoming resistance, and ensuring that the innovation is implemented" [1]. We are interested in the role these eLearning champions played when supporting their departments before and after COVID-19 with moving teaching and learning online. At the beginning, novice lecturers saw online teaching as simply transferring their face to face teaching strategies online. How to design for interactive online content, student engagement and appropriate online assessment was an unfamiliar territory. The findings are in it’s initial stage however many themes emerged here like role of e-learning champion and their contribution towards peer learning. It also speaks about the complexity involved and support from the institution, etc. The paper will conclude with recommendations about future research.

Produced from experiences at the outset of the intense times when Covid-19 lockdown restrictions began in March 2020, this collaborative paper offers the collective reflections and analysis of a group of teaching and learning and Higher Education (HE) scholars from a diverse 15 of the 26 South African public universities. In the form of a theorised narrative insistent on foregrounding personal voices, it presents a snapshot of the pandemic addressing the following question: what does the ‘pivot online’ to Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL), forced into urgent existence by the Covid-19 pandemic, mean for equity considerations in teaching and learning in HE? Drawing on the work of Therborn (2009: 20–32; 2012: 579–589; 2013; 2020) the reflections consider the forms of inequality - vital, resource and existential - exposed in higher education. Drawing on the work of Tronto (1993; 2015; White and Tronto 2004) the paper shows the networks of care which were formed as a counter to the systemic failures of the sector at the onset of the pandemic.

Bronwen Low, Chloe Brushwood Rose and Paula M. Salvio’s deceptively small book ‘Community-based Media Pedagogies: Relational Practices of Listening in the Commons’ (2017) makes a thoughtful contrib...

One of the biggest debates in South Africa is the use and usefulness of apartheid categories when analysing society and societal behaviour. This paper examines the process of learning and unlearning that took place when a political reporting lecturer and an academic staff developer sought to explain racially biased voting in South Africa and its historical origins to students. The autoethnographic method of reflecting on teaching practice is used to explore the tensions and dilemmas that arose when introducing a specific pedagogic intervention—the Privilege Walk—to help students understand privilege as systemic, intersectional and historically rooted. We also discuss our own further development of the walk to allow students to create a new grid based on alternative values and that would affirm difference. Framed by Fraser’s participatory parity, critical pedagogy and Massumi’s affect theory, we trace our journey in engaging and disrupting identity politics by developing a decolonising pedagogical approach that emphasises post-apartheid identity as fluid and becoming and capitalises on affective and embodied learning in South African classrooms.

The recent student protests in South African Higher Education have highlighted both the opportunities and challenges of blended/online learning in higher education. This paper describes two lecturers’ attempts at continuing teaching online during the 2016 campus closure at a large University of Technology in South Africa. Using Tronto’s Ethics of Care lens and in particular her moral characteristics of care, namely attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness and solidarity, we reflect on the ethics of our practices when moving towards more open educational practices. Recommendations on academic staff development that promotes ethical open practices conclude the paper.

Against the backdrop of a lack of social engagement in South Africa’s classrooms, this paper explores how nine pre-service student educators constructed stories of difference, belonging and identity in facilitated conversations around race relations in South Africa. As such it will contribute to an emerging field of research on pedagogical interventions that engage students in difficult conversations to create more socially just classrooms. Bamberg’s (2012) positioning analysis for small stories was used as analytical tool. What transpired in this analysis was that students tended to position themselves first and foremost along racial lines, revealing their experiences of continuing academic and social segregation. Although students expressed a desire to overcome these divides, they struggled to visualise a world where black and white students could engage beyond their comfort zones, moving beyond the narratives with which they grow up. Lugones’ (1987) concept of world-travelling and her suggestion that world travelling might be more difficult for those who are at most ease in their lives, was useful to unpack and understand the different roles students performed. Students’ stories also showed the importance of destabilising dominant understandings of subjectivity, by allowing the emergence of fragmented narratives in difficult conversations. Recommendations of how to use narratives to facilitate students’ world travelling include the emphasis on intersectionality, fluidity and complexity in students’ stories but also discuss the difficulties to facilitate such a process and the importance of self-reflexivity on the part of the facilitator.

In this chapter, I reflect on my experience as white, middle-class, European woman in a mixed-race relationship and mother of mixed-race children in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Against the backdrop of the complexities and messiness of the ongoing student protests calling for the decolonisation of academia, I share my continuous struggle to become a white ally in my personal and professional life. Drawing from feminist literature on allyship, I argue that white academics need to step back, start listening and accept that our knowledge and experience might not be what the moment calls for. What does it mean to give up privilege? How do we decentre ourselves? What are strategies we can apply to become more aware of our own blind spots? How do we fight Whiteness without losing ourselves? Through my own narratives, I will draw my own journey towards allowing myself to feel the pain that Whiteness keeps inflicting on people of colour—despite our best intentions—while at the same time feeling compassion for our continued failings, our white guilt and shame.

Gachago and Sykes highlight important and interesting ethical questions raised by the introduction of digital storytelling into the higher education classroom. Against the background of pre-service teacher education at a South African university, Gachago and Sykes reflect on a series of “snapshots” or anecdotes that highlight the tension between pedagogical and therapeutic project that confronts digital storytelling in higher education. Gachago and Sykes draw on both educational and psychological literature concerning the role of affect and trauma in education to challenge assumptions about students, facilitators and political projects when introducing personal digital storytelling into the curriculum. The questions raised in the chapter explicitly invite further conversation.

Higher education institutions in South Africa are faced with low throughput rates, and the need to enhance students’ interest in their studies is a key objective for higher education institutions. Student engagement is one of the factors shown empirically to enhance student success at higher education institutions. The paper reports on the potential of digital storytelling in enhancing student engagement with their studies, amongst 29 final year pre-service student teachers at a large University of Technology in South Africa, as part of their assessment in their final year professional course. The reason for doing this research was due to the limited adoption of digital storytelling in conventional educational settings globally and the fact that little research has been done internationally and particularly in South Africa, into how digital storytelling can be a vehicle for expanding learning. The study was framed around the engagement construct involving qualitative methods of collecting data. Focus group interviews were conducted with the students and the facilitators of the project to elicit whether the production of digital stories led to student engagement. Focus group interviews were analyzed using inductive strategy. Results showed that the production of digital stories enhanced student engagement with their studies which led to high levels of reflection on the subject matter, which as a result led to a deep understanding of the subject matter. Findings of this study will contribute knowledge in the field which may be valuable in increasing student engagement with their studies.

Engaging with difference is an important skill for teachers in current South Africa. Critics of the dominant approach to teaching on and with difference in pre-service teacher education argue that it mostly promotes de-contextualised celebrations of diverse cultures without addressing critical issues of power and social forces. One of the reasons that educators shy away from engaging with issues of power and privilege in the classroom is the fear of highly explosive emotions that might emerge in the process. In South Africa this is compounded by the legacy of racial discrimination, still impacting on today’s social engagements of students. However, proponents of the ‘affective turn’ (Berlant 2008; Ahmed 2004; Ahmed 2010; Clough and Halley 2007; Gregg and Seigworth 2010) in the Social Sciences argue, that it is important to work with the emotions that govern our classrooms, for social transformation in students to happen. Boler and Zembylas’ ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ (2003) for example stipulates that for social transformation to happen both students and educators have to step out of their comfort zone, to experience discomforting emotions, and recognizes the value of both cognitive and emotional labour for learning about difference. This study is piloting an innovative approach for teaching on and with difference in a South African pre-service teacher education classroom, combining a digital storytelling process with participatory learning and action techniques and a reflective essay. Framed by Boler and Zembylas’ (2003) work on the politics of emotions and feminist writings on the role of affect and public feelings, we explored how students experienced and negotiated their cognitive and emotional journey in this project. An interpretive analysis of data collected through focus groups with selected students revealed that this classroom was a highly divided, complex and contested space, in which students identified strongly along racial background and actively constructed entities in opposition to each other. However, through the creation of disruptive moments of sharing and listening openly to each others’ stories, students began to critically engage with the unspoken emotional rules and power dynamics governing the classroom and their lives. Further research would be valuable to explore the long term potential of this pedagogical intervention towards social change.

This article emerges from our relationship with Theo Combrinck, a colleague, a passionate social and academic activist, a recovering addict and a PhD student, who left our living space during 2014 - a death that was unexpected yet a consequence of an iterative desire to end a troubled/ing life. The intensity of Theo's physical absence retains a vibrant presence and continues to intra-act with us as we consider socially just pedagogies. Theo's work lives on through memories, audio recordings and different forms of texts written by him, all representing his views of socially just pedagogy. Our entanglements with Braidotti's posthuman and Barad's diffractive methodologies shape our understandings of the past and present intra-actions with Theo in time and space. The generative process of our individual and collective becomings through Theo illustrate how the collaborative energy of co-constituted relationships contribute an affective response towards developing socially just pedagogies.

Digital storytelling has entered Higher Education over recent years as a tool to engage diverse classrooms, harnessing the power of personal storytelling to establish affective connections across difference. This article reports on a digital storytelling project in the context of South African teacher education, where students reflected on a social issue in Education, as a means to understand systemic inequalities governing our classrooms. Moving beyond Butler's notion of performativity, towards an understanding of how both human and non-human matter can shape subjectivities as suggested by new materialist feminist authors such as Barad this study will explore how one student, her story and the audience are entangled in and across space and time. I will show how digital storytellers are both composer and composed: how within the digital story process, stories create the possibility for storytellers to experiment with new subjectivities that could become real with time and repeated performance but how these stories also act upon the storyteller based on the context the story is told in. I will also reflect on how our entanglements foreground the importance of an ethical and responsible engagement with the power of stories in the context of socially just pedagogies.

This work investigates the promise of Facebook and blogs for enhancing students’ levels of engagement in learning. This issue warrants investigation because there is little published empirical work on the subject. The researchers applied a learning ecology perspective to study the potential of Facebook and blogs in enhancing student levels of engagement in learning. In-depth interviews with lecturers who use Facebook and blogs and focus groups with their respective students were carried out to establish: usage in teaching and learning; the context of use; challenges encountered in usage; and whether these technologies enhanced student learning. A significant finding of the study was that appropriate use of blogs and Facebook groups, if accepted by students as a learning tool, enhances students’ engagement in learning activities of an academic nature on- and off-campus. The article also suggests strategies for the implementation of Facebook and blogs in ways that are likely to have a positive impact on student levels

Digital storytelling has entered Higher Education as a pedagogical tool for enhancing students digital literacies in digitally saturated contexts. Increasing access to freely available software programs for video production and the ubiquity of mobile technologies have made digital storytelling viable in resource-poor environments. This paper reports on an on-going project at a university of technology in South Africa employing both quantitative and qualitative research approaches, with the aim of understanding students perceptions of context-specific digital storytelling practices across various disciplines and student backgrounds. Pierre Bourdieus notions of field, habitus and capital as well as Tara Yossos community cultural wealth were applied to understand students perceptions of practices of digital storytelling that emerged from this project. We argue that complex technology projects, such as digital storytelling, are potentially viable in poorly-resourced environments, across disciplines and with students with diverse digital literacies and backgrounds, provided that: 1. technical barriers are lowered to the minimum and technologies are adopted that are freely available, owned by or easily accessible to students, 2. that the appropriate model is chosen based on these students social and cultural capital, and 3. that the community cultural wealth of students is considered in curriculum delivery.

While literature continues to promote mobile learning and, in particular, the use of mobile phones for teaching and learning in blended and open distance learning (ODL) to bridge the digital divide, many lecturers still struggle to understand and engage with it to support their teaching practices. Using the theoretical notion of ‘boundary crossing’, this study reflects on how three South African higher educators introduced WhatsApp, a mobile instant messaging application, into their teaching practices, within a blended mode of delivery, both for distance education but also campus-based learners. Following their experiences with using WhatsApp as a boundary object in their engagement with learners, we explore how a pedagogical model, rules of engagement, group ownership and learner profile impacted on their teaching and their students’ learning practices. In this article we argue that mobile technology such as WhatsApp can, by acting as a boundary object, assist in increasing immediacy and connection not only in informal, but also in formal blended and open distance learning contexts, facilitating reflection, coordination, identification and, in some cases, with students’ control and ownership, transformation. However, more research is needed to include experiences of students, to explore in more depth the ethical issues of using WhatsApp in particular contexts, and to assess the potential to transfer these findings into larger ODL contexts.Â

Although becoming a more racially-integrated society, the legacy of Apartheid still affects learners’ social engagements in and outside their classrooms. Adopting Nussbaum’s (2010) capabilities framework for a socially just democracy, this paper examines 27 pre-service teacher education students’ perceptions of a digital storytelling project and its potential for recognising and honouring capabilities necessary for engaging empathetically with the ‘other’. Using narrative inquiry, and specifically Bamberg’s (2006) ‘small stories’ approach, the research team analysed 30 stories students constructed in four focus group conversations at the end of the project. In these stories, most of Nussbaum’s (2010) capabilities were evident. We found that, in the collective sharing of their stories, students positioned themselves as agentive selves, displaying the belief that they can make a difference, not only individually within their own classrooms, but also as a collective of teachers. Keywords: capabilities approach; digital stories; digital storytelling; pre-service teacher education; social justice education