Author Archives: opendistanceteachingandlearning

About opendistanceteachingandlearning

Research professor in Open Distance and E-Learning (ODeL) at the University of South Africa (Unisa). Interested in teaching and learning in networked and open distance and e-learning environments. I blog in my personal capacity and the views expressed in the blog does not reflect or represent the views of my employer, the University of South Africa (Unisa).

Learning analytics in open, distance and distributed learning: Potential, practice and challenges

Posted on May 28, 2019

As part of the series, Springer Briefs in Open and Distance Education, we invite expressions of interest for a book that will critically explore and map the potential and challenges of learning analytics in the specific context of open, distance … Continue reading →

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Fear is a broken compass

Posted on April 4, 2019

Fear is a broken compass. Fear is medication that does not work anymore. Fear is convulsions at night. Fear is not-knowing and to continue walking I used to know the rules, the landscape, and what was expected of me as … Continue reading →

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Faculty as quantified, measured and tired: The lure of the red shoes

Posted on June 4, 2018

[This is the text of my keynote on 31 May 2018 at the First Annual NWU Teaching and Learning Conference at the North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa.] I would like to take the opportunity to thank the conference organisers for … Continue reading →

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What I heard, what I did not hear and what I wish I had heard… Reflections on the World Conference on Online Learning, Toronto, 2017

Posted on November 21, 2017

Recently I’ve had the privilege of attending the World Conference on Online Learning in Toronto, organized and hosted by Contact North I Contact Nord. What a conference it was! At times, it resembled a medieval marketplace or bazaar with a … Continue reading →

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Ecologies of open: Inclusion, intersections, and interstices in education

Posted on June 21, 2017

Image credit:I’ve used two sources for the above collated image. The image of the head was sourced from https://pixabay.com/en/art-sculpture-scrap-sculpture-human-1699977/ while the image of the network was sourced from https://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Egoi_network.png  Call for Proposals We are excited to invite you to submit … Continue reading →

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Decolonising the collection, analyses and use of student data: A tentative exploration/proposal

Posted on November 14, 2016

Voices from the Global South* (*I know the term is contentious) increasingly demand to not only be recognised in the extremely uneven and skewed terrain of knowledge production and dissemination, but to actively take part and contest and reshape knowledge … Continue reading →

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Failing our students: not noticing the traces they leave behind

Posted on November 7, 2016

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/p-366446/?no_redirect Last week on 1 November, Jesse Stommel hosted a panel discussion on Ethical online learning  – which stayed with me and haunted me since I’ve watched it. Somehow this morning as I was writing this blog, some … Continue reading →

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