In South Africa: Barbara Means Predicts Blended Learning Will Be the Dominant Learning Modality in Five Years!

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday I finished my workshop on blended learning with North-West University’s Faculty of Education Sciences. I was pleased with the two-day event.   There were good interactions and responses to the issues raised.  We all shook hands and I said good-bye to the Potchefstroom.

Verona Leendertz drove me back to Vanderbijlpark where the Vaal Triangle Campus is located.  Tomorrow and Friday, I will have meetings with NWU administrators.  Lambshi, the young chef at the The Little Eden Guest Lodge where I am staying, prepared me a short-rib dinner with rice and mixed vegetables.

In the evening, I finished reading Barbara Means new book, Learning Online:  What the Research Tells Us About Whether, When, and How.  Means and her co-authors, Marianne Bakia, and Robert Murphy, provide a good literature review of the current research on online learning.  Their conclusion:

“We believe that blended learning is likely to become the most common modality, certainly for higher education and increasingly secondary education as well within the next five years”.

Yes!

Tony

In South Africa: Workshop with NWU’s Faculty of Education Sciences!

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday I started a workshop on blended learning with the faculty from the Education Sciences.  About half of the audience teaches in traditional face-to-face teacher education programs and the other half in in-service distance education programs.  As mentioned in an earlier post, North-West University’s distance education program enrolls 30,000 students, most of whom live and work in rural areas of South Africa.   The session went well.

In the evening,  I had dinner with the Dean of the Faculty of Education Sciences, Robert Balfour, and members of his administration. Dr. Balfour is a linguist and is familiar with the work of our CUNY Graduate Center colleague, Ofelia Garcia.  Dr. Balfour and his colleagues are a dedicated group of educators whose purpose is to provide quality teacher education programs for the people of South Africa.

Tony

In South Africa: Potchefstroom Campus of North-West University!

South Africa Potch 3 IMG_0182

Dear Commons Community,

I am back at the Potchefstroom Campus of North-West University which is quite different in size, style, and surroundings from the wide-open Vaal Triangle Campus.  Potchefstroom has the feel of an American university town campus with attractive, well maintained buildings, some of which reflect its 145-year history such as the Law School above.  Trimmed paths between buildings are busy with students going to and from classes.

I finished a workshop yesterday with a group of instructional designers and support staff and will be speaking with faculty from the School of Education Sciences today and tomorrow.

My day finished at a most pleasant dinner with Dr. Hennie Esterhuizen (Manager of the Distance Learning Unit) and his wife Elsa who is the Director of the Library.

Tony

South Africa Potch I IMG_0177

 

Esmarie Has a Farm in Africa!

South Africa Farm 1

Esmarie’s Farmhouse

Dear Commons Community,

I have just returned from a weekend at Esmarie Styrdom’s farm where she raises Black Angus and Brahman cattle.  It is located in an area called The Dome where a large meteor, comet, or asteroid estimated to be 3 to 6 miles in diameter struck the Earth more than 2 billion years ago. The Vredefort crater, as its known,  is the largest verified impact crater on Earth, measuring more than 190 miles in diameter when it was formed.  Erosion has pretty much worn away the ridges of the crater but the ancient rock strata can still be seen.

Esmarie’s farm is impressive measuring 380 hectares (almost 1000 acres).  Monkeys, game, ostriches, and baboons can be seen in the surrounding areas.  It was quite a pleasant stay especially the evenings when we sat by a fire and took in the sunsets that Africa is famous for.  At night, you can hear jackals and other animals howling.

Most relaxing especially since there is absolutely no Internet connection.

Thank you, Esmarie!

Tony

 

South Africa Farm 3 IMG_0204

South Africa Farm 4 IMG_0214

South Africa Farm 5 IMG_0218

In South Africa: Just Finished a Workshop on Blended Learning and on my Way to a Farm!

Dear Commons Community,

I just finished the first part of a workshop for about forty faculty and instructional designers at the North-West University.  The title of the workshop is, Blending with Purpose:  Designing Pedagogially Rich Learning Environments.  The audience was very enthusiastic and appears willing to take the plunge into blended learning.  It was quite enjoyable sharing experiences with the participants.

I leave in an hour to spend the weekend with colleagues at  Esmarie Styrdom’s cattle farm in an area known as The Dome.  Esmarie is the Director of Academic Development and Services at the Vaal Trangle Campus of North-West University.  We will not have Internet access while at the farm but we will have beautiful scenery and sunsets.  I’ll take the scenery and sunsets any day.

My next posting will probably not be until late Sunday or Monday.

Tony

 

 

In South Africa: Talk on Blended Learning, MOOCs, and Higher Education’s Digital Future!

 

Lecture Small 20140508_094605

Dear Commons Community,

I gave a two-hour presentation today entitled, Blended Learning Meets MOOCs:  Higher Education’s Digital Future, to a group of faculty mostly from the School of Economic Sciences and IT.  It is a presentation I did earlier this year at the EDUCAUSE ELI Conference. The presentation examines the influence of two developments in online learning namely blended learning and massive open online courses (MOOCs) on the future of higher education.    Its thrust is that the pedagogical value of blended learning combined with the scalability of MOOCs will be major drivers in education for the foreseeable future.  The audience provided good questions more geared to blended learning than MOOC issues.

In the evening, I traveled to the Potchefstroom Campus and had dinner with Prof. Manie Spamer, Executive Director of Open Distance Learning of North-West University.  Prof. Spamer is a dedicated and experienced distance educator.  The unit he heads provides training mostly for teachers in rural areas of South Africa where there is  little if any Internet connectivity.  He has established a network of training centers manned by small teams of facilitators who assist teachers who have received training materials or “course-packs”.  He has an enrollment of more than 30,000 students in his program.  It was an excellent dinner and the conversation first-rate with a distance educator who has provided a valuable service to teachers in South Africa.

Tony

Lecture Small  20140508_094618

 

In South Africa: Public Holiday, Barbecue, and Hospitality!

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday was Election Day in South Africa and a national holiday. The University was closed as were most stores.  South Africans have a reputation for being very hospitable and welcoming to visitors and guests.  I spent the morning and had lunch with Dr. Gerhard de Plessis at his home in Potchefstroom where he hosted a barbecue for me and six of his colleagues.  There was a fine mix of excellent food, wine, and stimulating conversation about a variety of topics including higher education in our two countries, technology, and traveling.  A most pleasant morning and afternoon.

In the later afternoon, I met with Dr. Martin Oosthuizen, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, and we discussed his plans for integrating technology into the academic programs at North-West University.

In the evening, I traveled to Parys where I had dinner with two young faculty, Chrisna Botha and Werner Ravyse, who will be getting married next week. Chrisna is a faculty member in the Sports Nutrition Program and Werner is the program manager of North-West University’s Serious Games Institute.  Both of them are enthusiastic educators who represent North-West University well.

Thank you Gerhard and Martin and congratulations to Chrisna and Werner on their upcoming nuptials.

Tony

In South Africa: Finished My First Workshop!

Springbuck 2 IMG_0166Click to enlarge.

Dear Commons Community,

Today I finished my workshop with faculty considering doing  research on technology-enhanced learning in higher education.  I enjoyed having the opportunity to explore with them various possibilities.  They were an excellent group and a credit to North-West University.

During the lunch break, I took a quick walk and had my camera with me.  Above is a photo of a small herd of springbok in a field about a hundred yards from the library.  Because there are several ponds on the campus and the Vaal River, waterfowl are common.  There is a gaggle of about fifty white geese that are nesting near the library.  Below are three of these geese on the entrance ramp leading up to the library.  I have also seen from a window in the library monkeys and all types of colorful birds.

Tomorrow is Election Day in South Africa and the University is closed.  I have been invited to a barbecue at one of the administrator’s homes.

Tony

Geese 1 IMG_0174

 

 

In South Africa: Workshop on Research on Technology-Enhanced Learning in Higher Education!

Library 2IMG_0162 New Library

Dear Commons Community,

Today I started a two-day workshop at the Vaal Triangle Campus.  The theme of the workshop is conducting research on technology-enhanced learning in higher education.  I have a group of twelve faculty and support staff interested in doing research and evaluating individual and program initiatives in using technology in teaching and learning.  While focusing mostly on pedagogy and student outcomes, I try to have the participants think broadly about how technology is best integrated with instruction. They are a good group and eager to learn.

It was also a pleasure conducting this workshop in a modern seminar room in a new library building with excellent and reliable technology.  I can also see game mostly springbok in the field outside the window.

In the evening, I had dinner with senior administrators of North-West University including the Rector (or President) Prof. TJ Mariba.  He is a clinical cardiologist who has spent much of his career as a college administrator.

Tony

 

In South Africa: Visit to Lion Park!

Lion IMG_0116 White Male Lion

Lion IMG_0115 Zebra

Dear Commons Community,

On Sunday, my colleagues Seugnet Blignaut and Verona Leendertz, took me to a lion park.  Originally we were going to West Soweto’s Hector Pieterson Museum dedicated to 12-year-old Hector Pieterson who was shot in 1976 when Soweto high school students took to the streets in a peaceful protest against the mandatory use of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in black secondary schools.  However, this coming Wednesday is Election Day in South Africa and there were a number of large political rallies which resulted in several main roads being closed including the ones we would have taken to get to the Museum.

In the lion park, we took a jitney enclosed in wire to get fairly close-up views of animals.  What I liked best was that we (the humans) were in the cages and the animals were free to roam in their habitats.  We saw zebra, wild dogs, cheetahs, giraffes, and of course, lions.  This particular park is noted for its pride of white lions which are magnificent beasts. The guide made the point that they are not albinos because they have eye pigment and reproduce.  We were particularly lucky because it was feeding time at the park.  A brochure handed out at the entrance gate to the park indicated that it was one of the “top 100 perfect tourist destinations in the world”.

Enjoy the photos – click on them to enlarge!

Tony

Lion IMG_0113 Springbuck

Lion IMG_0149 Cheetah

Lion IMG_0133 Feeding Pride

 

Lion IMG_0138 Feeding pair

Lion IMG_0154 Cub

Lion IMG_0147 Male Feeding