Inclusive Design of e-Learning Environments: A Global Agenda

Our current seminar on “Inclusive Design of e-Learning Environments: A Global Agenda” which run from 25-29 August. The seminar is led by Professor Denise Wood, Professor of Learning, Equity, Access and Participation at Central Queensland University, Australia.

Please note: Professor Wood will be hosted an Adobe Connect live meeting Monday 25 August at 2:30 pm (SAST/GMT+2). The recording is available here and if you have not yet joined the conversation on Facebook, this can be done here.

Professor Wood will discuss the complexities of using digital technologies to engage students from diverse backgrounds. This presentation argues that ‘inclusion’ is a highly contestable concept and that despite the rhetoric, the move towards standardisation of inclusion, access and equity through institutional policy has ‘reterritorialized difference’ leading to a focus on ‘management of, rather than engagement with, difference’.

For the goals of inclusive education to be realised, as Denise Wood argues, there is a need for a more nuanced understanding of the dimensions required for education, and e-learning environments in particular to be inclusive of the diverse needs of our student population.

The four dimensions of accessibility; usability; personalisation and transformative pedagogical practice will be explored with examples of application in practice.

Denise Wood’s research with community organisations and national and state governments in Australia and South Africa focuses on the potential of new media technologies such as participatory Web 2.0 and 3D virtual learning environments to enhance the educational and social participation of young people with disabilities, as well as exploring the pedagogical potential of these environments to engage learners in the higher education context.

To receive e-mail updates and other messages relating to this seminar, please go to the signup page

Denise Wood is Professor of Learning, Equity, Access and Participation at Central Queensland University. She also holds an Adjunct Professorial position in the Faculty of Education at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her qualifications include a PhD (Education), Master of Educational Technology, Master of Design, Graduate Certificate in Flexible Learning, Graduate Diploma in Social Sciences and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work. Denise’s research focuses on the use of accessible information and communication technologies (ICTs) to increase social and educational participation, as well as the pedagogical benefits of social media in teaching and learning.

Live panel: MOOCs and Online Course Design – Michael Rowe, Janet Small and Sukaina Walji

What can designers of online courses learn from MOOCs? What can designers of MOOCs learn from the experience of a small credit bearing course that is also available to all? These and other related topics will be raised in this live panel Adobe Connect session on Tuesday 19 August at 11 am (SAST/GMT+2). Bring your own experiences, insights and questions!

Michael Rowe is a Physiotherapy lecturer at University of Western Cape, South Africa with a particular interest in online and blended teaching and learning. In 2013 Michael created and ran two credit bearing modules in physiotherapy as open online courses. Michael has kindly agreed to talk a bit about the challenges faced in creating and leading his courses. He will be joined by Sukaina Walji and Janet Small from University of Cape Town’s MOOC implementation team.

Thank you to those of you who joined this session! The recording of this session is available here

To let us know that you will come to this this free live session, please use our signup form.

Dr. Michael Rowe is a physiotherapy educator at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa interested in the use of emerging technologies to facilitate new teaching and learning practices in undergraduate education.
Sukaina Walji is based at the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT). She is a member of the MOOC Task Team with a remit to research and develop strategies for institutional engagement with MOOCs. Her other projects include Research Communication strategy for the Research in Open Educational Resources for Development in the Global South (ROER4D) and Online Learning Design. She has an Honours degree from Oxford University and a Masters in Online and Distance Education from the Open University (UK).
Janet Small is a course developer based at the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) at the University of Cape Town. She is a member of the CILT MOOC Task Team. Janet is involved in curriculum and course design for blended and online courses in higher education – in a range of contexts from formal credit-bearing to less formal co-curricular and professional development. She has a Masters Degree in Adult Education from the University of Cape Town.

How to use tablets and blended learning for effective adult education in Africa – Day 2

We are now on day two of our seminar How to use tablets and blended learning for effective adult education in Africa led by Batseba Seifu from Institute for Peace and Security Studies, University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Yesterday, we started the seminar by sharing a number of resources  including a narrated presentation (available here) and a web page with screenshots from the IPSS training project.  In her narrated presentation Batseba gives an overview of her blended learning project which aimed to mitigate the challenges of limited access to digital networks by participants with  limited technology experience while fostering an effective learning community. The case presented offers stimulus for an online discussion about how to use technologies for education in areas with severely constrained  internet connectivity and bandwidth.

To join the discussion please head straight to our discussion forum. Posting in the discussion forum requires registration to the e/merge Africa site, which can be done free of charge here. If you are interested in receiving e-mail updates about this seminar during this week.