Please notice we will not be offering the Facilitating Online course in 2025. Please look out for a future re-iteration to be offered by our colleagues at the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) in 2026.

About the course

Facilitating Online provides a solid foundation for facilitating online events and courses. It is registered as a short course at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Facilitating Online was developed by the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) at UCT. It is convened by Tony Carr and co-facilitated by facilitators from across Africa. The course is run online over 8 weeks.

We consider applications in the order in which they arrive so earlier applications stand a higher chance of being accepted

Recommendations by participants

“I learned many facilitation skills that I am now able to apply with my own students. I would recommend the course highly to anyone embarking on the online teaching and learning journey.”
Dr Judith McKenzie, Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Cape Town.

“This course doesn’t just teach you ABOUT online Facilitation, it actually gets you to facilitate … It’s a real opportunity to learn and develop. And what’s more? It has an African taste…”
Daniel Adeboye, Online Maths Tutor, Tutor for the Future

Who should apply and why?
Educators and trainers are increasingly using online resources and interaction to support learning across blended and online courses. The shift online emphasises the importance of  sound online facilitation skills to facilitate engaged participants in debate, group work and shared knowledge construction across a range of online conversational spaces. 

Trained online facilitators are also able to make good choices about the use of online communication when designing learning activities. Facilitating Online provides opportunities for educational technologists, educators and trainers to develop the necessary orientation to become an effective online facilitator. Several past participants have reported that Facilitating Online unlocked new employment opportunities for them.

This course is aimed at change agent educational technologists and educators as well as trainers involved in leading online courses. Course participation is entirely online and will require up to 8 hours of participation per week. A certificate of completion is awarded for successful completion of 75% of the assessed activities of the course including some mandatory activities.

Selection criteria and process
Selection criteria include:

* reliable Internet access
* an opportunity to teach or facilitate in a blended or online course or training programme
* previous experience of online teaching or learning
* at least two years’ experience as a university educator, educational technologist or trainer

All applicants will require a letter of support from their line manager or Head of Department.

Applicants will be notified via email about whether they have been selected to participate in the course. You can address any other queries to [email protected]

Promotional Course Fees

For interest:

• The original version of the guidance to course leaders is available as an open educational resource.
• Watch a recording of ‘The Human in the Web Space’ online seminar led by Catherine Fortune (South Africa) and Irene Maweu (Kenya)

To join this session please register via Zoom here

Date and Time: Wednesday, 7th February 2024: 10:00am – 11:00am SAST;  7:00pm Melbourne Australia

Presenter: 

Dr Katya Pechenkina, Cultural Anthropologist, Teaching and Learning scholar, and award-winning lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Session Description: 

Drawing on scholarship dedicated to data justice and ethics of care, this presentation seeks to answer urgent questions associated with the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education (HE). We will look at how AI can be used in HE for good, how can this rapidly growing industry be regulated, and what would a conceptual framework for data justice and fair usage of AI in HE look like?

Practical lessons from designing AI guidelines to empower educators in HE (and beyond) are shared.

Presenter Bio: 

Katya Pechenkina is a cultural anthropologist, Teaching and Learning scholar, and award-winning lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. Her research focuses on impact and evaluation in education, as well as on understanding how educators and students experience technological change. More info about her here

Resources

Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0363 

Examples of AI use in assessments

https://aipedagogy.org/ – an evolving collection of curated assignments that integrate genAI tools from educators around the world.

Examples to safeguard against AI in high-stakes summative assessments

https://trefnycenter.mines.edu/effective-teaching-and-generative-ai/ – ideas for (re)designing assessments that encourage critical engagement with AI, and ideas for re(designing) assignments to be more human-centred.

https://educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au/teaching@sydney/how-can-i-update-assessments-to-deal-with-chatgpt-and-other-generative-ai/ – How can I update assessments to deal with ChatGPT and other generative AI? 

Date and Time: Thursday, 8th February 2024, 14:00 – 15:30 SAST

Session Description:

Join us for this panel discussion with: Dr. Janet Salmons, SAGE Publications (US), Dr. Nicola Pallitt, Rhodes University (South Africa), Andy Nobes, INASP (UK) and Tony Carr, e/merge Africa / University of Cape Town (South Africa).

Researchers need to keep learning new approaches in order to study a changing world. How can we keep learning once we have completed our degrees and are busy with our careers? We go online, of course! In this webinar we will discuss the kinds of opportunities and resources available for new and experienced researchers who want to sharpen skills and develop new ones. This webinar will be valuable to researchers, as well as to those who want to offer information, consultation, or learning opportunities to others.

Please join us by signing up via Zoom here

Resources:

6 Ways to Teach and Learn Methods with Videos: http://tinyurl.com/3zzt82h7

Panellists Bios:  

Dr. Janet Salmons is a free-range scholar and methodologist. She serves as the Research Community Manager for SAGE Publications’ research community, www.MethodSpace.com. Recent books include: Doing Qualitative Research Online 2^nd edition (2022), What Kind of Researcher Are You? (2021). She will be a fellow at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies in 2024.

She seeks to expand critical perspectives on educational technologies in Higher Education.

Dr Nicola Pallitt supports academics to use technologies effectively for teaching and learning. She supervises postgraduate students and co-teaches on formal courses and professional development offerings in Higher Education. She values contextual and culturally responsive approaches to learning design and educational technology usage.

Andy Nobes  Joined INASP in January 2014. His work is focused on helping researchers develop their research writing and communication skills through online resources, courses, mentoring and peer learning. He currently manages the AuthorAID website and has been instrumental in the development of the AuthorAID online courses in research writing and proposal writing, which have evolved into Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Andy has also been involved in training journal editors in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka in digital publishing practices.  He previously worked for an academic publisher in journal e-marketing and library marketing.

Tony Carr is an Educational Technologist in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at University of Cape Town and the convenor of e/merge Africa. His professional interests include online conference design, online facilitation and online professional development networks.