The “good deal” offered by a good conference is being sullied by predator conference companies. These conference companies have no recognised expertise in the field, have no mandate from an academic or professional body and have profit as their motivation. They are akin to scavengers , preying on inexperienced pups, not sure who to turn to, what questions to ask, or know how to frame the unknowns.

Within my field (education technology), I’ve developed a checklist that offers a spectrum of 10 questions, designed to help me determine whether the conference is a predatory event. I use it to evaluate the invitations I receive. The checklist does not make any blanket rules. Some legitimate events might even tick some of the boxes. They might be well-arranged, organised by respected people with an appropriate background. I am grateful to them for their hard work. The checklist is simply a range of red flags for me to use. You might find it helpful.

1. Is there a conference chair? What connections do they have to academia, the ICT industry or education technology?
2. Are the listed speakers reputable experts. Check their profile on Twitter and use Twitteraudit.com to see if their followers are fake or real
3. Do the advertised speakers know about the programme? Contact a few and ask them whether they know about the event and if their attendance is confirmed.
4. If this is the 3rd, 4th or 5th event, then use Google to locate the previous years conference brochure. Does the programme from the previous year have the same speakers talking about the same topics?
5. Does the PDF attached to the invitation email have the initials or a name associated with the consultant who contacted you about the conference. For example, 3rd-international-jp. This name/initial is probably the sales representative, working on a commission basis.
6. Check on LinkedIn. Does the LinkedIn profile of the person sending out the conference invite have any connections to the field they are promoting? Do the conference organizers have a reputable LinkedIn profile?
7. Does the organisation associated with the conference have a website, does the website mention the conference? Follow up on links. Where do they take you?
8. Is the layout and design of the programme a little patchy, amateur or contradictory. Google the first paragraph. Has the text been plagiarised? Read the programme. Are there obvious errors.
9.  What indexing and storage service does the conference offer for the previous year’s presentations?
10. Finally, are the terms and conditions associated with the conference fair?
    • Does the organiser reserve the right to change the venue?
    • Does the organiser reserve the right to change speaker/facilitator?
    • Does the organiser reserve the right to change programme content?
    • Does the organiser offer refunds, or do they offer a credit voucher?
    • Is the conference fee realistic? Do you believe that you will get value for your money?

This is my list. You are welcome to use it. For ed techies (and other professionals within this field), if you are going to participate in a conference, then  these events need to be arranged by people with a history. Speakers should have a critical/informed position on the subject, not just an impressive title. Presentations should be shared freely afterwards with those who were not able to make it.

Don’t get involved in predatory conferences,  they do not deliver the value they promise. These “dodgy” and opportunistic operators out there are bogus. They are sometimes difficult to spot. Don’t feed their growth. Check the quality and suitability of their “goods” before spending a lot of money on an inflated fee.  Let the conference attendee and speaker beware.

In Sub Saharan Africa, progress has been made in pursuing the goal of universal Primary Education. However, the reading literacy levels of African children are far from adequate. A key obstacle to learning to read is the shortage of appropriate stories for early reading in languages familiar to the young African child.

UNESCO’s research has found that mobile reading represents a promising, if still underutilized, pathway to literacy for children. Mobile devices offer new opportunities to access text for literacy development. Especially in Sub Saharan Africa, where millions of people do not have access to text, but do own a mobile phone

While young children do not own phones, their parents or caregivers have the opportunity to use mobile phones to read books and stories. Together with the Goethe Institut and local librarians, we are going to explore how librarians can assist their patrons to confidently harness the power of their own mobile phones and use their devices to read stories to children.

Final whistle. Game over. Goodbye Wits. I’m a consultant now. Here’s my ‘split lit‘ tale.

I arrived in Johannesburg in 2010, just as the Soccer World Cup  was about to start. Jozi seemed golden and Wits, I thought, was ready for the change game. The Elearning, Support & Innovation Unit (eLSI) under the leadership of Prof Derek Keats, DVC of Knowledge and Information Management (KIM), had been formed. Chismaba was ready. A new “tech savvy” elearning strategy heralded a new set of tactics.

Fast forward five years, and playing field had changed. Johannesburg was parched, in the midst of a heatwave, water supplies were diminishing. Change was no longer a players game. #Feesmustfall students had taken the vice chancellor hostage and were marching their anger to the Union Buildings. Most of eLSI management (apart from me) dispatched, and merged  under the Centre for Learning Teaching and Development (CLTD) “directorate”, who had unceremoniously dropped “Support & Innovation” from the eLearning unit’s name.

Innovation, by its nature, involves both failure and success. As a team, eLSI had both. We launched Sakai, we saw growth in uptake and budding change. But were unable to sustain the momentum, mainly because of an ill advised re-deployment of the software development team. I blew the whistle but it didn’t stop the game. My departure from the field was as a result of a brutal tackle. I should have packed up my boots. Quit earlier. I’m a consultant now with many tales to share.

The past two weeks of #FeesMustFall protests have demonstrated how digital networks can be utilized to disrupt higher education here in South Africa. While it may be premature to compare this movement to the Arab Spring, it is quite clear that students, with their data and cell phones, are sufficiently capable to use digital media to mobilise other students, university management and government to pay attention to their demands.

#FeesMustFall has also exposed the different digital capabilities across the Higher Education spectrum. Student’s capacity to make use of digital media to amplify and enable their campaign stand in stark contrast with parliamentarians and higher education execs relative silence within the same medium. Over the last two weeks students, executives and politicians have repeatedly missed opportunities for communication and engagement via web 2.0 technologies and social media. Despite VCs and politicos having access to traditional and new media, communication units and infrastructure, they have not demonstrated that they are able to take advantage of these alternative modalities to connect and engage with students.

If ed techies are to learn and respond to this communication gap between students and executives, then we need recognize this as a digital capability issue, offer leadership and act. Here’s a golden opportunity to promote the use of learning technologies to address many of the any educational issues raised by students. But don’t ask Radio, TV or MOOCS to replicate one size-fits-all, undifferentiated and restricted 20th-century model of higher education in an electronic form. Ed techies need to be part of a conversation envisaging a future where ICT’s are able to offer a flexible and accessible education that can be tailored and customised for each individual.

James Hilton suggests that if we don’t want to miss the opportunity to redefine education for a world in which access to information, networks, and computation is ubiquitous, then we need to do the following (my paraphrase).

• Embrace the duality of ICT. Digital is both a part of the infrastructure and a strategic asset. At present ICT is seen as a part of the infrastructure. This services delivered on this infrastructure are important, but administration and management is not its only function. ICT is also an innovation platform. The two are not competing with each other. They’re complementary roles.
• Allow ICT to play an enabling role. We accept that universities are designed to foster innovation, to create an environment in which people research, share ideas and data and come up with something new. The role that communication technologies, computation, and networks play in enabling this innovation should be used to further the teaching and learning mission of a university.
• Bring back the joy. There was a time when ICT was an enabling force on campus. This additional empowerment brought joy to many academic and student. It would be very easy to turn off the WiFi, restrict device usage and forget the joy associated with the network and become driven by fear. We need to retreat from the fear and reclaim the joy of learning and playing with ICT.

As our interactions between each other, what we are learning and what we are doing become more and more mediated by networks, we have the opportunity to build a global learning laboratory. Higher Education needs to take be invited to be part of this global learning laboratory and combine it with the scholarship of teaching and learning to begin looking for evidence-based practices about what works and what doesn’t work.

ICT can be used to enable an accessible and flexible education. Ed techies need to reclaim this audacious vision and promote a digitally capabilities right across campus, where all are encouraged and enabled to use ICT  to enhance and innovative and not only manage and control. If we are going to respond appropriately to #FeesMustFall, then we need to use this opportunity to rethink about our current use of ICT.

I’ve signed up for a five week Facilitating Online course run by Emerge Africa. Here’s why I’ve joined.

I’ve met some fabulous facilitators in a range of organisational settings. From young adults informally working alongside teens on an outdoor youth camps to expensive organisational development experts hired in by senior managers to in to assist run an important strategic planning event. These facilitators have been confident, wise, open, innovative, real and honest. They are inspiring people and I’ve enjoyed their company and admired their ability to work with others, and assist members of the various groups (whether they be youth or executives).

I also work online. I have a Masters in Computer Assisted Education and a 20 year track record in e-learning and I’ve worked with digital materials development (print, radio, multi-media, new media and electronic platforms, graphic design, HTML, audio, video, etc.) within a range of educational and developmental settings. I have hands-on expertise with learning design (lectures, courses, workshops and seminars), presentation and facilitation skills and significant project leadership.

So…I’m a fan of facilitation and a fairly seasoned online practitioner. But if I am entirely honest with myself, I am not yet able to integrate the two concepts – Facilitating and Online – and make them complement each other in a way that enhances the intended objectives. Regularly bridging this divide between facilitation and online is one of the reasons that I have an interest in the course – Facilitating Online.
During the course I expect to be introduced to

• The guiding ideas behind online facilitation
• Theories, methods and tools for the online facilitator
• Exposed to how online facilitators steward and use the infrastructures available.

Ultimately, within any course, we are judged on the quality of our results. The problem comes with knowing when and how to measure quality. You don’t pull up a carrot to see how they are growing. Those facilitators that I mentioned earlier on that I admired, were capable of assisting a group articulate what they want and take steps towards those objectives. These are quantifiable results and I hope that with time and opportunity, I will also be able to claim such quantifiable results. Learning together as an organisation offers opportunities for a range of results that are not quantifiable to emerge. These results include innovativeness, openness, confidence, authenticity, care for the other. Those facilitators that I mentioned earlier on that I admired were also people that lived these qualities and these only became apparent only as we worked together. I hope that I and others on the course participate in the online facilitation experience, that the course will also offer opportunities for these non quantifiable qualities to emerge.