I’m ambivalent about working from home. It’s precarious not having a regular salary and unpredictable, especially with no long-term contracts. We are not a trust fund couple. The choices we have made have been possible because of textbook royalties. Unlike many fathers, I’ve also had the privilege of watching my children grow up and being a greater part of their life journey—a privilege that many fathers don’t share. But you do get to work in a garage or a freezing outside shed.
After Jean and I returned from teaching in Slough and Eton CE School in 2002, we knew that a family was the next step. Weblearning was still getting started in Pietermaritzburg, but we decided that we wanted to focus on children. In June 2005, along came Anna (two weeks late). I got to spend 5 precious years (June 2005 to June 2010) co-parenting with Jean, watching this little girl grow up. They were precious times and Flickr is probably the best place to see a few of these lovely moments. Below are birthday photos from ages 2-5
Second birthday 2007Third birthday 2008Fourth birthday 20095th Birthday 2010
Economic realities also took their toll. The 2008 financial crisis, higher education “transformation”, MOOCs and Twitter offered both challenges and opportunities. When Anna turned 5, I took the plunge and landed up at Wits, in the elearning support and innovationo (eLSI) unit trying to make a go of ed technology in higher education.
June 2010 to Nov 2015 were salaried. The decision to return back to consulting wasn’t much of a choice. If you want to see what’s really important to me. It’s not the ed tech profession (although it does consume much of my time). It’s these three immediate people and my trusted family and friends. Here’s Anna and her 11th Birthday.
11 the Birthday
Yesterday Anna turned 20, and economics is again taking its toll. It’s probably time to re-enter the marketplace. If you do know of anyone looking for a mentor / capacity builder. Whether on Wikipedia / e/learning or scholarly communication. Please shout. I’d love to chat further.
A self-study work readiness package on Blackboard will differ from a Multilingual Human Rights Hackathon about Sharpville on Wikipedia. A flipped learning proponent using mobile phones with librarians will make very different use of an education technology than a traditional university lecturer, tasked with working through a body of knowledge, within a certain time period in a lecture hall. The varied social imaginaries about technology in education have consequences for modernity. Especially when technologies are introduced into a social context without a clear articulation of fitness for purpose. For example, social media’s use for professional development has been good for social media users (like me). It brought me up to Johannesburg from the back of my garage in PMB. But a privately owned “Town Hall” has also had unintended political effects. Currently, in the global north, techno corporations (big tech) are leading educational futures, extracting revenue and attention, replacing educators with an algorithm and reducing educator agency. I too am complicit; I’m using Google translate to create a multi-lingual Wikipedia onboarding tool.
References
Brey, P. A. E. (2003). Theorizing modernity and technology. In T. J. Misa, P. A. E. Brey, & A. Feenberg (Eds.), Modernity and technology (pp. 33-71). MIT Press.
I read last year (2024) that 5 new universities were being planned. With News 24 declaiming a graduate unemployment rate of 24%, I have wondered whether another handful of new institutions is the best way to spend our country’s limited resources. The StatsSA report in the tale of the two new universities shows that academics scored. In 2014 SPU had 29 permanent staff, and this rose to 609 in 2021. For UMP, the number climbed from 160 to 570 in the same time period (I’m not sure what the numbers are today, in 2025). During the past decade, youth (aged 15-34) unemployment increased. According to Stats SA the official unemployment rate was 36,9%. Ten years later unemployment sits at 46,1%. South Africa’s rising debt (R5.26 trillion, up from R1.79 trillion 10 years ago), also makes you wonder about the wisdom of spending R17 billion (that was Business Live’s projection) to set up two new universities.
My part in the new universities.
I was involved in the deliberations about an ed tech roll out in Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape, at UMP and SPU respectively. In 2012 / 2013 Stephen Marquard, Dolf Jordaaan, Dolf Steyn, Brenda Mallinson and I assisted the “New Universities Project Management Team“. By then, I had been in Higher Education for a full time for three years. We’d installed Sakai and I found myself chairing this small group of colleagues. I don’t remember the details but I assume the boss passed on this task to me, for which I am very grateful. Courtesy of Blackboard, I got a trip to Las Vegas. In hindsight, it sounds like a “kick-back” but the boss approved it! He and I thought it looked like an academic conference (it was a trade show). I assume it was reward for the many late hours.
The New Universities Project Management Team had asked us to draft an elearning strategy for the two new universities, Sol Plaatjie and University of Mpumulanga. For some strange reason, people thought that I was a strategic thinker. Stephen and Dolf are far better in that regard. Anyway, I chaired the group and took on the next impossible challenge with gusto. How do you create an e-learning strategy without visiting a campus, assessing the conditions etc? Honestly, I don’t know. Probably look to experience.
Within the constraints of the brief, the five of us did a pretty fine job of presenting options. I certainly learned lots from these experts and cherish (I really do) Dolf ‘s “Contextualisation of EdTech resources” presentation. This collection of photographs and commentary was eye opening for a green ed techie at Wits.
Recently I looked through the Wits closing out report. I noticed that there was no mention of our considered deliberations. Pity. Learning is cumulative, and we learn through shared experience. Its why I think archives are so important.
Essentially the universities were faced with the simple question. Do we go proprietary (Blackboard) or do we go Open Source (Sakai). The committee put forward the following five questions for the project team.
What factors favour buying a commercial LMS or supporting an open-source application?
What systems need to be integrated with the LMS and does the LMS support the integration of these systems?
Once a LMS is selected, what plans are in place to ensure the smooth migration of existing course materials to the selected system?
Do these two new universities have the development and support expertise necessary to maintain system stability and integrity and integrate the LMS with other campus tools and data?
Does the university have the budget to sustain LMS adoption, modification, development and growth into the future?
The recommendations that the group decided on were to go the proprietary route. I was happy to accede to my colleague’s experience. Pragmatically speaking, Sakai had been very challenging and the LMS remained a pain. Perhaps somebody else could run it better.
I got a trip to Vegas, where I took an extra journey to explore Bean Tree country, met some of the folks from the University of Phoenix, lost and find my wallet at Sedona on Friday, got buffeted by storms at the Grand Canyon on Saturday, had a small little stop at Denny’s Dinner and then a sleepover at the Riverside Resort Hotel on Sunday where the Losers Lounge offered an excess of hotel “Marge”
So, as the next set of experts are called in to share their thoughts about modernity and technology’s role, I’ll restate the conclusion of our 2013 recommendations.
Conclusion of our report
E-learning (however we understand the concept) is growing phenomena across Africa and it has become more prominent in tertiary education in South Africa. At the coalface, lecturer’s are using electronic resources (data projectors interactive whiteboards, document cameras, clickers etc) to inject new digital materials into their teaching and learning processes. Institutionally, many universities offer an elearning platform that facilitates better course communication and administration. Some courses have even incorporated alternate pedagogical practices into their course structures. Few institutions in South Africa however, have formally incorporated e-learning within institutional strategies.
Over the past decade, e-learning has become a significant mode of instruction in higher education. While this mode is neither as ubiquitous or influential as some early proponents predicted, e-learning has the potential to become a substantive pedagogy – and one, perhaps, with a pervasive influence on tertiary teaching. As these two new universities implement new programmes and courses, there is an opportunity for immediate assimilation of e-learning into new courses. While initially, as the adoption remains small in scale, e-elearning may not create demands on staff time and central resources. However, if the two new universities don’t only want ICT’s to remain on the periphery, then it is important that internal stakeholders create and adopt and institutional strategies for the deployment of e-learning.
Phase 0
Phase 0 would be the long ranger phase. it is assumed that the necessary ICT infrustructures and classroom facilities will be built into the venues and be available at these two new universities for lecturers that would like to use e-Learning in their courses.
Phase 1
Phase 1 would be the adoption phase. This will probably require a combination of designated e-learning team that would develop and configure existing infrastructure so that appropriate technologies may be embedded in course delivery. This team would be tasked with promoting the application of learning technologies across the institution in a more systematic and centralised fashion.
Phase 2
Phase 2 would be the assimilation phase where the whole institution would take a strategic look at e-learning and jointly develop their own measures to promote the use of online learning. It’s likely at this phase that university teaching will not only be dealt with, but other contentious issues, among them access, equity, the quality of university education, and even the preservation of academic freedom may have to be dealt with here.
Phase 3
Phase 3 would be the institutionalised phase where is e-learning is seen as a strategic route for the two new universities to widen access to educational opportunity, of enhance the quality of teaching, or of reduce the cost of higher education (or perhaps all three goals simultaneously).
Overall, the speed and scale of institutional response to online technology over the past 20 years suggests that e-learning is relevant to the challenges and opportunities now confronting universities. An investment in e-learning is also compatible with the ethos, institutional aims, and internal decision-making processes of the two new universities in which we proposes that it is deployed. The routes taken to systematically and officially incorporate this combination of technology and pedagogy into practices are best described as “ad-hoc”. This ad hoc state is not surprising as the introduction of elearning at an institution is usually an untidy affair as “..technology development tends to out-pace strategic thinking and pedagogical design in universities” (Janes, 2009). Over time, “lone rangers” have discovered that successful e-learning requires more than access to new technologies and is administratively onerous. As individual programmes that use elearning grow, it becomes apparent to early adopters that scaling elearning requires institutional support. While the concepts associated with e-learning have become a significant part of many a lecturer’s work load, the relationship between policy, organizational change and the implementation of e-learning is not as clear. If lecturers and university administrators want to ensure that e-learning is both sustainable and scalable, an institutional wide vision and rationale for elearning is required.
I think I still stand by these words. Profit cannot be your rationalle for e-learning (or whatever that means). Pity I didn’t publish these idea earlier.
Posted on Friday 16 May 2025, spelling and minor corrections made later.
Caversham Mill with the Mpofana (Lions) River overflowing its banks
This Easter, we had a lovely visit to the Midlands. We normally avoid travelling on a long weekend, but Mike, Kelly, and the gals were in South Africa for a wedding. So we left home at sparrows (4:30 a.m.) to beat the long weekend traffic, arrived on the meander at a very respectable hour and paid a visit to an old favourite, Caversham Mill. They had gourmet milkshakes, and I ordered what seemed to be a fantastic combination: “Salted Caramel and Iced Coffee.”
The waitress seemed puzzled and asked if I really wanted Caramel and Coffee. I said yes, please. When the orders arrived, she delivered two milkshakes: one salted caramel and the other iced coffee. Confused, I wondered about the misunderstanding. The menu read AND instead of OR. There were two milkshake options.
I recently made a similar mistake “one word mistake” when I shared this message….
“am pleased to be presenting tomorrow at Walter Sisulu University Library & Information Services. I’ll be exploring the 5Rs ( vm.tiktok.com/ZMBcGcKDC/) Creative Commons ( youtu.be/Nd71l6CGD9M?feature=s…), and the application of Open Education Resources (OERs). We might even see how these OERs might be incorporated or developed using Wikipedia?? (vm.tiktok.com/ZMBctFnYd/). Big thanks to Lungile Mdanyana for all his comprehensive Lib Guide (wsu-ac.libguides.com/digilib/OER)”
OOPS. I was not “AT” WSU (although I will be soon). I was WITH them on MS Teams. It was a remote session with this (lightweight) outline.
The hour went quickly, and as you can see from the agenda, we covered a lot. There seemed to be good interest. The feedback on these five questions was probably the most useful part for me.
I know what OER is. > YesYES YesNo yes yes Yes yes
I can access OER on my devices YesYESyesYes Yes yes yesNo
I can reuse and adapt OER on my devices Yes NoYESN4Didnottryit No noNO
I know about copyright and can revise and modify OER within my course platforms NoYesYesyesNO no
I can make license choices and create and share OER on any platform NoNoNoNottrieditNo
Not a scientific poll by any means. There were about 50 academics on the call and only a few on the etherpad. But it quickly showed me where the interested participants were at. These answers give me a useful place to start my OER Workshop when visiting Lungile and his colleagues in person AT Walter Sisulu University.
Please note that I first published this piece about the Digital Humanities conference on Substack in December 2023. Meant to post it to my blog, but I didn’t. I have also made a few Grammarly corrections.
Introduction
My first in-person conference since 2020. Yes, it was so good to be back with people (not screens). Appropriately, the DHASA conference theme was “Digital Humanities for Inclusion”—the conference aimed to foster growth and collaboration in the digital humanities (DH) field.
Keynote Presentations
The conference offers researchers interested in showcasing their work in the broad field of Digital Humanities a forum to connect with their colleagues, fellow researchers, and peers. I am new to this community and enjoyed keynote addresses by
Rory du Plessis – “A unit of data or a human subject? The inclusion of marginalised voices and humanising stories from digital archives”.
Alette Schoon – “Foregrounding the human in the time of AI: What do we mean by inclusive digital humanities?”
Karabo Maiyane – “The responsible use of AI in digital humanities practices.”
This was a 16-week mentoring and training program based on the Mozilla Open Leader program. It’s for those interested in running their own open leadership program. The combination of mentorship and cohort meetings has kick-started Open Umbrella (https://weblearning.co.za/umbrella/) work. I have wanted to expand on it for years. Open Seeds has helped me to put things into action. By
sharing essential knowledge required to create, lead, and sustain an Open Education project.
Connecting different communities, backgrounds, and identities across the globe, where many have freely shared their experiences and expertise.
Empowering me to become a better Open Education ambassador in my community.
Workshops – Autshumato ITE
DHASA is also about empowering participants in open technology. I enjoyed Thursday’s workshop, where we were introduced to Omegat (https://omegat.org/), a free and open-source multi-platform Computer Assisted Translation tool with fuzzy matching, translation memory, keyword search, glossaries, and translation leveraging.
In the workshop, we were introduced to computational methods to assist translation activities. By the end of the session, we were able to utilise it as a tool for translating on their laptops.
Last Words
Back home at my desk after an intense and stimulating week. Both exhausted and very pleased. Thanks to all from Escalator (https://escalator.sadilar.org/) who made this week possible.
Looking forward to seeing the growth of DH across South African universities and attending the next DHASA conference in 25. Congratulations to NMU for getting the DH ball rolling.
Recently, (4-5 March 2025), I attended the second of SADiLaR’s Data Management Workshop at Unisa, in the Senate Hall. You might remember, I attended a similar workshop last year, where Benito Trollip opened my eyes up to research data management and Bianca Peterson (from Fathom Data) introduced to Open Refine.
Here, with cameras and lights, the Department of Library and Information Services hosted another helpful workshop about “all the materials and assets scholars collect, generate and use in the research cycle” (Harrower et al, 2020). I especially enjoyed meeting a few of the UNISA librarians, including Refilwe Phala, who I would pop in to visit later on, and a Retha Visage’s presentation about the Ethics of Data management.
Thanks to Marita and Benito (and their respective teams), I enjoyed the event (and the company) thoroughly.
Toponymy was a new word that I learned from Marita (hope I’m right). Toponymy is defined as the study of place names or feature names. Changes to universities, airports, roads, schools, towns, cities etc are common around here. The narratives that go along with spatial changes (in my circle) can be controversial. Some see erasure, others see a principle of correcting historical wrongs (Kalima, 2024).
This talk page on Wikipedia shows how this spatial narrative about placename changes in South Africa is contested in the Wikipedia’s community. The US recently has had to contend with a major placename change and this Wikipedia talk page also shows significant spatial debate.
It was here at the workshop that the topic toponomy was both introduced and inadvertently explored. A sharp eye’d librarian pointed out an odd error on Google’s Info box. Vincent van Gogh’s youngest brother, Cor van Gogh, has the entry “Died 14 April 1900 Winnie Mandela” (see circled in red on the screenshot below). We found that rather odd.
Now yes, “Winnie Mandela” is the new name that Arts and Culture minister Nathi Mthethwa gazetted in 2021. In Brandfort, Thamm (2021) notes, was where the British set up a couple concentration camps, was where Hendrik Verwoerd wrote his matric, and was where Vincent Van Gogh’s youngest brother, died of a gunshot wound, some speculate suicide.
South Africa has a long history of assigning / reassigning place names. This goes back over centuries. Yes, sometimes the reason for placename changes is to remember an important event, person or feature. However the reformation of our spatial narratives are formed by those with political intents and this affects our public memory and a sense of historicity (Chakraborty 2020).
Beth Williamson (2023) suggests that European colonialism renamed places to inscribe their order and meaning, they legitimized territorialization and generated a sense of belonging. Differences in feature names and their meanings are less explored. Remember the story about the Inuit having many words different types of snow. Or isiXhosa has many ways to describe different types of walking.
When I lived in KZN, the Pietermaritzburg-Msunduzi municipal council indicated that they wanted to change some street names in the city to remember those who played a role in the liberation struggle. There was consultation and discussion in the city council about the matter and the names chosen did indeed honour local struggle heroes who played a notable part in the anti apartheid movement. Did this shift anything? For me…no. I was a history teacher at Alex High. Perhaps for others. Learning about some of our struggle hero’s and their history is important. As is learning about colonialism and apartheid.
I did also notice that as local government service delivery deteriorated, the more widespread the place name changes seemed.
“The two work in opposite directions. It’s easier to fix a name than a road.”
Theodorus du Plessis
See what’s happening elsewhere. Go to Google Maps, you’ll find the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America) and posting user generated content has been turned off. Pop over to Open Street Maps, there’s an interesting discussion. Go to Wikipedia, and read about the Gulf naming dispute.
These toponomy conversations on Wikipedia and Open Streetmaps about the previous chosen and future placenames offer new layers of understanding about our common heritage that we want to remember and what layers we want to forget. They challenge the map makers and their communities to explore further.
Cor van Gogh, Winnie Mandela, Hendrik Verwoerd. Brandfort has both a significant and painful place in our collective history. Google maps accepts our reviews and thoughts about the current landscape, but does not allow permit increased representative and equitable dialogue about historic landscapes. Google has labelled the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America) and posting is turned off. Brandfort is now Winnie Mandela (but you can still comment). Are we really engaging on the effects of placename changes on our spatial memories or our South African heritage. Or are we looking for certainty in a landscape that has changed, and will change and we are just too slow to adjust.
Placename changes is not a uniquely South African matters and I find it helpful to remember, that these patterns happen elsewhere. As the US changes, more accountability sinks are formed, I suggest that further service delivery challenges emerge in the US in the next few years are likely with more gutting / outsourcing. Maybe we will see more US place name changes.
Last reading for the day. Macgilchrist & Jarke (2025) in an article about data and the point out the “visualisations that suggest certainty lie at the heart of many decisions”. These physical colonial maps that we once all had on our Atlases or stuck to out classroom walls. They offered all utopia of certainty.
The assets that we use with Open Refine, to collect, generate and use in our research cycle also offer certainty. I objected to the term “raw data” and suggested that it all data was decontextualized, simplified and quantified (I called it cooked). Annemarie had a helpful suggestion and built on the cooking analogy.
Ingredients can be described in the kitchen as “raw”. However, a lot of pre-processing happened. “Flour” in its rawest form was once maize. Perhaps “processable” is a better way of thinking about structures, semi and unstructured data.
The decolonized place names that we give our Learning Management Systems (eFundi, eThutho, Amathuba or Ulwazi) mask the colonial and corporate powers who run these certainty machines. But some knowledge is situated and uncertainty is welcomed by professionals in medicine, defense and climate change who deal with these uncertain conditions. The certainty that processed (or cooked) data offers on our ed tech dashboards, needs to be questioned. Spotting trends using bar graphs, pie charts may make us feel informed. But not all conditions are that clear.
References
Chakraborty, S. (2020) Branding the Power Center: Toponomy as a Tool for Assertion of Political Prowess (Columbia University).
On Tuesday and Wednesday (25-26 March 2025), I had the pleasure of attending a key event for those who are interested in Digital Humanities. Entitled “Re-imagining Africa’s Knowledge Futures in the Digital Humanities”. The summit was organized by Dr Denzil Chetty (and the team), who lead the Advancing African Digital Humanities Ideation Hub (AADHIH) at UNISA. The event brought together academics, vendors, policy makers and ed techies, to re-imagine this country’s and the continent’s Knowledge Futures. In person at the Royal Elephant Hotel and Conference Centre and virtually, on UBU (https://www.playubu,ai/).
I confess, I arrived late with a lame excuse. I was updating my presentation and lost track of time. This meant that I missed the opening comments and how the two days were framed. Blush. The net result was that I constantly found myself asking…
Who was going to be doing the re-imagining?
What are Knowledge Futures?
Why are we attempting to re-imagine knowledge futures?
I try to be a hopeful technologist, expecting Higher Education (who has been bumbling with the a suite of tools or “solutions” for years) to find a better way to integrate tech into teaching and learning. Don’t get me wrong, I’m also a fellow bumbler.
In many cases, the Learning Management system (LMS) seems to dominate higher education’s online knowledge system. The re-imagining of digital education usually depends on procurement decisions and the LMS is linked to other platforms like
a student information systems (SIS)
a customer relationship management system (CRM) or
an Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP)
These are crucial technologies for the smooth functioning of the university system. However, the overall result is online learning is limited to the LMS and becomes ….frankly boring.
I get it. Administrators and IT managers prefer a suite of tools that fit . This makes their lives easier and quicker. Academics, who are used to teaching in rooms with walls, floors, boards and data projectors usually don’t want to do the re-imagining either. But this reluctance to change and think differently means that they do not have direct input on the platform and infrastructure choices that have to be made. In my experience, its been the ICT manager, procurement and the digital education team have been doing the re-imagining. Which means that academics do not have a sense of ownership of the many knowledge futures out there.
To me, this summit promised an alternative to common procurement practices that had roots in the Gutenberg Galaxy. Feesmustfall and Covid had had shifted the terrain. Academics, policy makers, ed techies and vendors now had the chance to become involved in decision making that could shape and transform Africa’s knowledge futures. For some, the incentive to transform the infrastructure supporting knowledge futures were the potential revenue streams that could be “controlled, traded, and capitalised” (Kovalainen 2025). For others, the incentive to re-imagine knowledge futures, could be to create “a sustainable resilient learning ecosystems, that enhance social and digital critical literacies, empowering students as active participants in society” (Atenas, 2025). Others might see this re-imagining as a competition to embed AI tools in academia and thus shape how the next generation works with AI as this platform become the default Ai tool. (Robison, 2025). I imagine there were many other agendas.
You’ve also realized that I’m critical of how higher education turns to ed tech and disruption is used to support “transformation”. Then how ed tech it uses the installation of a disruptive platform and the data points it collects to act as evidence of engagement (as if that’s a new future), to justify the change. Its a bit like realizing that gambling has created an addiction problem, and so we look to Casino’s for support. Technology in education has allowed investors, venture capitalists and private equity to reshape education. Don’t look to more technology for answers. They’re no revolutionaries (although they might tumble you).
Transformation is not created by making a technology available and collecting data. Transformation is possible when your own mind shifts or changes, when your practices alter AND when this shift in mindset /practices are materialized collectively. When you and your students can do something significantly different as a result of an ability to manipulate or subvert the technologies in front of them. That’s when transformation can be seen.
Sheila Jasanoff calls the many transformation futures out there “sociotechnical imaginaries” (SI). She defines them as…
“collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures, animated by shared understandings of forms of social life and social order attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and technology.
Was this summit a better way to go about procurement? Was this about exploring socio technical imaginaries. Or was this just a sales pitch (which was exactly what I was doing with my Spectacular Vernacular presentation). I wish I knew.
Day 1 – Presentations
A Digital Humanities of Technological Singularity
The first presentation by Mic Mann had me baffled. The co-ceo of Singularity U South Africa spoke. The singularity group is a prestigious privately funded tech tied think tank from Silicon Valley and started by Peter Thiel and Ray Kurzweil (Tvorun-Dunn, 2022). The group has 80? franchisees / branches around the world. “Singularity” refers to Kurzweil’s utopian moment of superintelligence and Mic was talking up crypto, Web 3 and NFTs on the Metaverse (Curcher, 2023). This socio technical imaginary seemed a bit incongruous for UNISA, an open learning and public university were aligning themself with the exclusive Singularity Group. While I can understanding my hotshot UCT computer science friends getting this information. Most of it, frankly, went over my head (and I suspect over the heads of others).
A Digital Humanities directed by governance and policy
The second presentation by Andreia Inamorato was far more measured. She took an European Union perspective (instead of Silicon Valley venture capital angle). With a history in open education, focused on discourse (the discussions and debates) around practices and policies in education and knowledge production. This felt more familiar territory and contained language I could relate to. It felt (to me) a suitable counter point to the first speaker.
A Digital Humanities of Virtual Reality
The third presentation was about Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence by Jaco Sauter. It rang familiar bells. Substituting a virtual experience for a real one is a familiar computer assisted education technique. I tried it myself when I showed the early internet to my class and a Virtual Frog Dissection. The class always preferred doing a real live dissection, or going on a proper field trip. The Virtual was also technically impressive, and I’d chatted about some of these but the amount of effort necessary to create the experience made it unlikely.
A Digital Humanities led by AI literate Co-pilots (thanks Microsoft)
The fourth presentation by Vivian Ladner sat much closer to my comfort zone. I’m a reluctant Microsoft subscriber. I got trapped early on and all my resources are formatted by their suite. Vivian Ladner, their sales person, talked to academics about upskilling ourselves so that we become Ai literate. She did not mention how literacy and power are connected, how social practices and contexts shape us. The presentation looked fun, the subwoofer and speakers amplified the effect. I don’t but the Ai Hype. Most of it is hyperbole. But Microsoft gives confidence and stability, to many who are still new with software. It feels like a game changer.
A creator and gamer Digital Humanities
The fifth presentation was made by the VUKA gamers, three UNISA students who showed us how they had created their games. This was up my alley. I love it when students are both knowledgeable and knowledge-ABLE. When they can use a computer for more than drill and practice, for pretty presentations. I like it when they can show others their work and explain the rational for the choice they made. The question I asked them afterwards, was what were they going to do with the game. Add it to a portfolio? Share it with friends.
A Digital Humanities that was multilingual and mentored
The sixth presentation was me! Talking about Spectacular Vernacular and using Wikipedia. I’ll post more about this separately.
A Digital Humanities is context aware, allows for computational thinking to be learned with appropriate media
The seventh session was by Jean Greyling and the fabulous unplugged coding approach that he has has scaled up. I liked this approach so much that I wrote a Wikipedia Article (still in draft)
An inclusive and accessible Digital Humanities that used Assistive Tech
Eight session was was about thinking with and through Assistive Technology. (Confession time: I skipped the session)
A Digital Humanities enabled via a trailing edge technology – radio
The nineth and last presentation for the day was about the transformative role and power of radio in Africa. Instead of focusing on the tech, Robin Sewlal, Joanne Joseph, Lumko Mtimde and Franklin Huizies had an engaging panel discussion. It was interesting and informed. As a one time part-time programme manager for Radio Maritzburg, a community radio station that Dave Hotchkiss led. We got the first community radio station license. I appreciated listening to the thoughts of the panel. Conversation (or discourse) still has a place, especially here in this country where many people don’t have a computer or internet access
I left day 1 feeling a bit conflicted. Unisa is an open learning institution, Denzil had made a shift the who in the re-imagining of procurement. We had seen nine knowledge futures, but many of them seemed closed. In the open learning world, you can choose to open up to knowledge futures by looking at a spectrum of open practices. (see Spectrum of Open Practices below). I had not heard the word open being used within all the eight sociotechnical systems. Not much evidence of intentional adapting either, whether it be open textbooks, open source software, or other forms of open education resources. Or perhaps blogging, where I encourage friends to make their thinking visible on FolioFriday.
What would Africa’s future knowledge be open? Perhaps Day 2 would reveal all.
Day 2 – Discussions
Determined not to make the same mistake again, I arrived early on Day 2. Sadly, I could not stay the whole day. Had a memorial service for an Alex High colleague in Pietermaritzburg. Bumped into Prof Isobel Schellnack-Kelly, a UNP history class mate of mine, now an esteemed scholar. We chatted and caught up. Her work is in archives sciences. She’s got an ERIC (Education Resources Information Centre) skill set.
As day 2 progressed, I began to figure out the framing that I had missed. Yes, this was a college wide procurement exercise and Unisa academics (and visitors like me), were being exposed to nine possible knowledge futures (on day 1). On day 2, the academics had the opportunity to discuss what they were shown. This was rich and interesting, so much better than a previous experiences with ed tech procurement. This process of looking at different “Knowledge Futures” was more systematic. These socialtechical imaginaries were ascribed value, belief was placed in a few of them, consent perhaps even manufactured?
In summary:
Who was going to be doing the re-imagining?
What are Knowledge Futures?
Why are we attempting to re-imagine knowledge futures?
The event (looking back) presented a variety of sociotechnical imaginaries (on day 1) and then the opportunity for academic discourse about these sociotechnical imaginaries (on day 2) was given. Day 2 was here that we began to explore how to decolonize knowledge, to make it more accessible and socially relevant. These Knowledge Futures were being already framed through a corporate frame. Big brand names, proprietary products. The summit was also a reminder that there is no single higher educational future or one digital humanities. Discourse among all of those who use tech is key a part of the process of procurement. Futures cannot be decided by software vendors (or Wikipedians like me) African Knowledge Futures require academics from Africa, to make what they want the world to be.
Appendix 1 Knowledge Futures
Sian Bayne, Jen Ross, J and Michael Gallagher have put together these eight knowledge futures.
Enhancedenhancement – technologies and pharmaceuticals have been been rolled out and in education. Smart drugs, AI and emotion recognition technologies are normalized and are on campus to respond to expectations around performance, productivity and benchmarks. Brain data (gathered from cognitive training tools or brain computer interfaces) is also collected and sold.
The university of ennui – ubiquitous technologies have automated everything. There is un limited access to information and university now focuses on supporting student journeys to fullfillment and happiness (without paid work). The focus is on creative, critical, philosophical and social skills.
Return to the ivory tower – state funding has declined and inequality has grown to such an extent that only a small proportion can afford a full time campus experience on a gated campus. Universities are no longer engines of social mobility, but a place for influential elites.
Justice-driven innovation – social challenges (poverty, climate, equality, governance, justice) is foregrounded by community based movements and academia. Universities choose to move away from big tech infrastructure and develop their own open ecoversities. Partnerships between these communities (instead of corporates) are grown and developed.
Extreme unbundling – outsourced
The universal university new teaching models and advancements in virtual and augmented realities permit educational simulations and immersive environments
AI academy – normal academic work (from literature reviews to student assessment) has been usurped by rich data lakes who offer an analysis of historic and behaviour data and comine this with neuro data to catogorize capabilities
Extinction-era universities – universities operate on an eco bottom line.
Reference
Bayne, S., Ross, J., & Gallagher, M. (1 Jun 2022 – 30 Nov 2025) Higher Education Futures. Available https://www.de.ed.ac.uk/project/higher-education-futures CC BY NC, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Curcher, M. (2023) The Pseudo Uni. Postdigit Sci Educ 5, 558–560 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00384-3
Fawns, T. (2022) An Entangled Pedagogy: Looking Beyond the Pedagogy—Technology Dichotomy. Postdigit Sci Educ4, 711–728. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00302-7
Leu, D. J., Kizner, C. K., Cooirco, J., Castek, J., & Hentry, L. A. (2017). New Literacies: A Dual-Level Theory of the Changing Nature of Literacy, Instruction, and Assessment. The Journal of Education, 197(2), 1–18. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26612644
Kovalainen, A., & Poutanen, S. (2025). The state as an agency in the assetisation of knowledge: the case of the Finnish education export. Learning, Media and Technology, 50(1), 75–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2025.2450724
OpenAI and Anthropic are fighting over college students with free AI
Robinson, K. (2025) https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/641193/openai-anthropic-education-tool-college
Tvorun-Dunn, M. (2022) Acid liberalism: Silicon Valley’s enlightened technocrats, and the legalization of psychedelics, International Journal of Drug Policy, Volume 110, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2022.103890.
A mentor is “someone who can hold a mirror up to us” (Abbott and Been). Someone with experience, knowledge, wisdom. The mentorship relationship allows for shared learning. A place for non judgmental observations about goals and performance, between mentor and mentee. A generative learning partnership that has the potential to shape the craft and culture that informs instructional designers practice.
Some of my mentorship experience comes from pre-service teacher education. I think that this tried and tested enculturation model, that works in schools, is a model that digital educators might consider. For anyone who has been taught be a student teacher, they would recognize the structure. A pre-service teacher is are paired with a ‘mentor’ at school. A knowledgeable, experienced, proficient educator is tasked with gentle guidance, prompting post class debriefs and reflections and offering their own practices and skills as a model.
Open educationalists in South African might look for a similar mentorship relationships. Groups that work in the open might consider ways of making links to respected and knowledgeable “contractors” who are able and willing to work with and alongside less technically experienced colleagues or practitioners. Whether offering practical advice, encouragement, or enablement, as their mentees become more capable and confident with media and the message. Soon the aspiring instructional designer will gains greater skill and self-assurance.
Mentorship really seems to works when the values between the mentor and mentee overlap. When they both espouses a particular cause or commit to a similar vision. Many times the mentors are volunteers and the reward for effort is not financial. Participation is primarily intrinsic, and motivation emerges because of a commitment to each other and a shared mission. Many mentors occupy roles that blurs boundaries between their professional role and a support role. These are people who can offer insight when they have traversed typical borders (between their profession, administration and management).
I’ve been wondering whether online mentorship can help good critical thinkers get better, support process improvements, build confidence and share implicit knowledge and expertise?
A few years ago, Anelda (from Talarify) invited me to an event entitled The ESCALATOR virtual Computational Research and Open Science Community Mentorship Indaba. She was working on the development of a “champions network” to grow a community of practice around digital and computational skills amongst South African humanities and social sciences researchers and students. Her intention was to discover more about informal capability mechanisms in Africa, and so she invited experienced mentorship programme practitioners to share their operational knowledge. And I was invited to participate.
Igor (Open Education Global & OE4BW Advisory Board member) and I presented about Mentor Recruitment, Support & Reward Strategies in OE4BW. We were one of the 8 programmes from a totel of 18 participants and what a fascinating experience it was, learning about mentorship activities across the African continent . Each programme had the opportunity to address a specific topic that had been allocated. The presentations were divided into focus areas, and a discussion followed the presentations.
The Indaba was followed by an invitation from Anne (from Tlarify) to participate in co-wrtiting an academic paper entitled “Ten simple rules for setting up a mentorship programme” for PLOS, and their Ten Simple Rules collection. This was a collaborative writing process with authors drawn from many of the projects that presented earlier on. Our activities included a clustering process, a sequence of drafts, peer reviews and comments. It was a very positive experience.
I’m a person who still sees digital as a means to allow access to high-quality educational experiences and open education resources (OER). Quality open education resources and practices depend on informed and talented people who are committed to an open vision. People who can identify and address barriers to this goal. For three years, I’ve been a part of Open Education for a Better World (OE4BW) – a tuition free international online membership programme – intended to create a more personal approach towards building OER that can inform, educate and present value in new way. I’ve also recently been associated with Open Life Sciences (OLS) and a not-for profit programme called Open Seeds. This is an organization dedicated to capacity building and diversifying leadership in research worldwide. It’s values are inclusive, transparent and visible. They see a future where research is accessible and equitable for everyone.
These organizations have an international footprint, and I do appreciate their desire to work internationally. Their example has inspired me, but local mentorship relations are also important. The DH-OER project that we finished in 2023 was a great example of digital mentorship. If you really want to transfer discipline or job-specific knowledge from one person to another. Then you have a recognized local showing a willing local how its done.
References
Abbott, C., & Been, L. E. (2017). Strategies for transforming a classroom into a brave and trusting learning community: a dialogic approach. Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education, 1(22), 3.
Footnote
This blog post is the second part of my response to CSET 2025 (Critical studies of education and technology: an invitation to connect). Here is my first mentorship post. Am trying to link my mentorship experiences together to my answer. A third post might still appear (who knows).
Today’s blog post is dedicated to the people who have gone beyond the call of duty and changed the way that I (and hope quite a few other people) think, act and be. People who have been responsive to concerns, aspirations. Who’ve helped me anchor myself and find a purpose. If there was a stage, I’d need to award here a handcrafted Digital Badge to these mentors.
…there remain the lucky “few who recognize their teacher”
Chris Higgins
Chris Higgins has written a lovely book entitled “Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education” In it Chris writes about two different ways of looking at education. Currently, we (the people around me) see those who position themselves as “products of our circumstances”. Which is true (white, male, growing up, stable family, good school, privileged by apartheid). This does not however account for the other folk that sometimes sit at the same table who do not fit the stereotype. People who are more “Plato like” where nascent knowledge is drawn out. According to Higgins, we sometimes find ourselves in an “active quest impelled from within by eros, the longing fueled by our sense of incompleteness” (Higgins, 2024). He suggests that “the Platonic view that has the greater explanatory power, at least when it comes to one interesting feature of formative experience: the feeling that we have yet to find our true mentor.”
I’ve been fortunate enough to regularly find that “mentor”. Working online, and being open (a regular social butterfly), has meant that I have stumbled upon these folk. For example. When I did my masters in Computer Assisted Education in about 2000, I had three main teachers. One who worked from a behaviorism premise , a cognitive scientist and a social constructivist. All three referred an instructional design systems framework known as ADDIE. The model made sense when access to computers was limited, multimedia software was proprietary, digital skills were for the few and mistakes were expensive. Today, in 2024, ADDIE is no longer the only framework I draw upon and I’ve been pleased to have the opportunity to re-think technology enabled education, and be exposed to alternate models. But the puzzle at that time gripped my attention, and I think I found my way, with a bit of help.
Whether it be in organizations like Scripture Union, Mount Hermon, Alex High, Creative Commons, Wikipedia, Open Life Sciences or the Goethe Institut, I’ve had a “true mentor”, just for a while.
I too have been wondering what makes for a good mentor. Been thinking about three principles (inclusive cultures, accountability and empowerment of others) that could guide my work. Try to offer an far more human centered model (as opposed to a digital one). Mozilla articulates a framework in their inclusive leadership cycle
Invite
Onboard
Empower
Review
Recognize
Renew
Systems Convening (Beverly and Etienne’s marvelous book) offers additional depth to a leadership cycle. It works wonderfully for workshops. From convergence (invite) to agency (renew). The cycle and the system seem to feed off each other.
Perhaps, in positioning myself as a product of my circumstances, I forget to look out for the next teacher. Whereas if I can be brave enough, to engage in socaratic dialogue. There’s another one or two lessons to be learned. Higher education has certainly got itself caught in its “guided cage”. Socratic dialogue is almost impossible on the LMS. No matter how many discussion forums I’ve used. The classes are to big, the time to engage is to short, the pre-requisite skills that required too hard. I don’t know.
Most of the system’s that I see, always generate inequalities. Where as, when I look for mentors, no matter what environment they are from, I find people who can light a spark or fan a flame. Can incubate, fuel and sustain its desire. Thank-you.
There are many reasons to be anxious about South Africa today. Inequality, governance, infrastructures, technologies. You’ll see me often point out the issues in my writing. However, you might not know that there are many reasons to be grateful. Peaceful people teachers, leaders, friends, academics mentors…those who contribute to the conditions wherein ordinary (and exceptional) people can flourish! Who work within messy systems and still manage. This is a recognition of your work and effort. Thank-you.
Christo De Klerk (President Blind SA), Prof Vukosi Marivate (UP chair of Data Science) and Ben Cashdan (Co-founder re-create)
Recently (3 Feb 2025), I attended a very interesting seminar at the Tin Temple (Wits University). The Title: Copyright and the Public Interest, Africa and the Global South. Thanks to Denise from Scholarly Horizons for the invitation. First, my apologies to her. I should have passed the invite onto my Mobile Literacy and Wikipedian friends. No matter, MateteFezi, Lindani and Herschal were in attendance. Also was pleased to finally connect (finally) with Vukosi in person and see Jonathan again. Finally, I was very pleased to meet Klaus and find that there is a person who seems to share a common concern of mine, namely, the assetization of higher education.
It is always an interesting exercise to observe the room and see who gets to sit at the table. When I attend Digital Education events, it seems to me, at first glance, that we all have a common interests. Teaching and Learning. Whereas at this event, there were a range of different people and each with their own interests and agendas who were there. I can’t really say that we were all similarly aligned. In fact I know that some where diametrically opposed. But perhaps that’s democracy. A group of people gather for a single cause and they come to advocate for that cause, even if they have different interests? Quite refreshing to have to listen to many different perspectives.
But I’ve been wondering recently about this alignment that I expect in all seminars. Perhaps having a diversity of voices and interests at the table is better than all being on the same page? Still can’t really make up my mind. But I am glad that I attended.
