Teaching And Learning With Digital Technologies In Higher Education Institutions In Africa

This book critically examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated digital innovation within higher education using case studies from Africa. Imagining a future for post-pandemic higher education, it analyses the challenges and opportunities of remote teaching and learning. The book explores the structural barriers around access to higher education and how these were reconfigured and amplified by technology-dependent teaching and learning. Case studies from countries across Africa provide unique insights into the challenges experienced by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, examining examples of emergent pedagogies such as online, mobile and social media-enhanced teaching, and blended learning. The chapters consider online assessment and teacher professional development, critically examining some of the benefits and structural challenges of digital technology integration in the context of pre-existing education disparities (such as students and teachers living in poverty-stricken and highly unequal societies). Offering invaluable insights into higher education in Africa, the book will be essential reading for researchers, scholars, and students in the fields of higher education study, digital education and educational technology, and African and comparative education. It will also be of interest to higher education managers and policymakers.

The book consists of novel and empirical research in broad areas of technology and curriculum in selected African countries. The central theme of the book is technology and the higher education curriculum. The book consists of case studies from selected African countries, namely, Lesotho; Namibia; Kenya; South Africa; Zimbabwe; Tanzania and Nigeria. These studies confirm that in this contemporary digital era, educational technology is playing an increasingly important role. It has become so ubiquitous and fundamental in the teaching and learning. Higher education sectors across the continent are increasingly compelled to use educational technology to keep up with needs of 21st century students who want to be afforded opportunities to be able to learn in real time, anytime, and on their own terms using opportunities for creative innovation made possible by new information and communication technologies.

This book critically examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated digital innovation within higher education using case studies from Africa. Imagining a future for post-pandemic higher education, it analyses the challenges and opportunities of remote teaching and learning. The book explores the structural barriers around access to higher education and how these were reconfigured and amplified by technology-dependent teaching and learning. Case studies from countries across Africa provide unique insights into the challenges experienced by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, examining examples of emergent pedagogies such as online, mobile and social media-enhanced teaching, and blended learning. The chapters consider online assessment and teacher professional development, critically examining some of the benefits and structural challenges of digital technology integration in the context of pre-existing education disparities (such as students and teachers living in poverty-stricken and highly unequal societies). Offering invaluable insights into higher education in Africa, the book will be essential reading for researchers, scholars, and students in the fields of higher education study, digital education and educational technology, and African and comparative education. It will also be of interest to higher education managers and policymakers.

Teacher education is vital for the realization of a nation’s development aspirations. The conception, incubation and delivery of any national development policy, as well as the reform and implementation of extant policies, are driven by the quality of teachers and their products within a functional educational system. Indeed, national and global models of development, including the millennium development goals revolve round the frames of quality education, beginning with teacher education. It is therefore important to have functional teacher education systems in Africa to help its citizens explore the networking of the world as a global village. This is achievable through a systematic mobilization of national resources and visible commitment to the development of a modernized cadre of scientific and technological manpower. This book is a rich exposition of theories and praxes essential for the development of teacher education in Africa. The book has immense benefits for teachers, teacher trainers, funding agencies, other stakeholders and policy makers.

This book interrogates media and technology in the 21st century higher and tertiary education in Africa. Using Zimbabwe as its case study, the book highlights the immense changes that the digital revolution has brought to higher institutions of learning in Africa, including changes in teaching and learning. Framed from an anti-colonial perspective, the book argues that digital change, though critical in revolutionising education in Africa, has come with a price as it has resulted in some epistemological erasures and injustices meted against the poor. The book makes a critical contribution as it quests to correct the misdemeanours and injustices caused by digital gaps in African societies. The authors argue that the future and success of digital technology in Africa lie in how well African countries will culturally and contextually sensor technology and attend to the problems caused by digital gaps. The book provides a re-invigorated overview and nuanced analyses of the role of media and technology in revolutionising 21st century higher and tertiary education in Africa. It provides pointers and insights on how African countries can reformulate their education policy in a manner that is in sync with the level of digital technology of the time. This is an important addition to critical debates on media and technology studies in education in Africa.

This book examines the ongoing changes initially caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the future prospects of teaching and learning in higher education institutions. It focuses on the impact of online education on issues of learning equity and epistemic justice. The transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to remote learning has exacerbated existing inequalities in epistemological access among higher education students, despite the shortcomings of the former in this regard. The book features essays by African academics who reflect on the challenges of epistemological access during the sudden shift to hybrid, blended and remote teaching and learning. It specifically explores the question of equitable learning in diverse home contexts, drawing on both theoretical and empirical studies conducted by the authors in South African universities and the region. The chapters employ the conceptual framework of epistemic injustice to define and explore various forms of such injustice, providing a basis for analyzing the implications of the transition to online pedagogy.

Higher Education is a global industry, driving a new technological, industrial revolution. However, it is important to remember education is about teachers helping students learn. This work is a collection of short essays exploring how to use digital technology to provide a form of teaching which will meet social and economic goals, and make use of technology, while still having a place for the academic as a teacher. Drawing on work undertaken for a Masters of Education in Distance Education, this book charts one future for Higher Education, including instructional design, planning and management, catering for international students, using Open Education Resources and Mobile Learning. E-learning designer and computer professional, Tom Worthington MEd FACS CP, uses as a case study his award-winning course in ICT Sustainability and the design of a new innovation and entrepreneurship course. -- author's website.

This book critically examines the role of governments in promoting parity during and in post-pandemic education. This comes from the realisation that the pandemic has deepened the crisis by depleting the meagre resources that African countries might have devoted to ‘normative educational practices’ where those on the margins would have been pushed further behind while the privileged would have been further initiated into the cultural and capital flows of private schools and historically research-intensive institutions of higher learning. This has far-reaching implications for the education of underprivileged citizens, and education, particularly modes and modalities of delivery, has to be reimagined to subvert the challenges wrought by the pandemic. This book significantly bridges the gap between the pre-and post-COVID-19 pandemic pedagogical practices and the erstwhile modalities that have been resilient over time. The book focuses on ways to stave off pedagogical challenges that face countries as the global pandemic makes its mark.

Online Learning, Instruction, and Research in Post-Pandemic Higher Education in Africa, edited by Martin Munyao, argues that beyond survival, universities need to adapt to technology-mediated communication learning in order to thrive. Disruptive technologies have recently proved to be means of thriving for institutions of higher learning. This book reflects on how leveraging on education technology has transformed teaching, learning, and research Higher Education Institutions (HEI) impacting Africa through digital transformation. In particular, HEIs are collaborating more now than ever before. Finally, this book addresses the challenges of teaching STEM programs online in Africa.