Eighteen thousand (18 000) unique users have accessed the institutional Learning Management System- iKamva on a daily basis, for the period January – October 2019. The users (students, staff, and external project stakeholders) access iKamva from different geographical locations).

The image below depicts the unique user access.

**Note: ‘On-campus’ refers to all connections made from a UWC network (UWC main campus, UWC external location, and UWC WiFi access).

Lecturer Hilary Naidoo has created an interactive blended module for the first-year students engaged in the Introduction to the Economy and Business (IEB134) module. This module was created within the institutional Learning Management System – iKamva.

Lecturer Hilary has made use of various eTools to assist with the design, structure, and sharing of learning material.

‘Course Outline’ eTool: Enables the lecturer to structure important information related to the module content including: reading material, notional hours, assessment schedule, and also graduate attributes. The lecturer explicitly highlighted to the students how the learning content is aligned to specific graduate attributes.

‘Course Resources’ eTool: Weekly lectures and readings related to specific concepts such as management, economic growth, 4th Industrial Revolution and related economic terms were structured and shared with students on a weekly basis.

Pre-Reading: Students were required to engage in pre-reading in order to prepare for lectures.

Links – to specific and relevant economic-related websites were embedded in the ‘Lessons’ eTool. This enables the students to view and read the latest news feeds.

Group Assignment: Students were required to create and submit a group assignment. Students could identify one member to submit on behalf of the group.

‘Statistics’ eTool: Based on the statistics tool within the module, the ‘Course Resources’ eTool was accessed most frequently by students to view and retrieve related learning material.

Contact the CIECT team to design and develop your interactive blended and distance learning and teaching environments.

CIECT’s Digital Academic Literacy Programme – has adopted a blended learning approach (face-to-face and online training), using various platforms.

In 2019, DAL launched an interactive online training system (Skills Assessment Management/ SAM) – which is a self-directed learning platform. The students are able to access the platform from any geographical space, dependent on internet connectivity.

The pilot was implemented in 2019; and one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five (1795) students engaged with simulated activities; and videos.

CIECT intends to rollout the SAM platform to the entire DAL student population, by the end of 2020.

For more information regarding the DAL Programme, contact the Programme Coordinator, Mr Fundile Nkunge. Email: fnkunge@uwc.ac.za

The ‘Calculated Question’ type can be selected as part of the Tests and Quizzes tool within iKamva.

Define variables: It allows the user to define variables (x, y, and z) and given formulae.  A calculated question calculates new answers for every test, based on the variable range.

Define range: Lecturers are able to define the range for each variable, and then inputs the formula required to calculate the answer.

Re-submission & creation of new variables: It should be noted that if a student re-submits the assessment numerous times, a new set of values will be computed by iKamva. Hence, the student will need to enter a different answer for a calculated question, each time the assessment is taken.

EMS lecturer, Prof Pradeep Brijlal has been lecturing the ‘fully-online’ course – EMD 513 (Business Finance), since 2018.  Students engage in this 8 week online module from various geographical regions.

Weekly Lessons are aligned to the various assessment activities and embedded with various lecturing material for students to engage and download.

Discussion Topics enables the students to engage with the lecturer regarding clarity of the content; weekly homework exercises and questions that may arise regarding the Test & Quizzes.

Test & Quizzes are set-up in alignment with weekly topics and activities. The lecturer makes use of various question types. The marks are reflected in the GradeBook and the students can view their assessment scores individually. Lecturers are able to view all student grades and evaluate the student learning.

Contact the CIECT team to design and develop your online environments.

The Director of the Institute for Post-School Studies (IPSS), Prof Papier contacted the CIECT Director in 2016 to conceptualise and implement a ‘fully online’ Programme. CIECT proceeded in collaboration with the IPSS team to advise around the effective use of eTools to support learning and teaching practices; Instructional Design, facilitation, content development and online support. The advisory session was followed-up with hands-on training and familiarisation sessions with the subject matter experts, resulting in the design and development of prototypes (online units of work). It should be noted that the subject matter experts have built good relationships with the CIECT Instructional Design team for continuous support and discussions related to new developments.

Student Orientation: Students (Teacher-Educators) who enroll for this PGDiP:TVET Programme (since 2017), engage from various geographical environments; and are expected to attend two block weeks per year (two year programme).  During the block week sessions, the CIECT team conducts introduction and familiarisation hands-on sessions, prior to the students’ online journey.

Student Engagement, Reflection and Assessment: Students are expected to engage in this ‘Fully Online’ programme which employs a rigorous methodology of reflective practice, supported by the use of online Lessons, Discussion Forums, Assignments and Course Resources. Furthermore, the eTools are directly linked to the assessment criteria for formative and summative purposes; including – theory essays, reflective practice assignments and relevant practicals. Students are also expected to explain and elaborate their understanding of content through online discussions and submission of assignments; allowing lecturers to evaluate student progress.

Structured online lessons: Lecturers (Nigel Prinsloo, Timothy Mcbride, Jennifer Martin and Bhekumusa Khuzwayo) created a space within the iKamva platform, whereby module content could be explored through a variety of digital media components. The modules are structured according to weeks, to include sections such as “warm up, introduction, core readings, supplementary readings, questions, tasks and lesson notes”. The lecturers provided students with videos, PowerPoint presentations, articles and online discussions that students are expected to engage in.

New Developments: Recently the IPSS team has contacted the CIECT team to implement the live-video conferencing functionality within iKamva (BigBlueButton). This pilot is currently underway and the students (Teacher-Educators) are engaging in live lecture sessions from different geographical regions (across Provinces). The lessons learnt will be reviewed by CIECT for further roll-out to the wider campus community.

Contact the CIECT Team to create well-designed, interactive distance and blended learning environments.

Lecturer, Dr Emma McKinney requested ICT skills training for a group of Postgraduate (Masters Level) students [Interdisciplinary Centre for Sports Science and Development (ICSSD)/ Module SDP 718].

The students were expected to complete an assessment task, in this case a video presentation.

Video Presentation: The workshop enabled the students to:

• Create a presentation;
• Add voice-overs;
• Add images;
• Add pre-edited video;
• Collate final presentation; and
• Export as a video file.

Students were expected to submit their final submissions (continuous assessments) to Dr McKinney.

Contact the CIECT team for enquiries related staff and postgraduate ICT skills training and development.

Google now offers the option to send a pre-typed email, entailing pre-selected date and time. Hence, a user would be able to script, plan and queue emails. It should be noted that the pre-typed email would automatically be sent to the recipient (on the specified date and time selected by the sender).

‘Schedule send’ feature: Emails can be scheduled days in advance to eliminate having to create and send multiple emails within a specific time frame. It should be noted that this feature is freely available within Google. The image below illustrates the feature available within a live UWC account.

The ‘Commons eTool’ within iKamva, is a social networking tool that allows users (staff and students) to share messages, images and updates about important events taking place.

The Commons eTool on iKamva creates a space for users to interact and post articles, images and links to videos and relevant websites (i.e. aligned to the subject-matter). Once the post is shared within an online environment, students are able to view and reply to the messages. The Commons eTool is similar to social media applications like Facebook and Instagram posts.

The Commons eTools entails the following features:

Create a post

• Add text
• Add links
• Add image

Comment/reply to a post

• Click & reply to post
• Respond to a comment
• View your reply

Edit/delete a post

• Edit/delete a post
• Edit/delete links within post

Lecturer Frederick Herbst, set up assessment activities for both formative and summative submissions, for the ‘fully-online’ module, EMD 616 (Marketing Management).

Weekly online assessment activities in the form of quizzes were developed:

• Students complete online multiple-choice questions related to the specific chapters that are presented each week.
• Students receive results online.
• Question pools were randomised.

*These online quizzes form part of their continuous assessment marks; and also reinforces learning to prepare for the following week’s content.

Students were also required to submit assignments related to the specific topics or case studies:

• Reflection in relation to various key concepts.
• Students received timeous feedback.

*All assessments are linked to the Gradebook and students are able to track their progress as they complete activities. Furthermore, students were expected to complete their final assessment activity (specific time-frame provided).

Contact the CIECT team to design and develop your blended and distance learning environments.