Please see the updates from HELTASA below. The Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) is a professional association for educators and other significant role players in the tertiary sector.
Digital Dialogue Invitation
The next Digital Dialogue, entitled “Dismantling Buzzwords in
Educational Technology”, will
take place on Thursday 27 July from 12:00 to 13:30. Progress is rapid in
the field of educational technology (EdTech) and we often find ourselves using
terms that are contested, ill-defined or overused. Concepts such as the Fourth Industrial
Revolution (4IR), digital natives and digital transformation are pervasive and
sometimes taken for granted. Sometimes, staff and students in higher education
may engage with these concepts as if they were a given, or universally
understood. HELTASA wants to find ways to help us analyse where these concepts
are coming from and what kinds of discourse they are implying. Are there other
ways of looking at these words? They also want to unpack how some of these
terms fit the purpose of Southern African higher education. See the invitation on their website or
click the link to register.
Call for Participation: HELTASA (Un)Conference: 24-26
October
Join HELTASA at the annual HELTASA (un)conference, which
will be hosted by North-West University’s (NWU) Vanderbijlpark campus. The
theme is “Celebration of Scholarship: Connecting the Lights”. It will be a
hybrid event, so delegates may participate in person or online, but please note
that presenters will have to present in person. See the call for participation for more information
or register for the (un)conference. HELTASA would love to see you
at HELTASA 2023 and hear about delegates’ teaching-learning-assessment
experiences and scholarship during 2023!
Responding to AI: Digital Dialogue Recording
If you missed the Digital Dialogue entitled “How are Institutions Responding
to AI?” on 24 May, you can find the recording on the shared Google Drive. You can also see the
slides with the responses to the poll questions and Prof
Blackie’s presentation.
News:
a. Please see the call
from the Council on Higher Education (CHE) for papers by researchers with an
interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and higher education. Researchers are
requested to prepare manuscripts and submit those to be considered for
publication in the fifteenth issue of Kagisano.
Manuscripts are due 2 October.
b. In June, the CHE
released Communique 5 of 2023, which addresses the extension
of the concession for programmes accredited for the contact mode of
provisioning to continue to be offered through remote, online, distance and/or
blended modes of provisioning, the development of a Higher Education Practice
Standard (HEPS) and a themed review of this area.
c. MYFEST 2023 or the Midyear
Festival, hosted by Equity Unbound, takes place in June, July and August. Visit
their website for more information.
d. 
About HELTASA.pdf
Received from the HELTASA Digital Learning
and Teaching Team
https://heltasa.org.za/
