In addressing an area of research that has not received any attention, a recent study conducted in the South African context of disparities concluded that medium ICT use patterns hold no risk factors for the mental health and well-being of the historically disadvantaged open distance learning student. To determine if the basic findings can be…

The aim of this paper is to determine whether the integration of digital pedagogies into the entire student learning lifecycle can improve exam performance. Since the inception of the so-called internet age, the use of technology has been explored as a platform for knowledge transfer. In formal education, this phenomenon has prompted higher…

The use of learner modelling approaches is critical for providing adaptive support in educational computer games, with predictive learner modelling being among the key approaches. While adaptive supports have been shown to improve the effectiveness of educational games, improperly customized support can have negative effects on learning outcomes.…

Today's 21st century students are regarded as "digital natives," who are influenced by digital environments for acquisition of information, communication and interaction. With the emergence of new technologies, educators are encouraged to find meaningful ways of incorporating these technologies into their classrooms. The practice…

This study investigates the development of Topic-Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TSPCK) of 14 novice uncertified graduate science teachers during a Professional Development Intervention (PDI) on teaching particulate nature of matter. TSPCK was defined in terms of five knowledge components: learner prior knowledge, curricular saliency,…

Program visualization (PV) is one of the approaches to assist novices in introductory programming courses. We investigated the effect of a newly developed PV tool to teach tracing to first-year programming students at a South-African university. The tool takes the form of an interactive computer-based tutorial that teaches students how to draw…

The impact of computer simulations on the performance of 65 grade 11 learners in electromagnetism in a South African high school in the Mpumalanga province is investigated. Learners did not use the simulations individually, but teachers used them as an interactive demonstration tool. Basic concepts in electromagnetism are difficult to understand…

Introduction: The research focused on metacognition in a collaborative learning setting. Based on a comprehensive literature study the researchers designed a metacognitive teaching-learning strategy for pair programmers. Our purpose was to investigate the influence of this metacognitive teaching-learning strategy during pair programming in an…

Teaching mathematics through Open Distance Learning (ODL) has been a challenge to educators due to the nature of communication with learners and material delivery during instruction. In this paper, as a case study, we look at one mathematics module offered through ODL and the performance in the course for the past four years. A sample of 50…

This paper presents a multimodal discourse analysis of children using "drill-and-practice" literacy software at a primary school in the Western Cape, South Africa. The children's interactions with the software are analysed. The software has serious limitations which arise from the global political economy of the educational software…

This paper assesses the integration of Africa into the global economy by computing the e-readiness for nine African countries. The measuring tool used is simple and incorporates a variety of indicators used by comparable tools. Overall, the mean e-readiness of Africa is poor in comparison to other economies. Particularly, Sub-Saharan Africa…