Page 6 - RE-EVALUATING THE ICT EQUATION: Meeting the digital divide halfway

ENGAGING & RELEVANT CONTENT

Zero-rated web resources and Open Education Resources (OER) are one answer to help balance
the data cost equation, and the list of websites that are already registered as zero-rated in South
Africa is extensive (McKane, 2020). When considering the content that will make this new
learning ecosystem most successful, it would be wise to draw resources from these data-savvy
sites, and to also ensure that content selection aligns with the classroom curriculum as closely
as possible. Repeated feedback from our programme participants shows that programme
content is optimally used (and valued) when it is immediately applicable within their real world
of work – in other words, when there is an intrinsic motivation to pay cognisance to the content
offered. Heide Abelli (as cited in Hogle, 2017) confirms this, stating that eLearning content has to
be highly relevant to daily challenges, easy to access and available at a precise moment of need.

It would be a proactive step to conduct a ‘needs analysis’, possibly capitalising on the polling
function already built into the Facebook application or by using other voting applications, such as
Poll Everywhere or Poll Junkie. It is one thing to have a great plan, but if a learning ecosystem is
to be of genuine service to its learners, then we need to ensure that we consult and ensure that
all voices form part of the conversation.

Joe Ruhl (TEDx, 2015) identifies the ability to choose as being a highly motivating factor in any
successful learning ecosystem. We could aim to build elements of choice into the types of
activities or tasks that form part of our new online/remote learning, or we could offer choices
for how our educators submit their contributions toward the programme and the PLC
experience. While we have identified that a large proportion of our partner educators do have
access to a smart phone, some do not. To ensure that all participants are able to take part in an
activity or conversation, choices could include, for example, sharing a response as a voice note
on WhatApp, an image submission or a text sent by sms. I hope to demonstrate how elements of
choice can be incorporated into our work in the example provided in section 3 of this
assessment task.

One final consideration related to content choices, at this unprecedented time, involves
balancing Bloom’s and Maslow’s advice for best practice (Doucet et al., 2020), brought to my
attention by my esteemed colleague, S.L. Chalufu. While we are all most concerned with
meeting physiological and safety needs under incredibly difficult circumstances, we cannot
expect learning performance outcomes that exceed reasonable levels of knowledge attainment
and understanding. As our own great team leader repeatedly reminds us: “we are all human
beings first”.

Source: Cait S. Kirby