home

=‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍Welcome ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ = Thank you for visiting my e-Portfolio. My name is Mthunzi Nxawe, a higher education publisher at [|Juta and Company], based in Claremont, Cape Town. I have created this e-Portfolio as a part requirement for the [|University of Cape Town's]//Online Learning Design// course, a module for the PGDE in Information Communications Technology Education. I have been a publisher for almost ten years for both school and higher education textbooks. My professional training is in mathematics education. Although I am no longer a teacher of mathematics education, I often get invited to present mathematics courses and workshops to teachers either by mathematics NGOs, UCT's Schools Development Unitor the [|WCED]'s [|CTLI].

We have experienced regular changes within the schools curriculum since 1994, from what was known as Curriculum 2005 which focused on Outcomes Based Education to the current content focused [|Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement]. These changes have had an effect in teachers pedagogic content knowledge. During this process, the most affected teachers have been those in the Senior Phase (Grades 7-9).

There may be many reasons for their ill-preparedness. My observation is that the department of education, now the [|Department of Basic Education] has changed focus from whole school development to how numerate and literate the grades one to six are and the per centage pass in matric. At the same time, changing policies and content in the grades 7 to 9.

As a response to that I have decided to prepare an activity for the Grade 7. For example, in Grade 7 new topics have been introduced in the school curriculum, such as Global Graphs, and other topics have been moved from Grades 8 down to Grade 7, such as Integers.

For this intervention, I have decided to choose a topic that is not familiar to mathematics teachers of Grade 7, Integers. The operations with Integers is often taught as rules, and I would like to explore how integers, as an extension to natural numbers, can be appreciated in real-life situations by applying one's knowledge to authentic situations. The [|online learning intervention] explores the Moodle platform to create authentic mathematics problems, in this case the topic is Integers. One can view this site as a guest. The administrator's username is **admin** and the password **edCuhec6**.

This e-Portfolio is divided into four parts: (i) The Online Learning Design which discusses the choice of an online learning model; (ii) Exploration, which provides relevant information related to the setting as well as my beliefs on learning, that has as a result informed the learning design, (iii) Enactment, which maps out the what has been discussed in the previous section, such as the pedagogical strategies and ICT affordances that have resulted in the online learning strategy and, (iv) Evaluation to determine the purpose, the desired results and methods used.

In developing this e-Portfolio I will start by mapping out the online learning models that have been developed over the years, and will then offer an account for choosing the Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland model. Since the online learning design constructivist, the creation of the prototype and the structure e-Portfolio have been informed by the Online Design. Since I am not actively teaching, I have decided to use a lecturer from the Schools Develop Unit at the University of Cape Town and an Online Design expert on moodle, who is also a Grade 7 teacher mathematics teacher to review my intervention. This would encourage the to see the use of OL to integrate their teaching.

For easy navigation each section will have its own references, where necessary. I have also separated some paragraphs with a horizontal line to help the reader get only bites of text instead of the full essay, to help with your eyes. I have also created links for you in case you would like, so click to the resource mentioned.

I consider the sections on Online Learning Design, Exploration, Evaluation, and Reflection to be most well developed and Enactment is still under developed.