UP Journals (Univ. of Pretoria)
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The pedagogical potential of virtual reality head-mounted displays in the training of pre-service history teachers to promote self-directed learning
No full textThe arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) as well as the required and accompanying twenty-first century skills has led the educational system towards a position wherein significant methodological and pedagogical intervention is required in order to modernise the system to better accommodate the needs of the twenty-first century learner. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as Virtual Reality (VR) and its associated technologies, like Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs), have the potential to enhance the teaching and learning experiences of pre-service history teachers in virtual learning environments (VLEs). This article seeks to explore the pedagogical potential of VR-HMDs as ICT tools in the training of pre-service history teachers by affording them opportunities to engage with subject matter in VLEs such as a virtual Holocaust Museum, a WW II battle re-enactment and the Pearl Harbour attack. Concurrently, the paper sought to determine if VLEs could promote pre-service history teachers’ self-directed learning (SDL) skills through the allowance of these experience-based learning opportunities. The research for this study was conducted at a tertiary education institution within a classroom environment where pre-service history teachers made use of VR-HMDs to achieve specific history lesson objectives. Grounded in constructive and interpretive paradigms, the research further employed a single exploratory qualitative case study design with nonprobability purposive sampling and discourse analysis. To a lesser extent, quantitative data was also used, complementary to the qualitative data, in order to better understand the phenomena under investigation. Various data collection instruments, including questionnaires, worksheets, focus group interviews, and field notes, were used to gather data from the 15 pre-service history teachers as participants. The findings indicated that VR-HMDs and VLEs hold a significant positive potential for the teaching and learning of pre-service history teachers, as the advantages of this emerging technology far outweigh its disadvantages. Furthermore, the use of VR-HMDs in teaching fostered SDL skills such as goal setting, self-regulation, motivation, and critical thinking
Heads of Department challenges: Supervision of Social Sciences teachers in map work teaching and learning in uMgungundlovu District, KwaZulu-Natal
No full textIt is commonly agreed that learners perform poorly in map work because of teachers’ limited content knowledge. Heads of Department (HoDs) within schools supervise teachers to improve instruction for enhanced learner performance. However, due to a small number of curriculum specialists, HoDs in schools often fail to contribute to better performance through their supervision of Social Sciences teachers. This study explores the challenges faced by HoDs when supervising Social Sciences teachers in map work teaching and learning, using the case study of uMgungundlovu District, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The study adopts an interpretive paradigm and uses a single case study design approach. Purposive sample was undertaken of eight HoDs and eight Social Sciences teachers in their schools, and data collected through interviews that were analysed thematically. The results indicate that HoDs experience workload and map work knowledge and skills challenges that limit their ability to supervise teachers. Teachers also highlight the constraints that HoDs experience but that they do not provide them with adequate support for map work instruction. It is recommended that curriculum specialists and HoDs knowledgeable in map work should supervise map work teaching and learning, and that the Department of Education should provide sufficient teaching and learning resources to enable adequate instruction
Using the isiZulu GF Resource Grammar for morphological annotation
No full textThe isiZulu GF Resource Grammar (ZRG) enables syntactic parsing using the GF runtime system. In order to perform this task, the ZRG implicitly encodes rich morphosyntactic information about isiZulu. In this paper we show how such information can be made explicit by adapting the way the grammar linearises GF abstract syntax trees. The result is annotated text, which can be utilised in various ways for supporting natural language processing of an under-resourced, morphologically complex language like isiZulu
BRICS Expansion and Implications for Africa
Get PDFThe expansion of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) has become a focal point in global discussions, particularly regarding its implications for Africa. This article critically examines the multifaceted dimensions of the BRICS expansion and its implications for Africa across economic, political, and strategic realms. Drawing upon a comprehensive review of scholarly literature and expert opinions, the economic implications of the BRICS expansion, including opportunities for growth, investment, and development, as well as challenges related to trade imbalances and debt sustainability, are analysed. The article explores how the BRICS engagement influences regional power dynamics, international alignments, and global governance structures. The role of BRICS in advocating multipolarity and institutional, global governance reform is highlighted, while tensions and complexities within the bloc are considered. By synthesising diverse perspectives, the article offers insights into navigating the complexities of BRICS-Africa relations and provides recommendationsfor policymakers and stakeholders to maximise the benefits of this evolving partnership while mitigating risks and vulnerabilities
The return of Rosie the Riveter: Contemporary popular reappropriations of the iconic World War II image
No full textThe iconic image of Rosie the Riveter played an important role in American patriotic ideological processes during World War II. Aimed at the recruitment of women for wartime work, particularly in factories and traditionally masculine occupations, this representation of a woman in overalls and head scarf, with sleeves rolled up, showing her bicep and balled fist, declaring ‘We can do it’, has been a contentious point of discussion for its significance in feminist agendas since its first appearance. While building on, and playing to, the suffrage agendas of first wave feminism, the popular image of Rosie was transcended by second wave concerns about depictions of women in the workplace, such as those in films like Norma Rae (Ritt 1979), Silkwood (Nichols 1983), North Country (Caro 2005) and Made in Dagenheim (Cole 2010). But Rosie is making a comeback. The image has recently been appropriated in various ways and for various purposes – naively, ironically, satirically, as bricolage, pastiche and in sexualised portrayals – to represent contemporary women’s issues and concerns, as well as arguably forming part of a backlash culture against feminism. Contemporary depictions have, for example, ranged from Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, Malala Yousafzai and Beyoncé. This paper considers the development and transformation of the image of Rosie the Riveter and its contradictory (re)-appropriations in various contemporary popular cultural discourses
A cartographical history of Pretoria
Get PDFThis paper deals with the cartographical portrayal of Pretoria and its environs over the past 150 years. Apart from showing the evolution and growth of the settlement, attention is given to the fact that maps of the same place, mapped at different times by different people under different circumstances, often communicate different messages or signals to their readers. The latter refers to the style of the map which could, in some cases, convince the map user that the map is accurate, objective and value-free. In other cases, the map could be interpreted as a cultural symbol which communicates the underlying values, attitudes and principles on which the society responsible for producing the map is founded
Inkblots and their indices: rethreading perception in the work of Igshaan Adams
Get PDFIgshaan Adams is a young artist from Cape Town, working in multimedia and performance. In his practice, Adams brings ways of seeing and also ways of being into consideration through meditations on objects, dreams, Sufism, family relationships and the changeability of selfhood through perception of these phenomena.
This paper engages with Adams’ affinity with objects, their agency and biography, and considers how his sensitive interventions alter their materiality, shifting the ways in which they can be seen. The ways in which Adams’ family relationships play out in the processes of making his sculptural works, and also in his performances, are then elucidated and related to his ongoing processes of self-enquiry.
Furthermore, I consider Adams’ latest body of work, a critical enquiry into the variable meanings of Rorschach inkblots. Adams reflects on the grounds for inkblot testing and, in so doing, tests and measures the nature of looking, perceiving and projecting
Hypersampling black masculinities, Jozi style
Get PDFIn this article, I examine emergent performances of fashion(able) and fashion(ed) black masculine identities manifest in work by selected young fashion designers and design collectives currently practicing in the urban environs of Johannesburg. These vibrant, dynamic, youth-orientated forms of cultural practice encompass a range of transnational, transhistorical, transcultural, black masculine identities. I contend that such identities are achieved through use of "hypersampling": the remixing, re-appropriating, reintegrating, fusing, conjoining, interfacing and mashing-up of often disparate elements gleaned from a multiplicity of sources to produce new fashion styles.
Many of these practitioners’ work can be said to include characteristics of "black dandyism" – appropriations of dandyesque dress and fashionable display as a means of performing black diasporic masculinities. Focusing on the work of two Johannesburg-based design collectives, Khumbula and the Sartists, I show how, through hypersampling strategies, both look back to the past, consuming, hypersampling and re-cycling images from Southern and South African history. Both deploy transhistorical and transcultural referents as a means of subversive resistance: a mechanism through which to negotiate, problematise or disrupt prevailing power relations embedded within them, whilst also operating as a form of creative agency through which to express shifting notions of black masculinities in the context of the African metropolis of Johannesburg