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Open educational resources (OERs) have the potential to reduce costs, improve quality, and increase access to educational opportunities. OER development and deployment is one path that could contribute to achieving education for all. The article, "Developing and Deploying OERs in Sub-Saharan Africa: Building on the Present" by Clayton Wright builds on existing information and communication technology (ICT) implementation plans in Africa and on the experiences of organizations and initiatives such as: * the African Virtual University (AVU), * OER Africa, the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE), * Teacher Education in Sub Saharan Africa (TESSA) Project The author of the article present, a one view of the benefits, challenges, and steps to realize the potential of OERs in sub-Saharan Africa if they could be taken. * The article further focuses on the factors necessary for creating and sustaining a vision for OER development and deployment; * developing and distributing resources with an open license; * improving technology infrastructure and reducing the cost of Internet access; * establishing communities of educational collaborators; sustaining involvement in the OER initiative; * producing resources in interoperable and open formats; * establishing and maintaining the quality of OERs; providing local context to address national and regional needs and conditions; * informing the public about OERs; and taking the initiative to build on the knowledge, skills, and experiences of others. Wright, C. (Apr 2012). Developing and Deploying OERs in Sub-Saharan Africa: Building on the Present. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, (v13) n2. pp. 181-220. Retrieved from: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ983279.pdf

This article covers information about the successful development of blended learning environments that have the capacity to support and improve traditional face-to-face- and online learning environments.   Blended learning strategies showcases instructional model's growth and potential to spark new conversations about how blended learning can address a range of instructional needs in new and highly productive ways.  The benefits of blended learning instructional models extend educational learning experiences beyond the classroom face-to -face environment and they have the capacity to improve and to personalize learning experiences without commensurate increases in budget or staff, and it explores efficacy and prevalence data, recaps innovative and builds upon the practical implementation models of existing institutions of learning.    

Rambe, P. (2012). Constructive disruptions for effective collaborative learning: Navigating the affordances of social media for meaningful engagement. Electronic Journal of E-Learning, 10(1), 132-146. The essentialist view that new technological innovations (especially Social Media) disrupt higher education delivery ride on educators' risk averse attitudes toward full-scale adoption of unproven technologies. However, this unsubstantiated logic forecloses possibilities for embracing the constructive dimensions of disruptions, and grasping the tremendous academic potential of emerging technologies. Community of inquiry and virtual ethnography adopted as theoretical and methodological lenses for exploring the productive pedagogical impacts of appropriating Social Media in an Information Systems course at a South African University. Lecturer-student and peer-based postings on Facebook examined to understand the influence of Facebook adoption on student meaningful learning and pedagogical delivery. The findings suggest that Facebook constituted a collective "Third space" for student enactment of counter scripts, augmented traditional academic networking, fostered "safe" havens for student democratic expression, and afforded learning communities for student co-construction of knowledge. Shortfalls identified include challenges of developing quality academic discussions and fostering student engagement at epistemological and conceptual levels to ensure deep learning. The study recommends a multi-pronged strategy that foregrounds contingent relaxation of academic authority, on-task student behavior, strategic alignment of powerful collaborative technologies with pedagogical designs, and learning needs and styles of students.

http://www.ectel07.org/cfps/callforpapers.2008-07-01.1750270947 Web 2.0 has become a major technology that supports content publishing over the Internet. Web 2.0 refers to an expected second generation of Web technology that allows people to create, publish, exchange, share, and cooperate on information (knowledge) in a new way of communication and collaboration. The Web 2.0 technology makes the Web not only for browsing, but also for creating and sharing. The success of Web 2.0 heavily relies on interactive communication and collaboration among people over the Internet - where are the people; what people possess; whether people are willing to communicate; how a group of people can be formed as communities of practice; and how people can work together trough new generation of interactive social software such as Wikis, Blogs, RSS feeds, podcast, Ajax-based browsers, peer-to-peer, instant messenger, and other social networking software. Some successful examples of Web 2.0 applications are Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace, and Flickr. The Web 2.0 is shifting economical value of the Web to new business models for the next generation of Web technologies and interactive e-learning. One of the essential goals of applying Web 2.0 technologies to interactive e-learning is to enhance interactive communication and collaboration among participants in the Web-based learning. By participants, we refer to the learners who either possess related learning resources, or can help to discover and obtain the resources, or are willing to exchange and share the resources with others. By learning resources, we refer to the participating learners and available learning content and services. In Web 2.0, learners are co-learners as well as co-authors. They can read and write to the Web, in which learners become the consumers and producers of learning resources. As a result, the critical challenges of Web 2.0 for interactive e-learning is how to identify the right co-learners, find the right conte

Raiker, A. (2009). Transformational Learning and e-portfolios: A Pedagogy for Improving Student Experience and Achievement. International Journal Of Learning, 16(8), 313-323. Abstract Article Review:  Transformative learning occurs when an individual's understanding opens up a new vista of interconnected learning. As an individual develops, s/he is increasingly able to solve abstract problems logically and to think critically of the self and others in moral, social, emotive and judgmental terms. The individual assimilates and accommodates the reformed knowledge gained into new structures of thought, affecting esteem and efficacy. The transformation achieved results in autonomy, a necessary attribute in the current climate of world-wide change. Of course, the reformed knowledge might result in negative outcomes with the individual's sense of self being lowered with resulting dependency. A way of ensuring positive outcomes is through the structured and supported use of e-portfolios in personalized and reflective mode. This approach reflects current policies in England calling for the development of e-assessment and the embedding of personal learning and thinking skills into school, further and higher education curricula. However, the success of these initiatives determined by what happens at the point of pedagogical interaction. This paper takes as its starting point the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee's declaration that in using e-portfolios the pedagogy not the resource comes first