https://openscholar.ump.ac.za/handle/20.500.12714/22 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 12:31:54 GMT 2026-04-15T12:31:54Z https://openscholar.ump.ac.za/handle/20.500.12714/916 Title: Teaching South African languages through technology. Authors: Mkhwanazi, Malilensha Cecilia. Abstract: African languages are behind, especially with regards to terminology in the educationspace, and entering the digital environment. This research considers the teaching of SouthAfrican languages through technology and its presence in the digital space. What can wedo in this regard? First, it is important that we have to educate our teachers on how to usetechnology in teaching South African languages. The paper explores the potential in theuse of technology and occupying the digital space available. It examines how SouthAfrican languages can be integrated with other subjects like coding and robotics. In otherwords, teaching African languages through technology can produce learners who will beempowered with 21st-century skills and be able to use the information that will bedigitally relevant. The study adopted Actor Network Theory (ANT) to direct its activities.This framework gives credit to any being or factor, irrespective of its nature, human, ornon-human. ANT is a theory of the progressive constitution of a network in which bothhuman and non-human actors assume identities. The data and information that weregenerated through participatory action research, a desktop review, a literature review andtextual analysis were analysed using critical discourse analysis (CDA). This was used toshow how discourse structures reproduce, legitimize, question, or perform power anddominance relations in society. Also, CDA is an analytical research approach thatanalyses speech critically. A person or group of dominant tendencies review criticaldiscourse analysis trying to explain a social reality and have a specific goal in mind.Findings suggest that collaboration with all stakeholders in digitising and teachingthrough technology is possible. We also look at the contribution of the Web in promotingthe use and status of African languages. Participation in sharing and producingknowledge through the Web can play a key role in the economic, social and educationaldevelopment of Africa. The research will be of interest for educators, especially in highereducation institutions, in teaching African languages through technology. It is importantto digitise all our African languages, especially Siswati. These languages can developand then be found in the digital space in such a way that they can be used or spokeninternationally. Another opportunity can be found in the enhancement of the nationalcorpora, the use of other software and open-source platforms like Wikipedia, WordNet,and also the use of technology to teach the South African languages. African languagescan indeed be satisfactorily developed in these respects. Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://openscholar.ump.ac.za/handle/20.500.12714/916 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://openscholar.ump.ac.za/handle/20.500.12714/719 Title: Creating sustainable learning environments in the era of the posthuman: towards borderless curriculum. Authors: Dube, Bekithemba.; Mahlomaholo, Geoffrey Sechaba.; Setlalentoa, Wendy.; Tarman, Bulent. Abstract: This editorial is a culmination of various research on the area of posthuman theorization as applied to the field of education. It also focused on the need for borderless curriculum to circumvent global challenges such as genocide, terrorism among other things. It details the rationale of adopting a post human and borderless curriculum to respond to the ambivalence brought by the coronavirus. The special issue gives alternatives which emerged during the pandemic and arms educators and learners with new models of learning that will ensure education system is not disrupted on the even another pandemic emerges. The argument of the special issue is that within the auspices of posthuman and borderless curriculum something else, and new is possible through working and thinking together. Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://openscholar.ump.ac.za/handle/20.500.12714/719 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://openscholar.ump.ac.za/handle/20.500.12714/705 Title: Early childhood in the era of post-humanism: lending an ear to nature. Authors: van Vuuren, Jansen Eurika. Abstract: Parents, or pre-school educators in early childhood education, focus on assisting children to attain the highest possible pre-numeracy and pre-literacy skills in an attempt to give children a better academic foundation. Children are presented with technology, for example, in the form of a tablet, that act as baby-sitters even before they can speak properly, and this has largely deafened them to the sounds of nature. Sounds of man and machine are the only ones most children will be exposed to, due to their living in cities with few natural spaces. Children are not taken into nature to experience it and get to know the sounds of the bio-network, of which they are an integral part. Rural children may have a better chance to get to know, respect and cherish nature, due to their context, but their guides -parents and/or communities -have sunken into their own disregard for their environment. It is only when children are taught to listen to and appreciate nature that they will be enabled to begin moving back to being ‘mensch’ where the focus, ironically, moves away from the human and focuses instead on creating an equilibrium between humanity and nature, rather than stripping the planet of its natural resources through harmful practices. This empirical research explored the literature to highlight the significance of listening as a mode of developing an appreciation of and caring for nature. Attuning children of the post-humanist era to their natural environment through listening will encourage them to understand their function as part of nature, and assist in the restoration of the planet. Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://openscholar.ump.ac.za/handle/20.500.12714/705 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://openscholar.ump.ac.za/handle/20.500.12714/703 Title: Relationally enhancing teacher education in early childhood learning environments towards sustainability. Authors: Mahlomaholo, Makeresemese Rosy.; Israel, Hilda.; Mahlomaholo, Geoffrey Sechaba. Abstract: Teacher education in early childhood learning environments (ECLE) is a generally neglected space in teaching and learning, more so when the focus is on relationality and sustainability. ECLE refers to the Care and Education of children between 2-4 years of age. The focus of this paper is on ECLE from a post-humanist perspective, which goes in tandem with UNESCO’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Emphasis is on inclusive economic development through environmentally sustainable social inclusion for all. Relationality has been chosen because of its power to advance the deconstruction of the hitherto taken for granted canons of humanism and enlightenment that promote hierarchies in knowledge and its production. These hierarchies disregard the voices of the vulnerable and the excluded, interms of social class and other markers like age, but most importantly their erroneously assumed lack of knowledge. To date, the voices of the aspirant teachers in ECLE, as well as those of the children and parents, are non-existent when teacher educationprogrammes are designed and implemented. This paper reveals that including the voices of these beneficiary communities enhances the quality of the discourse, theorisation and praxis in the provision of ECLE, as well as in the crafting of relevant teacher education programmes. Thus, the design and delivery of a programme is better based on the relationalities among humans, animals and plants; and between them and inanimate entities like infrastructure and resources. The relationality among all of these in the crafting of the beyond human is enhanced using advanced digital technologies. A relational approach recognises our entanglement with our entire universe in a manner that does not centre on identity. Quality therefore is about the ever-increasing complexity of diffractions of multi-layered and multi-perspective engagements across borders. Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://openscholar.ump.ac.za/handle/20.500.12714/703 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z