Alan Amory
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Alan Amory
Alan Amory (born in Rustenburg, South Africa) is a Senior Programme Specialist (Learning Technologies) at SAIDEPreviously, Alan was a professor of educational technologies at the University of Johannesburg, where he promotes and drives the use of educational technologies. He has contributed to numerous fields of research, including information and communication technologies in education, video games and learning, tool-mediated knowledge construction, authentic learning, and Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). Career Amory received his doctorate in Plant Biochemistry from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He lectured in the Biology Department of the University of KwaZulu-Natal for 15 years before he was employed as the Director of the Centre for Information Technology in Higher Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. In 2007 he was acting Chief Director for Education Support Services at the Gauteng Department of Education, Johannesburg, b ...
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Rustenburg
Rustenburg (; , Afrikaans and Dutch language, Dutch: ''City of Rest'') is a town at the foot of the Magaliesberg mountain range. Rustenburg is the most populous city in North West (South African province), North West province, South Africa (549,575 in 2011 and 626,522 in the 2016 census). In 2017, the city's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reached ZAR 63.8 billion, accounting for 21.1% of the GDP of the North West Province, and 1.28% of the GDP of South Africa. Rustenburg was one of the official host cities of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, being in close proximity to Phokeng, the capital of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, where the Royal Bafokeng Stadium is located. The England national football team also used this as their base camp for the tournament. History Mfecane Before European settlers arrived, the area had been settled by agrarian Setswana-speaking tribes. Rustenburg's population is primarily Tswana people. Partially belonging to the Royal Bafokeng Nation, extensive landowners e ...
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Conceptualisation
A concept is an abstract idea that serves as a foundation for more concrete principles, thoughts, and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences. The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach, cognitive science. In contemporary philosophy, three understandings of a concept prevail: * mental representations, such that a concept is an entity that exists in the mind (a mental object) * abilities peculiar to cognitive agents (mental states) * Fregean senses, abstract objects rather than a mental object or a mental state Concepts are classified into a hierarchy, higher levels of which are termed "superordinate" and lower levels termed "subordinate". Additi ...
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E-learning
Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning and teaching. When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech", it often refers to the industry of companies that create educational technology. In ''EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age'', Tanner Mirrlees and Shahid Alvi (2019) argue "EdTech is no exception to industry ownership and market rules" and "define the EdTech industries as all the privately owned companies currently involved in the financing, production and distribution of commercial hardware, software, cultural goods, services and platforms for the educational market with the goal of turning a profit. Many of these companies are US-based and rapidly expanding into educational markets across North America, and increasingly growing all over the world." In addition to the practical educational ...
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Living People
Purpose: Because living persons may suffer personal harm from inappropriate information, we should watch their articles carefully. By adding an article to this category, it marks them with a notice about sources whenever someone tries to edit them, to remind them of WP:BLP (biographies of living persons) policy that these articles must maintain a neutral point of view, maintain factual accuracy, and be properly sourced. Recent changes to these articles are listed on Special:RecentChangesLinked/Living people. Organization: This category should not be sub-categorized. Entries are generally sorted by family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give .... Maintenance: Individuals of advanced age (over 90), for whom there has been no new documentation in the last ten ...
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Year Of Birth Missing (living People)
A year is a unit of time based on how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. In scientific use, the tropical year (approximately 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds) and the sidereal year (about 20 minutes longer) are more exact. The modern calendar year, as reckoned according to the Gregorian calendar, approximates the tropical year by using a system of leap years. The term 'year' is also used to indicate other periods of roughly similar duration, such as the lunar year (a roughly 354-day cycle of twelve of the Moon's phasessee lunar calendar), as well as periods loosely associated with the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year, the academic year, etc. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons a ...
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Vygotskian
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (, ; ; – June 11, 1934) was a Russian and Soviet psychologist, best known for his work on psychological development in children and creating the framework known as cultural-historical activity theory. After his early death, his books and research were banned in the Soviet Union until Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, with a first collection of major texts published in 1956. His major ideas include: *''The social origin of mind'': Vygotsky believed that human mental and cognitive abilities are not biologically determined, but instead created and shaped by use of language and tools in the process of interacting and constructing the cultural and social environment. *''The importance of mediation'': He saw mediation as the key to human development, because it leads to the use of cultural tools and becomes a pathway for psychological development through the process of interiorization. *''The zone of proximal development'': Vygotsky introduced the concept, w ...
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Information And Communication Technologies
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, as well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage and audiovisual, that enable users to access, store, transmit, understand and manipulate information. ICT is also used to refer to the convergence of audiovisuals and telephone networks with computer networks through a single cabling or link system. There are large economic incentives to merge the telephone networks with the computer network system using a single unified system of cabling, signal distribution, and management. ICT is an umbrella term that includes any communication device, encompassing radio, television, cell phones, computer and network hardware, satellite systems and so on, as well as the various services and appliances with them such as video conferenci ...
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Gender, Technology And Development
''Gender, Technology and Development'' (''GTD'') is a double blind peer-reviewed journal that serves as a forum for exploring the linkages between gender relations, development and/or technological change. The objective of the journal is to provide a platform for original research and theorizing on the shifting meanings of gender, as it relates to advances in science and technologies and/or to social, political, economic, and cultural change. In particular, the journal is interested in addressing these in the context of transnational phenomena and engaging in dialogues that cut across geographical boundaries. It is published three times a year. The journal was founded in 1997 and until 2016 was published by SAGE Publications in association with the Gender and Development Studies program at the Asian Institute of Technology. Since 2017, the journal is published by Taylor and Francis Group, also in association with the Asian Institute of Technology. This journal is a member of the C ...
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Software Framework
In computer programming, a software framework is a software abstraction that provides generic functionality which developers can extend with custom code to create applications. It establishes a standard foundation for building and deploying software, offering reusable components and design patterns that handle common programming tasks within a larger software platform or environment. Unlike libraries where developers call functions as needed, frameworks implement inversion of control by dictating program structure and calling user code at specific points, while also providing default behaviors, structured extensibility mechanisms, and maintaining a fixed core that accepts extensions without direct modification. Frameworks also differ from regular applications that can be modified (like web browsers through extensions, video games through mods), in that frameworks are intentionally incomplete scaffolding meant to be extended through well-defined extension points and followin ...
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Educational Games
Educational games are games explicitly designed with educational purposes, or which have incidental or secondary educational value. All types of games may be used in an educational environment, however educational games are games that are designed to help people learn about certain subjects, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand a historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play. Game types include board, card, and video games. As educators, governments, and parents realize the psychological need and benefits that gaming has on learning, this educational tool has become mainstream. Games are interactive play that teach goals, rules, adaptation, problem solving, interaction, all represented as a story. They satisfy a fundamental need to learn by providing enjoyment, passionate involvement, structure, motivation, ego gratification, adrenaline, creativity, social interaction and emotion in the game itself while the learning takes place. Vid ...
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South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Ocean; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini; and it encloses Lesotho. Covering an area of , the country has Demographics of South Africa, a population of over 64 million people. Pretoria is the administrative capital, while Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament of South Africa, Parliament, is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is regarded as the judicial capital. The largest, most populous city is Johannesburg, followed by Cape Town and Durban. Cradle of Humankind, Archaeological findings suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa about 2.5 million years ago, and modern humans inhabited the ...
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National Research Foundation Of South Africa
South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF) is the intermediary agency between the policies and strategies of the Government of South Africa and South Africa's research institutions. History It was established on 1 April 1999 as an autonomous statutory body in accordance with the ''National Research Foundation Act''. Dr Fulufhelo Nelwamondo has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the National Research Foundation of South Africa with effect from 1 April 2021. The NRF Board is chaired by Prof Mosa Moshabela. Functions The NRF has three main functions: #to support research and innovation, through its agency, ''Research and Innovation Support and Advancement'' (RISA); #to encourage an interest in science and technology through its business unit, the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement' (SAASTA); # to facilitate high-end research through its ''National Research Facilities'' ( South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity; Hartebees ...
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