Cape of Storms or Cape of Good Hope? Educational technology in a changing environment

Abstract

AbstractThis article locates and describes the work of the Multimedia Education Group (MEG) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). This work is contextualised by three national and international challenges, these being (1) the need to increase access to new technologies and overcome the digital divide, (2) the need to respond to a new communication order, and (3) the urgency of transforming higher education in post‐apartheid South Africa. Operating in a fragmented policy environment, MEG has focused on developing educationally appropriate low‐cost interventions, supporting academically disadvantaged students, and understanding the relationship between online and contact educational interventions. MEG's experiences suggest that this kind of emergent work requires new ways of working, contributing to transformation within the institution itself. The work also creates epistemological challenges because it is interdisciplinary and because educational technology is a field that is not yet firmly established.