Setting the Scene for South Africa’s Digital Aspiration

Here is some reading about South Africa's digital aspirations. Click here to access the article in pdf format.

19th World Conference on Mobile, Blended and Seamless Learning

2-4 November 2020 in Cairo!

The interesting option is that online presentations will be available. Click here for more information.

Online teaching hints

From Monday, 27 July, South African public schools are in lockdown again. We hope that all learners will one day have the ability to participate in online teaching, but in the meantime teachers can work on their skills to use it.

Image by chenspec from Pixabay

In March, The Conversation published an article with 14 easy tips for online teaching. It is perhaps a good idea to explore this again in view of the new lockdown. Here they are:

• Record your lectures – don’t stream them
• Show your face
• Keep videos short
• Test out slides
• Use existing resources … and make sure they’re open access
• Give specific instructions
• Provide interactive activities
• Set reasonable expectations
• Use auto-checking to measure attendance
• Use group communication carefully
• Let students take control
• Don’t hide your feelings
• Repeat

Here is a pdf file of the article. Our thanks to The Conversation for the valuable information.

Converting a pdf document to an MSWord document

People normally ask for the original MSWord document from which a pdf document, which they have, has been made. However, the MSWord document is not always available.

Various conversion apps/programmes are available; some free and some at a price. Online conversion services are also available. I have tried a few of the conversion services but I have neither found a free one nor an online one that does the job perfectly. There are always a few things that do not convert perfectly, but that is understandable if the nature of a pdf file is taken into consideration. Paid versions might do it better.

On the online side, I have had rather good success with https://pdf2docx.com/, but sometimes one does not want to entrust your files to the internet.

So, what to do? Answer: Just use your own MSWord programme on your computer. I am currently using the subscription service of Microsoft Office 365, and converting a pdf file to an MSWord can be done with it. I think since MSWord 2013 can be used as well. Certain things in the files still need to be manually corrected/formatted as is the case with other services.

The steps (on my machine) are as follows:

1. If MSWord is already open.

1.1 Click on File. This is what I then see.

1.2 Click on Open.
1.3 An "Open" window will show up. Browse to find the folder where your pdf file is. Select the pdf file you want to convert. In the Open window, ensure that you change the type of files you see (bottom right-hand corner of the window).
1.4 Click OK and there you go!

2. When MSWord is not open.
2.1 Launch/open MSWord. This is what I then see on my machine.

2.2 Click on Open.

2.3 Follow the above-mentioned steps from 1.3.

Hope this will help!

Free State Amended Documents Related To The Revised Annual Teaching Plans Are Available

Image by Dmitry Abramov from Pixabay 

Important information to take note of in addition to the mediation that was done before.

Applicable on all grade 10 to 12 teachers.




The Covid-19 National Revised Annual Teaching Plans (ATPs) for grades 10 to 12 were modified to be in line with the latest school calendar (see this page for the dates).

In the case of grades 11 and 10, provincial modifications to the ATPs were also affected. Therefore, amended Assessment Frameworks and a document with fundamental topics are also available now.

All these latest documents, plus media files to explain the recent changes, are available on the Covid-19 page. Click here to go there and follow further instructions to access and download.