South Africa Institute for Distance Education Team Members
Neil Butcher (Project Manager)
Neil Butcher is based in South Africa, from where he has provided policy and technical advice and support to a range of national and international clients regarding educational planning, uses of educational technology and distance education, both as a full-time employee at the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) from 1993 to 2001 and as Director of Neil Butcher & Associates. He has worked with various educational institutions, assisting with institutional transformation efforts that focus on harnessing the potential of distance education methods and educational technology as effectively as possible. Neil has travelled extensively through Africa conducting research on higher education, distance education, and educational technology for a range of organizations. He is currently working as an OER Strategist with SAIDE on its new OER Africa Initiative, which is funded by the Hewlett Foundation and is managing the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa’s Educational Technology Initiative.
Neil has developed a range of instructional materials for various types of educators, including education policymakers, development agency staff, teachers, and universities. In the field of IT applications, he is leading the development of South Africa’s national education portal for the Department of Education www.thutong.org.za. He has managed a range of online database and web development projects for various organizations, including a student portal for the Federation of Tertiary Institutions of the Northern Metropolis (FOTIM), Higher Education South Africa, International Association for Digital Publications, UNESCO, and the Southern African Regional Universities’ Association.
Cathy MacDonald (Project Administrator/Coordinator)
Cathy MacDonald who completed her Bachelor of Science (Honours) Degree in Education and Information and Communications Technology at the University of Durham, England returned to South Africa in 2001 and commenced working as a Project Manager at Neil Butcher and Associates (NBA). For the past nine years, Cathy has specialized in the implementation and management of projects pertaining to the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) for educational purposes she has gained valuable experience in all facets and disciplines within the education sector, both nationally and internationally. In 2009, Cathy completed her Master’s Degree in Computer-integrated Education at the University of Pretoria.
Andrew Moore (Educational Technology Specialist)
Andrew Moore completed a M.Ed degree specialising in Computer Assisted Education at the University of Pretoria in 2002. He also has 14 years experience of teaching secondary education in Cape Town (Westerford High), Durban (Kearnsey College) and Johannesburg (St Stithians College) where he was appointed Director of IT (Academic). He has worked at Neil Butcher and Associates for the last five and half years where he has worked as an author, materials developer, instructional designer, web interface designer and educational technology trainer. He is currently a project manager.
Brenda Mallinson (Educational Technology Specialist)
Brenda is currently employed as Programme Specialist (ICTs in Education) at the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) in Johannesburg, working on a number of Educational Technology projects in sub-Saharan Africa mainly in the area of online course design and development. She is also a Research Associate at the Department of Information Systems, Rhodes University, South Africa, having previously lectured in this Department from 1999 to 2007. During this time she also lectured and consulted in the field of Project Management at various levels at Rhodes University (both under- and post-graduate modules up to MBA) and at the University of Fort Hare (Dept of GIS and Remote Sensing). Prior to this, her growing interest in Educational Technology prompted a move from a lecturing position in the Computer Science Department to run the Computer Based Education Unit (CBEU) at Rhodes University from 1994 to 1998. While at the University, Brenda established and led a research group in Advanced Learning Technologies (ALT), as well as implementing a post-graduate coursework module in ALT for Information Systems and Computer Science students, both at Rhodes University and at the University of Fort Hare.
Tessa Welch (Educational Technology Specialist)
Since being employed at SAIDE in 1996, Tessa has worked with the national Department of Education in teacher education policy particularly in respect of teacher upgrading, and with large providers such as the University of Pretoria and UNISA in evaluation and professional development for distance education design and delivery. She has also worked in the field of quality assurance, both with South Africa’s Higher Education Quality Committee and the South African distance education organization, NADEOSA. The main product of this work is a set of quality criteria and case studies from South Africa that exemplify good practice.
Sheila Drew (Educational Technology Specialist)
Sheila is currently a senior education specialist at SAIDE. She is also part of the SAIDE team working with the University of Pretoria on the redevelopment of their B Ed (Foundation and Intermediate Phase). Her programme and materials development experience is extensive, including Project manager and editor for development of materials for Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) Programme in Communications and Numeracy; team leader for action-reflection research and review of Foundation Phase / BEd programmes across five Higher Education Institutions, funded by Royal Netherlands Embassy; writer of Teacher Educator Guidance for Open Education Resources (OER) project TESSA (Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa); and o-author and editor of Teacher Training Manuals on Inclusive Education as part of the roll out of Education White Paper 6 for the Department of Education.
Centre for Education and Technology Team Members
Sharman Wickham (Research Specialist)
Sharman Wickham has worked as an independent researcher in higher education since 1995. During this time, she has conducted research and evaluation studies for individual universities, sectoral bodies (e.g. the Council on Higher Education), non-governmental organisations (e.g. the Rural Education Access Programme) and international funders (e.g. the European Union’s Framework Programme). Her chief interests focus on changes and developments in research-related activities in universities (e.g. institutional support required for the emergence of new fields of knowledge) and teaching and learning (e.g. factors that facilitate and inhibit student success). Sharman has developed materials for use by staff and their post-graduate students and has facilitated numerous workshops in project design, research methodologies, and writing and disseminating research findings for both academic and wider audiences (e.g. policy-makers).
Monica Mawoyo (Research Specialist)
Monica Mawoyo's areas of interest and expertise are monitoring and evaluation, research, organisational process mapping, advocacy and technical assistance in ICTs in education, organisational transformation, and education policy implementation. Monica has country work experience in Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda. She has worked on regional projects like Nepad e-schools business case development, Partners in Learning (PiL) WECA and Partnership for Higher Education In Africa Educational Technology Initiative (PHEA ETI), and South African national projects like Sheltered employment factory situational and options analysis, state of readiness for achieving universal access to Grade R, e-education feasibility study, and the impact of the educator in mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS.