Author: Ramiz Ali Page 2 of 4

Transformation of higher education is an intricate issue. Universities are service organisations with complex hierarchical structures, as well as numerous internal and external policies and regulations to adhere to. Consequently, diffusion of innovations at the institutional level is often challenging for university leaders. Nonetheless, globalisation and changing student needs, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic, are compelling universities to reassess their strategies for diffusion of innovations and digital transformation. The critical question that arises is, how digital technologies can be harnessed to transform higher education and align with the primary functions of universities: teaching and research. The mentioned below are some of the key areas to focus. 

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Personalised learning is a pedagogical approach that focuses on meeting the unique needs, strengths, backgrounds, and learning aspirations of individual learners in the process of designing and delivering instruction. A key concept of personalised learning is placing the learner at the centre of instruction and giving them the freedom to choose and control their learning process and experience.

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ChatGPT is an advanced language model powered by AI and developed by OpenAI, a US-based company. It has been trained on a diverse range of internet text, enabling it to generate responses that are similar to those of a human being to a wide array of questions and prompts. Since its introduction in late 2022, it has become a widely discussed topic, not only amongst educators and educational organisations, but also in academic circles. This is largely due to concerns about the potential for misuse by students and researchers and the risks it may pose to academic and research integrity.

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Several weeks ago, I saw a student campaign on social media against their university’s decision to use an online proctoring software for the invigilation of semester exams. Some of the students were highly resistant to install the software to their personal devices and were “ready to drop” their courses if the university wouldn’t change its plans. But why would students of the current generation demonstrate such resistance towards technology?

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“Learner engagement” is a common terminology amongst teachers, educators, and educational institutions. It also often appears in the academic literature and is given such an emphasis in many instances where technology enhanced learning such as blended learning is discussed. The question, however, is what do we mean by learner engagement, and why learner engagement is given such prominence?

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‘Blended learning’ has been a buzzword in the recent times. Multiple scholars have described blended learning as the ‘new normal’ in higher education. However, what do we mean by blended learning? Why, what, and how are we blending?

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The technological advancements have been massive in the last few decades and have penetrated almost all the aspects of our lives. Technology have rapidly been evolved and offers various new ways of supporting teaching and learning. With these remarkable developments, a plethora of technology have been used in education including Web2.0 tools (e.g., wikis, blogs, social media tools), mobile technology, gamification tools, learning management systems, virtual worlds, and MOOCs, to name a few. A key question, however, is what should we consider in selecting technology for teaching and learning?

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Blended learning has increasingly been adopted in the last two decades and appeared to be more popular since the global pandemic COVID-19. Even though blended learning is no longer a new mode of teaching, many schools and universities have recently put an incredible effort on teacher training for blended teaching. However, the question is what knowledge and skills are needed by teachers for blended teaching? Are there any identified blended teaching competencies for teachers? These questions are important because knowing teacher competencies can help institutions to align their teacher professional development programs with the needs of teachers.

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