Laura Czerniewicz

Director

Associate Professor Laura Czerniewicz became the first Director of CILT in August 2014 - relishing the fresh, space for engaging with issues of teaching and learning as the heart and focus of the enterprise. Appointed as the first director of the Centre for Education Technology (CET) in 2005, Laura was behind UCT’s first educational technology policy and at the forefront of bringing technology more firmly into the classroom in a traditional university. In 2010, she was seconded to run OpenUCT, spearheading the open scholarship agenda, (including the UCT Open Access policy and repository) and then mainstreaming the work into the university library.

An NRF-rated researcher, Laura has published widely, both formally and informally. Her research has focused on the technologically-mediated practices of students and staff and the changing higher education environment. She believes that research and practice are closer inter-linked and that there is “nothing as practical as a good theory”. While Laura maintains that her work in this field is made possible by a “high tolerance for ambiguity”, it is equally possible that her work is fuelled by an inability to be bored and a passion for interesting work. Underpinning this is a keen awareness of the extent to which the higher education environment is characterised by digitally-mediated learning, and a commitment to surfacing the expressions of inequality in emergent contexts.

Laura’s work extends beyond the bounds of UCT. She is involved in policy work regionally and internationally, and is a regularly invited keynote and panellist presenter in South Africa and internationally as well as serving on the advisory boards of a variety of international educational and technology publications. 

Most of Laura’s outputs are available on http://open.uct.ac.za

laura.czerniewicz@uct.ac.za
021 650
Room 7.38.5, Floor 7, PD Hahn Building
 

Brown, C; Czerniewicz, L; Noakes, T. (2016) Online content creation: looking at students’ social media practices through a Connected Learning lens in the Journal of Learning, Media and Technology, 46(1). VoR, doi/abs/10.1080/17439884.2015.1107097?journalCode=cjem20. 

Brown, C; Czerniewicz, L; Huang C-W & Mayisela T (2016) (In collaboration with the C-DELTA CILT Advisory Group). Curriculum for Digital Education Leadership: A concept paper. University of Cape Town, Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching

Brown, C, Czerniewicz, L., Mayisela T. & Huang, C-W (in press). A practice based approach theorizing digital education leadership. Conference proceedings for the 8th Pan-Commonwealth Forum to be held on 27-30 November 2016 under the auspices of the Open University Malaysia.

Czerniewicz, Laura. (2016) Student practices in copyright culture: accessing learning resources in the Journal of Learning, Media and Technology. VoR, doi/full/10.1080/17439884.2016.1160928, MS at https://goo.gl/9BhkNF. 

Czerniewicz,L; Goodier, S and Morrell, R (2016): Southern knowledge online? Climate change research discoverability and communication practices, in Information, Communication & Society, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1168473 Postprint at http://goo.gl/8Pvw2U 

Czerniewicz, L; Glover, M; Deacon, A; Walji, S. (2016) MOOCs, openness and changing educator practices: an Activity Theory case study. Paper presented a the Networked Learning Conference, Lancaster, England, 9 - 11 May 2016. 

Glover, M; Czerniewicz, L; Walji, S; Deacon, A; Small, J. (2016) Approaches from the literature: Activity Theory, new tools and changing educators' practices. Poster for presentation at Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa, North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, 17 - 20 November 2015.

Kell, C and Czerniewicz. L. (2016, in press)  Visibility of Scholarly Research and Changing Research Communication Practices: A Case Study from Namibia In Esposito, A (Ed)  Research 2.0 and the Impact of Digital Technologies on Scholarly Inquiry IGI Global. Postprint at http://goo.gl/ptxCfc.

Walji, S; Deacon, A; Small, J & Czerniewicz, L. (2016) Learning through engagement: MOOCs as an emergent form of provision in the Distance Education, 37(2), 208-223. VoR, doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2016.1184400, MS at  goo.gl/799rqZ. 

Twitter: @czernie
Blog: http://lauraczerniewicz.uct.ac.za