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The article presents the narratives of two academics with mobility impairments who work in the largest open distance learning higher education institution in South Africa. We share our experiences as we navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic and reflect on this phase. For many people, life will never be the same after this pandemic; people have had to adapt and adjust to the demands of the "new normal" and will have to keep on adapting in the future as well. For all of us, this will be the new way of life. However, people with disabilities usually do not have a "normal"; they are often excluded, isolated and are considered to be the "other." This article explores how we, who are considered as "other" academics, experience this "new normal." Using the narrative research design, as authors of this article we present our personal narratives of living through the COVID-19 transition and its impact on our academic lives. The article also presents our conflicting emotions, as well as reflections on what the "new normal" is likely to bring to our academic lives. Dialogues in the field of people with disabilities and academia are usually uncomfortable because they focus on feelings of being stranded and how academics with disabilities cope with daily anxiety. In sharing our unique experiences, we assume that these narratives might add further insights to the dialogues.

Educational technology (ed tech) coaches can help teachers and students integrate iPad affordances into their teaching and learning. A brief overview of affordance theory is provided. While investigating the under-researched practices of ed tech coaches, the authors identified iPad affordances and tabulated these, revealing links between the iPad's technological capabilities, technological affordances and pedagogical affordances. Nine iPad technological capabilities, such as the camera, were aligned with some of their technological affordances, such as taking a photo. These were matched to some pedagogical affordances, such as taking a photo for educational purposes. Finally, different categories in the table were combined into six broad strands unveiling how ed tech coaches use them to change teacher pedagogy with benefits for teachers, students and parents. Ed tech coaches often naturally build teachers' TPACK, mostly through the SAMR model. Specifically, they change teachers' pedagogy by focusing on polysynchronous teaching and learning; digital, transformed learning; student ownership of learning with teachers as facilitators; students as teachers of content and technology; teachers' triple agendas of content elaboration, academic argument, and digital citizenship; and student creativity.

This paper intends to provide an understanding of pedagogical integration of ICTs to facilitate ICT teacher preparation that promotes productive use of these digital technologies in the classroom. A qualitative multicase study of three school teachers selected for their successful ICT pedagogical integration into their teaching was conducted in three South African township secondary schools. In the findings, teachers created rich learning environments enhanced by their purposeful and proficient integration of ICTs into their teaching. In addition, there was consistency between the teachers' espoused and enacted practices as both digital (ICTs) and non-digital media augmented each other in the teaching process.

In the South African context, the schooling returns of young African males aged 20-29 increased significantly between 1975 and 1985, whereas the returns enjoyed by older African males improved only negligibly. This paper shows that an improvement in schooling quality for Africans between the early sixties and early seventies partly explains the rise in schooling returns. (28 references) (MLH)

Despite the disenfranchisement of blacks in South Africa, the state's refusal to officially recognize black unions until 1980, and police repression of the union movement, this analysis of data for 1985 shows that black unions in South Africa had by that year made wage gains similar to those of unions in more developed countries. The union effect on wages for black blue-collar workers was 24%, which is in the range of effects found in studies of U.S. unions and above the range of effects found for European unions. Another finding is that black unions compressed wages across skill levels, an effect probably owing to black unions' primary emphasis on improving the lot of unskilled workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]