i AUTHOR: Prof Jan Nieuwenhuis Editor-in-Chief. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.18820/2519593X/pie. v38i1.Editorial e-ISSN 2519-593X Perspectives in Education 2020 38(1): i-iii PUblisHed: 11 June 2020 TURNiNG A NeW PAGe Welcome to a new look Perspectives in Education. Not only did the cover of Perspectives in Education change, but also its Editor in Chief, Managing Editor, Editorial Board and a new reviewer team. In addition, we have moved online to offer our authors and reviewers a much better system of tracking the progress of articles and an ease of communication with the editorial team. May I use this opportunity to thank everyone who was part of this turning a new page. I trust that we will be able to offer our authors a much better system as we move towards the ideal of providing authors with an outcome on their articles submitted within six months. You are always welcome to provide us with your ideas to improve and better our service to the education fraternity. In line with all the technological changes and advances that PiE adopted, it also found a new home at the University’s technological hub and campus for Open Distance Learning, the South Campus in Bloemfontein. 1. ediTORiAl In his well-known work “Future Shock” Alvin Toffler (1980) wrote about “the avalanche of change,” but most of us have never experienced it like in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole world came to a standstill as countries closed their borders and went into lockdown. This had a massive impact on schools and universities that had to send their students home and had to adopt an online learning approach to continue with the education of their students. Many of the residential universities were grossly unprepared for this. Although most of the universities had programmes that have moved to a blended learning approach, many were still oriented towards face-to-face teaching and learning. In this issue we provide some valuable input on the use of electronic and digital resources to offer our students a quality education. In the first four articles look specifically at aspects of e-learning and blended learning. Jacqueline Batchelor looks at designing for vibrant and robust communities of practice in blended learning environments. Jacqueline argues that by placing CoPs central to the design of the blended learning programme affords students an authentic learning experience in higher education with an opportunity to make design decisions explicit, thereby contributing to the overall impact of the programme in the education sector. In the second article, Swanepoel and Bruwer discuss the “always-on generation” in an “Instant(gram) #blendedlearning” environment. They posit https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0205-2042 http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v38i1.Editorial http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v38i1.Editorial http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v38i1.Editorial ii that the anticipated Fourth Industrial Revolution and the non-linear sharing of information have afforded tertiary education institutions with opportunities to apply new technology to their pedagogy model. The study found that Instagram creates an always-on learner, who thinks about the module outside of lectures. In the next article by Makina podcasts are looked at in the context of an open, distance and e-learning environment. The three articles are highly relevant to the current debate in higher education and the migration to the use of new technology to mediate learning. The next group of articles takes the discourse further by looking at an array of subject offerings. Melikhaya Skhephe, Ntombekhaya Princess Caga, and Robert Mwali Boadzo interrogate accounting teachers’ readiness for e-learning in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In their research they concluded that accounting classrooms are not designed in a way that supports e-learning, and that Accounting teachers do not understand how e-learning benefits classroom teaching. Ngwenya also look at Accounting and specifically at the assets teachers identified for the teaching of Accounting in a rural secondary school. The study found that Accounting teachers used capacities, skills and resources from the school, neighbouring schools and wider community outside the school to improve their teaching practices. Mishack Gumbo reports on the professional development of Technology teachers and poses the question whether the professional development training offered to them meet their needs. The three articles reveal the deeper lying concerns regarding the challenges of effective teaching in the more disadvantaged rural areas. The next group of articles look at a different set of research challenges. Suriamurthee Maistry looks at transactional ethics as a response to a recent article by Nieuwoudt, Dickie, Coetsee, Engelbrecht and Terblanche (2019), that has attracted considerable negative attention, leading to its official withdrawal from circulation. In this article by Maistry the issue of “intentionality and (un)witting Othering” is considered. It is argued that there is a need to reconsider the practice of transactional ethics. Arendt’s concept of the banality (of evil) has resonance, as it speaks to the notion of “blissful oblivion of complicity”, even in the context of a widespread contemporary discourse of social transformation and decolonisation in South African higher education. Hereafter we turn our attention to higher education and look at issues such as the textbook burner on students; the role of motivation and self-efficacy in the success of doctoral students and pre-service student teachers’ perspective on why they have chosen education. Using a quantitative study, Roelf Reyneke looks at teachers’ use of the circle of courage in the classroom and argues that teachers could improve their teaching strategies linked to the principles of belonging, mastery, independence and generosity. The study by Ndlovu, Proches and Naidoo investigated ethical challenges in high school football at circuit level. They found that the environment in which school football operates is not conducive to promoting ethical leadership. This study also found that ethical leadership is a key contributor to the holistic development and socialisation of learners. In another study by Madosi, Spangenberg and Ramdhany on the values learners consider as important in the learning of mathematics, it was established that learners identified five values that they associate with mathematics. The authors concluded that values influence the way learners choose to engage with mathematical tasks, and eventually how they will perform in the subject. Therefore, mindfulness by teachers about what values learners consider as important in their learning of mathematics, afford teachers the opportunity to use pedagogical approaches that will include these values. iii In the latter part of this edition of PIE, we turn out attention to science education. Kazeni introduces us to the strategies used by grade four educators to decode science terminology while Durandt and Lautenbach consider strategic support to students’ competency development in the mathematical modelling process. Jackson, De Beer and White then discuss the affective affordances of frugal science (using foldscopes) during a life sciences water quality practical. All of these pedagogical strategies discussed in the articles are of immense importance to the success of the pedagogical endeavour and make a significant contribution to the body of understanding. The last three articles are a bit diverse but are nonetheless of significance. I would like to draw your attention to the article by Bayat and Fataar that looks at an aspect of the education system that is seldom studied: marginalised occupations such as school clerks. The authors conclude that through participation in the sociocultural contexts of their workplaces and organisations, participants can and do accumulate and deploy participatory capital, which forms the basis for their enhanced agency whereby they engage in productive practices and reposition their occupational identities, which endows them with greater status and influence. The last article hails from Zimbabwe and addresses the very topical issue of “Ubuntulising” curriculum change and implementation. Perspectives in Education hopes to publish a book review(s) with every edition. In this edition we review the book edited by Jonathan Jansen and Cyrill Walters. The book is very topical to current discourses around race and society. You are welcome to submit any book recently publish for review by PiE. We have already started on the December 2020 issue. This year we will not have a special issue. To clear our backlog of articles received last year, we have decided to have two ordinary editions this year and park the special edition for 2021. Enjoy the June Edition that is packed with high-quality thought-provoking articles that will stimulate your academic taste buds. _GoBack