The Commonwealth Digital Education Leadership Training in Action (C-DELTA) project is a programme of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) that intends to promote digital education in the Commonwealth nations. C-DELTA aims to engage with governments, educational institutions, teachers and civil society organisations to develop learning materials around digital education, assess digital education competencies and provide training opportunities for students, educators and policy makers.
To this end, COL commissioned a research team based at the Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CILT), University of Cape Town, to develop a concept paper with the aim of theorising a curriculum framework for digital education leadership. In April 2016, the research team (comprised of Cheryl Brown, Laura Czerniewicz, Tabisa Mayisela and Chen-Wen Huang) convened a group of international experts for a two-day workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, to discuss and conceptualise a framework for the curriculum. The Advisory Group (AG) participants at the workshop came from different countries: Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, Mauritius, Pakistan, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
In addition, virtual input was received from experts in Australia, Sri Lanka and the USA. The experts came from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including curriculum design, educational research, educational technology, open and distance learning, and literacy studies. At the workshop, a preliminary draft document was the catalyst for intense discussion, which continued online through contributions in a range of formats, resulting in a genuinely collaborative concept paper.
The Concept Paper is published under a creative commons license on COL’s digital repository. The project also presented a paper at the Pan Commonwealth Forum (PCF8) in Malaysia in November 2016. Phase 2 involved the development and piloting of the curriculum which will be produced as an OER.