TELIT-SA is the exploration hub for dedicated research on the theory and practice of learning technologies in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.
The aim of this innovative entity is to support and help realise the NWU’s commitment towards excellence in inventive learning and teaching practices and conducting cutting-edge research. In short: creating technology pathways that will blur the traditional distinction between learning about technology and learning with technology.
Verona: an educator at heart
Verona describes herself as a hard working, self-driven, critical thinker and her personal and professional accomplishments thus far bear testament to this self reflection.
Growing up in Pacaltsdorp, a former mission station bordering the town of George in the Western Cape, Verona was the youngest of six children. After completing a diploma in education from the Belville College of Education in 1994, she returned home to teach mathematics and technology for close to 17 years at Pacaltsdorp Primary.
As a firm believer of the fundamental value of education, Verona set course for academic advancement and completed joined the NWU alumni family as a graduate with several degrees to her name.
While persuing her master’s degree from 2008 to 2010, she conducted research as part of a large scale international study on the integration of technology in mathematics education.
Sticking to her passion for mathematics education, she obtained her doctoral degree in 2013, after sucsesfully developing guidelines for the professional development of mathematics teachers to integrate technology in their reaching and learning practices. A highlight during this time was her participation in the PhD exchange programme at the University of Eastern Finland, which saw her studying within the field of computer sciences in 2012.
The start of her journey as an NWU expert
After her stint as a postdoctoral fellow in Finland, Verona joined the NWU’s campus in Vanderbijlpark as a senior lecturer in the former Faculty of Economic and Information Sciences and an academic advisor at the campus’s Centre of Teaching and Learning.
She explaines that as a technology orientated lecturer, she quickly found herself doing research on ways to absorb technology within the learning process. One such a project saw the development of a statistics game to assist students to understand the concepts of statistics with examples more contextual to what students experience in their daily lives.
The rest is as they say, history.
Verona found her feet as a researcher in TELIT-SA under the then leadership of her mentor, Prof Seugnet Blignaut, and she was well on her way to develop her passion for the seamless integration of technology and the development of artefacts for teaching and learning.
Today, as the head of TELIT-SA, she lives the dream of conducting groundbreaking research to inform innovative teaching and learning with technology through interdisciplinary collaboration and scholarship. And how does she do this? By establishing an empowering, culturally sensitive, diverse environment that provides opportunities and to establish trust, mutual respect, and care towards achieving excellence in research.
Prof Verona Leendertz.
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