By:Kelebogile Paadi

At the height of the pandemic in 2020 amidst the tight travel restrictions, I found myself in a foreign country and could not return back home to South Africa, which meant continuing with my work where I was, and thanks to technology I was able to conduct my teaching and learning across space. I am a senior lecturer at the School of Industrial Psychology and Human Resources Management at the Mahikeng Campus and since the outbreak of the pandemic, most universities moved to online teaching and learning to salvage the academic year.

One of the tools which I relied on was the basic Zoom limited to forty-five minutes to ensure that I could still engage with my students. This frustrated both myself and my students when now most students had managed to connect and we are about to start with the lesson then the time will be up. At the time I was just learning how to use Zoom and did not know that I could just set the meeting as recurring – so every time our time ran out I would create a new link and send it on eFundi so we can connect again. This led me to explore other platforms and finally settled on Google Meet – no downloads where needed and no time limit. It took almost two months for everyone to get used to attending an online class. Once we found our comfortable space, other challenges arose some beyond our control. At the top of the list were load shedding, data access, and unstable network connections.

Now on my side the network was always stable and there was always backup should there be electrical problems, so I was not experiencing what my students were going through, this made it difficult sometimes to accept or believe when students send messages that there was load shedding or the network was unstable. I guess sometimes I would just forget that I am in a different country and our situations are not the same. These schedules were not the same across South Africa and students were scattered over the different provinces, so when you postpone an assessment or a class to accommodate those in Mahikeng then those in another area will also send messages that they will have no power during certain times.

Some of the students used these challenges as an excuse not to submit their assessments or attend the online sessions although for some it was a reality. The time difference was only an hour between the two countries and little did I know that it would make such a big difference. There were times I will join meetings an hour late as my laptop had automatically changed the time settings as soon as I arrived. Fridays also became a bit problematic as in the Arab countries their weekends on a Thursday and when everyone in the house relaxes and goes out on Fridays I had to work, but I enjoyed the Sundays as the rest of my family returned to work or school and I was able to catch up on work.

Colleagues and students would often call on my mobile phone and I would quickly have to put the phone down and call them back using WhatsApp call so their airtime would not get depleted. Amidst all the challenges we managed to successfully complete our semester. The second semester I was able to cope much better as I had put some strategies in place for myself to ensure I am in sync with my colleagues and students back home. One of the intervention strategies was to send out a message to my colleagues and students to only call me on WhatsApp and not make direct calls, I made sure I set up online class times and meetings at times that would be suitable for everyone. The key to successful virtual working arrangements is proper planning and communication. Let people know that you are in a different country, how they can reach you, and when is the best time to do that due to different times zones.

I remember at the infant stages of the fourth industrial revolution there was a lot of anxiety about the shift to digital online platforms, but during this time I was happy to embrace new technologies that allowed me to continue with my work wherever I was. I now understand that technological advancements were meant to help us work smarter and faster and not to replace us.  It made it very easy for me to work away from my normal workstation. The world of work is taking a different shape and people can work from any location if they have the right resources and support systems in place.