Magister Educationis - MEd / Writing is an important skill throughout learners’ schooling trajectory because it is through writing that learners need to situate meaning and sense-making across the curriculum. Writing proficiency becomes even more important when learners access tertiary studies. Yet studies suggest that most students struggle with academic writing. Various authors suggest that writing has not been taught appropriately especially in secondary schooling contexts in South Africa and that writing becomes even more daunting for Second Language speakers of English when they reach tertiary education. There is abundant literature on students’ challenges with academic writing and ways to address academic writing challenges but the use of digital storytelling in relation to academic writing development is recent and distinctively underexplored in the literature. In this study, I seek to explore the potential that digital storytelling has in the teaching of undergraduate academic writing skills. I will focus on first year students' academic writing skills, how they are taught currently and how technology in the form of digital storytelling can help first year students improve their academic writing skills. The theoretical framework for the study is largely based on the New Literacies Studies which is championed by members of the New London Group such as Street and Street (1984) Lea and Street (2006) among others. The theoretical framework will draw on the notion of literacy as social practice rather than a set of reading and writing skills which explains why educators need to find new ways of teaching academic writing skills. I use semiotics and multimodality as a foundational concept for using digital storytelling in academic writing. That is because semiotics and multimodality further support the idea that literacy goes beyond words but that audio and visual elements are also part of learning and can help engage students in their academic work. The main aim of this proposed research is to explore both students and lecturer practices of digital literacies in the teaching and learning of academic writing at The Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).

In order to fulfil its missionary task the church needs good leaders. However, there is a huge shortage of leaders and many of the people who step forward to fill the gap, are not trained. This study looks at what is needed in a training system to produce enough of the right kind of leaders to lead the church in fulfilling its missionary task. However, training people has little value if they are not going to be given the opportunity to take part in the ministry. This leads to the conclusion that the church does not only need the right training system, it also has to break with the Professional Church Model, so that the priesthood of all believers will not continue to be a theological assertion only, but become an experiential reality. In this light the study then evaluates the two major models used by the church to prepare its leaders, namely the Traditional Residential Academic Model and Theological Education by Extension. The evaluation shows that the Traditional Residential Academic Model has serious weaknesses. Theological Education by Extension introduced a new paradigm, namely in-service training. It overcomes many of the weaknesses of the Traditional Residential Academic Model, but it also has its share of problems. The Daystar Training Model is then introduced and evaluated. It takes the in-service paradigm further and overcomes some of the problems that Theological Education by Extension could not solve. The evaluation shows that Daystar has the potential to provide the leaders the church needs to fulfil its missionary task. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Science of Religion and Missiology / unrestricted