Abstract

Around the world, the affordances of educational technologies are constantly evolving due to significant efforts to adopt emerging technological pedagogies in higher education teaching and learning environments. However, the persistent challenge of ineffective integration of information and communication technologies in higher education persists, despite the pressing need for a paradigm shift toward student-centered, innovative instructional strategies that promote the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education. This study adopts the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework as its theoretical underpinning to address the dynamic needs of students. The purpose of this study is to explore the use of the master’s and doctoral (M&D) dashboard as a computing tool and to describe how cloud computing can support the ideals of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Using a qualitative methodology, a purposive sample of eighteen postgraduate students and six alumni were selected from the Department of Mathematics Education at a public university in South Africa. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Four key themes emerged from the data: online collaboration, a convenient platform for teaching and learning, isolation from human relationships, and difficulty in access. While the findings reveal diverse perspectives, the study concludes that cloud computing platforms can enable supervisors and students to practice and realize the ideals of the SoTL.