International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT), 2005, Vol. 1, Issue 2, pp. 3-24. Guest Editorial for Special Issue on Southern Africa Growing communities of practice among educational technology researchers and practitioners in development-oriented contexts: Linking local and global debates Laura Czerniewicz and Tony Carr University of Cape Town ABSTRACT This editorial starts from the context of disparities in access between the North and the South and within the Southern African region. The authors then explore the origins of the papers in the e/merge 2004 online conference which was designed to support the growth of communities of practice of educational technology researchers and practitioners across Southern Africa. This special issue represents a shift from a time-bound community of practice event to publication within an ongoing community focussed on the use of educational technology within and across developing countries. SOUTHERN AFRICA AS A GLOBAL ICT MICROCOSM This special issue of IJEDICT concerns the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education in Southern Africa. This is a region in which global disparities between technologically well-endowed and economically restricted uses of ICT in education are starkly apparent. The articles in this issue point to many of the challenges facing educators and researchers concerned with finding and building contextually appropriate and flexible approaches to the uses of ICT in development-oriented settings. The focus on Southern Africa in this issue is the outcome of an earlier regional online conference, e/merge 2004, which we saw as providing rich material for a wider ICT and education audience. Economic conditions frame access to ICT nationally and regionally, and play an enormous role in determining how ICT is situated and contextualised in less developed countries. They often mask innovations and local initiatives which are important illustrations of what it is possible to conceptualise and realise. It is crucial that the work of early adopters, of devoted educators and of centres, units and research groups is seen against the backdrop of prevailing issues of access to ICT. Again and again, access is a primary factor which enables and yet also restricts our students’ changing literacies, of which ICT is now a part. In order to provide context for the articles in this special issue we will: • Discuss inequalities in access across and between regions and within countries in Southern Africa; • Make some brief observations concerning national policy frameworks; • Explore the emergence of communities of practice of educational technology in Southern Africa; • Explain the genesis of this issue in the e/merge 2004 online conference on Collaborative Blended Learning in Southern Africa;