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Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework
1. Emerging Technologies in South
African Higher Education Institutions:
Towards a teaching and learning
framework
Dick Ng’ambi1, Daniela Gachago2, Eunice
Ivala2, Vivienne Bozalek3 and Kathy Watters3
1University of Cape Town, Cape Town South Africa
2Cape Pennisula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa
3University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
Presented at ICEL 2012, the Chinese University of Hong Kong 21-22 June 2012
2. Research team
• 8 SA HEIs
(SU, UWC, UCT,
CPUT, UP,
Rhodes, Wits,
Fort Hare)
• 1 NGO (Open
Courseware
Consortium)
More information at http://emergingicts.blogspot.com/
4. Introduction
• Use of emerging technologies such as
Facebook, Twitter, blogs and many others
among students and educators is increasing
(Johnston et al. 2011, Johnson and
Adams, 2011)
• Use of technologies promise to radically
transform teaching and learning practice
(Johnson et al., 2012)
5. Motivation
• Despite an increasing use of emerging
technologies (ET) in HEI in general and South
Africa in particular, teaching and learning
(T&L) practices remain untransformed
• We sought to uncover how educators were
using technologies, and whether it was
possible to develop a T&L framework of using
ET to transform practice
6. Our research question
• To what extent does the use of emerging
technologies among educators foster
emergent and or transformative learning for
students?
7. Terminologies
• Emerging technologies has a contested
meaning (see Siemens and Tittenberger, 2009;
Veletsianos, 2010) but usually mentioned as if
it has a universally accepted meaning
• Attempts to define ET include (New Media
Consortium’s Horizon Reports, 2011 & 2012;
Siemens & Tittenberger’s book, 2009;
Veletsianos’ edited collection on ET, 2010) but
yet its definition is still in flux
8. Rather than define, we opted for
characteristics of ET
1. May or may not be new technologies
2. Evolving organism, that exist in the state of
coming into being
3. Go through hype cycles
4. They are not yet fully understood
5. They are not yet fully researched
6. They are potentially disruptive, but that
potential is mostly unfulfilled
Veletsianos, 2010:13-17
9. Conceptual framework
• Mayes and de Freitas (2004) propose three
perspectives that affect choices of teaching
strategies:
– Associative
• Task-focused
– Cognitive and
• Develop autonomous learners
– Situative
• Exploit learning relationships
10. Types of learning strategies
• Prescriptive learning
– Pre-determines what learners should learn
(Williams, 2011)
• Emergent / transformative learning
– Learning is through interactions with people,
resources and others (Williams, 2011)
– Technology is used to increase levels of
interactions (Anderson and Garrison, 2003) and
lead to deep and meaningful learning (Anderson,
2003)
12. Methodology
Qualitative &
Survey
Quantitative data
Aug-Sept 2011: Use of questions
survey sent to – pedagogical
22 HEIs uses of ET
30 questions – Descriptive
open & closed statistics
Interpretive
262
approach for
respondents
qualitative data
Ethical
clearance
obtained
13. Findings
Most used Least used
technologies technologies
Never used OER
OER (60%)
(39%)
Never used eBooks
eBooks (67%)
(33%)
Never used social
Social media (69%)
medial (31%)
Research databases Never used research
(75%) databases (24%)
17. Students work collaboratively (situative) to produce
podcasts/vodcasts and distribute via a LMS
Situative Emergent / Transformation
Student generated podcasts / vodcasts
18. Task focused (Associative) and prescriptive yet could be
Associative replication / prescriptive
transformative if students answered questions
Use
to answer critical &
reflective questions about
today’s lecture
19. Emergent transformative - example
An autonomous learner (cognitive) learning through
• …I run an adaptive management course
where students were given a fish in a
engagement (emergent)
tank to take for and to keep a personal
blog journal of how often they changed
its water, feed the fish, what plants they
introduced, what was the quality of
water and where they kept the fish… (E5)
20. Situative Replication / prescriptive -
Learning through relationships (situative) and applying fixed
example
• …the students would then be
knowledge on video story telling
paired up with those people in the
community who have been trained
by our local newspaper in basic
print journalism. Students trained
them in video storytelling and then
had to shoot their own clips… (E4)
21. Observations
• Most (28%) of educators use of emerging
technologies for T&L is self-motivated
• It was evident from data that most
institutions provided neither incentive
nor supportive environment to use
ET for teaching (e.g. lack lack of policies)
22. Conclusion 1/2
• Technologies emerging amongst HE
educators’ in South Africa
–Low bandwidth intensive
technologies
–Prevalence of LMS
• Motivating factors guiding educators’
use of ET
–Passion and availability of
technologies
23. Conclusion 2/2
• ET potential to transform teaching
and learning practices
–Spectrum of uses as per our
framework
–Though potential to transform
T&L practices exist, educators
not exploiting the opportunity
24. Further research
Further research is required to
establish whether there is a
relationship between awareness of
technologies and use for teaching
and learning.
25. Any questions?
See more information
on our project on our blog:
http://emergingicts.blogspot.com/
26. References
Anderson, S. 2010. Theories for Learning with Emerging Technologies. In G. Veletsianos (ed.) Emerging Technologies
in
Distance Education. Theory and Practice. Edmonton: AU Press, pp23-40.
Anderson, T., & Elloumi, F. 2004. Theory and practice of online learning. (T. Anderson & F. Elloumi, Eds.)British Journal
of Educational Technology (Vol. 36). Athabasca, Canada: Athabasca University. doi:10.1111/j.1467-
8535.2005.00445_1.x
Herrington, J., Herrington, A., Mantei, J., Olney, I., & Ferry, B. (2009). Using mobile technologies to develop new ways
of teaching and learning. In J. Herrington, A. Herrington, J. Mantei, I. Olney, & B. Ferry (Eds.), New technologies,
new pedagogies: Mobile learning in higher education (Vol. 9). Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong.
Retrieved from ro.uow.edu.au/newtech
Johnson, L. and S. Adams. 2011. Technology Outlook for UK Tertiary Education 2011-2016: An NMC Horizon Report
Regional
Analysis. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium
Maddux, C. D., & Johnson, L. D. 2005. Type II Applications of Technology in Education. Computers in the Schools,
22(1&2), 1-5.
Veletsianos, G. 2010. A Definition of Emerging Technologies for Education. . In G. Veletsianos (ed.) Emerging
Technologies in
Distance Education. Theory and Practice. Edmonton: AU Press, pp1-22
Veletsianos, G. 2011. Designing Opportunities for Transformation with Emerging Technologies. Educational
Technology,
51(2), 41-46.
Notas del editor
Emerging and new are not necessarilysynonomousWhile for example, Twitter may be an emerging technology, various practices on Twitter platform may already be establishedToday’s ET may become tomorrow’s fad – must remain sceptical about sudden transformation. ETs go through cycles of euphoria, adoption, use, maturity, impact, enthusiasm or even infatuation. Some will remain, others fade into backgroundCan’t yet fully understand the implications and what they offer teaching and learning, what they mean for educators and for institutions. It is not predictable we can’t determine in advance what will happen but only make sense of it after the event (Williams et al. 2011).Initial investigations often evangelical and describe superficial aspects of the technology without understanding the affordances of the technology and how these provide different ways to learn. Newer technologies can also be used in old traditional ways.Lack of research impedes disseminationAccording to Veletsianos (2010:17) emerging technologies are ‘tools, technologies, innovations, and advancements utlized in diverse educational settings to serve varied education-related purposes’. We are still learning and still learners with regard to the affordances of ETs. There is an absence of empirical work or practitioner knowledge base to explore enhancement of practice. Veletsianos (2010:17) personal technologies often sit uneasily with institutions; in some cases they are even banned within the university buildings and networks (Parry, 2005).
Radical change Is needed in the design and delivery of teaching if HEIs are to be ‘fit for purpose’ for the 21st Century (Bates & Sangra, 2011:4)‘Recognizing the fact that learning is a lifelong process that occurs naturally outside of the classroom, designers are advised to designopportunities for activities that allow learners to engage with course-related topics outside of the classroom. Such activities should occur in open-ended learning environments that allow for learner flexibility, self-direction, and student-centered control of learning (Land & Hannafin,1996), to accommodate learner interests. For instance, introducing learners to communities of practice should be an integral part of higher education curricula’. Veletsianos, 2011)‘transformative learning experiences cannot be “imposed” on learners. Parrish and Wilson (this issue) make a similar argument when they claim that “deeper forms of learning can’t just be made to happen; they are invited, and encouraged, and facilitated. Experience, after all is largely a subjective thing – it’s how real people encounter their worlds, not how they should respond or what the materials are meant to do to them.” This paper is grounded on a similar premise, as technology has been described as an agent of change, as a way to provideopportunities for transformation while sculpting pedagogical practice. Second, since it is not possible to construct transformative experiences but, to provide opportunities for transformation, these learning experiences are bound to encompass unknown outcomes. In other words, the outcomes associated with these opportunities may or may not be transformational. Consequently, the outcomes of opportunities for transformation do not lend themselves well to being evaluated using pre-defined objectives. An added complexity relates to the definition of the term transformation as a personally fulfilling and meaningful outcome. If transformation is a personalized, it is difficult to assess it based on pre-established guidelines. Indeed, individualized assessment may be the only meaningful approach available to evaluate transformative learning.’ (Velestianos,2011)
Parry, W., “School orders students to remove blogs”. USA Today, 26/10/2005. Downloaded from: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2005-10-26-school-bans-blogs_x.htmThe over-adoption of tools can lead to what has been termed ‘creepy tree house’ syndrome (Stein 2008) when authority is seen to try and invade a young person's social space. There is strong resistance from students to universities and lecturers making formal use of social networks as this is seen as an invasion of their social space (e.g. Madge 2009). When parents and professors start inhabiting these spaces it creates a role conflict (Selwyn 2009) for students, as they struggle to know which face to present and find their communication stifled. These tools may have significant potential for learning, but students don't want them to become the next LMS: organisationally controlled, bland and singular in focus (i.e. teaching). For the teaching function of scholarship then the question is ‘How can educators utilise the potential of these tools without destroying what makes them valuable to students?’ Weller,2011:
New references:Herrington, J., Herrington, A., Mantei, J., Olney, I., & Ferry, B. (2009). New technologies, new pedagogies: Mobile learning in higher education. University of Wollongong. Available from http://ro.uow.edu.au/newtech/