Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and...
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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 Africa2Cape 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
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/
Outline
• Introduction• Motivation• Conceptual framework• Methodology• Findings• Conclusion• Questions
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)
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
Our research question
• To what extent does the use of emerging technologies among educators foster emergent and or transformative learning for students?
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
Rather than define, we opted for characteristics of ET
1. May or may not be new technologies2. Evolving organism, that exist in the state of
coming into being3. Go through hype cycles4. They are not yet fully understood5. They are not yet fully researched6. They are potentially disruptive, but that
potential is mostly unfulfilledVeletsianos, 2010:13-17
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
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)
FrameworkReplicative/Prescriptive learning(pre-determined)
Emergent / Transformative learning (learning by engagement)
Associative(task-focused)
Associative Replication / Prescriptive (ARP)
Associative Emergent / Transformative (AET)
Cognitive(autonomous learner)
Cognitive Replication / Prescriptive (CRP)
Cognitive Emergent / Transformative (CET)
Situative(relationships)
Situative Replication / Prescriptive (SRP)
Situative Emergent / Transformative (SET)
MethodologySurvey
Aug-Sept 2011: survey sent to
22 HEIs
30 questions – open & closed
262 respondents
Qualitative & Quantitative data
Use of questions – pedagogical
uses of ET
Descriptive statistics
Interpretive approach for
qualitative data
Ethical clearance obtained
Findings
Most used technologies
Least used technologies
Never used research databases (24%)
Never used social medial (31%)
Never used eBooks (33%)
Never used OER (39%)
Research databases (75%)
Social media (69%)
eBooks (67%)
OER (60%)
What most educators use
What students use, and only a few academics do
Associative / Replication /Prescription
Lecturer generated podcasts / vodcasts
Distributing routine lectures (associative) as
podcast/vodcasts
Situative Emergent / Transformation
Student generated podcasts / vodcasts
Students work collaboratively (situative) to produce
podcasts/vodcasts and distribute via a LMS
Associative replication / prescriptive
Use
to answer critical & reflective questions about today’s lecture
Task focused (Associative) and prescriptive yet could be transform
ative if students answered questions
Emergent transformative - example• …I run an adaptive management course
where students were given a fish in a 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)
An autonomous learner (cognitive) learning through
engagement (em
ergent)
Situative Replication / prescriptive - example
• …the students would then be 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)
Learning through relationships (situative) and applying fixed know
ledge on video story telling
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)
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
• 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
Conclusion 2/2
Further research
Further research is required to establish whether there is a
relationship between awareness of technologies and use for teaching
and learning.
Any questions?
See more information on our project on our blog:
http://emergingicts.blogspot.com/
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 ConsortiumMaddux, 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, pp1-22Veletsianos, G. 2011. Designing Opportunities for Transformation with Emerging Technologies. Educational Technology, 51(2), 41-46.