FUTA

Voice to the Voiceless?: Exploring African Digital-Immigrant Students’ Reactions to Moodle Resources 

Peter A Aborisade, FUT Akure

FUTA

OVERVIEWPower Relations & Voice

Digital Natives Vs Digital Immigrants

Context & Background to the Study

Moodle Configuration & Settings

Resources

Forums

Wiki

Results & Moving on

FUTA

POWER RELATIONS & VOICE

Economic & Political power divisions between North & South reflected earlier in literacy rates, industrial & information revolutions reflect in ICTs access & benefits: between states, regions, socio-economic groups

Traditional Education reflects similar power distinction between Teacher & Student

Students’ voices are largely mute: their views unsought, their preferences unaccounted for

FUTA

POWER RELATIONS & VOICE

Traditional Education Learning/knowledge is

habit formation (behavioural)

Learning is acquiring information/knowledge

Trust & follow teacher/authority for good information (Mike

Wesch) Memorisation is

essential to knowledge acquisition

C21st Education Learner-centred

curriculum Creating engaging

learning environments Creating platforms for

participation & meaningful connections

Learning is doing Integrating learning

technologies

FUTA

DIGITAL DIVIDE‘The so-called digital divide is

actually several gaps in one.’ (Kofi Annan):

Technology divideInfrastructure divideLiteracy divideContent divideSkills divide

FUTA

DIGITAL NATIVES OR IMMIGRANTS?

Digital Natives … today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.

As Digital Immigrants learn … to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their "accent,"… (Marc Prensky, 2001)

FUTA

CONTEXT: NIGERIA

No Digital Natives here, all (Teachers & Students) are Immigrants with heavy accents @ varying ZPD levels (Aborisade, 2009)

ICT infrastructure in Nigeria is fragile; government direction is uncertain (no ICT in Education policy)

Nigeria plays no role and has no part in Information Age & unlikely to build a Knowledge Economy in 1st half of C21st.

FUTA

BACKGROUNDESL-EAP modules:Large class situation: 3000+ & 5

Teachers (Coleman, 1989);Setting inadequacies: class, time-

tabling, no. of teachers vis-à-vis students

EAP necessity: EST; lack of student motivation

Low teacher & student ICT access, ability; but high interest

FUTA provision: Intranet, cybercafés, tickets

FUTA

BACKGROUND: Classroom context

Growing enrolment

Few teachers

Fewer facilities

Inadequate resources

FUTA

BACKGROUND: ELT TheoryCLT: process-product, problem-solution

(Dudley-Evans, 1984; Hopkins, 1988; Bloor and St John,1988; Hyland and Hyland, 1992)

Socio-cultural, constructivist: learning in social context (Vygotsky, 1978)

Technology as tool (Beatty, 2003; Dudeney & Hockly, 2007)

FUTA

BACKGROUND: ICT-support Theory

Teaching-Learning: from behaviorism to constructivism (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2001)

Development of VLEs enabling new opportunities to personalize learning is a milestone (Barajas and Owen, 2000)

ICT-supported courses: engage students; provide opportunity for accelerated learning; develop independent learning skills (Boulton, 2009)

Computer-based technologies can be “powerful pedagogical tools … [as] extensions of human capabilities and contexts for social interactions” supporting learning (ANRC,1999: 218)

FUTA

THE PROJECTCreate a new learning environment

adopting Blended Learning (F2F & Online)

Use the Moodle as collaborative learning tool & platform to support & stimulate learning; engagement

Encourage students to make effective use of ICT in academic work

Provide meaningful activities that enable student-student support; foster autonomy and collaboration

Platform to give students a voice and encourage interaction

FUTA

MOODLE CONFIGURATION & SETTINGS

2008/2009: Open source pbwiki (http://futagns.pbwiki.com). It changed to proprietary (pbworks)!

2009/2010: Open source Moodle (www.futaelearning.com)

1 teacher + 1 Student + 1 Software technologist on ‘trial and error’ configuration

Setting includes: Resources (Notes & manuals), Forums (news & discussion boards), Wiki (group work pages) & Assignments.

FUTA

RESOURCES

FUTA

RESOURCES

FUTA

RESOURCES

FUTA

FORUMS

FUTA

WIKI

FUTA

RESULTSTable 1: FORUMS

Forum Description Discussions Subscribed News Forum General News &

Announcements 8 Yes

GNS 102 Forum

GNS 102 Forum 1479 Yes

Table 2: GNS 102 - Activity Report

Activity Views Last Access News Forum 1476 Sunday, 12 Sept

2010 GNS 102 Wiki 5117 Sunday, 12 Sept

2010 GNS 102 Forum 12600 Sunday, 12 Sept

2010 Signal Words & Phrases

1040 Sunday, 12 Sept 2010

Computed from logs Monday, 24 August – Sunday 12 September 2010

FUTA

RESULTS

FUTA

RESULTS

FUTA

MOVING ON

Blended Learning Group (BLG)

Volunteer Students ICT champions

Blended Learning Unit in offing

Internal faculty training by BLG for

uptake

Need technical training (Technologists

& Faculty)