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Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: Towards a teaching and learning framework Dick Ng’ambi 1 , Daniela Gachago 2 , Eunice Ivala 2 , Vivienne Bozalek 3 and Kathy Watters 3 1 University of Cape Town, Cape Town South Africa 2 Cape Pennisula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa 3 University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa Presented at ICEL 2012, the Chinese University of Hong Kong 21-22 June 2012

Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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This paper was presented at the 7th International Conference on e-Learning held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 21-22 June, 2012

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Page 1: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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

Page 2: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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/

Page 3: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

Outline

• Introduction• Motivation• Conceptual framework• Methodology• Findings• Conclusion• Questions

Page 4: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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)

Page 5: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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

Page 6: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

Our research question

• To what extent does the use of emerging technologies among educators foster emergent and or transformative learning for students?

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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

Page 8: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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

Page 9: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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

Page 10: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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)

Page 11: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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)

Page 12: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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

Page 13: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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%)

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What most educators use

Page 15: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

What students use, and only a few academics do

Page 16: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

Associative / Replication /Prescription

Lecturer generated podcasts / vodcasts

Distributing routine lectures (associative) as

podcast/vodcasts

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Situative Emergent / Transformation

Student generated podcasts / vodcasts

Students work collaboratively (situative) to produce

podcasts/vodcasts and distribute via a LMS

Page 18: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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

Page 19: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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)

Page 20: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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

Page 21: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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)

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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

Page 23: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

• 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

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Further research

Further research is required to establish whether there is a

relationship between awareness of technologies and use for teaching

and learning.

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Any questions?

See more information on our project on our blog:

http://emergingicts.blogspot.com/

Page 26: Emerging Technologies in South African Higher Education Institutions: towards a teaching and learning framework

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.