Vivienne Bozalek, Dick Ng’ambi, Daniela Gachago

“Emerging ICTs in Higher Education” NRF project, 2011-2013

• 8 SA HEIs (SU, UWC, UCT, CPUT, UP, Rhodes, Wits, Fort Hare) • 1 NGO (Open

Courseware Consortium)

More information at http://emergingicts.blogspot.com/

Future of Higher Education

Rust, B., Lowendahl, J-M., Bonig, R., Harris, M., (2010) Gartner Report, 17 Nov.

Through 2015, 50% of higher education CIOs will lose their jobs for failing to balance customer efficiency with organizational efficiency.

Johnson & Adams (2011:3)

SA challenges

• Under-preparedness of students• Diversity of student population• Multilingualism• Etc....

Scott, Yield & Hendry (2007), Jaffer, Ngambi & Czerniewicz (2007)

Focus of the research

1. What role can emerging technologies play in addressing these challenges?

2. Is it important for institutions to engage with these technologies?

3. What are the consequences for institutions if they don’t engage with emerging technologies?

4. What are the consequences for the institution if they do choose to adopt emerging technologies.Are they ready for the disruption?

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

Hype Cycle for Education 2010

Johnson & Adams (2011:1)

What institutions are using…

What are students using?

Shift of locus of control“Although lecturers and students are seemingly embracing emerging technologies enthusiastically, it is taking longer for institutions and policy makers to adopt and implement them.

Institutions and policy makers are not yet fully engaging with these technologies to understand the usefulness of these technologies and therefore administrative policies may slow down or halt adoption.”

COL 2008, 16

Consequences of non-engagement with ET

• Increased gap between educators with resources and the will to experiment and those who cannot or are not willing to…

• Students are increasingly disengaged• Mismatch between student expectations of HEI• Opportunities for preparing 21st century graduates

are lost• Student skills are not visibly assessable• Missions of HEI tend to be failing students

What are you?

2011 Emerging Technologies Survey

• Part of NRF project• Target group: lecturers that are known to be open

to/engaged with technology• Sent by email to contacts in all public HEIs institution,

snowball sampling• Content: 3 parts, demographic, tools and open ended

questions around practice with ET• Respondents: 242 (by 31 August 2011)

– 187 (77%) completed second part survey (tools)– 149 (62%) completed all three parts of survey

Respondents by institutionInstitutional location Fem Male Total %University of Stellenbosch 27 21 48 20%University of Cape Town 24 9 33 14%Cape Peninsula University of Technology 14 16 30 12%University of the Western Cape 15 12 27 11%University of Fort Hare 5 8 2 15 6%Durban University of Technology 9 4 13 5%Rhodes University 11 2 13 5%Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University 6 5 11 5%University of Johannesburg 4 5 9 4%University of Limpopo 5 2 7 3%University of the Free State 6 6 2%Walter Sisulu University of Technology and Science 1 5 6 2%Central University of Technology 1 2 1 4 2%Mangosuthu University of Technology 4 4 2%Vaal University of Technology 1 3 4 2%North-West University 3 3 1%University of South Africa 3 3 1%Other (e.g. overseas) 2 2 1%Tshwane University of Technology 1 1 0%University of Pretoria 1 1 0%University of the Witwatersrand 1 1 0%University of Venda for Science and Technology 1 1 0%Total 136 103 3 242 100%

57%

Respondents by gender

56% 43%

Level of appointmentJunior lecturer ; 10%

Lecturer ; 33%

Senior lecturer ; 20%

Associate Pro-fessor ; 8%

Professor ; 7%

Non-Academic ; 21%

Diffusion of ET in SA

RLO

Personal interest: I am passionate

about technology 29%

It is available at my institution

23%

Institutional workshop /

demonstration 10%

My institution requires this of

me 8%

My colleagues had positive results us-ing this technology

8%

My students demanded this

5%

I experienced it as a student in my

studies 4%

Other: To improve learning

3%

I saw this at a con-ference

3%

I read about it in a paper 3%

Incentive (funding, policy) 2%

Motivation to use ET

Impact of ET (82 open comments)

Direct/tangible: better grades (2%) and better attendance (7%)Direct / intangible impact:

Improved interaction/communication/feedback (30%), improved student engagement (27%) , improved skills (9%), better course organisation (7%), integration theory/practice (6%), independent learning (5%), providing a diverse learning experience (2%)

Indirect: cutting cost (2%), research opportunity (1%)

“Feedback needs to be regular and fresh and in a style that the student appreciate. No slacking on posting after hours, no matter what’s happening in my personal or professional life. If students see your commitment to staying in touch, they will match that commitment – equal or better!”

“…positive impact… students like ducks to water….”

Challenges (97 open comments)

Institution53%

Lecturers at-titudes and

skills25%

Students at-titudes &

skills22%

“If there is no incentive for marks, students do not bother – there is no doing something entirely for their learning that they will motivate on their own.

The university won’t allow me to claim the $2.95 that it requires per month to keep the site going. So I pay this out of my pocket, and it is costing me since I have several sites at the time for different classes.“

Support (64 comments)

positive74%

negative17%

Mixed 9%

Mainly eLearning units, colleagues & management

Missing infra-structure, passive resist-ance

“Very supportive E-learning team”

“none, more like passive resistance”

Support (64 comments)Positive (73%):Elearning units, colleagues, management

Negative (17%): limited infrastructure, passive resistance

Mixed feelings (9%)

Bates & Sangra 2011

Any questions?

See more information on our project on our blog:

http://emergingicts.blogspot.com/

References

Bates, T. and . Sangra. 2011. Managing Technology in Higher Education: Strategies for Transformation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Brown, J.S. (2008) Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume43/MindsonFireOpenEducationtheLon/162420Delich, P., K. Melly, and D. McIntosh. 2008. Emerging Technologies in E-learning. In Education for a Digital World, ed. Sandy Hirtz and David Harper, 5-22. Commonwealth of Learning. http://www.col.org/resources/crsMaterials/Pages/edDigitalWorld.aspx.Dron, J., & Anderson, T. (2009). How the Crowd Can Teach. Handbook of Research on Social Software and Developing Ontologies London IGIGlobal (Vol. Handbook o, pp. 1-17). IGI Global. http://www.igi-global.com/viewtitlesample.aspx?id=48657Jaffer, S., D. Ng’ambi and L. Czerniewicz. 2007. “The role of ICTs in higher education in South Africa: one strategy for addressing teaching and learning challenges.” International Journal of Education and Development using ICT 3 (4).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 ConsortiumLittlejohn, A. (2011). Collecctive Learning. Presentation to Change 11 Massive Open Online Course, 5 October 2011Rogers, E. 1995. Diffusion of Innvation. 4th ed. New York: Free.Rust, B., J-M. Lowendahl, R. Bonig and M. Harris. 2010. Gartner Report, 17 NovScott, I., N. Yeld and J. Hendry. 2007. Higher Education Monitor A case for Improving Teaching and Learning in South African Higher Education. Higher Education. http://www.che.ac.za/documents/d000155/HE_Monitor_6_ITLS_Oct2007.pdf.Sharpe, R., Beetham, H., & de Freitas, S. (Eds.). (2010). Rethinking learning for a digital age: How learners are shaping their own experiences. London: Routledge.Veletsianos, G. 2010. Emerging Technologies in Distance Education. Theory and Practice. Edmonton: AU Press.Williams, Karousou & Mackness, (2011).Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in IRRODL, 12(3) http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/883/1824