Browsing by Subject "Educational Technology"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Open Access
    Investigating faculty-based communities of practice for technology-augmented pedagogical practices at Eduardo Mondlane University: A case of innovators and adopters
    (2022) Miguel, Elódia Júlia da Graça; Mayisela, Catherine Thabisa; Carr, Tony
    Institutional inhibiting factors, and lack of motivation and support at the University of Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) result in lecturers not teaching using technology-augmented approaches. This research study investigates how a faculty-based EdTech-UEM professional development model could potentially foster Communities of Practice (CoPs) for technology-augmented pedagogical practices in UEM faculties. One way of addressing the technology-augmented pedagogical practices is to understand motivations, pedagogical practices, support and barriers of lecturers to adopt them. Lecturers (innovators and adopters: early adopters and late majority adopters) who participated in the four workshops on EdTech professional development, reported instances of innovators exhibiting peer leadership in group-learning activities during the workshops. The CoPs theoretical framework was used to investigate social learning and support among the innovators and adopters. After the workshops, which coincided with the beginning of the pandemic, 18 lecturer participants of the workshops were purposefully selected, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the goal of better understanding the support needs among lecturers (innovators and adopters) after the workshops as well as discussing the best ways to overcome potential barriers and challenges in technology-augmented pedagogical practices and provide a conducive environment for the emergence of CoPs in the adoption of technology-augmented pedagogical practices. The workshops were before the pandemic and lecturers implemented what they learnt during the pandemic. It was serendipitous as the workshops helped them to prepare for ERT even it was not the aim of the initiative that completed before the pandemic started. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and the empirical data was analysed through an interpretive approach. The interpretive method looks at how people make sense of their experiences, as well as how they construct and attribute meaning to their worlds. The result of the interpretive analysis was based on the description of qualitative themes formed and related from each other in multiple case studies of both innovators and adopters. The anonymity of their responses was guaranteed.
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    Open Access
    An investigation of third-year multimedia students' use of the web to supplement and enhance formal course work and skills
    (2011) Swanepoel, Hannelie; Czerniewicz, Laura; Brown, Cheryl
    Many studies have shown that, despite, the initial hype about how the world wide web would change learning, young people and, especially, students are not necessarily inclined to use the web for learning, simply because it is available. In this dissertation, I investigate third-year multimedia students' use of the web to supplement and enhance formal course work and skills. The study investigates the use of the web for academic self-study that is not linked to direct assessment such as assignments. The dissertation is based on the premise that even where students choose technology as a career and have relatively good access to it, they do not necessarily make high use of it for learning.
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    Pre-service teachers' perceptions and practices: integrating digital literacy into English education
    (2016) Campbell, Eduard; Kapp, Rochelle
    Teachers are increasingly expected to use digital resources to facilitate learning. Recent research in Higher Education has indicated the existence of a digital divide among students. With the changing role of the English teacher as a facilitator of critical skills and the traditional centrality of literacy to the English classroom, digital literacy has an integral place in English teacher education, despite its absence from the current South African English curriculum. However, integrating digital literacy is challenging and often resisted by teachers. This qualitative case study provides a detailed description and analysis of how pre-service English teachers perceived their own, their learners' and other teachers' digital literacy practices, and how these perceptions relate to their own practices. The study is informed by post-structuralist theory, drawing on the New Literacy Studies (NLS), which views literacy as embedded in social practice, imbued with power and highly dependent on context. It is believed that gaining a deeper understanding of perceived and actual digital literacy practices within specific contexts could lead to an in-depth knowledge of how digital literacy may be integrated in teacher education. The case comprises four English Method students at a relatively elite South African university who were enrolled for the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) professional qualification. The participants viewed their own proficiency in digital literacy as limited. The data were gathered from four sources: the participants' detailed lesson plans where digital literacy has been integrated; their reflections upon these lesson plans; questionnaires providing background on their biographies and experiences with technology and a focused group interview. The study found that the participants associated some digital resources with their own and their learners' private lives and therefore did not recognize the value of these resources as educational tools. In addition, the participants experienced the internet as overwhelming and conflated digital literacy with 'Internet Literacy'. They did not find good examples of practice from other teachers at the schools where they undertook their teaching practicals. The way they perceived their learners' practices could have serious consequences for how they facilitate learning and negotiate power differentials in the classroom. Drawing on these findings, the thesis ends with a framework for the integration of digital literacy into teacher education. The framework draws on insights from Authentic Learning, New Literacy Studies and constructivist notions of learning to propose a carefully-scaffolded model which starts with students' own internet practices and provides models and authentic tasks in order to show them the affordances of digital literacy for promoting learning in the English classroom.
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    Open Access
    Primary Health Care trainers' and nurses' learning experiences of using educational technology as part of an established in-service training programme in the Western Cape province, South Africa
    (2022) Georgeu-Pepper, Daniella; Cox, Glenda
    The Practical Approach to Care Kit (PACK) training programme combines an evidence based clinical guide with an educational outreach training programme, focusing on Primary Health Care (PHC) providers in health facilities in South Africa. As the programme expands in South Africa and internationally, the health system challenges of distance, budget constraints, staff attrition, and infrastructure inadequacies require a more sustainable model which is less dependent on face-to-face facilitation. This research study focused on refining the initial design of an e-learning module and examining factors influencing its use prior to further roll out. Department of Health stakeholders, PACK trainers and nurses from PHC clinics in the Western Cape province were interviewed. Qualitative case studies were used to generate a description of nurses' onscreen learning experiences within each specific clinic under study, and to potentially comment on any similarities or differences in these experiences across the three clinics. Initial data were coded thematically, and a list of codes was developed for application to subsequent data. The theory of situated learning in communities of practice was used as a lens to examine the PACK e-learning approach. The coding list was developed and refined as data analysis continued and was the basis for drawing out key issues and themes. PACK stakeholders, trainers and nurses responded positively to the design of the elearning module overall. Key findings highlighted the challenges of access to technology and internet, and digital literacy in the South African PHC context. Learning preferences, clinical content selection, time and motivation impacted learning experiences and uptake. e-Learning completion required support within a community of practice and access on smartphones was identified as a potential enabler. e-Learning for in-service training in the PHC environment requires careful resource allocation to ensure adequate access to technology and the design of a well-supported, blended approach to e-learning to accommodate the specific needs of this group of learners.
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    Open Access
    Social media enhanced boundary crossing: exploring distance students' ecosystems of learning support
    (2020) Mwanda, Ziyanda; Ng'ambi, Dickson; Gachago, Daniela
    As the demand for distance learning increases, traditional campus-based universities continue to struggle in supporting working distance students. This has resulted in the increased phenomena of students using social media within their ecosystems of learning support. The use of formal and informal tools such as social media gives rise to boundaries which students need to cross for effective support. How social media facilitates the crossing of boundaries within ecosystems of learning support remains an unfamiliar area of research. This study employed a predominately qualitative research methods, with a small element being a quantitative method to view and investigate postgraduate distance students' ecosystem of learning support holistically. The findings of this study revealed that participants used a combination of formal and informal tools to support their learning, including social media. In particular WhatsApp, which enables the crossing of transitional, formal and informal learning contexts, hierarchical and, time and space boundaries. Recognizing social media as an important part of students' learning support ecosystem, allowed an expanded view on learning support. As such, the study highlighted a range of different learning mechanisms which occur when students cross these boundaries, with coordination being the dominant learning mechanism. In conclusion, social media (such as WhatsApp) does indeed enhance the crossing of various boundaries to support learning. However, some students do not necessarily perceive their interaction on social media as learning, which speaks to the need of legitimising social media as learning tools by institutions. This study then recommends the need for institutions to recognize and nurture the use of social media as one element of a distance learning support ecosystem for cost-effective student support strategies guided by institutional guidelines and policies.
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    Open Access
    Using Bourdieu to understand the function of digital literacy in an English class: A case study of a higher education university in Namibia
    (2016) Eiseb, Juliet M; Brown, Cheryl
    First year students at a Higher Education University in Windhoek in a Principles of Language English class are expected to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to improve their language proficiency in a fun and interesting manner. However, it was observed that students have varied digital literacy skills which are not in line with Namibia's ICT Policy. The study set out to find out why students who came from the same Namibian secondary public schooling system, and was exposed to the same curriculum, had such varied digital literacy proficiency. Principal of Language is the natural environment for the researcher and the students in this study. This study follows Eshet-Alkalai's definition of digital literacy. Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital was used to develop an explanation for the observed varied digital literacy skills and to find out if English lecturers should continue with the use of ICTs in the English class. This study was limited to the specific needs and digital literacy deficiency of students as observed in the Principal of Language class. Data was collected from 47 first time Principles of Language, first year students. In addition, this study also relied on the experiences of two ICT subject lecturers. Different data collection instruments were used: student questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions and faculty interviews. The study revealed that despite Namibia's ICT policy that calls for learners to be prepared at high school for the integration of ICTs, quite a number of first year students had no digital literacy skills. Some students only got to use a computer for the first time at university. Despite these challenges students were not averse to the use of ICTs to improve their English but expect lecturers to first teach them how to use the tools. Lecturers need to realise that not all first year students are computer literate.
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    Using diffusion of innovation theory to understand how technology is adopted in mathematics at a South African higher education institution
    (2016) Chizwina, Sabelo R; Brown, Cheryl; Mhakure, Duncan
    The issue of students enrolling who are ill prepared in mathematics for university studies has been an area of concern for some time in South Africa. Various universities tried different interventions to address this problem. One example is the establishment of a bridging programme at an institution of higher learning. Technology has been discussed as support that can be provided to students. This study therefore sought to understand the adoption of technology in the teaching of mathematics at an institution of higher education in South Africa. Using Roger's diffusion of innovation theory, this study sought to understand how technology is adopted by mathematics teachers in the bridging programme. Whilst the results of the study show that some teachers have adopted technology at different scales to provide access, to supplement instruction and to encourage interaction, the results also show that some teachers are uncertain of the benefits that technology has to teaching and learning in the programme. The current talk and chalk method is seen as being essential as it is tried and tested. The study also showed that teachers did not receive support from the institution resulting in them seeking assistance from outside of the university. The study recommends that higher education institutions should provide instructional design support to ensure that teachers are not overburdened with developing technology interventions where they have little or no expertise in.
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    Utilisation-focused evaluation of ICT in education: the case of DFAQ consultation space
    (2004) Ng’ambi, Dick; Brown, Irwin
    ABSTRACT This paper describes an evaluation of a web-based consultation space (a dynamic frequently asked questions environment - DFAQ) in which learners consult one another using questions, and in which both the flow of interaction and its artefacts become a resource available to a community of learners. The DFAQ is a special form of a Computer-Mediated-Communication tool specifically developed to facilitate question-based interaction. We argue that education is too complex a social structure to be evaluated using deterministic positivist quantitative approaches. Given the volatility of determining what constitutes value, costs, inputs and outputs and the complexity of dynamics of socialization, a non-deterministic qualitative approach, utilisation-focused evaluation approach is used. Our conclusion is that the DFAQ does contribute to students' academic performance and frees the lecturer-learner consultation time.