learning technologies in south africa

Duan van der WesthuizenUniversity of Johannesburg

12 September 2012

Fundamentalism, Legacy, Implosion,Explosion, Fact and Fiction:

Perspectives on LearningTechnologies for the South African

landscape

The creation of the Technopoly

Said Thamus: “What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection,not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have thereputation for it without the reality: they will receive a quantity ofinformation without proper instruction, and in consequence bethought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quiteignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdominstead of real wisdom they will be a burden to Society”

The god Theus was the inventor of many things, including writing

He boasted to Thamus, king of Egypt, about improving thewisdom of the nation when he invented writing

1450 - Printing press

1922 - Film

1930 - Radio

1960 - Teaching machines

19xx VCR/ LaserDiscs/Television

1982 - Computer Multimedia

1989 - The Internet

2004 - Web 2.0/FOSS

2003 Mobile learning

BC - Writing

Web 3.0? Web 4.0?

Education surrenders to the Technopoly• 1975: Seymour Paper - Logo – Microworlds• “Technology …. going to displace school and

the way we understand school”• 1985: Apple Classroom of tomorrow• No empirical evidence > greater achievement• Higher Education: Online education became

“educationally seductive”• Learning Management Systems• Digital Diploma Mills (Noble, 1998)• Commodification of knowledge (Amory)

WebAnalytics 2.0

So much going on …

So much going on … locally

But currently in our schools?Teachers? Learners?

E-Education policy: 2013 looms: “by 2013 every learnerand teacher will be ICT capable”

What’s else is hot?• MOOC (e.g. mobiMOOC)• Webinars• Tablets & mobile learning• The ‘flipped classroom’• Digital storytelling• Publishers and LMS vendors collaboration• Making e-Books• Cloud computing• Crowdsourcing• Badge-based learning• Megatrends: http://goo.gl/dqHaB

Google in Education

• Hangouts• Multiple Administrators• Direct Connect

Google +

Learning Technologies: Mashups

Learning Technologies: Curation

Digital curation is the selection,reservation, maintenance, collection

and archiving of digital assets, generallyreferred to the process of establishingand developing long term repositoriesof digital assets for current and futurereference by researchers, scientists,

historians, and scholars.

Wikipedia

Learning Technologies: Curation

Pearltrees.com

The knowledge of the world in yourpocket?

Learning Technologies: Resources

Welcome to the new Internet

http://www.project10x.com/

Welcome To The New Internet: Simple Design, Short Names, No Ads

Svbtle, a Stripped-Down Blogging Platform

Branch, a Free-Floating Comment/Discussion System

App.net, An Infrastructure-Level Version of Twitter

The Internet is still a very White place(for Web 4.0)

What does RESEARCH say?

The positive impact of ICT use in education has not been provenIn general, and despite thousands of impact studies, the impactof ICT use on student achievement remains difficult to measureand open to much reasonable debate.

“There is neither a strong and well-developed theoretical casenor much empirical evidence supporting the expected benefits ofICT …”

Contrasting evidence: BECTA (2002) and Machin et al(2006)found positive effects, while Fuchs & Woessman (2004), Leuvenet al (2004) and others found no real positive effect

Lack of large-scale meta-analyses

• Most prior meta-analyses were conducted onDistance Education

• Kulik & Kulik pre-1980• Most recently by US DoE: Evaluation of

Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning:A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies

• Project RED: THE TECHNOLOGY FACTOR

Insufficient local research

• Van der Westhuizen (2002), there is little researchaddressing and locating specifically local concerns

• Annotated Bibliography on e-Learning and Application ofEducational Technology in African Countries, or inContexts Relevant to Africa (Carnegie)

• Deficits in Academic Staff Capacity at African Universities(Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, 2010)

• Growth in student numbers not met by growth in staff• Lack of female staff• Low numbers of PhD and M students• Staff qualifications• SA: CHE Report on Higher Education Landscape

What has been done recently?

• USA: One to One

What has been done recently?

Why did technology not live up to itspromise?

• Perpetuation of fundamentalist views on:– Knowledge– Teaching– Assessment

• Most e- learning is an attempt to put books ona computer: duplication or virtualisation ofthe classroom

• Lack of authenticity• Lack of activity (learning by telling)

“The leadership decisions you'll make in the exercise maydiffer somewhat from your real- life circumstances, but mostof the principles and ideas can easily be transferred andapplied to your job.” (Schank)

“The leadership decisions you'll make in the exercise maydiffer somewhat from your real- life circumstances, but mostof the principles and ideas can easily be transferred andapplied to your job.” (Schank)

“The primary thing that is missing is the understanding of thepossibility. Most people cannot envision what this new kind ofeducational software will look like and what it means.”(Schank)

“The primary thing that is missing is the understanding of thepossibility. Most people cannot envision what this new kind ofeducational software will look like and what it means.”(Schank)

The Fundamentalist Teacher

• Is an experienced teacher• Protects the status quo• “It works, it always has worked (for me – look, I’m

OK)”• Student performance is a direct consequence of

diligence• Failure is the result of (laziness/ability)• Absolves the fundamentalist from responsibility• Inhibits reflection on teaching

Social Darwinism

The strongest/fittest will survive and prosper, the weak will die out

HerbertSpencer

Deriving‘ought’from ‘is’

Belief: Not all students can succeed – adherence to the bell curve

Previous ill-informed reforms killed the dream of being a teacher

The case for technology

“.. [it] is not likely that the current methods of teaching and learningwill suffice to prepare students for the lives that they will lead in thetwenty-first century.” (John Seely Brown, 2008)

“Technology is an essential component of human agency—cultureprovides the ‘tool kit’ of technologies, techniques and procedureswith which different groups and communities learn about, respondto, act on and manage their experience of the world” (Bruner, 1996)

It is not really possible today to be relevant, noreffective if you teach without technology.

Seriously?

Connectivity

Internet usuage

South Africa

Web 2.0 is also about• Accepting that you are already digital

– Digital footprint (calculator @ www.emc.com)– Spezify– Mendeley– Publish or Perish– http://personas.media.mit.edu

• Building blocks of a networked , digital scholar

• Creation, Curation, Collaboration, Communication

• Going “open”

• Teaching digitally (“techno expression”)

Duan van der Westhuizen is “Digitally Distinct”

Contemporary views on learning– Ken Robinson

• Learning institutions as factories• Killing creativity

– Jerome Bruner: Learning to be– Knowledge exchange vs knowledge creation– Authentic learning and assessment– Teaching as learning activity design– 21st Century Skills

21st Century themes

Learning and innovation skills

Information and media skills

Life and career skills

Open Educational Resources• Creative Commons Licensing

• Directory of Open Access Journals (www.doaj.org)• OpenDoar (www.opendoar.org)• Sherpa/Romeo (www.sherpa.ac.uk )• Project Gutenburg

Innovative spaces

The Enquiring Mindwww.enquiringminds.org.uk

Enquiring Minds is .…

- A response tomodern challenges

- An approach whichtakes seriously theknowledge thatstudents have

Blueprint for –learning success

Blueprint for –learning success

Beware of the rhetoric• 21st Century skills: are the 4 C’s and the 3 R’s not

also 20th Century skills?• Technology won’t fix bad teaching, fixing bad

teachers will• We dare not use technology to perpetuate past

practices• Technology is NOT cheaper• Technology is NOT the answer for poorly

performing institutions• Technology use HIGHLIGHTS equity issues

50% first yearintake 0% ICT

skills!

Sources• Did you know• http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm• http://edutechdebate.org/ict-in-schools/there-are-no-technology-shortcuts-to-good-education• http://www.devaindustries.com/articles/ITProm.htm• http://www.learningtimes.com/what-we-do/badges/• http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/• http://www.edutopia.org/core-concepts• http://www.socraticarts.com/docs/Educational_Technology_-_The_Promise_and_The_Myth.pdf

Tools