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| A Social Media Classroom for Student-Generated Learning | Howard Rheingold has been working on creating an integrated environment for using social media in the classroom, under a MacArthur grant: forums, blogs, wikis, chat, social bookmarking, blogging, RSS in one uniform user interface, free and open source, easily installed and configured environment. He has also been working on curriculum for teaching about the issues that social media generate -- identity, community, collective action, social capital, public sphere are some examples. But as he's introduced these tools into the classroom -- where students are already using laptops and wireless Internet -- it has become clear that this is not simply a matter of adding slick new tools to amplify old forms of pedagogy, but are best used to move from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side, enabling students (under instructor guidance) to work collaboratively to construct knowledge, rather than passively receiving what the lectures and texts broadcast to them. |
| Does Context Sensitive Instructional Design Really Matter? | ICT professionals working in the area of instructional design and development, particularly those who create or recreate materials for diverse groups of learners, continually engage in making instruction sensitive to context - whether it is the context of a particular school, company, nation, or region. Designing for the many possible layers of context requires a systematic approach and can take a good deal of time. Given the time it takes to consider various aspects of context when developing instructional resources, there are at least two questions one must consider; "How much is enough?" and "Does this really make a difference?" This presentation will provide a foundation for context-based instructional design, give some examples of approaches one might consider, and then raise the questions noted above as a way to open conversation about a critical aspect of the application of ICT in education. |
| ICT on the margins: Lessons for Ugandan education | Access to ICT remains a major challenge in countries like Uganda, in which less than 1% of the population has access to the Internet. Five lessons, in particular, are important for curriculum planning and policy development in Uganda: the need to collect empirical data on ICT access and use; the importance of recognising local differences across rural and urban communities, male and female students; the need to promote professional development of teachers so that they can make effective use of ICT in classrooms; the importance of integrating in and out-of-school digital literacy practices; and the need to consider how global software can best be adapted for local use. We conclude that if ICT is to play its part in achieving Education for All by 2015, there is an urgent need for collaborative partnerships between a wide range of stakeholders at both the local and global level. |
| Investigating Popular Internet Applications as Supporting E-Learning Technologies for Teaching and Learning with Generation Y (Peer Reviewed) | This paper introduces generational theory and outlines the characteristics of Generation Y with a particular emphasis on how these relate to their learning styles. It then considers a number of common Internet applications popular amongst this generation in terms of their function, relating this to the characteristics of Generation Y as learners. The potential effectiveness of these technologies when used as e-learning tools for this generation is examined, and they are found to be valuable to this end. |
| Issues in Integrating Indigenous Contents and ICT Application in Nigeria: The "i-CLAP" Model Experience (Peer Reviewed) | Although, increasing sophistication in technology applications enable the exploration of diverse learning approaches, providing versatile multi-sensory educational intervention programmes as 21st century classroom tools. In Africa however, if the challenge of this technology integration towards bridging the digital divides is to be taken seriously, the task transcends merely supplying computer hardware to schools. The question of developing relevant software contents and interfaces that reflect the beauty of our diversity in culture cannot be overlooked, the essence is to enhance learning motivation and interest among local children. This article explores the process of developing the Interactive Child Learning Aid Project (i-CLAP) model – as a potential indigenous virtual instructor – tracing from its initiation, through the production of the digital component to implementation. It appraises the outcome of the tests carried out among (N=80) children from (N=4) pre-primary schools in Zaria, justifying the model’s viability as an indigenous initiative for applicability in Nigeria. |
| Learning technologies and global aspects in disadvantaged communities in South Africa | Setting out from a technologically developed context in Northern Europe the body of this research sought to examine the often proposed socio-economic importance of digital learning technologies. Articulated as agents for enlightenment they are often held to include disadvantaged communities into a larger national and global context thus assumed to ensure a prosperous future. By governments and international development organizations ICTs are generally regarded as necessary means of learning and knowledge, yet the research suggested that the technological facilitation of learning does not necessarily mean inclusion and development at community level.
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| Learning with Computers in Project-Based Learning | In the first part of the project my aim was to use technology to promote multiple intelligences in Grade 12 learners from a rural community with limited resources and high levels of unemployment. The theme of our project was ‘urban problems’, and the overarching outcome was to improve learners’ communication and entrepreneurial skills. Many of our learners very rarely visit a town so this project was a perfect opportunity for them to experience urban problems on a personal level. On their return they had to type essays about the trip into a computer. In general their overall keyboard skills improved. With the computer ‘auto edit’ function activated, they also had an opportunity to improve on their grammar skills. The essays were assessed formatively for the Continuous Assessment (CASS) requirement.
In the second part of the project involved Grade 10 and 11 learners. After listening to a song about stress of urban life they had to fill in gaps in the lyrics. This was an attempt to improve their listening skills. Thereafter, learners were divided into two groups, in which the first group was linked to two schools from the urban environments in the USA. This group had to collaborate with their US peers and produce poems about urban problems. The second group went into the local community to develop audio-visual adverts for business of their choice. The visual form of the adverts was sent to local newspapers while the audio was sent to the local radio for public broadcast. The poems and adverts were assessed summatively and subjectively. |
| Scarce resources: Conflict and sharing in discourse around primary school email use (Peer Reviewed) | This paper discusses email use in a South African primary school. A conversation analysis of children’s interactions around email activities challenges assumptions about the digital divide. This approach suggests the advantage to be gained by viewing the context of children’s use of technology as a shifting set of communicative possibilities, rather than something that is determined solely by the physical presence or absence of computers. The paper describes how children negotiate and communicate around scarce resources in their environment. These scarce and shared resources are not limited to the physical equipment in the computer lab, but include the communicative possibilities offered by software and other individuals. This paper focuses on children sharing email addresses and using email’s affordances of privacy to gain or avoid individual attention from the teacher. Discourse is treated as ‘talk-in-interaction’ and provides evidence of children managing the limited resources available to them. |