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My name is Jerome. I reside and work in the city of Jos on the tin mining plateau in central Nigeria. The weather here is cool. I have just relocated to an area of town where anxiety about electricity has reduced–somewhat. I teach with various technologies, including mobile technology and use such tools as social media to engage with learners. I look forward to enjoying a robust engagement with all on this issue.
Hello everyone! My name is Sipho, from the University of Swaziland – a dual face 2 face and distance learning Institution. We are at an elementary stage of embracing technologies in our teaching. Like, Sello says, my interest is on the effective use of ICT in teaching especially with my distance learners. Interestingly, one Professor in a Conference here over the weekend went on and on about the dangers of the sudden shift towards ICT in teaching. His thesis was that ICT does not bring any miracles in teaching, it still is the human factor that counts the most. This seminar is very interesting to me as it will shed light on some of the success stories of ICT in teaching.
Hi everyone. I am Khanyi Ngodwana, a lecturer and Writing Centre consultant. My interest is in the promotion of writing in the classrooms including using Web 2.0 technologies to achieve that.
I am also part of the facilitation team for the seminar. I look forward to learning from all of you.
Khanyi
I am Tony Carr, convenor of the e/merge Africa network and an educational technologist at the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at University of Cape Town. Its great to be able to engage with some new research on mobile learning by colleagues from University of Cape Coast and it looks like we are off to a good start 🙂
ICT brings miracles into education, gone are the days when we all taught teachers are the carriers of knowledge and no individual can learn anything without the presence of a teacher. ICT has performed the miracle of people being able to learn about anything they want in their environment and in fact in the entire universe without being there in person. Therefore we are to spread this miracle so that the world knows that they can learn anything, anytime, anywhere with ICT.
@ Sshongwe,
In recent times, it is very common to find debates around the technology factor and the human factor in terms of classroom transformation. The tools as we always say are there and sometimes not produced for educational purposes. However, that does not mean that if put to good use, it cannot transform our educational systems. In my personal view about this debate, the course of the failure is not because technologies are introduced into the educational arena. It is because our decisions to use certain technologies to solve certain problems are not informed by any research. That is why we as Educational Technologists have to lead the way and give prudent advice. People lack the skills, interests and capacity in handling technology integration. Some problems may not even need modern or electronic technologies solutions. Some of us have joined the debate sparked by Andreas Schleicher, the Director of OECD Education when BBC published his article School technology struggles to make an impact In short, I will end by saying that technology integration into our educational systems is failing because, we dump technologies on teachers and administrators (promoters) without considering certain factors. “It is vital that teachers become active agents for change, not just in implementing technological innovations, but in designing them too” (Schleicher, 2015). This is why our research becomes useful.You may want to also follow further discussions on the article on Professor Sugata Mitra’s facebook page since the news was published.
@ Danny
I agree that “M-learning is a way to limit the high rate of illiteracy in Africa”. It is one option with possibilities. However, it is not the only option. I believe that ICT programs when designed with the socio-cultural issues peculiar to the continent in mind, can bring bring wonderful results. That is why our researchers should be encouraged to develop learning content that are not alien to the general population. @ Okokon,
I agree perfectly with you. I mentioned earlier on, we roll out all these technologies without anchoring our plans/activities to any informed research work or considering what best suits our context. The concept of M-education (I find it more comfortable with this term) is not that totally new to Africa, in one way or the other, aspects of m-learning or m-education is being utilised but either on a very small scale or unreported.In the least said, a lot can be achieved drawing on the affordances on scalable and affordable mobile technologies to promote access and quality in the educational environment. However, we are not suggesting that technology solves all educational problems but it can best promote our agenda if due diligence of critical examinations on a case by case basis informed by research is followed.
@Simon-Peter…thank you for such an insightful reaction. I am an ICT convert by the way. To me such debates around the technology factor are deeply entrenched in perceptions and resistance to change by those who matter most…the professors of yesterday. This cadre has written and professed enormously on teaching, teachers and the classroom. I have a feeling that they are defending these yesteryear ideas which did not embrace the use of ICT on learning. My thoughts!
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