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@Sshangwe,
I think that debate will be endless. The fact still remains that peoples’ perceptions are shaped by their experiences, freight and other perspectives. It is just like asking the question, “The seed or the plant: Which one is older/important?” Such issues raise a lot of recurring debates or justifications only based on a perception or an experience.
In my country one of the ‘frowned’ upon behaviours of youth on cellphones is that of loss of respect and being uncommunicative. Culturally, concentrating on a cellphone while in the midst of other people is a sign of disrespect and being rude. Such cultural expectations does work against the ideas of using such gadgets in and outside the classroom. From this research’s point of view, how can we overcome this hurdle? Also, the issue of inclusiveness has not been well addressed much in this move towards ICT and teaching. In my setting, failure to address such a pertinent issue may mean further exclusion of the challenged learner. What are your ideas?
@Kafui, that’s just one side of it. There are instances where people have perceptions that are driven by their inexperience. Take for instance Robert’s take about the older generation are their views of technologies as anti-social and disruptive. You’ve raised pertinent views here about not simply using technology for the sake of it, but aligning it to theory and research. Are there any suggestions as to how to address devices vs vices debate, which Okokon and Jerome raise in another discussion thread?
But hasn’t Western education system in the context of African societies always been like that – problematic. Culturally, you are not supposed to talk back to an adult, but in the classroom you are supposed to challenge and question the dorminant views. Culturally the adult especially the teacher is the sage on stage; but that view does not fly in the classroom. Hasn’t Western education system always been about disruptions? Why then should these disruptions be contested so much when it comes to introducing technologies in the classroom? When do we say okay with the disruptions in the way we have been doing things; and when do we dig our heels in?
Hello Everyone,
My name is Ikechukwu Nwanze. Am an assistant lecturer and online support staff at the Disability Studies Division at the Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Cape Town. Teaching with technology has recently being taking centre stage in our division especially in the affordances technology offers to students and staff with disabilities. So we are in the stream of making teaching and learning content accessible to visual, hearing, physical and learning impaired users. It’s a really exciting area for application of technology but still not widely practiced. So you might have heard of assistive technologies and i like to think we are all users of assistive technology because using a computer, smartphone, printer, screen are all assistive technologies at different levels as they help us accomplish tasks which otherwise would have been more difficult in today’s world. I think in applying technology to teaching and learning, context should also be considered so technology enables more and hinders less. Context can also be at many levels like one’s socio-economic status, ability, resource availability…etc. Looking forward to more engagement with you all.
Hi Ike
I really the term ‘assistive technology’. I think it is quite relevant and central to the parallel discussions in the forums. In fact, shouldn’t this be how approach technology integration – to assist?
I wish you could say more to the statement you make that “Context can also be at many levels like one’s socio-economic status, ability, resource availability…etc.”
@Khanyisile
Well put Khanyi. These are necessary ‘disruptions’ which must be embraced by all. I just raised this issue to raise the issue of cultural settings which are macro settings to the micro school setting. How do we bring parents and other stakeholders into the fold. Are they any studies that has been conducted on parents’ perceptions on the use of these gadgets in the classroom? What lessons were learned?
Welcome Ike. Very impressive move by your institution.
from my point of view parents and all other educational stake holders can be engaged in the integration of ICT in education especially using the web 2.0 technologies or Mobile technologies. lets not forget learning is the act of acquiring new, or modifying and reinforcing, existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information which we have all been doing unknowingly using various technologies. for example as a parent one might have called a friend to ask for additional information or verify an information which he or she already has. so now what we ass educational technologist need to do is to let them know that we all learn using technology in this 21st century. A question to all of us is “Who have never called or texted a colleague to ask for any sort of information that will modify and reinforce, existing knowledge, behaviors, skills and or values?”
i have so therefore i want to let everyone else know and if you also have let others know. if we all know we do learn using ICT we will all agree for it to be integrated into the formal educational curriculum.
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