Instructional technologies in social science instruction in South Africa (original) (raw)
Related papers
Perspectives in Education, 2005
Numerous South African policy documents support the use of ICTs in education, claiming that they can be beneficial to education, in a variety of ways. This article seeks to understand how ICTs are used in practice as part of teaching and learning, since access to ICTs alone does not ensure use, nor automatically add value. Through a regional study conducted in five higher education institutions in the Western Cape, we describe how and to what extent academic staff and students are using ICTs as part of teaching and learning events. Using an analytical framework adapted from Laurillard, we are able to provide more complex descriptions of how ICTs are being used, and to describe how specific staff and student groupings use ICTs differently. We confirm that ICTs are certainly being used as part of teaching and learning, most frequently as part of discovery and creation events. We also identify areas where the specific possibilities and affordances of ICTs are not being exploited. In addition, we identify anomalies in use in terms of age, and disciplinary domain. We find too that students report using ICTs to support their learning activities even when it is not required of them to do so. This evokes questions about staff-student interactions, and has implications for institutional staff development strategies.
British Journal of Educational Technology, 2016
In the last 20 years, the South African higher education has changed significantly, influenced by global trends national development goals and pressure from local educational imperatives, in the context of a digitally networked world. Shifts in technology enhanced pedagogical practices and in discourses around information and communication technologies (ICTs) have had varying degrees of influence in higher education. This paper takes a rearview of a 20-year journey of technology enhanced learning in South African higher education. An analysis of literature view is presented chronologically in four phases: phase 1 (1996-2000), phase 2 (2001-05), phase 3 (2006-10) and phase 4 (2011-16). In phase 1 technology was used predominantly for drill and practice, computer-aided instruction, with growing consciousness of the digital divide. In phase 2 institutions primarily focused on building ICT infrastructure, democratizing information, policy development and research; they sought to compare the effectiveness of teaching with or without technology. During phase 3 institutions began to include ICTs in their strategic directions, digital divide debates focused on epistemological access, and they also began to conduct research with a pedagogical agenda. In phase 4 mobile learning and social media came to the fore. The research agenda shifted from whether students would use technology to how to exploit what students already use to transform teaching and learning practices. The paper concludes that South Africa's higher education institutions have moved from being solely responsible for both their own relatively poor ICT infrastructure and education provision to cloud-based ICT infrastructure with "unlimited" educational resources that are freely, openly and easily available within and beyond the institution. Although mobile and social media are more evident now than ever before, teaching and learning practice in South African higher education remains largely unchanged.
International Journal of Innovative Technologies in Social Science, 2023
The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought about a significant transformation in the global education system. The incorporation and usage of diverse educational technologies facilitate the acquisition of knowledge in a tangible, effortless, and enjoyable manner, concurrently stimulating students' motivation to engage in the learning process. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the realm of education. The objective of this study is to investigate the implementation of e-learning in the context of higher education in South Africa, with a focus on challenges against effective adoption and usage of e-Learning in curriculum delivery. The significance of e-learning in revolutionising pedagogy through the usage of diverse learning technologies and online platforms for instruction, learning, and evaluation is undeniable. However, several obstacles have impeded the efficient integration of ICT in South African Higher Education Institutions. The research employed a systematic literature review methodology, drawing from diverse sources. Diverse educational institutions have reportedly encountered distinct obstacles in their efforts to successfully incorporate information and communication technology (ICT) into their instructional methodologies. The challenges that impede the efficiency of learning technologies include insufficient ICT resources, inadequate ICT skills, and power outages, among others. Consequently, the research suggests implementing tactics to improve the usage of information and communication technology (ICT) for electronic learning (e-learning) in academic establishments, in order to tackle the obstacles.
The use of Trends in ICT to enhance Undergraduate Teaching: A South African case study
globdev.org
Information and communication technology has a leading role in the way that information is distributed globally. There is an enormous potential in the use of ICT to provide information, accessibility to resources, enhance learning and research sources. Unfortunately, the research literature has for the most part neglected to supply empirical evidence of the value ICT holds for educational institutions, especially as it relates to developing countries. The majority of studies, in common with other emergent business philosophies are for the most part focused on large educational institutions of developed economies, where readily available implementation resources are an underlying assumption. From a large urban South African University engaged in numerous collaboration programs with industry, the authors have gained insight into the use of ICT to support undergraduate teaching. Findings highlight the fact that web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook, pbWiki and Alice, when used as educational tools, have a positive effect on learning and can be used successfully in a developing country context.
ICT in Higher Education - The bigger picture ICT in Higher Education is not just a remarkable technology but it holds the key in propelling South Africa towards a first world country and it has the “power” to aid in alleviating illiteracy. ICT in higher education can bring knowledge to millions by bringing communication to all. This session will look at what this advanced technology can do for the “man on the street” and the global social advantages of implementation by analysing: • Socio economic growth factors • Meeting of digital continents • Conceptual ICT in Higher Education propositions • The way forward - everything you need to consider in using this infrastructure