Pre-title slide (Part 1)• I am running a backchannel at https://todaysmeet.com/TLConf11March • The presentation is available at https://goo.gl/3JrcX7 • It is a low-bandwidth service, requires no registration, and it is

accessible through most browsers and on most devices. • Feel free to participate under a pseudonym.• Please feel free to ask questions, or leave comments about the talk. • It will be good if you can focus your comments on the topic at hand,

and not, for example, my bald spot!• In Part 2, we will use your text to build knowledge.

How cautious should we be when adopting Digital Technology in

Education? (part 1)

2016/03/11

Prof D vd Westhuizen

University of Johannesburg

Very!!

Digital technologies are most often used to perpetuate fundamentalist teaching practices!

Why?

While, the educational imperatives today are:

innovation creativity collaboration digital fluency 21st Century skills ‘tech savvy’ digitally

competent flexible adaptable work-ready

initiative critical life skills communication media skills information literate

These are the pathways to success and prosperity

Fundamentalist adoption of digital adoption• Experienced instructors, protecting the status quo• “It works, it always has worked. I’ve been teaching like this for 20 years”• I possess the knowledge, and I’ll give it to you• The closer the resemblance is between what is given, and what is

returned, the “better” the performance• This is called assessment (knowing what was learnt)• Learning is not about thinking, it is about knowing• Performance is a consequence of diligence• Failure is the result of laziness or ability• The fundamentalist instructor is absolved from responsibility • Naturally, this inhibits reflection on teaching practice

In the training rooms we still find • Outdated teaching models• Pedagogy: “telling”, “reading from the

textbook”, “study this section”• Students activity limited to: “listening”,

“writing down”• The tacit conception of the teaching and

learning methods that are embedded and emanates from peoples experience of teaching over many years• However, the transmission model is ill-

equipped to teach creativity, critical thinking and innovation

Social Darwinism

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

Herbert Spencer

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

Pedagogical Liberation• Jerome Bruner: Learning to be• From knowledge exchange to knowledge creation• Authentic learning and assessment• Teaching as learning activity design• Learners whose learning experiences mostly required of them to function at the

lower levels of Blooms taxonomy, will be wholly under-prepared for university studies• Many (but not all) students who enrol, or who apply

• have weak numerical skills• have weak writing and (English) speaking skills• have little/no ICT skills or media or information literacy skills• were taught in a system steeped in fundamentalism• with the most basic of resources • by teachers who could very well not be qualified to teach

• They are simply not ready for Higher Education (or high performance work environments)

Learning ‘to be’• Jerome Bruner showed that there is a difference between learning about

something like psychology and learning to be a psychologist• The content as isolated facts do not have meaning and relevance until

students discover what this can do for them• It is about creating connections at interpersonal level between those who

are learning, or apprentices, and those who are in the know, the mentors• It is about creating intellectual connections between what is familiar and

what is novel• Learning cuts across disciplines, and they connect learners with future

employers, with customers and clients, and with future colleagues

“Learning to be” requires “that the practices of the knowledge domain (discipline or profession), which include the dispositions, attributes, competencies,

activities, skills, procedures and values of the knowledge domain, and how to best utilise the

conceptual frameworks of the domain to identify and solve problems or address “real-life” issues”

are targeted

Who are we facing?ICT Ownership• Cell Phone – no internet: 23.7%• Cell Phone – Internet (not Smartphone) 48.3%• Smartphone 30.6%• Computer or Laptop 26.7%• Tablet 2.3%

How often did your teachers require that you use ICT in the classroom during class time?• Never 56.2%• Seldom 29.3%• Occasionally 4.2%• Often 8.8%• Almost always 1.4%

The fallacy of “generations”

All hogwash! (sorry )

What do the meta-analyses say? 10 effects: • Feedback to students .72• Formative evaluation .70• Time-on-task .60• Mastery learning plan .53• Small-group learning .49• Homework .30• Web-based learning .18• Individualised instruction .15• Distance education.09• Television -.14

What does the research say about ICT and learning?

What is online learning today?

Learning Skype online

A Road Map?

Social Networking Systems

How familiar is this?

So let’s call it …. Blended learning!

Pandora’s Box!

Stop

What are the affordances, of ICTs, that will support learning? (aka, when are

ICTs not dangerous?)

Is it content replication?

Can you tell the difference?

Dissemination?

Upscaling?

Process animation?

Aggregation?

1. When digital tools ….

Knowledge production and not

replication

Produces polished products

Complex and ill-defined

Requires engagement over long period of

time

Has Real-world relevance

Are used to for learning tasks that are authentic

Requires collaboration and reflectionHas competing solutions

2. And they advance 21st Century Skills

3. They require performance across Bloom’s taxonomy

Create

4. Appropriate formative and summative assessment tasks are

given

What are the digitals tools today?• Mind-mapping on steroids• VUE: Visual understanding of

the environment• https://vue.tufts.edu/

What are the digitals tools today?

• Curation• www.scoop.it (e.g. follow

Innovative Teaching Technologies)

What are the digitals tools today?

• Word clouds• Concept building• www.tagul.com

What are the digitals tools today?• Visualisation tools• Visual Thesaurus • http://www.visualthesaurus.com/vocabgrabber/

What are the digitals tools today?In-class response systemsTodaysmeetwww.todaysmeet.com

What are the digitals tools today?

What are the digitals tools today?Zoom: simple conference calling and hosting

End of Part 1

For Part 2, the presentation begins here – on a blank slate. It will include the use of several of the tools that have mentioned to developed of conceptual understanding. As it was indicated in the beginning of the presentation, you could access the presentation, and were allowed to make comments. Your comments will off course be considered by me during the break, and will provide the springboard for me for Part 2. For Part 2, there is now PowerPoint …. yet!

Thank you for your participation.Duan vd Westhuizen. duanvdw@uj.ac.za