International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, Apr 1, 2012
Although use of podcasting is increasingly becoming popular in higher education, there is inadequ... more Although use of podcasting is increasingly becoming popular in higher education, there is inadequate research published which explores podcasting in developing Higher Education Institutions let alone the design of tools to support tasks in resource constrained environments. There are fragmented implementations of podcasting projects by enthusiastic faculty but the tools used are either proprietary, imported from the west by administrators and without any consultation with the lecturers who eventually use them. Similarly, many of these tools are normally used on a trial basis. We hypothesize that involving academics through user centered design approaches in the design of educational applications will encourage them to use the tools. This paper reflects on a Participatory Action Research approach adopted in the design of a podcasting system. The research study incorporated a cyclical action model with four distinctive stages (Analyze, Plan, Implement and Evaluate) designed to guide the constituencies involved in the study to design, test, and possibly enhance the tool. The findings reveal some of the contextual phenomena that create both challenges and opportunities for a podcasting model.
Employers have criticised graduates for inadequate skills to apply knowledge into practice due to... more Employers have criticised graduates for inadequate skills to apply knowledge into practice due to the traditional teaching and learning methods which concentrate more on theory than practice. Technology affords several teaching and learning methods like social media which students are already motivated to use. The research therefore used Facebook technology to facilitate students' application of operating systems knowledge to record and upload a video installing a virtual machine and operating system onto a group; to promote content access, and interactive and cooperative learning. The results from the study show that the overall effect of Facebook on students learning process and experience was positive because it enabled putting knowledge into practice, sharing, collaboration, interaction, flexibility and learner-centred activities, among others. Therefore, to increase learning outcome, motivation, desire and interest, new educational technologies should continuously be explored by educational institutions, educators and learners for teaching and learning in the digital era. In this light we recommend that Facebook should be assessed in more studies and integrated as a tool for learning at the university since students appreciate it, find it easy to use and familiar. 2 BACKGROUND Makerere University has not yet embraced elearning to its full potential since technology use in
This chapter discusses the blending of anonymous short message services (SMS) with a learning man... more This chapter discusses the blending of anonymous short message services (SMS) with a learning management system (LMS) to support non-traditional postgraduate learners in a block release programme at a higher education institution. The personal ownership of the mobile phone, coupled with its consistent presence and connectivity, was enhanced through the provision of anonymous communication via SMS. The seamless integration allowed for optimal use by learners who had limited access to the LMS but greater access to the mobile device. The mobile phone enhanced with anonymity created a safe learning environment based on andragogical principles. The postgraduate programme made extensive use of the learning management system (LMS). In block release programmes, learners may be distributed in developing countries and have one contact week per module. During both pre and post-contact sessions, learners are located in contexts where mobile connectivity is more guaranteed than Internet access. Most resources are downloaded during the contact week for reading offline. As learners interact with resources they engage in internal dialogue and mobile phones can facilitate a way to artefact internal dialogues through blogging. The use of anonymous communication using SMS creates a safe and equal socially networked knowledge production environment.
Although student engagement has potential to enhance learning and student retention, the use of d... more Although student engagement has potential to enhance learning and student retention, the use of digital games to achieve this learning outcome remains a challenge in higher education. While the role of gamification is highly predicated in Horizon Reports to enter mainstream education, the popularity of game-based learning has remained marginal. In this paper we report on the use of game-based learning at a higher education institution where students are pre-disposed to play games outside formal educational settings. This is further compounded by the challenging nature of designing learning activities that fully exploits students' capacity to engage. This paper reports on a case study using game based learning as a tool to mediate engagement for students enrolled in health science education at a resource poor higher education institution in South Africa. The aim of this study was to examine the role of a digital game to enhance student engagement within the classroom. By means of mixed methods, this study utilised a design-based enquiry using a case study of sport science curricula. Design-based research was used as part of the design and implementation of an interactive learning environment using a technology (gaming) innovation within an education setting. Sixty-four students from a sport science department volunteered to participate in this study. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected. Results indicate that even though 89% if participants indicated that they have played digital games, only 46 % indicated that they have engaged with a digital game for the purpose of learning. Baseline data prior to intervention suggested that students did not learn well in groups (70.3%, M=1.91; SD=0.938). However, in post-intervention focus group interviews students expressed that the introduction of a digital game for learning in the classroom aided co-construction of knowledge in a fun and meaningful way. This study concludes that the use of digital games is a valuable mediating tool in sport science education as it strengthens collaborative learning and improves engagement. This paper recommends a strategy to improve engagement and ultimately student retention. This study offers new insight into understanding student engagement within a game based learning environment.
International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation, 2015
Students at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries face challenges not limi... more Students at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries face challenges not limited to large classes and inability to quickly understand lectures as these are delivered in English language which is adopted in most higher education as a medium of instruction. This challenge is compounded for students who speak English as their second or third language. Although podcasts and vodcasts are increasingly becoming popular in HEIs as a means of augmenting face-to-face (f2f) lectures, their limitations are well documented. In this paper we report on a MOBILect, an interactive mobile lecturing tool that aimed to mitigate the limitations of podcasting or vodcasting and fosters deep learning. The tool was evaluated at the
International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 2020
One of the challenges of teaching current students’ history is how to transform a generally borin... more One of the challenges of teaching current students’ history is how to transform a generally boring subject to appeal to 21st century students. The continued use of traditional methods in teaching history by lecturers emphasizes recitation and narration. This makes student inactive. In this paper, we propose a model for teaching history using emerging technologies in ways that stimulate learners’ interest and draw on historical contexts. Following the four stages of design-based research methodology, two iterations were designed and examined where pre-service teachers (C21st students) used multimodal affordances of emerging technologies (modern tool) to interrogate historical facts (history) in creative and engaging manner. The findings suggest that design principles and guidelines have potential to help students and teachers to restore interest in history teaching and learning while simultaneously guiding and interpreting the human past. A major outcome of this research was the deve...
There is an increasing disjuncture between the use of technologies and the impact that this has o... more There is an increasing disjuncture between the use of technologies and the impact that this has on teaching and learning practice. This challenge is compounded by the lack of institutional preparedness to support emerging practices that harness transformative potential in higher education (HE). Most staff development initiatives have tended to focus on skills acquisition, which have often not translated into pedagogical change. In the previous two years (2011 and 2012), four higher education institutions (HEIs) in Cape Town, South Africa, convened a collaborative short course on ‘Emerging Technologies for Improving Teaching and Learning’, which was targeted at 43 educators at the four HEIs over the two years it was offered. The objective of the course was to empower educators from the four HEIs with pedagogical knowledge for teaching with emerging technologies by modelling authentic practices. The course provided a unique opportunity for academics to come together in a relaxed and s...
The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 2020
Although culturally diverse students have potential to create enriched learning resources, it is ... more Although culturally diverse students have potential to create enriched learning resources, it is difficult to harness students’ agency and to aggregate individual contributions into a meaningful learning resource. This is one of the challenges facing higher education institutions in South Africa where institutions are increasingly cosmopolitan and culturally diverse, but production of knowledge has largely remained skewed in favour of those students with unlimited access to learning resources, the Internet and peer networks, anywhere, anytime. Although the appropriation of emerging technologies such as mobile phones has enabled a digital sharing culture, this social practice has not been harnessed for co-creation of learning resources. This article reports on a study that sought to uncover the extent to which the use of WhatsApp-enabled phones facilitated the co-creation of learning resources in a human resource management programme at a university of technology in South Africa. The...
Advanced research design is a compulsory module offered to Masters in Education (MEd) in Informat... more Advanced research design is a compulsory module offered to Masters in Education (MEd) in Information Communication Technology (ICT) students embarking on a minor dissertation. The Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) at the University of Cape Town offers the course in blended (hybrid) mode for students in their ICTs in Education stream. The hybrid module involves pre-course work, a 6 day face-to-face block component where students develop and get feedback on an initial research design, followed by post-course proposal development with lecturers and peer feedback. This record contains a selection of materials from the course, named according to the dominant theme explored in each resource, namely: 1 - Research Topic and Problem; 2 - Context and rationale; 3 - Concepts, empirical research and literature review; 4 - Conceptual frameworks and theories; 5 - Research questions; 6 - Data collection and data analysis; 7 - Ethics; and 9 - Validity. These materials were last updated July 2017
One of the challenges facing higher education institutions in general and Uganda in particular, i... more One of the challenges facing higher education institutions in general and Uganda in particular, is the widening gulf between increased use of technology for teaching and learning and achieving meaningful learning outcomes, especially in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we report on one use of technology where a teacher's integration of YouTube videos in teaching increased students' levels of interaction with the content of the video, with peers and with the instructor (teacher). Guided by the sequential mixed-method design, a series of online learning activities were designed and matched with a carefully selected YouTube video. The activity was piloted and refined for use on purposefully selected teaching staff. The staff watched the videos that were uploaded on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and responded to online learning tasks at individual and group levels. The VLE served as a knowledge sharing space for reflections. The paper concludes that lesson design was critical in enriching the VLE with carefully selected YouTube videos. Our key recommendations are: focus on the learning outcomes, design for the desired interactions, build into the task reflections, and decide whether to pre-select YouTube videos for students or to allow students to find appropriate YouTube videos; use reflections and knowledge sharing spaces. Further work has built reflective questions in the video which allows student to pause and reflect.
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, 2017
Employers have criticised graduates for inadequate skills to apply knowledge into practice due to... more Employers have criticised graduates for inadequate skills to apply knowledge into practice due to the traditional teaching and learning methods which concentrate more on theory than practice. Technology affords several teaching and learning methods like social media which students are already motivated to use. The research therefore used Facebook technology to facilitate students' application of operating systems knowledge to record and upload a video installing a virtual machine and operating system onto a group; to promote content access, and interactive and cooperative learning. The results from the study show that the overall effect of Facebook on students learning process and experience was positive because it enabled putting knowledge into practice, sharing, collaboration, interaction, flexibility and learner-centred activities, among others. Therefore, to increase learning outcome, motivation, desire and interest, new educational technologies should continuously be explored by educational institutions, educators and learners for teaching and learning in the digital era. In this light we recommend that Facebook should be assessed in more studies and integrated as a tool for learning at the university since students appreciate it, find it easy to use and familiar. 2 BACKGROUND Makerere University has not yet embraced elearning to its full potential since technology use in
Vodcasts are increasingly becoming popular in higher education as a means of enhancing learning e... more Vodcasts are increasingly becoming popular in higher education as a means of enhancing learning especially for part time students who are separated by distance from their tutor. In this paper we propose a tool, MOBILect, that enables students to comment on lecture vodcasts using mobile devices, and aggregated comments become an educational resource. The vodcasts are generated through YouTube.
Education for the 21st Century — Impact of ICT and Digital Resources
Although current literature on learning styles shows that matching a teacher's instructional styl... more Although current literature on learning styles shows that matching a teacher's instructional style with the learning styles of students affects performance in a classroom environment, little is known about the influence of learning styles in online interaction. The paper argues that students' individual learning styles influences how students interact online and that rather than adapt to user's learning styles, online environments tend to force behavior change on users' learning styles. The paper discusses a project in which students with varying learning styles used an online consultation (DFAQ) tool for collaborative knowledge sharing, and reports on how learning styles influenced online interaction and the use of DFAQ changed rather than adapted to users' learning styles. The paper concludes that for online environments to be educationally efficacious, sensitivity to different learning styles is desirable though the implementation of such sensitivity is non-trivial.
International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, Apr 1, 2012
Although use of podcasting is increasingly becoming popular in higher education, there is inadequ... more Although use of podcasting is increasingly becoming popular in higher education, there is inadequate research published which explores podcasting in developing Higher Education Institutions let alone the design of tools to support tasks in resource constrained environments. There are fragmented implementations of podcasting projects by enthusiastic faculty but the tools used are either proprietary, imported from the west by administrators and without any consultation with the lecturers who eventually use them. Similarly, many of these tools are normally used on a trial basis. We hypothesize that involving academics through user centered design approaches in the design of educational applications will encourage them to use the tools. This paper reflects on a Participatory Action Research approach adopted in the design of a podcasting system. The research study incorporated a cyclical action model with four distinctive stages (Analyze, Plan, Implement and Evaluate) designed to guide the constituencies involved in the study to design, test, and possibly enhance the tool. The findings reveal some of the contextual phenomena that create both challenges and opportunities for a podcasting model.
Employers have criticised graduates for inadequate skills to apply knowledge into practice due to... more Employers have criticised graduates for inadequate skills to apply knowledge into practice due to the traditional teaching and learning methods which concentrate more on theory than practice. Technology affords several teaching and learning methods like social media which students are already motivated to use. The research therefore used Facebook technology to facilitate students' application of operating systems knowledge to record and upload a video installing a virtual machine and operating system onto a group; to promote content access, and interactive and cooperative learning. The results from the study show that the overall effect of Facebook on students learning process and experience was positive because it enabled putting knowledge into practice, sharing, collaboration, interaction, flexibility and learner-centred activities, among others. Therefore, to increase learning outcome, motivation, desire and interest, new educational technologies should continuously be explored by educational institutions, educators and learners for teaching and learning in the digital era. In this light we recommend that Facebook should be assessed in more studies and integrated as a tool for learning at the university since students appreciate it, find it easy to use and familiar. 2 BACKGROUND Makerere University has not yet embraced elearning to its full potential since technology use in
This chapter discusses the blending of anonymous short message services (SMS) with a learning man... more This chapter discusses the blending of anonymous short message services (SMS) with a learning management system (LMS) to support non-traditional postgraduate learners in a block release programme at a higher education institution. The personal ownership of the mobile phone, coupled with its consistent presence and connectivity, was enhanced through the provision of anonymous communication via SMS. The seamless integration allowed for optimal use by learners who had limited access to the LMS but greater access to the mobile device. The mobile phone enhanced with anonymity created a safe learning environment based on andragogical principles. The postgraduate programme made extensive use of the learning management system (LMS). In block release programmes, learners may be distributed in developing countries and have one contact week per module. During both pre and post-contact sessions, learners are located in contexts where mobile connectivity is more guaranteed than Internet access. Most resources are downloaded during the contact week for reading offline. As learners interact with resources they engage in internal dialogue and mobile phones can facilitate a way to artefact internal dialogues through blogging. The use of anonymous communication using SMS creates a safe and equal socially networked knowledge production environment.
Although student engagement has potential to enhance learning and student retention, the use of d... more Although student engagement has potential to enhance learning and student retention, the use of digital games to achieve this learning outcome remains a challenge in higher education. While the role of gamification is highly predicated in Horizon Reports to enter mainstream education, the popularity of game-based learning has remained marginal. In this paper we report on the use of game-based learning at a higher education institution where students are pre-disposed to play games outside formal educational settings. This is further compounded by the challenging nature of designing learning activities that fully exploits students' capacity to engage. This paper reports on a case study using game based learning as a tool to mediate engagement for students enrolled in health science education at a resource poor higher education institution in South Africa. The aim of this study was to examine the role of a digital game to enhance student engagement within the classroom. By means of mixed methods, this study utilised a design-based enquiry using a case study of sport science curricula. Design-based research was used as part of the design and implementation of an interactive learning environment using a technology (gaming) innovation within an education setting. Sixty-four students from a sport science department volunteered to participate in this study. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected. Results indicate that even though 89% if participants indicated that they have played digital games, only 46 % indicated that they have engaged with a digital game for the purpose of learning. Baseline data prior to intervention suggested that students did not learn well in groups (70.3%, M=1.91; SD=0.938). However, in post-intervention focus group interviews students expressed that the introduction of a digital game for learning in the classroom aided co-construction of knowledge in a fun and meaningful way. This study concludes that the use of digital games is a valuable mediating tool in sport science education as it strengthens collaborative learning and improves engagement. This paper recommends a strategy to improve engagement and ultimately student retention. This study offers new insight into understanding student engagement within a game based learning environment.
International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation, 2015
Students at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries face challenges not limi... more Students at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries face challenges not limited to large classes and inability to quickly understand lectures as these are delivered in English language which is adopted in most higher education as a medium of instruction. This challenge is compounded for students who speak English as their second or third language. Although podcasts and vodcasts are increasingly becoming popular in HEIs as a means of augmenting face-to-face (f2f) lectures, their limitations are well documented. In this paper we report on a MOBILect, an interactive mobile lecturing tool that aimed to mitigate the limitations of podcasting or vodcasting and fosters deep learning. The tool was evaluated at the
International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 2020
One of the challenges of teaching current students’ history is how to transform a generally borin... more One of the challenges of teaching current students’ history is how to transform a generally boring subject to appeal to 21st century students. The continued use of traditional methods in teaching history by lecturers emphasizes recitation and narration. This makes student inactive. In this paper, we propose a model for teaching history using emerging technologies in ways that stimulate learners’ interest and draw on historical contexts. Following the four stages of design-based research methodology, two iterations were designed and examined where pre-service teachers (C21st students) used multimodal affordances of emerging technologies (modern tool) to interrogate historical facts (history) in creative and engaging manner. The findings suggest that design principles and guidelines have potential to help students and teachers to restore interest in history teaching and learning while simultaneously guiding and interpreting the human past. A major outcome of this research was the deve...
There is an increasing disjuncture between the use of technologies and the impact that this has o... more There is an increasing disjuncture between the use of technologies and the impact that this has on teaching and learning practice. This challenge is compounded by the lack of institutional preparedness to support emerging practices that harness transformative potential in higher education (HE). Most staff development initiatives have tended to focus on skills acquisition, which have often not translated into pedagogical change. In the previous two years (2011 and 2012), four higher education institutions (HEIs) in Cape Town, South Africa, convened a collaborative short course on ‘Emerging Technologies for Improving Teaching and Learning’, which was targeted at 43 educators at the four HEIs over the two years it was offered. The objective of the course was to empower educators from the four HEIs with pedagogical knowledge for teaching with emerging technologies by modelling authentic practices. The course provided a unique opportunity for academics to come together in a relaxed and s...
The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 2020
Although culturally diverse students have potential to create enriched learning resources, it is ... more Although culturally diverse students have potential to create enriched learning resources, it is difficult to harness students’ agency and to aggregate individual contributions into a meaningful learning resource. This is one of the challenges facing higher education institutions in South Africa where institutions are increasingly cosmopolitan and culturally diverse, but production of knowledge has largely remained skewed in favour of those students with unlimited access to learning resources, the Internet and peer networks, anywhere, anytime. Although the appropriation of emerging technologies such as mobile phones has enabled a digital sharing culture, this social practice has not been harnessed for co-creation of learning resources. This article reports on a study that sought to uncover the extent to which the use of WhatsApp-enabled phones facilitated the co-creation of learning resources in a human resource management programme at a university of technology in South Africa. The...
Advanced research design is a compulsory module offered to Masters in Education (MEd) in Informat... more Advanced research design is a compulsory module offered to Masters in Education (MEd) in Information Communication Technology (ICT) students embarking on a minor dissertation. The Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) at the University of Cape Town offers the course in blended (hybrid) mode for students in their ICTs in Education stream. The hybrid module involves pre-course work, a 6 day face-to-face block component where students develop and get feedback on an initial research design, followed by post-course proposal development with lecturers and peer feedback. This record contains a selection of materials from the course, named according to the dominant theme explored in each resource, namely: 1 - Research Topic and Problem; 2 - Context and rationale; 3 - Concepts, empirical research and literature review; 4 - Conceptual frameworks and theories; 5 - Research questions; 6 - Data collection and data analysis; 7 - Ethics; and 9 - Validity. These materials were last updated July 2017
One of the challenges facing higher education institutions in general and Uganda in particular, i... more One of the challenges facing higher education institutions in general and Uganda in particular, is the widening gulf between increased use of technology for teaching and learning and achieving meaningful learning outcomes, especially in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we report on one use of technology where a teacher's integration of YouTube videos in teaching increased students' levels of interaction with the content of the video, with peers and with the instructor (teacher). Guided by the sequential mixed-method design, a series of online learning activities were designed and matched with a carefully selected YouTube video. The activity was piloted and refined for use on purposefully selected teaching staff. The staff watched the videos that were uploaded on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and responded to online learning tasks at individual and group levels. The VLE served as a knowledge sharing space for reflections. The paper concludes that lesson design was critical in enriching the VLE with carefully selected YouTube videos. Our key recommendations are: focus on the learning outcomes, design for the desired interactions, build into the task reflections, and decide whether to pre-select YouTube videos for students or to allow students to find appropriate YouTube videos; use reflections and knowledge sharing spaces. Further work has built reflective questions in the video which allows student to pause and reflect.
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, 2017
Employers have criticised graduates for inadequate skills to apply knowledge into practice due to... more Employers have criticised graduates for inadequate skills to apply knowledge into practice due to the traditional teaching and learning methods which concentrate more on theory than practice. Technology affords several teaching and learning methods like social media which students are already motivated to use. The research therefore used Facebook technology to facilitate students' application of operating systems knowledge to record and upload a video installing a virtual machine and operating system onto a group; to promote content access, and interactive and cooperative learning. The results from the study show that the overall effect of Facebook on students learning process and experience was positive because it enabled putting knowledge into practice, sharing, collaboration, interaction, flexibility and learner-centred activities, among others. Therefore, to increase learning outcome, motivation, desire and interest, new educational technologies should continuously be explored by educational institutions, educators and learners for teaching and learning in the digital era. In this light we recommend that Facebook should be assessed in more studies and integrated as a tool for learning at the university since students appreciate it, find it easy to use and familiar. 2 BACKGROUND Makerere University has not yet embraced elearning to its full potential since technology use in
Vodcasts are increasingly becoming popular in higher education as a means of enhancing learning e... more Vodcasts are increasingly becoming popular in higher education as a means of enhancing learning especially for part time students who are separated by distance from their tutor. In this paper we propose a tool, MOBILect, that enables students to comment on lecture vodcasts using mobile devices, and aggregated comments become an educational resource. The vodcasts are generated through YouTube.
Education for the 21st Century — Impact of ICT and Digital Resources
Although current literature on learning styles shows that matching a teacher's instructional styl... more Although current literature on learning styles shows that matching a teacher's instructional style with the learning styles of students affects performance in a classroom environment, little is known about the influence of learning styles in online interaction. The paper argues that students' individual learning styles influences how students interact online and that rather than adapt to user's learning styles, online environments tend to force behavior change on users' learning styles. The paper discusses a project in which students with varying learning styles used an online consultation (DFAQ) tool for collaborative knowledge sharing, and reports on how learning styles influenced online interaction and the use of DFAQ changed rather than adapted to users' learning styles. The paper concludes that for online environments to be educationally efficacious, sensitivity to different learning styles is desirable though the implementation of such sensitivity is non-trivial.
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Papers by Dick Ng'ambi