SECTION A
4.2 FINDINGS DERIVED FROM THE FACILITATORS’ DATA SET
4.2.1 The questionnaire for facilitators, Observation, Interview and Document analysis
4.2.1.2 Respondent 1b
course. Her presentation starts with ‘introduction’. Her ‘introduction’ consists of
‘welcome’ and ‘general discussion’. Activities consist of ‘problem’, ‘resources’,
‘tasks’ and student support tools (chat, discussion and / or tracker tools) (Appendix X: Respondent 1a’s design, p.176). Most of her tasks for assessment are submitted online using discussion tools.
Therefore her account suggests that her WBTL environment is dominated by constructivist principles as this was also clear from the results of the questionnaires in the next section of this Chapter 4. The Majority of students felt that their activities have all the characteristics of constructivist learning as identified by Herrington, Reeves and Oliver (2004).
understand it. I am not prepared to go through another process of learning something new at my age. This means I have to learn how to design web sites and use the [LMS] with many different tools. […] I am not prepared to do that. But I know that working as a constructivist I will find my new home in the field of Higher Education as I have already started to work with this field of study to facilitate few modules’. I like the constructivist approach because it involves students’ previous experience and it also helps facilitators to grow using students’ contributions during the time of interaction.
Respondent 1b’s account continues as follows:
We do not have enough Educational Technologists in South Africa because the field is being undermined as if it is for technicians not professionals. Most of our university managers think that Educational Technology is the same as Computer Science or Technology Education. Such misconceptions lead to a situation where everyone from these two fields ends up serving as an internal or external examiner for Educational Technology students. Most of these examiners from Computer Science and Technology Education or Media studies sometimes use positivist approach while our students use interpretive approach. This has been a problem for most of my students where one of my students was given fail by an internal examiner (new Doctor) from Computer Science and a distinction by an external examiner (senior Professor) from Educational Technology. There are many other cases that I can show you but this does not help me anymore because I am leaving the field to join one of the most respectful fields (Higher Education) or I have to take my pension. I can’t publish because I cannot even manage my workload because this university has been searching for qualified Educational Technologists since 2003 to fill the existing vacant positions.
Therefore, we are carrying other peoples’ workload because the university is unsuccessful in trying to fill these positions.
The above account from Respondent 1b suggests that he has developed a negative attitude towards the use of Web technologies because of the context he worked in. This context continually changed through innovation, making this field of work highly engaging with constant updating of knowledge and skills. His age also contributed to this feeling as he felt that this constant growth in the IT field was and is too demanding. The issue emerging from this narrative suggests that there should be some stability to allow for usability of systems and processes rather than upgrading and re-training.
Respondent 1b’s account also suggests that there is a shortage of Educational Technologists is South Africa because the field is not given equal status with other field of studies. If this is true it will mean that South Africa will still lose more Educational Technologists to other fields of studies.
Another issue of concern according to him has to do with the workload which he cannot manage because there is a shortage of Educational Technologists in South Africa. One facilitator carries workloads for other facilitators because his / her university has some vacant posts.
Through the observations and a review of the documents it was found that:
In terms of his design for WBTL, he uses the easiest ring of the three rings and operates at first level of Activity Theory because of his frames of reference (White and Weight, 2000) which in most cases, for Web facilitators, are different from the ones that are mentioned in Chapter 2. Respondent 1b prepares different projects for his students and gives them a list of search engines to be used in order to complete these projects. He also uses emails and blog sites (Appendix X: Respondent 1b’s Design, p.183) to communicate with his students. In terms of assessment he uses both group and individual assessment strategies which are not based on the Web in most cases. The only Web assessment strategy he applies is when he asks his students to comment on the blog site or send an email with PowerPoint for presentation. But, he has all the personal qualities (White & Weight, 2000) required to facilitate the Web learning for constructivists as one component of the frames of reference (as indicated in Chapter 2). The results from the questionnaires below also indicate
that he is using the easiest ring only as he indicated that he cannot use most of the tools (technologies) indicated in Chapter 2 (White, 1999).
He starts his presentation by emailing his PowerPoint presentation (not animated because he does not know how to animate a presentation) to all his students before they come to meet him. His presentation consists of his ‘contact details’; ‘outcomes’; ‘dates & time for contact sessions’; ‘topics to be covered’;
‘projects for his students’; ‘list of different search engines’; ‘assessment criteria’
and ‘module evaluation’. When he meets his students he introduces them to his blog (blogging) site (Appendix X: Respondent 1b’s design, p.183).
This account suggests that Respondent 1b resorted to using the easiest ring of the three rings and operating in the first level of AT. With the fast changing nature of the field he is not able to cope with innovations. He does not cope with different Learning Management Systems (LMS) (easier ring of the three) used by universities in South Africa which are much easier than designing a new web site (third ring of the three).