SECTION A
4.2 FINDINGS DERIVED FROM THE FACILITATORS’ DATA SET
4.2.1 The questionnaire for facilitators, Observation, Interview and Document analysis
4.2.1.1 Respondent 1a
Respondent 1a holds a Masters of Science degree in Computer Science as her highest academic qualification. She started her work at one of the universities in South Africa in July of 1988. She is currently employed at INSTITUTION 1 as a senior facilitator in Educational Technology.
My first position was titled User Consultant with a specialisation in training. During this time I developed in-house courses for XyWrite III Plus, DOS, VP Planner, dBase III Plus, WordPerfect, Windows and Ms Word for Windows. I also did training on internal systems such as
“A guide to the Medical School Local Area Network”, and the university […], departmental Student System. During this period I received two merit awards and was promoted to Senior User Consultant, explained Respondent 1a.
Her account continues as follows:
with the development of personal computers in the late 80s and early 90s I became involved with the development and investigation of Computer Based Education (CBE) programs and sat on the Multi- media Research Committee. In this light and with other colleagues we investigated the use of CBE in South African Tertiary Educational Institutions and made recommendations to the University regarding its use and implementation.
As the technology developed and the Internet became pervasive my job description changed. I was made responsible for the support of online learning at the University as a member of the Academic Computing section of the Information Technology Department.
In the early 2000s the University set up a section called Information Technology in Higher Education, and here my job entailed the
support of Academic staff wishing to develop online courses, WebCT Administrator and facilitator of the Online Languages and Human Computer Interface courses which form part of the course work for a postgraduate degree in Digital Media.
In 2002 I was offered a two year contract position at the University […], and [my] University graciously allowed me to take a two year leave of absence effective from January 2002 to December 2003. My job title at the University […] was Training Manager in the IT Department. I was responsible for developing and implementing a training plan for the division. This included the development and implementation of a training plan for long-term degree training for citizen staff as well as short term courses, conferences and professional development for all staff in Information Technology Development. I also acted as the technical support for the University’s e-learning initiative doing server maintenance (with a great deal of assistance from the networking manager) for the WebCT server, helping the staff with WebCT administration when called upon and was the IT Department’s representative on the [University’s…] E-Learning committee.
On returning [to INSTITUTION 1] I continued with my support and teaching duties along with the supervision of honours and masters research dissertations. The institution had changed its Online Learning Management System from WebCT to a home grown open source application.. I was also made responsible for assisting the Medical School to move its WebCT courses to [INSTITUTION 1]
open source. I am also currently involved in the ongoing training of other academic staff members to use the system and I offer support on the system when require.
Her teaching, learning, philosophy and research interests are as follows:
I am familiar with current theories (behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism with, AT, TLT, ANT, connectivism and engagement theory) related to online learning with a strong leaning towards social constructivism in the virtual learning environment. Social constructivism indicates that when students learn there are other people who are involved that can influence the students’ construction of meaning / knowledge / reality. For example, facilitators have a major task in their students’ construction of knowledge. Other people involved are other students, technical support staff, administrators, educational technologist, parents and many others. I think I am strong because in my BA and HDE qualifications I was specialising in Psychology and Guidance Counselling respectively where most of these theories come from. I am particularly interested in the use of technology to support different learning styles (behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism), and in the cultural constructivism issues related to the use of educational technology. Cultural constructivism brings in issues of culture that need to be taken into consideration if one needs to teach or learn effectively. This includes the subjects, objects, community and tools as identified by AT as well as other symbolic systems that are useful in terms of facilitating Web learning interaction as indicated by Vosniadou (1996), said Respondent 1a.
The above account from Respondent 1a suggests that her development of basic knowledge about computer systems and usage was largely facilitated by the context in which she worked. The opportunities were available to her to construct in-house courses and develop training manuals. This context also provided her with the language and skills development needed to further explore and engage in computer aided learning as well as WBTL environments with advanced Web technologies (.e.g. tools used to train facilitators, work as a WebCT & INSTITUTION 1 Window Learning System manager and administrator) and Web theories (social, cultural & communal constructivism).
Further, to the narrative account by the research participant, the following were observed relating to the way she designed and taught students using the WBTL
environment: The data from all the instruments indicate that Respondent 1a is using all the advanced Web technologies as highlighted in the next section (.e.g. computer conferencing software that publishes and plays back the course). She possesses all the relevant frames of references (as identified by White and Weight, 2000) (see Chapter 2) of working as a very strong constructivist learning facilitator as she was encouraging her students to explore their own thinking and knowledge building processes (Biggs, 1995).
Respondent 1a was found to be an effective Educational Technology facilitator to facilitate constructivist learning using the advanced Web technologies.
Looking at her frames of reference one can see that she has been involved in many different kinds of challenging situations that have helped her to transform from other perspectives to that of becoming a constructivist.
In terms of her design strategy for the Web - she uses the three rings and the three schools of thought (dominated by the constructivist dimension), which is equivalent to the third advanced level of Activity Theory (AT). It also has all the Web tools (technologies) indicated in Appendix VI. Her specific design is shown in Appendix X (p. 177-180) (Respondent 1a’s design, Design feature 1 – 4, Chat, Discussion and Design learning tools available). This was also indicated by the results from the two questionnaires (Appendix VII) where her results correspond well with her story (from the other three instruments). The fact that she has been combining different professions to become a strong Educational Technologist to facilitate constructivist learning in using the Web teaching and learning has paid off for her. She has combined English with Psychology (BA), English with Guidance Counselling (HDE) and Computer Science (MSC). She has also published some articles on the WBTL. Respondent 1a uses both the WBTL and face-to-face teaching methods to teach her students.
Respondent 1a does not specify the outcomes of her modules during the time of her presentation, but she only states the aims of the module. The outcomes are only stated in her documents which can only be assimilated by means of document analysis of the instruments or by interviewing her. She believes that if students are given the outcomes they limit themselves to those outcomes even if they could achieve other outcomes that are not specified as a part of the
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).