New Technologies and Innovative Learning
Blended Learning with Moodle as a Learning Management System for Academic Performance of Developmental Psychology Students
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Niuma Mohamed
This research was aimed at examining the impact of the blended learning approach of instruction on developmental psychology students’ academic performance. To achieve the objectives of the study, participants were chosen from both blended and traditional learning groups. Among the fifty students in the sample, those in the blended learning group (n=25) were using Moodle while those in the traditional learning group (n=25) were using conventional methods of learning. The study was conducted for two consecutive semesters in the academic year 2018. Semester final examination results and a survey questionnaire were used as the data collection instruments. The paired sample t-test results showed that there is no significant difference in students’ achievement whether using traditional learning methods or blended teaching methods. The Spearman Rho Correlation analysis showed that the relationship between content materials and student engagement is significant which is (r = 0.638, ρ = 0.00, ρ < 0.05) with medium relationship rate. The Analysis of the Friedman Test result for the third question showed that overall all the items uploaded on Moodle draw students’ interest in studying. Items that gain the highest mean rank value are YouTube and Website links.
Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Challenges of New Learning Supported by New Technologies
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Willem Hendrik Oliver
The world is on the brink of, or already part of the 4IR (fourth industrial revolution), called by some an emerging new world order. Educating students in Institutions of Higher Education today like we did a half century ago, has now become education to a "quickly vanishing world." The way in which the content of subjects is communicated and educated should change drastically, especially in South Africa, in order to prepare our students to become or stay relevant in the current (post-) postmodern society. To address the challenges of new learning, which should be supported by new technologies, the proposed model of ("new") education is called an outside-in model, contrasted to the current inside-out model being followed in South Africa. Our students must be taught to develop a sense of deep learning, to learn as part of groups, and to use social media in the service of education. The question that each educator should ask themselves nowadays, is: Am I really preparing my students for the future they face?
Gaga for Google: Critiquing Search Engine Use in Australian Home-schools
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Renee Morrison
Online search engines have radically altered the capacity for educators and students to access information anywhere at any time, making education at home more feasible than ever. In Australia, home-schoolers make up the nation’s fastest growing educational demographic (Chapman, 2017). As elsewhere, assumptions about new technologies raise deterministic expectations in home-schools about the seemingly inherent new educational benefits. Home-schoolers use the internet more than other technology and more than ever before. Their most prolific online activity is search engine use (Bullock, 2011; Neil, Bonner, and Bonner, 2014), yet to date, little is known about such use. In this paper, I discuss the results of a critical mixed methods study into how Australian home-schoolers view, and use, search engines like Google. I elaborate on a rhetoric-reality gap revealed between the home-schoolers’ assumptions about the power search engines afford them and that which their current use provides. Despite only occasionally experiencing search success, the participants maintained a steadfast optimism in the educational benefits of the technology. This unwavering faith in search engines is contextualised in the presentation as a reflection of widespread ideologies surrounding technology and education where all things digital are unquestionably applauded. My analysis infers that home-schoolers who reject deterministic rhetoric and who instead critically reflect upon search and their own search success may have greater power to ensure the potential new educational benefits are not just presumed, but realised.
