The discourse of social media adoption in higher education has often been funnelled through utopian and dystopian perspectives, which are polarised but determinist theorisations of human engagement with educational technologies. Consequently, these determinist approaches have obscured a broadened grasp of the situated, socially constructed nature of human interaction with educational technologies and failed to explain ambivalent positions of technology adoption. To contest the innate determinism embodied in the aforementioned technological views, this paper draws on technological ambivalence to unravel the complex, multiple possibilities in pragmatic use of technology-including the double-bound relationship between human agency and educational technology. A phenomenological approach that draws on self-narratives of the use of social media by Computer Science and Informatics educators at a South African university is employed to unravel how their perceptions of social media shaped and informed their pragmatic instructional uses of these technologies. Findings suggest that the sharp contrasting experiences of collaborative engagement, enactment of decentralised power and democratic expression in social media coexist recursively with the disempowering, dependence-ridden and distractive effects of these technologies. This technological divergence is further compounded by ambivalent views that neither celebrate the unrealistic hopes of social media nor grossly protest against the debilitating effects of these technologies. This view foregrounds the social embeddedness of technology and its potentially multiple, contradictory effects. The implications of these findings include the need for educators to consider social conditions of technology use, the alignment of such conditions with innovative social media-enhanced pedagogical models and the use of proven models to demonstrate the educational potential of social media technologies.
In dealing with numerous challenges, higher education instructors need to adapt their pedagogical practices to present students with meaningful, engaged learning experiences that are likely to promote student success and adequately prepare students for the world we live in. As part of this pedagogical transformation instructors also need to consider the potential of digital technologies to assist flexible pedagogies, as well as the role that students can play as partners in transforming the learning process (C. Evans, D. Muijs, & M. Tomlinson. Engaged student learning: high‐impact strategies to enhance student achievement. York: Higher Education Academy, , p. 9). In this paper the author reflects on her particular engaged scholarship approach and the important role that her students—as collaborators in the pedagogical transformation process—have played in the creation of meaningful technology‐enhanced learning experiences. She describes the evolution of her action inquiry approach over more than a decade and uses one particular project to highlight the value that student voice can contribute to pedagogical transformation. She also underscores the value of a “design for partnership” approach that can be incorporated as an underlying pedagogical approach to facilitate the creation of meaningful learning experiences in a technology‐enhanced teaching and learning environment.
The research reported here was undertaken in a blended learning environment where contact tuition is "blended" with computer-supported (online) learning. The context is a developing country (South Africa). After completion of two full cycles of an action inquiry the planning for the third cycle was undertaken according to an existing process planning model which was originally developed for the design and planning of team-based action learning and action research (ALAR) projects. The illustration of the application of the model focuses on the aspect of student collaboration in a blended learning environment and shows how the original process planning model was adapted and applied during the re-planning phase of the project. The final deliverable is a set of action plans for future collaborative learning that could strengthen student-centred learning experiences in a context which still bears the scars of an unfortunate segregated past.
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