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The University of Google : Education in the (Post) Information Age / T. Brabazon.
Abstract
Looking at schools and universities, it is difficult to pinpoint when education, teaching and learning started to haemorrhage purpose, aspiration and function. As the internet offers a glut of information, bored surfers fill their cursors and minds with irrelevancies, losing the capacity to sift, discard and judge. In The University of Google, Tara Brabazon projects a defiant and passionate vision of education as a pathway to renewal, where students are on a journey through knowledge rather than consumers in the shopping centre of cheap ideas. In doing so, she opens a new debate on how to make our educational system both productive and provocative in the (post-) information age.
... Who wanders in the virtual, does not want authentic. Personal identity is an illusion in a world ruled by techno-social cyborg mechanisms [12]. ...
... On the other hand, proponents of new media believe that the Internet offers a bunch of personal experiences and an important understanding: I am the crowd. The pages on the Internet a new conception of a multiple but coherent identity illustrate in a particularly plastic way [12]. The Internet has become a metaphorical abode of the Self, and the user's identity is the result of the connections and relationships they establish. ...
... As a technique used by today's youth on a daily basis, the Internet has proven to be a condition that determines the environment that determines the everyday life of a generation and its behavior. [12]. ...
... This marginalization through analogue space is only intensified through the institutional push to digitization. Because online learning has been framed throughout its twenty-year history as a way to reduce costs and create efficiencies (Brabazon, 2002;Brabazon, 2008;Brabazon, 2013), the principles of universal design are becoming increasingly lost in the 'rush' to digitization. Online learning portals increase the disablement of some students (Kusmawan, 2022). ...
... This marginalization through analogue space is only intensified through the institutional push to digitization. Because online learning has been framed throughout its twenty-year history as a way to reduce costs and create efficiencies (Brabazon, 2002;Brabazon, 2008;Brabazon, 2013), the principles of universal design are becoming increasingly lost in the 'rush' to digitization. Online learning portals increase the disablement of some students (Kusmawan, 2022). ...
Student attrition figures are a hidden metric in universities. They signify institutional failure, inhibit branding and marketing campaigns, and displace blame onto individual students. Behind the thousands of cases of attrition are individual stories of shame, guilt, failure, confusion, and lost future hopes and aspirations. This article explores how students' in and through their diversity - can be supported to succeed. Critiquing the deficit model of teaching and learning and deploying both universal design and the abundance model of teaching and learning, this article provides new strategies for student success. We offer innovative methodologies to understand and enable productive pathways by students through a curriculum. The goal is to enhance and enliven science education and demonstrate the gift and power of well-qualified university academics aligning innovative research and teaching.
... Given a set of textual data set, where some are positive and some are negative or neutral for a classification task, ROC is a good measure of the system performance (Brabazon, 2016), where 1.0 is a perfect score (Das, Govardhan, and Lakshmi, 2019). ...
... Donneau-Golencer et al. (2019) argued that the availability of textual data on the internet makes it possible to study users opinions on various services offered by certain corporations or brands. In this perspective, entrepreneurs need to receive feedback from customers in order to improve their services (Brabazon, 2016). This will allow them to improve the quality of services provided. ...
This research aims to present an approach to use computational methods to analyse the web presence of an entity to establish its reputation. In this case, sentiment analysis (SA) was used as a proxy. This dissertation introduces such a framework and tests its performance on automated SA for brand reputation.
... Given a set of textual data set, where some are positive and some are negative or neutral for a classification task, ROC is a good measure of the system performance (Brabazon, 2016), where 1.0 is a perfect score (Das, Govardhan, and Lakshmi, 2019). ...
... Donneau-Golencer et al. (2019) argued that the availability of textual data on the internet makes it possible to study users opinions on various services offered by certain corporations or brands. In this perspective, entrepreneurs need to receive feedback from customers in order to improve their services (Brabazon, 2016). This will allow them to improve the quality of services provided. ...
This Masters dissertation does sentiment analysis (SA) on the University of the Witwatersrand online content. As such, this research investigated using SA on online content from a University. This research is using computational approaches and SA as a proxy to study the strength of an entity web presence.
... Despite the relevance of social media in education, concerns have been raised right from the potential of social media to heighten disengagement, alienation and disconnection of learners from education; to the detrimental effect that social media may have on 'traditional' skills and literacies [15]. Some critics think social media may distract learners from their studies and could contribute to learners who are incapable of independent critical thinking [8], [16]. ...
This study examined social media use among university students. An online survey was administered to a random sample of 311 sandwich students in the University of Education, Winneba in the 2012/13 academic year. The results revealed that majority of the students were aware of and use social media for a variety of reasons which included: connecting with old friends and family members, finding new friends, obtaining or sharing learning materials, receiving update of events, posting information and whiling away time. It was also found that students had concerns about joining or using social media which included concerns about personal privacy, limited computing skills, cost of Internet connectivity and time to use social media. The results of the study also indicated that students had positive views about the academic use of social media. Students believed that: it will be fun for their lecturers to use social media, their grades will be better if they could contact lecturers through social media and lecturers should hold some lecture hours on social media.
... The student expressed exasperation that she would have to physically "go into the library and get [the books]". 83 Brabson claims that her students are increasingly resistant to traditional, text-based research, and that this is directly linked to the fact that a growing section of them is "reading less, referencing less and writing with less clarity and boldness". 84 The situation recounted above is a true of many African History and Humanities departments in the age of digitization. ...
... The benefits and the results of the investments remain a gray area for HEI (Davis, Dehning, and Stratopoulos 2003). IT funding continues to remain a requisite for the institutions even if the costs are difficult to identify, quantify, manage and then control" (Irani, Ghoneim, and Love 2006;Brabazon 2016). ...
Determining the effects of five different conflict management styles on organizational trust and job satisfaction of white-collar workers is the main goal of this study. 11 companies have been implicated in collecting data through survey instrument with the contribution of 171 white-collar workers working in finance, manufacturing, logistics, iron and steel, food sectors in Turkey. It has been found that conflict management styles are statistically and significantly related to organizational trust and job satisfaction. Besides that, integrating, compromising, dominating, obliging as the styles of conflict management have positive effects on organizational trust. On the other hand, analyses results showed that integrating, obliging and avoiding positively affect job satisfaction while compromising and dominating affect negatively. In addition, positive effect of organizational trust on job satisfaction of white-collar employees is another significant finding of the research.
... Google becomes knowledge for many people. Numerous commentators and educators have contended that Google's dominance and ease of search harm students' information literacy skills and lowers their substantive engagement with texts (Brabazon, 2007;Thornton, 2009). Wineburg and McGrew (2018) found that students consistently struggled to interpret search results as they often trusted top results. ...
Google is a multinational technology company whose massive advertising profits have allowed them to expand into many areas, including education. While the company has increasingly faced public scrutiny, the use of Google software and hardware in schools has often resulted in little debate. In this paper, we conduct a technoethical audit of Google to address ethical, legal, democratic, economic, technological, and pedagogical concerns educators, students, and community members might consider. We describe how Google extracts personal data from students, skirts laws intended to protect them, targets them for profits, obfuscates the company's intent in their Terms of Service, recommends harmful information, and distorts students’ knowledge. We propose that educators and scholars more closely interrogate the tools of Google and other technology companies to move toward more democratic and just uses of technology in schools.
... Therefore, the application of ICT in an education is important, whereas act as a tool and equipment as well as a source of information. There are several ways to implement ICT in a university, namely applies ICT tools in the learning process [2], integrate the information systems in support of higher education management [5], and runs the distance learning (E-learning) [6]. However, to achieve successful integration of ICT facilities, related institutions need to discipline various user groups or the entire community on campus [7], students for instance. ...
The applications and facilities of ICT in a university are necessary to enhance the performance, and quality of the education. As the main role of the successful use of ICT facilities, students are expecting to obtain the gratification and satisfaction in using these technologies. The study employed the UGT (Uses and Gratification Theory) as the fundamental concept to arrange the research framework and conducted a survey among 386 respondents. The result pointed out that students' attitude, social support, and locus of control are influencing the gratification and satisfaction with the usage as the intervening variable. Findings also stated that the usage of ICT applications and facilities is influencing both the gratification and satisfaction. However, variables of demographic, community involvement and credibility have no effect on the gratification and satisfaction.
... Therefore, the application of ICT in an education is important, whereas act as a tool and equipment as well as a source of information. There are several ways to implement ICT in a university, namely applies ICT tools in the learning process [2], integrate the information systems in support of higher education management [5], and runs the distance learning (E-learning) [6]. However, to achieve successful integration of ICT facilities, related institutions need to discipline various user groups or the entire community on campus [7], students for instance. ...
The applications and facilities of ICT in a university are necessary to enhance the performance, and quality of the education. As the main role of the successful use of ICT facilities, students are expecting to obtain the gratification and satisfaction in using these technologies. The study employed the UGT (Uses and Gratification Theory) as the fundamental concept to arrange the research framework and conducted a survey among 386 respondents. The result pointed out that students’ attitude, social support, and locus of control are influencing the gratification and satisfaction with the usage as the intervening variable. Findings also stated that the usage of ICT applications and facilities is influencing both the gratification and satisfaction. However, variables of demographic, community involvement and credibility have no effect on the gratification and satisfaction.
... As institutions of higher education continue to roll out online courses and programs, issues of undergraduate student readiness on the one hand, and the challenges surrounding the design and development of pedagogically-sound online experiences that are also accessible to students remain of concern [4]. The internet, as a context of social change and identity information, can create cyberspaces for governments in exile, such as in Tibet [5]. Internet use among students in tertiary institutions in the Sunyani Municipality, Ghana is more focused on using the Internet technology to look for information for assignments [6]. ...
... As institutions of higher education continue to roll out online courses and programs, issues of undergraduate student readiness on the one hand, and the challenges surrounding the design and development of pedagogically-sound online experiences that are also accessible to students remain of concern [4]. The internet, as a context of social change and identity information, can create cyberspaces for governments in exile, such as in Tibet [5]. Internet use among students in tertiary institutions in the Sunyani Municipality, Ghana is more focused on using the Internet technology to look for information for assignments [6]. ...
... All too often the learning process can be subtly moulded as an instrumental rather than a critical process. Learning in this context can become a process of managing information (including personal information) rather than discovery, insight and growth (Brabazon, 2007). Thus, as some have suggested this has enabled a managerial model of learning to be surreptitiously substituted for the dialogic and critical model which characterizes the ideal of learning in higher education (Lambier & Ramaekers, 2006). ...
Harkavy and Zuckerman (1999) argue that, effective partnership within higher education
sector has a great impact on building the sustainable economic growth, building knowledge
economy that would results in employment creation to the greater society. Similarly, a
partnership could promote racially and ethnically diverse players in higher education. This
could facilitate an appropriate bond between institutional and learners’ achievements. Since
many higher educational institutions recruit students from diverse cultural background shared ethnicity could really break the distance between the students and teachers and bring them closer for academic success and would improve the social skill and knowledge among the learners. The main objectives of this research is to conduct a literature review to determine the perceived value on the shared ethnicity among the students and teacher in a higher educational setting, evaluate the impact of shared ethnicity on building effective educational relationship and provide appropriate recommendation on how to improve the effective relationship beyond the ethnicity
... However, online experience and knowledge sharing are essential for young adults gaining experience in relational commitment and its benefit. Specifically, their relationship holds more significance, compared to the decisions made by sharing in the information process (Brabazon, 2016). Similarly, Masika & Jones (2016) mentioned the importance of young adults' experience in online relationships, and argued that information exchange profoundly impacts young adults' experience in social media networks. ...
This paper studies the effects of cultural restraint on social media motivation, relationship commitment, and relationship benefits among young adults in Jordan. This paper is based on a review of the literature and takes a conceptual approach. It suggests the framework for examining social media motivation, relationship benefits and trust among young Jordanian adults while focusing on the moderating effects of cultural restraint on online relationship commitment. It was expected that the findings would build on the significance of integrating social media motivation, relationship benefits, cultural restraint, and online relationship commitment among young adults in Jordan, as social media appears to be the main element of dedication to online relationships. Due to Jordan’s social media engagement radically improving in recent years, it is urged that the impact of its motivation on relationship commitment is conducted, to prevent adverse effects. Young adults are the most important segment of society. Therefore, understanding the benefits and harms of their online relationship commitment to social media motivation is essential. To date, no studies examine the effects of cultural restraint on social media motivation, relationship benefits, and relationship commitment among young adults in Jordan. Furthermore, this study will help university students understand their online relationship commitment as to the benefits or harms of social media motivation.
... Small wonder that the idea of 'instruction' has predominantly emerged from objectivism as well and that instruction still plays the leading role in educational systems. One of the most radical proponents of Radical Constructivism, claims that educational approaches still encompass contents far off from students' real lives and interests, which leads to a lack of intrinsic motivation, and a concentration (of both students and teachers) on the next exam rather than on developing competencies -a view commonly shared in contemporary scientific literature (Brabazon, 2016;Elkana and Klopper (Eds.), 2016). ...
Scientific evidence has been put forward over and over again in the past decades that, during the Anthropocene, human impact on the various spheres of the Earth has grown to an extent that actually threatens the overall resilience of the Earth system and thus the basis for the existence of future societies. New concepts to tackle the problems ahead and to regain control about positive future development are urgently needed. Education – or rather the transformation of education – and the possible role of education as a key instrument to reach the Sustainable Development Goals could play a prominent role here. However, as both sustainable development and education for sustainable development are still in their infancy, radical changes of the actual concepts of education (for sustainable development) and a new focus on (constructivist) learning have to be discussed. In this paper, the needs, challenges, and chances of transforming education in and for the 21st century are reflected upon .
... Entre los que fueron surgiendo, ninguno ha llegado a conseguir la notoriedad y universalidad de Google. Buscar información en Google ha sido, y, en menor medida, lo sigue siendo, una forma de generar aprendizaje (Brabazon, 2016). Sería discutible y podríamos entrar en otra cuestión a debatir si hablamos de la calidad de la información localizada en estas búsquedas y por tanto de la calidad del aprendizaje generado. ...
Vivimos un tiempo en el que el aprendizaje adquiere nuevas formas a la hora de llegar al alumnado. El tiempo de aprender aquello que se desconoce buscándolo en Internet, en un buscador universal y ampliamente conocido como Google, ha pasado a estar en desuso. El alumnado, y más concretamente el de grados universitarios que aquí nos ocupa, pasa en la actualidad por generar aprendizaje tras el visionado de recursos multimedia en formato video que puede encontrar en servicios como Youtube. Con la intención de comprobar que esto es así, se preguntó a 189 alumnos universitarios del Grado de Magisterio en Educación Infantil de la Universidad de Alicante, con qué recursos y con qué prioridad entre ellos, recurre a la hora de aprender de entre los que se les ofrecía en un listado en el que además de Google aparecía Youtube. Los resultados recogidos confirman que en un amplio margen de diferencia, el alumnado prefiere en primer lugar buscar información y adquirir conocimiento a través de los videos de Youtube, muy por delante de Google y estos dos muy por encima de recursos clásicos como libros, enciclopedias o recurrir a preguntar o informarse ante un experto en la materia en cuestión. Todo ello confirma que los docentes deben adoptar nuevas formas de enseñar ante estas nuevas maneras de aprender.
... Entre los que fueron surgiendo, ninguno ha llegado a conseguir la notoriedad y universalidad de Google. Buscar información en Google ha sido, y, en menor medida, lo sigue siendo, una forma de generar aprendizaje (Brabazon, 2016). Sería discutible y podríamos entrar en otra discusión al hablar de la calidad de la información localizada en estas búsquedas y por tanto de la calidad del aprendizaje generado. ...
Aprendizaje, tic, alumnado universitario, youtube, google. Resumen Vivimos un tiempo en el que el aprendizaje adquiere nuevas formas a la hora de llegar al alumnado. El tiempo de aprender aquello que se desconoce buscándolo en Internet, en un buscador universal y ampliamente conocido como Google, ha pasado a estar en desuso. El alumnado, y más concretamente el de grados universitarios que aquí nos ocupa, pasa en la actualidad por generar aprendizaje tras el visionado de recursos multimedia en formato video que puede encontrar en servicios como Youtube. Con la intención de comprobar que esto es así, se preguntó a 189 alumnos universitarios del Grado de Magisterio en Educación Infantil de la Universidad de Alicante, con qué recursos y con que prioridad entre ellos, recurre a la hora de aprender de entre los que se les ofrecía en un listado en el que además de Google apa-recía Youtube. Los resultados recogidos confirman que en un amplio margen de diferencia, el alumnado prefiere en primer lugar buscar información y adquirir conocimiento a través de los videos de Youtube, muy por delante de Google y estos dos muy por encima de recursos clásicos como libros, enciclopedias o recurrir a preguntar o informarse ante un experto en la materia en cuestión. Todo ello confirma que los docentes deben adoptar nuevas formas de enseñar ante estas nuevas maneras de aprender. Introducción / Marco Teórico Buscar información en Internet ha pasado por diversas etapas a lo largo de la última década. Si bien en un principio se buscaba la información en portales o páginas webs conocidas, pronto se pasó a poner orden y a establecer grandes bases de datos que alimentaban las búsquedas de potentes buscadores. Entre los que fueron surgiendo, ninguno ha llegado a conseguir la notoriedad y universalidad de Google. Buscar información en Google ha sido, y, en menor medida, lo sigue siendo, una forma de generar aprendizaje (Brabazon, 2016). Sería discuti-ble y podríamos entrar en otra discusión al hablar de la calidad de la información localizada en estas búsquedas y por tanto de la calidad del aprendizaje generado. Sin embargo, casi sin dar tiempo a investigar sobre ello, parece que algo está cambiando. Pues en estos últimos
... In DLP students only carry laptops connected to the internet and teachers as facilitators and monitors. Brabazon (2016) talks about Google University fighting for education as a path to innovation through the search for knowledge through digital platforms. ...
Teaching practices have been regarded as one of the most important components of a teacher training program that will produce quality beginning teachers. One of the most important elements of teaching practice is supervision. Currently, In Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Malaysia, supervision is conducted by the supervisor only two or three times for each teaching practice session. This leads to the questions regarding the effectiveness of the way to guide the trainee efficaciously. Through these processes, both supervisors and trainees have faced many problems and constraints which include factors of distances, time and budget constraints, as well as supervisory skills. This study aims to develop a complete teaching practice e-supervision system in music education using the Google Classroom application to complement face-to-face supervision currently in practice. This experimental case study utilized a mix of qualitative and quantitative study design. Research data was obtained through document analysis, focus group discussions, interviews, observations and questionnaires. The E-Supervisory Teaching Practice System has undergone expert validation before being implemented in a real setting during the session involving music education teachers, trainees, and supervisors. The results were analysed and triangulated to see their usefulness and the impacts on their teaching practice. The findings of this study can be used by various institutions of higher learning, policymakers, and stakeholders involved in teaching practice especially music teachers.
... Trends in information literacy have revolutionized library services in learning institutions (Brabazon 2016). As a result, attracting and maintaining the attention of the contemporary student is no mean feat for academic libraries. ...
Information is the most powerful tool in learning endeavours. Libraries are collections of information in organised ways to make it accessible to the target audience. The main challenge, however, is the underutilisation of library resources by students in many learning institutions. The purpose of this study was to determine the attitude of students towards the use of library facilities. The study involved 66 participants out of which 60 were students in different years of study, whereas 6 were library staff at Newcastle University, United Kingdom. Closed-ended questionnaires were administered to the students while structured face-to-face interviews were used to collect information from the library workers. The university recorded high rates of library usage of 92%. About49% of students used the library twice a week. The purposes of visiting the library in order of priority were finding space to read personal study notes, using the internet, using library materials within the building, reading newspapers, meeting friends and using printing and photocopy services. There was student dissatisfaction regarding the availability of comfortable space to study in the library. There was a lack of awareness about the inter-library borrowing facility, which was highly underutilised in the institution. Overall the study concluded that the students’ attitude towards the use of library facilities was positive. However, there was a need to implement the proposed recommendations to increase the use of library services.
... Tara Brabazon has aligned these ways of thinking with an uncritical celebration of emergence and deployment of web-based environments in education and the difficulties created when 'googling' replaces research. She argues that "the problem is not Google" [9] but rather "In a fast food, fast data environment, the web transforms into an information drive-through. It encourages a 'type in-download-cut-paste-submit' educational culture." ...
... Leveraging a machine learning model, intents can be matched to give appropriate multi-turn responses to the user. Entities are the extracts of Combining contexts allows the agent to carry the pieces of information through the flow of a conversation [37] (Fig. 4). ...
In the present study, we developed a chatbot service termed ‘CiSA’ (Chatbot for International Students and Academics) to enable international students and academics to effectively acquire essential information regarding their academic and campus life. To investigate the pain points and needs of our target user group, user research consisting of interviews and surveys was conducted. Based on the key findings from qualitative analysis, the concept was further refined. A flowchart was constructed to illustrate the designed conversations, while the user interface components were determined to express the responses of the chatbot. The design was further prototyped using Google’s DialogFlow, and implemented in Facebook Messenger. Finally, the interviews with the target users were conducted to verify the effectiveness, satisfaction, and extensibility of the service. The outcome of this study provides a powerful way to support the facilitation of communication and social inclusion by using this conversational agent. Furthermore, by focusing on enhancing the accessibility, the research contributes towards the practical understanding of the investigation of its service design for chatbot aimed at inclusivity.
... Second, the copy-paste syndrome has consequences not just in the sense of plagiarism. As Brabazon points out in her book (Brabazon, 2007), copy-paste, SMS, blogging and twittering undermines the capacity of "reading with understanding". To put it differently: students who keep reading only small junks of information and who compose essays by mainly copying never learn to read larger segments of complicated text. ...
The Web has caused a revolution of how we can access information today, how we easily get answers to many problems, and how we learn. However, there are three issues that are often overlooked. First, it is not easy to extrapolate current developments into the future: we will be in for many more surprises than we think. Second, as fast as the Web has developed, other technologies have developed still faster and their impact on society may be just as significant. Third, one must not overlook that the Web also has some inherent dangers that are more and more emerging. With all enthusiasm we have for the Web, we should also be aware of some of the subtle and some of the not so subtle dangers.In this paper, I will address the first two issues in the introduction, and devote the rest of the paper to some of the perceived dangers of the Web. One example is the loss of privacy (due to many organisations collecting detailed profiles on all of us, but also on organisations, economic developments and other issues), some of the loss of privacy also due to an unheard of exhibitionism in social networks. Also, information on the Web is often trusted much too easily, leading to a distorted view of reality. Many of the communication tools lead to a loss of concentration and understanding, the latter enhanced by the dangerous copy-paste syndrome. As Tara Brabazon has stated, "Researching is replaced by searching". Also, it is often overlooked that the convergence of mobile phones with powerful PCs will give us excellent personal assistants, but will also obviate the need to learn many things humans have had to learn for generations. Thus it seems that we have to completely re-think education and e-Learning: While myriads of attempts are made on HOW to improve teaching with technology, the main issues may rather be WHAT and WHEN we teach, since so much (will be or) is available everywhere at our fingertips. Finally, can we really trust technology, or could it fail us at some stage on a gigantic scale?
... Perhaps the most important aspect to be borne in mind when interpreting this data is the qualitative differences between the library and the Internet as sources of information. Various commentators have pointed out the difficulty in finding authentic meaning when using a search engine, as it is extremely difficult to link the information found to existing bodies of knowledge (Brabazon, 2007;Dreyfus, 2001;Haigh, 2006;Jeanneney, 2007). Moreover, almost two-thirds (62%) of search engine users do not go past the first page of results and less than 10% go past the first three pages of results (iProspect, 2008). ...
There is a widespread concern amongst librarians that Google Search and Wikipedia are making library reference services and even library collections redundant. There is however, little research on the types of subjects that people look up on Google, Wikipedia and library catalogues. This exploratory analysis draws together the results of transaction log analyses of the subjects of Google and library catalogue search queries and the subject of search engine queries that took users to Wikipedia. As well as comparing the subject of search queries, it estimates the extent of use of each information resource. Hence this paper contributes to research on current information-seeking and the role of public libraries in online information provision.
A Case Study Examining Japanese University Students' Digital Literacy and Perceptions of Digital Tools for English Language Learning Robert Cochrane This thesis results entirely from my own work and has not been offered previously for any other degree or diploma. The word count for this thesis excluding references is of 56, 841 words. 1 Abstract Current Japanese youth are constantly connected to the Internet and using digital devices, but predominantly for social media and entertainment. According to literature on the Japanese digital native, tertiary students do not-and cannot-use technology with any reasonable fluency, but the likely reasons are rarely addressed. To fill the gap in the literature, this study, by employing a case study methodology, explores students' experience with technology for English learning through the introduction of digital tools. First-year Japanese university students in an Academic English Program (AEP) were introduced to a variety of easily available digital tools. The instruction was administered online, and each tool was accompanied by a task directly related to classwork. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected in the form of a pre-course Computer Literacy Survey, a post-course open-ended Reflection Activity survey, and interviews. The qualitative data was reviewed drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and its educational variants as an analytical framework. Educational, social, and cultural factors were also examined to help identify underlying factors that would influence students' perceptions. The results suggest that the subjects' lack of awareness of, and experience with, the use of technology for learning are the fundamental causes of their perceptions of initial difficulty. Based on these findings, this study proposes a possible technology integration model that enhances digital literacy for more effective language learning in the context of Japanese education. 2
U Republici Srbiji nastava se, osim na srpskom kao većinskom jeziku, ostvaruje i na osam manjinskih jezika: albanskom, bosanskom, bugarskom, mađarskom, rumunskom, rusinskom, slovačkom i hrvatskom. Učenici koji celokupnu nastavu pohađaju na jednom od ovih jezika tokom osnovne i srednje škole uče i srpski jezik kao nematernji. Učenje većinskog jezika ima za cilj postizanje aditivne dvojezičnosti – funkcionalno ovladavanje srpskim jezikom radi uključivanja u širu društvenu zajednicu uz istovremeno očuvanje i negovanje maternjeg jezika. Ipak, nije zanemarljiv broj učenika koji ne ovladaju ni osnovnim nivoom upotrebe srpskog jezika, uprkos višegodišnjem učenju. Ovo je naročito primetno kod učenika mađarskog i albanskog maternjeg jezika. U radu se prikazuju nastojanja da se ova situacija prevaziđe putem unapređivanja nastave predmeta Srpski kao nematernji jezik.
Learning in most academic institutions has relied on the provision of library resources to both support and supplement what is being taught and researched. This chapter focuses on the research process of students in the digital environment and discusses the challenges they and service providers in the library face in terms of accessing and making available academically relevant information resources. In order to understand these challenges, a consideration of how developments in technology have changed scholarship in the digital environment is important. Further, the evolving role of the information professional is considered in connection with these changes. The deluge of information, both open-access and subscribed, affects the way in which users search for and access information sources. Thus an appreciation of the information-seeking behaviours of researchers is imperative if educators are to provide the relevant support, manage user expectations and ensure the successful provision of an information service in the twenty-first century e-learning environment. The (often younger) tech-savvy, multi-tasking user who is fluent in the use of mobile technologies, conversant with social media and Google, YouTube and Wikipedia, often has different expectations of the academic digital library. These expectations are quite often dashed and users may end up discouraged, as they may not have the appropriate skills to navigate the different search platforms that publishers make available to academic libraries. Users require skills that include knowledge of different types of information resources and an understanding of the most appropriate ways for searching, locating, accessing, and critically evaluating information, as well as using and managing this information. ‘Information literacy’, as these information and literature search skills are referred to, go hand-in-hand with digital literacies, which allow users to make the best use of the technologies employed by information providers such as libraries. These literacies, in turn, form the gamut of academic literacies that ensure that learners leave formal education with the appropriate skills to enable them survive in the work place and to continue their learning throughout life. The chapter also discusses ways in which academics can work collaboratively with support staff within educational institutions and offers practical solutions to improving the student learning experience through collaborative practices.
This article scrutinizes the dichotomy of the uneasy and easy partnerships that exist between digital technology and visual arts education. The claim that by putting computers into schools “we have bought ‘one half of a product’… we’ve bought the infrastructure and the equipment but we haven’t bought the educational piece” (McKenzie, 1999 as cited in Joyce, 2005, p. 52) is considered. Despite the ease with which many art educators have embraced technologies and tools for artistic practice in their classrooms in the past, maximizing the Internet and information communications technology usage in the visual arts classroom has been somewhat problematic. This issue and the largely absent “educational piece” of the product, that is, art made for the Internet and purpose built for Internet-as-gallery, are addressed.
Art educators and the stakeholders in allied industries have expressed concern about the deficiency of creativity among art and design students in the classroom. Considering such circumstances, many design students in the tertiary institutions are finding it difficult to apply the techniques of ICT into meaningful and accomplished learning and creative activities. In light of this, the study seeks to explore the influence of ICT on creativity. The aim of this study therefore is to evaluate the impact, perception and attitude of
students towards the use of ICT on creativity. The study design employed a qualitative research approach where, based on purposive sampling method, students pursuing the Communication Design programme, were selected for the study. This was because students in this programme were often involved in using ICT to develop creative designs. Simple random sampling was employed to administer questionnaire to 150 students from the four-year groups in the Department of Communication design who had taken part in design projects and assignments one way or the other. The results from the study indicated that majority of students had no much idea about the use of ICT on creativity. It is recommended that learners can improve upon the knowledge and skills in creativity only if they change their perception and attitude towards the use of ICT
Managing change is documented as a critical issue for all organisations. Due to its complexity, a clear understanding of how university libraries can meet this challenge is yet to emerge. As libraries experience significant disruption as a result of technological development driving change, this qualitative research study advances a conceptual framework, based on relevant existing literature, for performance improvement. The research identified resources, relevance, stakeholders, strategy, government policy, and university infrastructure as contributing elements to effectively manage change in Australian public sector university libraries. This paper builds on this analysis to identify a shift in Australian university library management style and construct frameworks that may address challenges of change for these organisations.
This paper will be an exploration into the internationalism inherent to a certain religious tradition to explore its ramifications for seeking and receiving education abroad. The tenets of Hinduism share a complicated relationship with international higher education for an important reason: the purported taboo overcrossing oceans. This taboo was strictly applied in the case of the Brahmins, who also happened to be the caste with near-monopoly over access to and imparting of education. The ethos of Hinduism, however, is deeply embedded in a posited harmony of individuals and cultures. A spiritual text identified with Hinduism, the Chandogya Upanishad, for instance, contains dedicated segments exploring such themes as tattvamasi or the connection of one’s innermost self to the divine soul and the doctrine of bhuma or infinity. This makes it a faith that at once embraces the value of intercultural exchange while challenging contemporary understandings of how it is best achieved. Rabindranath Tagore embraces this philosophy summing it as “he alone sees, who sees all beings as himself. Implications for internationalism in higher education will be teased out from the spiritual and religio-cultural underpinnings of Tagore’s experiments in the field, namely, Vishwa Bharati and Shanti Niketan. The paper will then argue that the deeply entrenched Western-centric bias in what is increasingly described as “global” higher education defeats the true motivations of internationalisation of the University. It will further explore the ways in which reference to religion (Hinduism in particular), not just in structuring curriculum for foreign students, but in reimagining the basis for globalization of higher education could potentially counter these trends towards homogenization and reset internationalisation efforts on a more meaningful trajectory. Spiritual learning, rather than multiculturalism, will be proposed as the better approach to conceptualising internationalisation of the University. It will be shown how this approach holds particular promise for emerging countries who have thus far been unable to fulfil their potential to offer meaningful learning experiences for foreign students due to their higher education institutions being unfavourably compared with Western counterparts.
In this study, the stages of change in the curriculum of ITU Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department (MME) during the ABET accreditation process are summarized and evaluated in terms of both course contents and assessment-evaluation procedures. Improvements in the curriculum design have been carried out within the framework of continuous development, which is one of the essential criteria of today, and then assessment and evaluation methods have been developed, expecting the students become more equipped in their professional life. First of all, a discussion on the characteristics of the Information Age and ABET EAC Student Outcomes (SOs) is provided, followed by the presentation of ITU MME curriculum, conveying the changes in a chronological order. Subsequently, the continuous improvement cycle of ITU MME and the measurement and assessment stages for each outcome are explained. In conclusion, the new ABET EAC SOs are given with a comparison and a final evaluation.
This paper concerns the teaching and iteration of Grounded Theory, taking published accounts referring to Grounded Theory as instructional materials on the workings of Grounded Theory. The paper identifies problems associated with later versions of Grounded Theory that are anticipated and avoided in The Discovery of Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). It alerts practitioners and students to theoretical options in doing research. Based on a critical incident analysis of literatures as ’fieldwork sites’, looking at information science and dentistry research, this paper discusses iterations of qualitative research – particularly, what we call the versioning of Grounded Theory – in clinical settings and interdisciplinary studies. Reading accounts of qualitative studies revealed misapprehensions regarding the use of qualitative methods. Critical reading facilitates the examination of analytic claims, to alert researchers in interdisciplinary fields to adverse consequences of using inferior accounts.
Information literacy (IL) is now considered to be an essential component of the undergraduate degree offer. Linked with policies of 'widening participation' and 'lifelong learning', the application of IL within the undergraduate curriculum brings tensions as well as innovative developments (Johnstone and Webber, 2003; Maybee, 2006). This article critically assesses the development and impact of an information literacy curriculum (ILC) within one undergraduate degree programme. We address recent changes in our teaching practice supporting student learning, in particular how the working practices of subject librarians with academic tutors have evolved to support the development of students' IL skills. Our research tells the story of evolving practices, highlighting effective ways in which academic tutors and subject librarians work to embed a rich ILC that enhances both student academic experience and success. We argue that many of these practices have emerged in response to a changed student population, partly linked with widening participation and to the growing diverse needs of our economy. The article also reflects on the tensions and complexities involved in the carrying out and management of our work.
Dans un monde où la place du numérique s’affirme chaque jour davantage, et où les jeunes sont captivés par les technologies, les bibliothécaires et documentalistes ne semblent avoir d’autre option que de donner une place de choix au numérique dans le cadre de leur mission de formation. Il est dorénavant impossible pour eux de rester sourds aux transformations sociétales et aux nouvelles avenues que le numérique offre pour la recherche d’information, tout comme il est impossible de rester indifférent à la place grandissante que l’intelligence artificielle gagne dans tous les secteurs de notre société, y compris celui de l’accès à l’information. Ce texte a également pour but de montrer le rôle primordial que sont appelés à jouer bibliothécaires et documentalistes pour préparer les citoyens d’aujourd’hui à la société de l’information de demain. Il y est notamment question de leur rôle-clé pour amener tout apprenant à développer des compétences informationnelles actuelles, à agir en citoyen numérique éclairé et responsable, et à contribuer au développement de l’intelligence collective planétaire, et ce, afin de participer à sa façon à l’édification de la société de demain.
p>Este artículo se enfoca en una revisión de la literatura del concepto de “nativos digitales” y otros términos relacionados. Más específicamente, versa sobre la idea de una generación homogénea de usuarios prolíficos y hábiles de la tecnología digital nacidos entre 1980 y 1994. En total se revisaron 127 artículos publicados entre 1991 y 2014. Según los hallazgos, no parece existir ninguna definición comúnmente aceptada de un “nativo digital”. El concepto varía entre individuos, sociedades, regiones y naciones, y también con el paso del tiempo. Además, hay una serie de variables además de la edad que pueden ayudarnos a comprender la naturaleza del uso de las tecnologías digitales de los estudiantes. La llamada literatura “digital nativa” demuestra que a pesar de la elevada confianza digital y las habilidades digitales de los estudiantes, su competencia digital puede ser mucho más baja que la de sus “maestros digitales”. Dada la confusión alrededor del “nativo digital” y términos similares, proponemos unificarlos bajo el concepto “aprendices digitales”.
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Este artículo ha sido reproducido de la Revista The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL). Volumen 16, Número 3; utilizando una licencia Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 . © 2015. Autores: Eliana Esther Gallardo-Echenique, Luis Marqués-Molías, Mark Bullen, Jan-Willem Strijbos. </p
As higher education evolves into a multifaceted and complex activity, the incorporation of education management information systems (EMIS) that allows for the production of relevant, organized and structured information, becomes a necessity for both institutions and students. Despite the recognition of this requirement, existing literature does not focus on how EMIS might trigger students' success. With this in mind, an initial proposal of a multi-perspective EMIS success model is presented and a validation on the possible existence of linear correlations between the model contexts is described. Moderate correlations have been detected between the majority of the model contexts and a very strong correlation has been detected between students' satisfaction and the arise of net benefits associated with the use of EMIS.
В статье анализируются тенденции формирования и перспективы развития современной парадигмы образования. Проводятся параллели между классическими и инновационными моделями обучения в контексте рассмотрения основных характеристик образовавшейся в последнее время цифровой образовательной среды. Освещение получают отдельные стороны глобальной проблемы компьютеризаци обучения и связанных с ней вопросов воспитания личности обучаемого. Проводится краткий экскурс в проблематику моделирования искусственного интеллекта и создания нейросети как альтернативного традиционным конвенциям формата обучения и образования с фокусом на развитие когнитивно-личностного потенциала студента.
Based on rhetorics of violence and discourses of gender supported by the theoretical works of Pierre Bourdieu, A. Ballinger, and Bertolt Brecht, this article first investigates the concept of violence through the performance of Jalila Baccar and Fadhel Jaïbi’sViolence(s) (2015).In this play an examination of the new forms of violence helps us pay particular attention to violence enacted by men and women against their minoritized groups, and how, when harmed, these groups go against the grain. My purpose in this article is to demonstrate how such forms of violence appeal to the audiences’ emotions and intellect. A Brechtian reading of Violence(s)with reference to Tsunami (2013) and Fear(s) (2017), also by Baccar and Jaïbi will assist comprehension of the development of violence and the resulting frustration provoked by the Arab Spring’s ongoing political, ethnic, economic, and religious conflicts and its subsequent impact on the Arab citizen’s daily behaviours and attitudes.
This study seeks to investigate the effectiveness of integrating Tunisian deaf students into mainstream schools. It evaluates the suitability of these practices and their effectiveness in improving their syntactic maturity. The data collected during the study are based on triangulation of methods. A questionnaire was addressed to ten deaf students integrated in mainstream schools in Sfax, Tunisia, an interview to their teachers, and twenty writing samples collected from the observed population. The results found indicate that, overall, syntactic maturity of Tunisian deaf students did not improve when they were integrated in public schools. The T-unit mean scores of deaf students’ written output revealed that integration did not help this minority achieve a better syntactic maturity in the second semester. Teachers’ interviews also provided negative feedback about integration policies in the Tunisian classroom context. This article is a contribution to the research literature about deaf education which is scarce in the Tunisian EFL context.
Based on rhetorics of violence and discourses of gender supported by the theoretical works of Pierre Bourdieu, A. Ballinger, and Bertolt Brecht, this article first investigates the concept of violence through the performance of Jalila Baccar and Fadhel Jaïbi’sViolence(s) (2015).In this play an examination of the new forms of violence helps us pay particular attention to violence enacted by men and women against their minoritized groups, and how, when harmed, these groups go against the grain. My purpose in this article is to demonstrate how such forms of violence appeal to the audiences’ emotions and intellect. A Brechtian reading of Violence(s)with reference to Tsunami (2013) and Fear(s) (2017), also by Baccar and Jaïbi will assist comprehension of the development of violence and the resulting frustration provoked by the Arab Spring’s ongoing political, ethnic, economic, and religious conflicts and its subsequent impact on the Arab citizen’s daily behaviours and attitudes.
Noticing its exponential growth, many educators sought to tap in the potential of harnessing Facebook for educational purposes (Roblyer et al. 2010; Selwyn 2009; Simpson, 2012). Evidence from the literature suggests that, if used judiciously, Facebook can turn into a facilitative platform for language learning beyond the restrictions of traditional provisions (Kabilan, Ahmad, & Abidin, 2010; Yunus & Salehi, 2012). VanDoorn and Eklund (2013) suggest that the Facebook environment, in fact, bears significant resemblance in structure to that of a concrete classroom “-with walls to write on, and party invitations to distribute- and it is perhaps this…that has driven researchers to investigate the potential of Facebook-based social networking to enhance learning” (p.1). Hilscher (2012) further stipulates that the “social nature of Facebook lends itself to the possibility of being used as a virtual learning community” (p.24). Its communicative and interactive functionalities are similarly felt to “mirror much of what we know to be good models of learning, in that they are collaborative and encourage an active participatory role for users” (Maloney, 2017, p. 26). Mills (2011), in a similar vein, concurs that Facebook provides new avenues for students to explore cultural differences and build positive rapport.
This chapter exposes what the sample students are actually doing with the Internet for English learning-related purposes, as well as delineating their perspectives of these digital experiences. These insights will shed some light on the first research questions posed in Chap. 4—‘Are Internet tools used by most of the participants for English learning-related purposes outside the classroom? If so, how are Internet tools mainly used?’. The data reported in this chapter are generated from two main sources. The first is the guided survey, involving 1485 Chinese undergraduates from various academic backgrounds. Using the data from the survey, the first part of this chapter describes the trends of WELL use. As defined in Chap. 1, the term WELL indicates the L2 activities that involve the use of online technology. The survey results reported here inform us of whether the participants in this inquiry are committed to the use of online technology for their English learning, while providing an overview of the research question posed. Where appropriate, the patterns of WELL use are scrutinized in comparison with the students’ general web use, so as to gain a fuller understanding of their behaviours surrounding technology. The second source of data draws on the semi-structured interviews with 49 students who were strategically selected from the questionnaire respondents. Thus, the second source involves qualitative data obtained from 26 heavy and frequent users (active), and 23 light and non-users (less active) of WELL from different academic departments and different years of study (for details, see Appendix H). As such, the picture that emerged from the interviewees should be more optimistic than normally expected from the questionnaire respondents, as most questionnaire respondents are found to be less active users of WELL in this study (see Sect. 5.1.1). Data from the two non-users are included in the reporting of qualitative data, essentially because they noted certain WELL activity during the interviews, although claiming themselves as non-users in the questionnaire. Notably, the active and less active users of WELL will not be discussed separately, essentially because this chapter does not aim to define different groups of users, but to explore the commonalities and varieties of usage patterns among the interviewees. Such exploration will help to further illustrate and expand the patterns of WELL use identified in the survey phase, and thus provide useful insights into the research question proposed. These in-depth descriptions uncover how online technologies assist or influence, if at all, the interviewees’ approach to English learning, and enhance our understanding of the contextually situated phenomenon of WELL.
מאמר זה מתאר בקצרה את התופעה הפסיכולוגית-חברתית החדשה של שיפוט וקבלת החלטות המתאפיינת בהתעלמות מכוונת מעובדות וראיות, המכונה בספרות העולמית "העידן הפוסט-עובדתי" (post facts era), ואת הסכנות הטמונות בה. במאמר מוצג מודל המתבסס על מגבלות אנושיות בתפיסה ועיבוד של שפע מידע ונתונים, המנסה להסביר את הסיבות לתופעה ומציע כי החיים בסביבה אישית וחברתית המתאפיינת בעומס יתר של אירועים, נתונים ומידע ברמות שונות – הן שהביאו לעליית התופעה. על בסיס סקירת ספרות העוסקת במקורות האפשריים לתופעה מוצעים כיוונים אפשריים לפעולה עבור אנשי חינוך ומעצבי מדיניות חינוכית.
This article briefly describes the new psycho-social phenomenon of judgment and decision-making that deliberately ignores facts and evidence, known as the post-era era, and the dangers inherent to it. The article presents a model based on human information and data processing limitations, and attempts to uncover the causes of the phenomenon and suggests that life in a personal and social environment characterized by an overload of events, data and information at various levels might result in a series of motivational and cognitive failures resulting in the post facts syndrome. Based on a literature review , possible directions for action are proposed for educators and policy makers.
If the neoliberalisation of cultural institutions has led to a profound crisis of the role of art in society, it is also impossible to ignore the current crisis of solidarity in the West. Meanwhile, interdisciplinarity and socially engaged art practices have found growing audiences in the UK, but these developments are little reflected in university curricula and pedagogies. Considering the progressive models of education at Dartington College of Arts (DCA), this article investigates the ways in which the collaborative ethos of DCA might be rediscovered for exploring the potential of collaborative ways of working in performance within current social contexts. Examining specific phases of the development of the college, the article reviews the DCA’s cross-departmental activities, and its social awareness and balancing of collective and individual creative endeavours. Focusing on the early years of DCA, it discusses the socio-political conditions under which new ways of working together in performance emerged at DCA. This demonstrates how the collaborative aspect of Dartington’s ethos continues to offer insights of relevance for current educational models for collaborative training in performance. While artistic and creative methods are invariably informed by specific socio-political and economic contexts, it is argued that in the rise of collective and creative appropriation by neoliberal agendas, the distinction between utilitarian collaboration and conceptual interdisciplinarity is crucial for understanding the legacy of DCA as a radical site of collaboration and learning.
The concept of 'life-style' seems to have been thoroughly natu-ralised, both academically and in common parlance.There is little crit-ical interrogation of what 'life-style' involves, beyond its connection to cultural and aesthetic aspects of consumption. What are the impli-cations of accepting this culturalised description of consumption and its shorthand designation, 'lifestyle' ? This polemical paper interro-gates both the linguistic and conceptual challenges associated with the term, and argues that it acts to efface and erase important social differences of wealth, opportunity, class, gender and ethnicity, as well as obscuring global and historical inequalities.
Technology is providing a positive impact on delivery mechanisms employed in distance education at the university level. Some institutions are incorporating distance education as a way to extend the classroom. Other institutions are investigating new delivery mechanisms, which support a revised perspective on education. These latter institutions are revising their processes for interacting with students, and taking a more “learner centered†approach to the delivery of education. This article discusses the impact of technology on the delivery mechanisms employed in distance education. A framework is proposed here, which presents a description of alternative modes of generic delivery mechanisms. It is suggested that those institutions, which adopt a delivery mechanism employing an asynchronous mode, can gain the most benefit from technology. This approach seems to represent the only truly innovative use of technology in distance education. The approach creates a student-oriented environment while maintaining high levels of interaction, both of which are factors that contribute to student satisfaction with their overall educational experience.
This book is about the shift from the modern university of the nation state to the global virtual university of the future. John Tiffin and Lalita Rajasingham launched the idea of virtual universities on the Internet with the publication of 'In Search of the Virtual Class: Education in an Information Society' in 1995. Since then, virtual universities have multiplied worldwide. However, the authors argue that globalisation and the Internet are still in their infancy, and universities have yet to face the challenges of global free trade in broadband telecommunications, artificial intelligence and HyperReality. Based on material gathered from research in the USA, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand, this book describes how a global university could function in the future and presents a paradigm from which it might be constructed. This unique, visionary text will be critical reading for academics, postgraduate students and for anyone involve din policymaking and planning within the university community and administration. © 2003 John Tiffin and Lalita Rajasingham. All rights reserved.
Teachers are vulnerable to the technopositivist ideology that perpetuates a naive faith in the "prom- ises" of technology. Most teachers have been denied opportunities to explore the motives, power, rewards, and sanctions associated with the unscrupulous marketing of information and communi- cations technology (ICT) and tend to be uninformed about the research that has failed to find a posi- tive relationship between ICT use and student achievement. They remain unaware of the efforts to disguise how devotion to technology necessarily entails retrofitting the purposes and practices of education. This article examines technopositivism as a marketed ideology and follows the marketing strategies that appropriate and redefine educational goals and problems. It explores the alleged link between constructivism and technology and considers how teacher education and standard-setting bodies perpetuate this contestable association. Finally, the article suggests some deliberately critical questions that can be legitimated only if posed by teacher educators.
Stuart Nagel's scholarship often focused on how technology shaped policy. This link constantly evolves as political activists seek new advantages. The Internet has greatly altered today's activism by sharply reducing information costs. This transformation is well illustrated in school politics and tax avoidance. Disgruntled parents no longer need to fight the education establishment directly—non-public school alternatives such as home schooling are now far easier thanks to the Net. The Net has also greatly facilitated tax avoidance by “democratizing” offshore banking. These options now constrain Washington and thus restore a degree of limited government once almost unthinkable.
Ideas from the new public managementphilosophy infusing higher education oftenstress the need for strong and strategicacademic leadership if successful adaptation toa changing environment is to take place. Byshowing some of the challenges facing academicleaders in Sweden and Norway, this articlequestions the wisdom of employing new publicmanagement ideas on leadership during changeprocesses in higher education. It is arguedthat an academic leadership able to attachmeaning to paradoxical situations and toilluminate challenging dilemmas may be a morepromising option for a sector where change inthe years to come will be more the standardsituation than the exception.
This paper addresses the issue of how lifelonglearning, globalisation and capitalism arerelated within late modernity. It is criticalof the argument that there is now anincreasingly homogenous global economy that isknowledge based and that unambiguously requiresa high level of cognitive skills in itsworkers. The idea that globalisation producessuch rapid changes in the world of work thatlearning must be ongoing to cope with it ischallenged.
It is argued that the key issue forpolicy-makers concerned to encourage lifelonglearning is funding the provision of thoselearning opportunities that would otherwise notbe available. People can learn many worthwhilethings at work, at home and elsewhere ininformal associations. It makes little sense toduplicate the opportunity to learn those thingsformally or even in many cases, formally todistinguish such learning from living andworking.
Despite initial certainty ofpolitical purpose and considerable optimismregarding its effects on teaching and learning,the evidence of school inspector reports in theUSA, Scotland and England suggests thatinformation and communications technology (ICT)remains, at the beginning of the 21stCentury, a marginal force in the education of5–12 year-olds. Explanations for this havetypically been sought in analyses, byresearchers working in the `mainstream' ofschools and teacher education adopting anessentially rational or hyper-rational approachand focusing on inadequacies in resourcing,curriculum policy and training. Yet, othercurriculum changes have taken place despitecomparable barriers; teachers have made themwork. Consequently, it is not possible toexclude the potential for explanation which maylie beyond the essentially rational, systematicand structural arguments offered so far.Alternative avenues explored here include thesocial anthropological concepts of symbol,language, ideology, ritual and myth applied to20th-Century cycles of educational change, thesociological concept of subculture and humancomputer interaction (HCI) theory and models oftechnology acceptance.
The paper examines data on references tostudents made by manager-academics in 16 UKuniversities whilst giving accounts of theircareers and practices, and reflecting onaspects of the current roles and priorities ofhigher education institutions. The issuesraised are of wider interest than the UK, sincethe contradictory pressures of teaching andresearch and learning versus seeking newsources of funding are common to highereducation in many countries. The focus andmethodology of the Economic and Social ResearchCouncil funded project on which the paper isbased are outlined, before discussing how thetheoretical interests of the project relate tothe student, the ways in which the student is asignificant aspect of current higher educationpolicies, and the contested status and identityof the student in higher education discourseand research. The changing nature of thestudent population, the relationship betweenmanager-academics' concerns with the studentand their institutional context, their majorpreoccupations in their roles, and how thesepreoccupations relate to level of seniority inmanagement are also considered. We concludethat whilst current UK higher education policyemphasises the student, responses atinstitutional and individual levels focus onorganisational, resource and time implicationsof the student body, rather than the studenthim/herself. Furthermore, it is noted thatsenior manager-academics roles tend to removetheir incumbents from contact with students. It is suggested that manager-academics needboth more contact with students and moreunderstanding of their situation andconcerns.
In public debate, we can discern amostly implicit idea that politics is an affairfor politicians. This contradicts the idea ofthe active citizen, according to which thedifference between politician and citizen ismerely accidental. This article focus upon theprerequisites of such an ideal in modernsociety and especially the classical idea ofprudence as central to good citizenship. Therole of school education is stressed. MarthaNussbaum''s concept of ``narrative imagination''''is seen as important as well as well aneducation aiming at the Bildung of thestudent.
This paper relates to the implementation process of the Universitaetsorganisationsgesetz 1993 (University Organisation Act of 1993) at an Austrian university. In accordance with the idea of a managed university, the Austrian government aimed this law at transferring a greater scope of responsibility for strategic decisions and management issues from the ministry to the universities. The empirical basis is derived from a 2-year, in-depth field study showing that the transformation to a ‘simple’ management orientation is in itself complex. We suggest therefore a frame of reference that is based on an understanding of universities as complex and self-referential organisations. This view explains changes in universities as nontrivial transformation and conceptualises the management of change in universities as a paradoxical intervention.
Incl. abstract, bibl. We investigate the relationship between the widening participation performance indicators adopted in UK higher education (HE) and the government's objective of increasing overall HE participation rates. We critically assess the development of performance monitoring in HE and identify weaknesses in the current performance indicators from the perspective of the main stakeholders. We suggest the development of internal indicators and benchmarks by HE institutions together with extensions to the current national performance indicators that could improve their usefulness.