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Title:
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USING UBIQUITOUS TECHNOLOGIES TO COGNITIVELY SCAFFOLD ACADEMICALLY UNDERPREPARED LEARNERS: STUDENT CONTEXTUALISED LEARNING IN MOBILE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS |
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Author(s):
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Patient Rambe, Dick Ngambi |
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ISBN:
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978-972-8939-77-9 |
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Editors:
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Piet Kommers, Tomayess Issa and Pedro Isaías |
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Year:
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2012 |
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Edition:
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Single |
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Keywords:
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Ubiquitous technologies, at-risk learners, instant messaging |
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Type:
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Full Paper |
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First Page:
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198 |
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Last Page:
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207 |
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Language:
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English |
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Cover:
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Full Contents:
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click to dowload 
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Paper Abstract:
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The suboptimal participation of historically marginalised learners at Universities of Technologies (UoT) in South Africa complicates equitable educational delivery at these higher educational institutions. The enrolment of these at-risk learners imposes additional challenges of providing academic resources, rendering need-based instructional support and overcoming digital exclusion for learners who normally commute daily to campus to access library and internet-based resources. These challenges are compounded by the fact that a sizable number of these learners are usually underprepared for university education and hence require supplementary instructional support. To overcome general underpreparedness, digital exclusion of off-campus learners and paucity of need-based support in an Information Technology (IT) course, a Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) service, WhatsApp, was appropriated to enhance contextualised learning and academic support to struggling learners. A virtual ethnographic study, which involved the researchers examination of lecturer-learner and peer-based interactions in IT problem solving was employed to examine the nature of academic support given and the quality of peer-based feedback generated by learners. Evidence of lecturer-learner and peer-based interactions on WhatsApp suggest that this MIM application has potential to serve as a productive tool for scaffolding learners during problem solving and leverages contextualized learning. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for improving pedagogy in higher education. |
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