Young People and Technologies: Fostering Transformative Experiences

In "Preparing School Library Media Specialists for the New Century: Results of a Survey" ( Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 42: 3, pp. 220-227, Summer 2001), Carol Tilley and Daniel Callison found that among schools accredited by the American Library Association technology-focused courses ranked highest on the list of the most widely required courses for this professional speciality. The survey also revealed that technology-related courses dominated the roster of elective coursework. A quick reading of the survey may suggest that these graduate programs in information studies had presciently understood the increasing role that information and communications technologies (ICTs) play in the daily lives of both young people and the information professionals who serve them. Yet, data from the survey also revealed that ICT-related coursework focused on ICTs in service of professionals' needs, not ICTs in service of youth empowerment. Furthermore, the survey's scope did not allow it to address more illuminating questions including the extent to which other youth services information professionals such as public library children's specialists receive training in ICTs, to what degree education related to ICTs is supplanting a focus on traditional media and technologies, or how information schools can prepare professionals to foster transformative experiences for young people through the use of ICTs. The purpose of this roundtable, then, is to provide a forum for discussing how information schools might more effectively educate youth services information professionals in the theory and application of ICTs to their interactions--structured and unstructured--with young people. Participants will be encouraged to bring relevant course descriptions, class syllabi, assigned readings, and course assignment description to the discussion to provide concrete examples of issues. The conversation will be enriched through references to appropriate models from community and social informatics, media literacy, and traditional librarianship, as well as research and best practices in education. The Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies provides an additional corpus of examples, research, and practice on which to draw

Improved Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detection on Student’s Discontinuation to Secondary School

Improved Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) with bias correction is the development of the CHAID method by relying on Tschuprow's T test calculations with bias correction in the process of forming a classification tree. This study aims to obtain a classification of factors which influence students for not continuing their education from junior high school or equivalent to high school or equivalent. The results obtained in the classification tree produce nine classifications. Based on the results of the classification tree, the classification of students who do not continue their education to high school or equivalent is: students with disabilities who do not have access to ICTs (0.89); students who work without disability but do not have access to ICTs (0.73); and students who do not work without disability butdo not have access to in ICTs (0.60). Based on the classification obtained the factors which influence students for not continuing their education to high school or equivalent are access to ICTs, employment status, and persons with disabilities. The classification accuracy of the results uses the Improved-CHAID method with bias correction with a proportion of 80% training data and 20% testing data, namely 72.3033% on training data and an increase of 73.3300% on testing data

A Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the Integration of ICTs in Teaching and Learning in Primary Schools in Kenya

This research project presents a research study on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) integration in primary school education as it sought to develop a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the integration of ICTs in Teaching and Learning in Primary School education in Kenya. This was achieved through determining various facets of ICTs use in primary schools, establishing the role of school management in ICTs integration in primary schools, determining how ICTs can best be used in the teaching methodology in primary schools and finally determining fundamental ICT skills required by a teacher for ICT integration in teaching in primary schools. Quantitative methods were used where descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were applied for research with questionnaires being used as the main tool for data collection. Through the data analysis and key findings the researcher came up with recommendations which were used to develop the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. The study revealed that 75.7 percent of the teachers who participated in the study were trained in ICT while 18.9 percent did not have any training in ICT. At the same time, only 32.4 percent of the head teachers were established to be trained in ICT while a larger percent, 64.7 were not trained in ICT. This implied that most of the head teachers do not have sufficient knowledge to manage the processes of ICTs integration in teaching and learning. Furthermore, the mean for integration of ICTs in the primary school curriculum was established to be 2.43 which asserted that the level of integration is quite low in terms of availability of computers for use by teachers and pupils. Moreover, it was also determined that the Government do not provide enough support to teachers in the integration of ICTs in teaching and learning which in turn makes the integration process difficult. The paper concluded by providing recommendations which emphasized on the need of teachers to be trained in basic and advanced ICT skills in order to technologically empower them in integrating ICTs, the need for strong infrastructural foundations in order to facilitate the ICTs integration process, and the need to have enough support from the Government and other stakeholders to ensure continuity in the ICT integration process. Most of all the research recommended the need to have a solid Monitoring and Evaluation Framework to support the integration of ICTs in the teaching and learning process in primary schools in Kenya. Keywords: ICTs Integration in Education, Monitoring, Evaluation, Indicators, Monitoring and Evaluation Framewor

Developing Pre-service Teachers’ Technology Integration Competencies in Science and Mathematics Teaching: Experiences from Tanzania and Uganda

This study investigated the ICT integration practices in pre-service teacher education in the School of Education at Makerere University (College of Education and External Studies) in Uganda and Dar es salaam University College of Education (DUCE), a constituent college of the University of Dar es salaam in Tanzania. Specifically, the study aimed at establishing ways in which ICTs were being deployed in pre-service teacher training in the two colleges. It also investigated the factors constraining integration of ICTs in pre-service teacher education as perceived by the pre-service teachers and lecturers at the colleges. Using questionnaires and interview, data were collected from both the lecturers and final year pre-service teachers during the academic year (2009/2010). The findings revealed that, limited access to ICTs, limited lecturers’ knowledge of ICTs and limited use of the available ICTs affected usage of the technologies. Thus, it emerged that there is a need to explore models situated in a more encompassing theoretical framework like Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) so as to realise sustainable pedagogical practices in classrooms proliferated with technology.Keywords: TPACK; Professional development; Science educatio

The Impact of Public Access Venue Information and Communication Technologies in Botswana Public Libraries

Objective – A study on the impact of Public Access Venue (PAV) Information andCommunication Technologies (ICTs) was conducted in Botswana libraries with Internet connections. The main objective was to determine the impact of ICTs in public libraries. Methods –Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework as a theoretical lens, the study used semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to investigate the impact of PAV ICTs in 4 study sites, resulting in data from a total of 39 interviews and 4 focus groups.Methods –Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework as a theoretical lens, the study used semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to investigate the impact of PAV ICTs in 4 study sites, resulting in data from a total of 39 interviews and 4 focus groups. Results – The results of the study show that PAV ICTs had a positive impact on users in the areas of education and economic benefits. Within educational and economic impacts, social benefits were also found, pertaining to the use of social media and the Internet for formal and informal communication. The study also revealed a slight difference between school going users and non-school going elderly users where the use and acquisition of computer skills was concerned. Elderly non-school going users tended to rely on venue staff for skills more than the younger school going users.Conclusion – The study recommends that PAV facilities should be improved in terms of skills offered and resources availed so as to appeal to both the younger school going generation and the older non-school going users. It is also recommended that education on ICT be improved to help curb rising unemployment in Botswana; such skills would enhance the income generation skills of the unemployed users as well as school leavers

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTS) as a Tool for Intercultural Education. A collaborative experience in secondary education in Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero, Mexico

This paper discusses the collaborative experience of creating educational materials for a secondary school in Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero, México. In this school, students from Nahuatl, Tun savi, Me'phaa and Spanish speaking communities live and learn together. The intercultural context provides challenges for science education that we sought to address. The use of collaborative technologies in science classes has made visible the cultural diversity in the classroom, helping students and teachers recognize themselves as active agents in the construction of common knowledge and in sharing their\ud knowledge. This experience also shows the importance of ICTs as technologies of expression that reinforce individual and collective identity in intercultural contexts

Plagiarism and new media technologies: Combating 'cut 'n paste' culture

Whilst plagiarism has been around since pen was put to paper, the inextricable relationship that education now enjoys with new media technologies has seen its incidence increase to epidemic proportions. Plagiarism has become a blight on tertiary education, insidiously degrading the quality of degrees, largely thanks to ICTs providing students with ways to seamlessly misappropriate information. Many students are increasingly unsure how to avoid it and are being overseen by educators that cannot agree on what exactly constitutes academic dishonesty and how it should be effectively handled. This paper analyses the issues facing students and academics in light of new media in education and increasing moves to online learning. It considers the issues aggravating the problem; rising financial pressures, ambiguous cultural practices, practices in high school education; and seeks to provide a starting point for consistent, pedagogically sound approaches to the problem

Quality Assurance Using ICT Best Practices in School-Based Assessment of Students’ Learning in Nigerian University Education

The paper emphasized strongly that ICTs best practices if adopted in School Based Assessment (S B A) would achieve quality assurance. Best practices are techniques that through experience and research have proven to reliably lead to a desired result. The study is a descriptive survey which sought to determine the potentials of ICTs best practices in SBA among others in Nigerina university education. The study was carried out in Federal and State universities in the South – South and South- East Zones of Nigeria. The sample size comprised of 140 lecturers drawn from the population of 345 respondents. Four research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The instrument for data collection was a 38- item questionnaire developed by the researchers. The instrument was validated and reliability was computed to be 0.82; 0.86; 0.81 and 0.88 for the four sections respectively. The data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and Z- test statistic in testing the null hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level. The findings among others indicated that ICTs best practices in SBA have the potentials to achieve quality education. Based on the findings, recommendations were made which were that lecturers should be developed in the use of ICTs facilities for SBA and adequate ICTs facilities should be provided to aid e-assessment.Key words: Quality Assurance, ICTs best practices, School – Based Assessment, Nigerian University educatio

A DEMOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE ON UNIVERSITY LECTURERS’ USE OF INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN TEACHING

The study sought to establish the use of information technology in literacy instruction by university lecturers. The focus was on the main demographic factors which significantly impact on the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in literacy instruction. The following variables were of interest: age, gender, highest qualification attained, work experience, tenure and employment status. The research was carried out at Great Zimbabwe University (GZU), a university in Masvingo Town, Zimbabwe. A descriptive survey was used as research design. Interviews and questionnaires were used as data collection instruments to eighty (80) lecturers from the Robert Mugabe School of Education and Culture based at GZU. The current study rides on the knowledge gap that previous studies had a tendency to look at primary and secondary school practitioners’ use of ICT and yet the problem could be at institutions of higher learning. The research looked at GZU’s perspective or policy to the use of ICT, teaching /learning outcomes for both students and lecturers, impediments to the use of technology and uses of technology by both lecturers and students. Quite significant therefore, is the fact that the research empowers all stakeholders to redirect their efforts to address the use of technology to enhance literacy instruction in institutions of higher learning. The results of the study revealed that there is less use of ICTs by lecturers in teaching and learning at the Robert Mugabe School of Education and Culture, Great Zimbabwe University. Variables such as age and gender were seen to affect the use of ICTs. Educational and academic qualifications and use of ICTs had an inverse relationship whereby an increase in one’s educational/academic qualifications showed a decrease in the use of ICTs. It is recommended that the university has to come up with a clear policy to guide lecturers on the use of ICTs in research, lecture preparation and presentation and assessment. Members of staff (Lecturers) were to frequently attend refresher workshops and seminars on the use of ICTs in education. It is also envisaged that personal computers and laptops are availed to teaching members’ offices and computer laboratories. This would result in effective teaching and research. Article visualizations