We have witnessed in the world over the past two months, and the past few weeks in Mauritius, a sudden wake up call regarding e-learning by many people coming from different spheres of the education sector, including the technology solution providers, when confinement was imposed rather abruptly and when millions of kids and individuals throughout the world found themselves to be out of school. What we witnessed after that was mainly a series of communications, articles, and rush towards technology. We heard about Zoom and suddenly controversies emerged about security. We heard about Moodle, Google Meet or Microsoft Office 365 tools to allow people to keep working and classes ongoing. Everybody was focusing on one aspect – the technology. As usual we witness a fierce battle from the solution providers but also the users and the corporate clients, where each one of them wants to show that the solution they embraced is the best.
And amidst all this brouhaha, the educator, parents and the kids are lost somewhere in between. We lost sights of the major stakeholder. The kids. We have been advocating for years about student-centered education. We have been talking about 21st Century Teaching and Learning, in which technology is not necessarily central but is considered as an important enabler to make it happen. Yet, in this time of crisis as it came unannounced, and for which we were unprepared for, in a number of ways, the basic instinct of many were to get into a race to show whose technology is the best, and who is the leader because they have some piece of technology in there, but which in reality, was under- or not utilized at all. No one focused on the practice, and the optimal use of the technology. Practically no one had a framework including a continuity plan for the educational services to continue with positive impact on teaching and achievement of learning outcomes in particular.
So, in this rush, we forgot about
Technology in education can be broadly categorized in two parts, namely high-end technology and low-end technology. Often, there is a tendency to think that high-end technology will have higher impact on learning and vice-versa for low end technology. This is not true as we can have a high-end technology with low impact on learning while we can have low-end technology with high impact on learning. When a course is shifted from a face-to-face environment to the e-Learning mode or to be delivered on mass media such as TV, there are a number of instructional design implications. If there is a need to replace a classic uni-directional lecture online, then a simple video conferencing tool with a PowerPoint loaded on it will suffice. The impact or the success of the lecture will be determined mainly by the knowledge/expertise of the presenter combined with his or her presentation and communication skills. On the other hand, if a traditional classroom for primary school children that follows a classic lesson plan adapted for the classroom environment and the whiteboard is going to be shifted on television or online, then this is a completely different matter. It cannot be simply transferred just by using the technology. The instructional design and a methodology are important. There might even be a need to rethink and adapt the lesson to fit in the new delivery medium. Quality assurance is key, and there is no room for mistake, professional standards have to be top in such situations.
The technology is not missing, the content is not missing, and the teacher is not missing. But the conceptual and practical translation and transformation of a classic “teaching period” is very important to ensure the successful transfer of knowledge from one point to the other. I must point out here that the knowledge cycle is not complete, as we are catering only for the transfer, but not for the application of the knowledge through learning activities. On television for instance, the knowledge application phase is difficult to ensure, and the knowledge transfer phase is single-paced, which may not be adapted for all learners, as it will mostly adhere to the one-size-fits-all approach. A convergence of technologies is therefore needed to ensure both the knowledge transfer, and application phases take place. All of this need a framework to be in place and to ensure teachers, educators and academics alike are at ease with, and have the necessary competencies to make it work. Capacity-building of teachers have to be on the operationalization of such a framework, and not rather ad-hoc training on scattered pieces of technology. Technical support to teachers is very important element to ensure the uptake is constant, as many will end up abandoning technology due to minor hiccups. This leads us to first of all gauge the readiness of teachers, but also engage in an honest assessment of the actual digital divide, as this is the most complex part of the problem. I do not have a quick fix ready-made solution or idea on how to solve this, except being tempted to say, let’s give a free TV and laptop or tablet to each household. Digital inclusion should be on the agenda of Governments as a top priority especially for the underserved population.
To end this piece of reflection, we have to also accept the fact that we are not in an ideal world, and despite all the things we may write about, things will not happen in an ideal way. I had highlighted it in the past, and for a long time advocated that empowerment of the teachers was an essential element in the integration of technology in teaching and learning. Decentralization of the digitization of the curriculum is important to be considered, as today we saw that educators who were volunteers came forward to conceive technology-driven lessons albeit in a disorganized way. Their goodwill makes them perfect to become the 'change-agents' of the future. But if we want to accelerate the digitization of curriculum, we need to find a mechanism where this is decentralized in a distributed instructional design process model, using standards, guidelines and rigorous quality assurance mechanisms to ascertain that learning via multiple media is meaningful and pedagogically relevant. In this way, the content digitization process will be carried out in much less time to cover in full the curriculum and will lead to real learning transformation.
Let us refocus on the process, the instructional approaches, and the pedagogy – not on the technology.
And amidst all this brouhaha, the educator, parents and the kids are lost somewhere in between. We lost sights of the major stakeholder. The kids. We have been advocating for years about student-centered education. We have been talking about 21st Century Teaching and Learning, in which technology is not necessarily central but is considered as an important enabler to make it happen. Yet, in this time of crisis as it came unannounced, and for which we were unprepared for, in a number of ways, the basic instinct of many were to get into a race to show whose technology is the best, and who is the leader because they have some piece of technology in there, but which in reality, was under- or not utilized at all. No one focused on the practice, and the optimal use of the technology. Practically no one had a framework including a continuity plan for the educational services to continue with positive impact on teaching and achievement of learning outcomes in particular.
So, in this rush, we forgot about
- Digital Inclusion
- Organizational e-Learning Maturity Levels
- Quality Assurance and Instructional Design Processes for e-Learning and mass media delivery
- User Readiness and learning curve for technology adoption for instructional uses
- Technical and end-user support
Technology in education can be broadly categorized in two parts, namely high-end technology and low-end technology. Often, there is a tendency to think that high-end technology will have higher impact on learning and vice-versa for low end technology. This is not true as we can have a high-end technology with low impact on learning while we can have low-end technology with high impact on learning. When a course is shifted from a face-to-face environment to the e-Learning mode or to be delivered on mass media such as TV, there are a number of instructional design implications. If there is a need to replace a classic uni-directional lecture online, then a simple video conferencing tool with a PowerPoint loaded on it will suffice. The impact or the success of the lecture will be determined mainly by the knowledge/expertise of the presenter combined with his or her presentation and communication skills. On the other hand, if a traditional classroom for primary school children that follows a classic lesson plan adapted for the classroom environment and the whiteboard is going to be shifted on television or online, then this is a completely different matter. It cannot be simply transferred just by using the technology. The instructional design and a methodology are important. There might even be a need to rethink and adapt the lesson to fit in the new delivery medium. Quality assurance is key, and there is no room for mistake, professional standards have to be top in such situations.
The technology is not missing, the content is not missing, and the teacher is not missing. But the conceptual and practical translation and transformation of a classic “teaching period” is very important to ensure the successful transfer of knowledge from one point to the other. I must point out here that the knowledge cycle is not complete, as we are catering only for the transfer, but not for the application of the knowledge through learning activities. On television for instance, the knowledge application phase is difficult to ensure, and the knowledge transfer phase is single-paced, which may not be adapted for all learners, as it will mostly adhere to the one-size-fits-all approach. A convergence of technologies is therefore needed to ensure both the knowledge transfer, and application phases take place. All of this need a framework to be in place and to ensure teachers, educators and academics alike are at ease with, and have the necessary competencies to make it work. Capacity-building of teachers have to be on the operationalization of such a framework, and not rather ad-hoc training on scattered pieces of technology. Technical support to teachers is very important element to ensure the uptake is constant, as many will end up abandoning technology due to minor hiccups. This leads us to first of all gauge the readiness of teachers, but also engage in an honest assessment of the actual digital divide, as this is the most complex part of the problem. I do not have a quick fix ready-made solution or idea on how to solve this, except being tempted to say, let’s give a free TV and laptop or tablet to each household. Digital inclusion should be on the agenda of Governments as a top priority especially for the underserved population.
To end this piece of reflection, we have to also accept the fact that we are not in an ideal world, and despite all the things we may write about, things will not happen in an ideal way. I had highlighted it in the past, and for a long time advocated that empowerment of the teachers was an essential element in the integration of technology in teaching and learning. Decentralization of the digitization of the curriculum is important to be considered, as today we saw that educators who were volunteers came forward to conceive technology-driven lessons albeit in a disorganized way. Their goodwill makes them perfect to become the 'change-agents' of the future. But if we want to accelerate the digitization of curriculum, we need to find a mechanism where this is decentralized in a distributed instructional design process model, using standards, guidelines and rigorous quality assurance mechanisms to ascertain that learning via multiple media is meaningful and pedagogically relevant. In this way, the content digitization process will be carried out in much less time to cover in full the curriculum and will lead to real learning transformation.
Let us refocus on the process, the instructional approaches, and the pedagogy – not on the technology.
The University Council at its 439th (Ordinary) Meeting held on 31 August 2017 approved the concept note for the setting up of the UoM Incubator. A number of activities were carried out in the context of the incubator namely the Innovative ICT business idea competition in collaboration with the National Computer Board and the Ministry of technology, communications and innovation (TCI). Another project, in collaboration with the NPCC and the e-inclusion foundation involving 3 groups of students working on IOT solutions for SMEs was carried out.The SBM is currently funding one of the projects to help them move towards proof of concept. Furthermore, a module called “build your business” was developed and implemented as a pilot in the “Web and Multimedia Development” programme of studies at the Centre for Innovative & Lifelong Learning. The VFX Postproduction lab is also being setup in the context of the Digital Technologies incubator. 
