Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Marc Prensky’s digital natives theory became popular, because it supplied teachers with answer as to why students were unresponsive to their curriculums. In essence, Prensky’s theory asks: what has changed? In most cases, it is not the teachers’ curriculums that have changed, so it has to be something else. Prensky points to digital technologies, because teachers are now having to teach students who never knew a world without digital technologies—Prensky, of course, asserting that this changes the way students think, which naturally transfers over to how they learn. In short, it is the students that have changed due to digital technologies. According to Prensky, students, within the digital natives generation, would value their courses more if teachers utilized digital technologies in their classroom. However, critics of the digital natives theory assert that Prensky has not considered many variables that could have an effect on how students use digital technologies, such as socio-economic factors, gender, education, and geographic location, and ultimately there is no empirical evidence to support the use of digital technologies in Prensky’s pedagogy (see Sue Bennett and Karl Maton, Chris Jones et al., Anoush Margaryan et al., and Neil Selwyn). Although, I mostly agree with the critics evaluations of the digital natives theories, I believe that there are larger economic variables, such as Gee et al.’s new capitalism, that influence how students value digital technologies as well as literacy and learning. This concept was reflected in the survey that I conducted in order to examine how students value W131 in general, the writing done in W131, and writing done in social digital technologies. The survey demonstrated that students do not understand social digital writing to be writing; therefore, utilizing digital technologies in the writing classroom, as Prensky suggest, would not be beneficial, because it would take a great deal of class time for students to come to the understanding that social digital writing is writing. More importantly, the survey indicated that students are highly career motivated, which influences how students value their courses. For students, a course’s value is determined by how applicable it is to students’ career goals. The survey results suggest that while students recognize that first-year composition (FYC) has value, they do not necessarily see it specifically valuable to their primary goals. Although I believe it is important for students to be able to find value in a course, I am not suggesting that FYC should be tailored to cater to students; on the contrary, I believe that the ideal FYC course would acknowledge the values of the field of study that it pertains to, and attempt to demonstrate to students how those values relate to their own. This is ideal—however, by using the Writing about Writing pedagogy, designed by Douglas Downs and Elizabeth Wardle, this kind of value system may be possible. Downs and Wardle’s pedagogy also has the potential to bridge the value systems of the students, and writing studies, because Downs and Wardle’s pedagogy focuses on students gaining a better understanding of writing studies as a field of study, by engaging and exploring texts that represent writing studies’ central beliefs and important works. Through texts that come out of the writing studies discipline students can gain a better understanding of concepts that come out of writing studies, as well as build a bridge between students’ values and the values of the writing studies discipline. Texts such as chapter six (“The Means of Production: Literacy and Stratification as the Twenty-First Century) of Deborah Brandt’s Literacy in American Lives, James Paul Gee’s “The New Literacy Studies and the ‘Social Turn,’” and Harvey Graff’s “The Literacy Myth at Thirty,” offers students a new perspective on the economic climate that effects the job market, as well as provide a meaningful way into writing studies. In this chapter, I will discuss Downs and Wardle’s Writing about Writing pedagogy, how I would implement their pedagogy in a FYC course, and what would be the ideal learning outcomes for this course.

The Digital Doorway (DD) project provides computing infrastructure in impoverished communities in South Africa. DD terminals offer opportunities for unassisted- and peerassisted learning of basic computer skills, and varying computing activities ranging from entertainment, to independent research. This study addresses software application usage, and how it relates to user demographics (age and gender) and location, in order to better understand both the user base, and the nature and extent of DD interactions. A mixed-methods approach is employed, involving log-files, interviews, questionnaires, and naturalistic observation; to build up a holistic picture of application usage and user behaviour at selected sites. Important issues with respect to ICT for Education and Development in the DD context, are addressed. Analysis of the data indicates notable trends, and relationships between age, gender, location, and application usage. User behaviour and environmental effects on usage are discussed, and recommendations provided for future DDs and similar initiatives. / Computing / M. Tech. (Information Technology)

The Digital Doorway (DD) project provides computing infrastructure in impoverished communities in South Africa. DD terminals offer opportunities for unassisted- and peerassisted learning of basic computer skills, and varying computing activities ranging from entertainment, to independent research. This study addresses software application usage, and how it relates to user demographics (age and gender) and location, in order to better understand both the user base, and the nature and extent of DD interactions. A mixed-methods approach is employed, involving log-files, interviews, questionnaires, and naturalistic observation; to build up a holistic picture of application usage and user behaviour at selected sites. Important issues with respect to ICT for Education and Development in the DD context, are addressed. Analysis of the data indicates notable trends, and relationships between age, gender, location, and application usage. User behaviour and environmental effects on usage are discussed, and recommendations provided for future DDs and similar initiatives. / Computing / M. Tech. (Information Technology)

Develops a culturally and linguistically sensitive curriculum that provides unskilled and underemployed African Americans living in San Bernardino County with vocational education for technical and office occupations. This project will operate as a resource for teachers, counselors, and trainers who assist unskilled African Americans entering the workplace and that are in need of career and professional development in office protocol, computer software applications, and verbal and written communication skills.

Thesis (Phd. (Education )) - Central University of Technology, Free State, 2015 / For learners to be effective computer applications users, they need three basic skills – computer literacy, computer fluency and intellectual and reasoning skills to apply computational techniques or computer applications to the problems and projects in a field. Computational thinking as addressed in the first literature chapter is the description and the promotion of new ways of thinking in an increasingly digital age. A computational thinker must constantly engage in technology advancements. Computational thinking is a way of solving problems and is a cognitive or a thinking process. To flourish in the world of work, computational thinking has to be a fundamental part of the way learners think and understand the world. It describes the mental activity in formulating a problem to allow a computational solution. The solution can be carried out by the learner or the computer or a combination of learner and computers. Problem-solving competency as addressed in the next literature chapter involves the ability to acquire and use new knowledge, or to use old knowledge in a new way to solve problems that are not routine. Problem-solving as a skill involves a range of processes that includes analysing, interpreting, reasoning, predicting, evaluating and reflecting. Learners need profound Computer Applications Technology (CAT) knowledge and a general reasoning ability as well as investigative strategies for solving ill-defined problems. To address the research questions, the researcher employed the QUAN-QUAL design in this study. In this study the quantitative method was used to gather data relating to the education of teachers, in-service training received and answers to certain computational thinking skills and problem-solving skills. It was also used to test the relationship between problem solving and computational thinking skills. A Likert-scale type questionnaire was completed by 150 CAT teachers. In addition, this study also employed the qualitative method with semi-structured interviews to gather data relating Abstract vi to problem solving and computational thinking skills. Eight CAT teachers were interviewed to ascertain the afore-mentioned. A pilot study was conducted with the aim to test the research approach and to identify potential problems that may affect the quality and validity of the results. The wording of some questions in the questionnaire was altered to ensure that the instrument measures what it is supposed to. Descriptive statistics in this study was used to describe the findings and the inferential statistics used to test the hypotheses and draw conclusions from the quantitative statistics. For qualitative data, thematic analysis was used to analyse the original data obtained from the semi-structured interviews. To promote critical thinking skills, teachers must engage learners in higher-order thinking. Findings show that teachers do not always use classroom practices that encourage critical thinking. It was encouraging that the majority of teachers do allow group work in the CAT classroom, as group work is an important facet in computational thinking and problem solving. The study culminates in a computational thinking and problem-solving toolkit developed by the researcher. This toolkit is intended primarily for facilitators (such as CAT subject advisors or CAT mentor teachers) to enable them to conduct workshops for fellow CAT teachers. By using this toolkit, teachers will gain an understanding of what computational thinking skills and problem-solving skills are and how to develop these skills in Grades 10 – 12 CAT learners.

This thesis is a study of the extent of ICT literacy among secondary school principals in the Western province of Kenya. A contemporary issue in the improvement of quality in school leadership relates to use of ICT; the assumption is that improving leadership is the key to good school performance. The research was triggered by the need for quality among secondary school principals and their preparedness to cope with technology change. A mixed mode methods research was conducted involving both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In this research 188 secondary school principals in the Western province were used for data analysis. An empirical investigation was conducted. School principals responded to questionnaire 1 which investigated ICT literacy. Deputy principals responded to questionnaire 2 which investigated school performance. Open-ended questions, semi-structured interviews and observation schedules were used to obtain qualitative data. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Education Management)

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of an instructor-led and a self-managed computer training course. A sample of forty nine (n=49) previously disadvantaged South African adult learners was used. Half the sample was randomly assigned to the instructor-led course, while the other half was assigned to the self-managed course. Data dealing with the course content and design, subject demographics, previous computer experience, preferred learning style, and learning potential was collected prior to each course. After the course, the ability to create key outcomes using the learned software was assessed, as well as subject perceptions of the course and various support and performance system factors. The results showed that there was no significant difference between the performance on the competence assessment of the students from the two groups. The data did, however, indicate a stronger preference for the self-managed approach. A number of limitations to the study were also noted. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

The public sector project is particularly a demanding undertaking, with the requirement to meet diverse demands. Despite huge investment, public sector projects tend to complete behind schedule, indicating shortfall in various project factors. This research was grounded on an empirical study of the Malaysian School Computer Laboratory Programme (SCLP) to examine the project success factors throughout the project life span. The extensive SCLP was divided into six zones, spanning urban and remote environment throughout Malaysia. Its implementation was staggered into several phases, two of which covered in this study, namely phase-1 and phase-2. This research aimed to fulfil three research objectives: i) to discover the project management’s success factors; ii) to determine the product’s success factors that encompass various stakeholders; and iii) to identify project characteristics that influenced the project success. A comprehensive review of literature suggested 20 relevant project success factors to be investigated. Those factors were examined using a newly constructed framework, whereby the project life span was clustered into two segments – project process and project product. The study adopted a qualitative paradigm; nevertheless it utilised both qualitative and quantitative approaches of data collection, which were triangulated to provide a wider scope of interpretation. The quantitative data for a total sample of 357 projects were sourced from Likert-type questionnaire and secondary resources, while qualitative data were sourced from combination of semi-structured interviews with 38 respondents representing 10 groups of project stakeholders and secondary data from various documents. The results demonstrated that the project management of the SCLP was improperly administered. Out of five success factors investigated to verify the project conceptualization, only two namely project goal and project scope, were reasonably defined. One factor, stakeholder participation, was inadequately defined, while the other two factors, resources assessment and risk management, were not even taken into consideration by the project decision-making committee. There were also some deficiencies in the project planning. From six success factors tested, two were acceptably planned, i.e. project design and project costing. The other four, namely distribution of authority and responsibility, contractor selection, project scheduling, and project documentation, were insufficiently planned. The inadequacies in the project definition and project planning were reflected in the project execution as only two out of six factors, i.e. administrator effectiveness and communication, contributed to the project success. The other four, known as supervising team efficiency, contractor competence, integrity and external influences were negatively affected the project. Despite some deficiencies in the project management, the outcome or product of the project was found to be successful particularly in the judgement of the target group, the users; they were satisfied with the SCLP deliverables. They also appreciated the benefit from the utilisation of the products, which greatly changed the approaches of teaching and learning. However, the SCLP completion time was not as successful as planned, believed to be a result of unrealistic scheduling during the planning stage. Nonetheless, there were cases of genuine delays due to various factors in the earlier stages. The results also suggested that some of the project success factors were particularly influenced by project characteristics explored in this studied. The influences of these two characteristics, geographical zone and the project award method, could be seen in both the project management process and the project’s product. Overall, this thesis contributed to extant body of knowledge in various ways. A newly constructed research framework, with the concept of duality of project process and product, added depth to the longstanding idea of project success and expanded premises of the existing theory. This framework offered a better platform to identify when particular factors take place and affect the project along the project life span. This study also added a new insight to the Malaysian public sector projects management strategies in particular and to the other countries with the similar situations in general. A new paradigm in project decision-making by adopting a bottom-up concept rather than traditionally top-down alone during the project conceptualisation and a more realistic resource-based approach during the project planning, is suggested. In addition, this research proposed an ideal way to deal with various critical success factors in a huge programme.

The ubiquitous and pervasive nature of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) fosters societies driven by knowledge rather than traditional capital and labour through the simplified socio-economic participation. No longer are individuals impacted by spatial and environmental conditions when conducting personal, community and even national obligations and duties. However, the effective use of ICT is governed by personal, interpersonal and environmental factors. Nowhere else is this impact more evident than in rural areas. Rural areas are plagued by a number of challenges which affect ICT use. Some of these challenges relate to the scarcity of income, education and infrastructure. A holistic investigation on the challenges experienced by rural areas was necessary. Based on the outcome of the investigation, rural areas were classified as resource-constrained environments. The study then set out to explore concepts that highlight the opportunities offered by ICT in rural areas and those that mitigate challenges posed by these environments on ICT use. The theoretical grounding of the concepts identified in the study firstly set out to understand and explain general ICT use, then extended this ICT use to rural areas. A conceptual model explaining challenges posed by resource constraints inherent in rural areas on ICT use was incepted. This conceptual model was empirically investigated for evaluation and validation purposes resulting in the final model of the study. The final model of the study facilitated the process of understanding and explaining the effective use of ICT in rural areas based on the inherent resource constraints in these environments. By mitigating the factors affecting ICT use in rural areas, the impact of effective ICT use can potentially be extended to resource-constrained environments, including rural areas. / School of Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)