Contemporary higher education seems to be moving away from the lecture form and being replaced by student-centered education. This study attempts to ascertain in what ways student teachers experience the lecture as a meaningful educational form. The essay attempts to establish a shared system of meaning which will help determine what types of lectures are meaningful. Finally, the study also attempts to find different aspects of the lecture which are experienced as democratic.   The study is qualitative and began with a pilot study which was followed up by four interviews with student teachers who have recently completed the same AUO teachers’ program.   Different theories on media by Marshal McLuhan, Neil Postman and Walter Ong were utilized together with J.J. Gibson’s theories on affordances as well as Orrin Klapp’s theories on meaning. Using these theories it was determined that meaning is derived from the activities that are afforded by: the utilization of different media, perceiving the value of an event or thing, and the different functions of language. It was also determined from the different theories that the lecture is a type of ecology that requires a balance of meaningful information if the affordances of the environment are to be perceived. These theories were woven together and a model was established which was named “The Didactic Pendulum”. This model was used as a tool for interpreting and categorizing responses and explaining results.   The results indicate that meaningful lectures were to a large degree determined by the lecturer and their enthusiasm for the subject matter. It was also concluded that rhetoric and careful use of electronic media are also important. An important feature of the Teachers’ Education Program is that student teachers learn from observing the actions of the university teachers when they lecture. Concerning democratic aspects of the lecture, lectures are perceived democratic when they afford students with the opportunity to participate, but also when students get to challenge the ideas of the lecturers. One conclusion that was drawn was that a lecture is democratic when it has the potential to lead students to democratic action. A main critique of the lecture is that they are often experienced as isolated from other aspects of the course and students are not afforded the opportunity to question the content and the authority of the teachers. Moreover a balanced educational ecology is one where the lecturer is open to feedback signals of the students and is able to alter the flow of information accordingly.

<p>Contemporary higher education seems to be moving away from the lecture form and being replaced by student-centered education. This study attempts to ascertain in what ways student teachers experience the lecture as a meaningful educational form. The essay attempts to establish a shared system of meaning which will help determine what types of lectures are meaningful. Finally, the study also attempts to find different aspects of the lecture which are experienced as democratic.</p><p> </p><p>The study is qualitative and began with a pilot study which was followed up by four interviews with student teachers who have recently completed the same AUO teachers’ program.</p><p> </p><p>Different theories on media by Marshal McLuhan, Neil Postman and Walter Ong were utilized together with J.J. Gibson’s theories on affordances as well as Orrin Klapp’s theories on meaning. Using these theories it was determined that meaning is derived from the activities that are afforded by: the utilization of different media, perceiving the value of an event or thing, and the different functions of language. It was also determined from the different theories that the lecture is a type of ecology that requires a balance of meaningful information if the affordances of the environment are to be perceived. These theories were woven together and a model was established which was named “The Didactic Pendulum”. This model was used as a tool for interpreting and categorizing responses and explaining results.</p><p> </p><p>The results indicate that meaningful lectures were to a large degree determined by the lecturer and their enthusiasm for the subject matter. It was also concluded that rhetoric and careful use of electronic media are also important. An important feature of the Teachers’ Education Program is that student teachers learn from observing the actions of the university teachers when they lecture. Concerning democratic aspects of the lecture, lectures are perceived democratic when they afford students with the opportunity to participate, but also when students get to challenge the ideas of the lecturers. One conclusion that was drawn was that a lecture is democratic when it has the potential to lead students to democratic action. A main critique of the lecture is that they are often experienced as isolated from other aspects of the course and students are not afforded the opportunity to question the content and the authority of the teachers. Moreover a balanced educational ecology is one where the lecturer is open to feedback signals of the students and is able to alter the flow of information accordingly.</p>

Global Software Development (GSD) team members engage in intellectual activities that involve sharing business domain knowledge and technical knowledge across geographical areas, which is crucial to the successful development of software. In global software development, media choice may influence how virtual teams create and share knowledge. As digital technology advances and organizations become more digitally transformed, current communication theories for media selection lack the explanation to the complicated phenomena with the use of advanced media technologies. There have been many studies focused on the effectiveness of media, but they did not include user’s understanding of system security and its influence on knowledge sharing behavior. However, affordance theory explains the utility with both social actors and technical features. The use of media may be shaped by features of technologies and user’s perception on system security. The goal of this study was to empirically assess the effects of media affordances and media security awareness on knowledge sharing behaviors among GSD team members with the lens of affordance theory. In this study, data was collected through survey from 214 GSD employees, after inviting 1000 employees to participate. The survey data was analyzed to test the effects of communication media affordance and user’s awareness of media security on behavior in knowledge sharing. The analysis results show that awareness of media security had significant moderating effects on the relationships from some actualized media affordances to implicit knowledge sharing. The results of this study revealed positive relationships between perceived media affordances and actualized media affordances. The results also showed that organization tenure had a significant effect on implicit knowledge sharing, and professional tenure had a significant effect on explicit and implicit knowledge behavior. This study contributed to the body of knowledge in organizational communication literature by providing new insights into how technology properties and users’ awareness on technology security shape team members’ knowledge sharing practice.