The implementation of the first university campus self- service video studio facilities on the African continent opened new possibilities for rethinking technology adoption and redesigning education transformation. This session will focus on the strategies used for the implementation of video and sound technologies on campus and the faculty and student adoption thereof.
Any university support unit tasked with the technology integration and adoption strategy will be actively aware of the challenges that frame technology adoption and the reality that technology alone cannot cultivate education transformation. Sonicfoundry, educational video software manufacturers, describes the current status of video on College and University campuses as having reached a ‘tipping point’ , the point when a new technology ‘is pushed over the edge from popular to pervasive’ (Sonicfoundry, 2013).
This session will tell the journey of establishing the first two (and further expansion thereof) self-service video studios of its kind on the African continent. The discussion will focus on the purposeful planning and integration of the video facilities for students and academics alike to actively enrich their learning outcomes and assessment strategies. The way in which students gained technology skills and a much deeper understanding of the world of video, enabling intuitive adaptation to new contexts and at a large scale seamlessly becoming creators and co-creators of content with others will be highlighted.Considering the important role of the academic when adopting and integrating new technologies, rethinking and improving pedagogical approaches are vital, while the technologies remain the accelerators and enablers.
The second focus of this presentation will be on the decision making and collaborating, mentoring and professional development needed to ensure the success of expanding technology projects. Qualitative as well as quantitative data gathered during the project describe the uptake and use of the newly integrated facilities by faculty and their students. Results show that even though most students and academic staff indicate that they have reached the intended outcomes, a number of academic staff have not integrated the technology into the learning process in a meaningful way. Little connection has been made between the activity and intended outcome. This poses a huge challenge to the academic developers and support unit.
The biggest challenge therefore remains to engage in a meaningful way with academic staff to find effective strategies and scalable solutions to help them with the thoughtful integration of digital and other technologies in the blended and online learning environments.
An interesting observation – our students are open and eager to participate and engage and create when provided with an enabling learning environment and new technologies – faculty not that much – therefore the love – “hate” relationship in the heart of the Academic Developer.
In this session the presenter will ask the audience to engage and share what they have learned about their academics and students on their respective campuses and the “meaningful” adoptions of technologies, their preferences, the impact and how they provide support. Exchange of ideas on how future developments might be initiated and how to increase faculty engagement will be brainstormed.
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