1st Global Conference
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Monday 12th February - Wednesday 14th February
2007
Sydney, Australia
Conference Programme, Abstract and Papers
Session 4B: e-Process and Progress in Higher
Education
Chair: Ram Vemuri
Learner Centric Evaluation in India: A Case Study
K.
Balaveera Reddy*, Narasimha
H. Ayachit** , Nandini
Sidnal***
* Vice-Chancellor, Visvesvaraya Technological University, Jnana
Sangama, Belgaum, India
** Faculty S.D.M.
College of Engg. and Tech. Dharwad, Special officer VTU Extension
Centre, Dharwad, India
*** Faculty and Pg-coordinator, PG Studies, Visvesvaraya Technological
University, Jnana Sangama, Belgaum,
Karnataka, India
The development of any country takes place not only
because of accumulation of knowledge but because of its management
which can happen only through
a proper evaluation system. An illustrious engineer of India stated
that "Education is the sovereign remedy for all economic ills;
the higher the standard of education and science applied to industrial
calling, the greater the wealth produced," This speaks of realization
of importance of knowledge management and promotion of modern technology
in India. Education is a process by which a person’s body, mind
and character are formed and strengthened. It is bringing of head,
heart and mind together and thus enabling a person to develop an all
round personality identifying the best in him or her. It is a humanizing
process. Academics need to keep curriculum material up to date in an
ever-changing technological universe. This Technology has revolutionized
the process of “higher education”.
The education institutions in India have continuously endeavored to
use the technology to support the process of education. Inspite of
large number of developing countries having failed in it, the demands
on the educational sector have been increasing. It has been inherited
by Indians to take care that education must reach out to every citizen
throughout his life . The challenge earlier and present day is
to stay updated and to keep the nation updated. The formal education
sector faces the challenges of number and quality.A much
greater challenge lies in meeting the information and education
needs of other sectors whose needs have been changing with
increasing globalization and commercialization. The challenge is
huge and multifarious.
Response to such a complicated challenge must be qualitatively
different. To achieve such a massive task with so much complexity simultaneously
with quality , the known methods and conventional response will be
far too inadequate. There has to be a paradigm shift in conceptualization
of human learning and to adapt the whole range of new generation pedagogy
and andragogy to educate millions with quality. It will be necessary to
resort to multiplicity of modes of education of delivery, namely
formal and nonformal classrooms and alternative schooling, open and
distance learning etc.
Permanent Linking: A Virtual Learning
Environment Content Integration Strategy
Tanya
du Plessis
Faculty of Management, Department of Information and Knowledge Management,
University of Johannesburg, South Africa
In recent years higher education institutions have found the application of learning technologies increasingly central to aspects related to teaching and learning and the management of these processes. The University of Johannesburg uses a learning management system to provide lecturers and students with more control over the learning experience by increasing options for on-demand and just-in-time learning. This paper will examine a model of the integration of electronic course content and online sources of academic information. Integration is aimed at improved student accessibility to, and usability of, academic materials available in the virtual learning environment. Conceptually, this environment represents a learning milieu in which full advantage is taken of a variety of electronic information tools and learning support systems. It is within this environment that the UJ Library offers a VLE-integration service in line with the university's multi-modular approach to teaching and learning. In this approach it is determined that different modes of delivery are to be used in an integrated manner to make education more accessible. A survey assignment was conducted to investigate third year Information Management students' experience of e-learning technologies and their opinion of VLE-integration as a learning enhancement mechanism.
The Impact of the Internet upon the Commodity of Knowledge and the
Craft of History
Ian
Morley
Department of History, Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
The role of higher education as a vehicle to transmit knowledge as a consumable product shifts not only in concurrence with political philosophies but additionally due to the changing nature of students and society at large. One significant factor upon students, and accordingly teachers, has been the evolution of the internet as an instrument to access learned information. Whilst from a student perspective the growth of online technologies has provided liberating in terms of accessing information beyond the limited clock of library opening hours, a way to freely engage in learning beyond the orchestrated dance of the classroom and to devise more readily self-directed modes of scholarship, it has from a teachers perspective lead to the unleashing of new schooling dynamics and pressures. In this regard given the growth of the internet as a student research tool a number of andragogical matters of concern have arisen from the lecturers’ perspective. On the one hand they wish to support their students and encourage learning beyond classroom parameters yet in contrast internet use has eroded former extensively accepted practices concerning the obtaining and elucidation of detailed knowledge. In such a context this proposal offers an analysis of internet conduct for first year undergraduate History students within a university in Hong Kong. Describing the challenges within an institution that openly encourages its academics to embrace E-learning/E-teaching, this paper highlights how the internet was included within implementing a historiography course in order to promote students’ problem-solving capabilities and emphasize the decision-making processes involved in learning the historian’s crafts. Considering this backdrop the proposal shall explain classroom issues including balancing content-centred versus problem-centred approaches, and the utilisation of a scaffolding learning approach so that students better control their internet use, better understand their inquiry processes and have greater hegemony over deep knowledge acquisition.