This paper analyses and suggests possible technological innovation strategies in higher educational institutions in Africa. The paper describes management issues in the implementation of eLearning with particular reference to its usage in higher education abroad and in Africa, and also suggests appropriate approaches for technological innovation of higher education in Africa. The major findings of the paper, which are based on three case studies, suggest that eLearning needs to be implemented within a strategically developed framework based on a clear and unified vision and a central educational rationale. The findings further highlight the importance of using a combination of strategies -top-down, bottom-up and inside-out -during the diffusion process to attain coherence, collegiality and ownership. The process of technological transformation is not a smooth translation process but one of dislocations, dilemmas and uncertainties and it is an art to effect change and sustainable technological transformation since people are central to this transformation process.
This paper analyses the change and innovation strategies that Charles Sturt University (CSU) used from 2007 to 2009 during the implementation and mainstreaming of an open source learning management system (LMS), Sakai, named locally as CSU Interact. CSU was in January 2008 the first Australian University to implement an open source learning management system institution wide. The unique characteristics of implementing change and innovation in higher education are discussed as well as CSU's change model, which comprises eight dimensions that can occur in any order and also in parallel, and is based on the work of Kotter, Cohen and Synnot. Two key strategies have emerged to support change, namely the building of learning communities and the sharing of best practice in implementing educational technology. Other findings were that the change was largely driven from the bottom up and with top management support and through the writer's role, from middle management in terms of top down strategies. Technological innovations in the context of an open source learning management system have wider, external implications than the local institution given the free flow of information and intellectual property within the community.
Transformation of academic, student and administrative management is a key element in the institutionalisation of Internet/intranet‐based (networked) education in higher education. The distributed nature of networked education demands distributed models of academic, student and administrative management. Some argue that networked education is essentially an alternative delivery mode and its management is thus no different from that of other modes. Others posit that networked education is a new educational paradigm and a response to the educational needs of the emerging information society, in the same way that the traditional class was a response to the educational needs of the industrial society. Management of networked education is therefore fundamentally different from conventional educational management and correlates with new forms of private enterprise management including management of the learning organization, the information‐based organisation and the networked organisation. Proposes a new form of higher educational management for the operations of networked education: networked educational management. Discusses the following dimensions of networked educational management: its distributed nature, managing convergence, its adaptability and transitory character.
This paper explores the nature, and the consequencesfor pedagogy, of education"s forthcoming and fundamental transformation, as made necessary and possible through contemporary technology and as embodied in The Global School. Addressing the exchanging of information, sharing of ideas and stimulation of concepts that will characterise Digital Age learning, as the universal lifelong educational experience eventuates,it becomes clear that many long-standing pedagogical concerns no longer apply. As the technology comes back to the user, teachers, enabled to concentrate upon "real" teaching rather than requiring intricate computing proficiencies, may come into their own. The need from now onwards is for aconvivial learningsupporting pedagogy,delivering the creative learner-driven curriculum, with the well-informed, ongoing debate as the fundamental methodology. The substance, practice and consequences of education maybecome much more equitable, ethical andenjoyable (and far less competitive, test-oriented andworld-of-workdominated).These and otherpedagogical and associated implications of this groundbreaking "Education embodying Digitisation" reality are investigated and welcomed.
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