Students’ evaluations of the use of e-learning in a collaborative project between two South African universities

Abstract

Online learning is increasingly being used in Higher Education, with a number of advantages to online learning being identified. One of these advantages is the suggestion that online learning provides for equality of opportunity. This article reports on students' evaluations of the use of e-learning in a collaborative project between two South African universities. The results highlighted both positive and negative evaluations of the use of e-learning. The positive aspects identified were that e-learning provided for ease of communication between parties, and easy access to information and learning material. Negative aspects identified were that it presented some technical challenges; online communication was disjointed; there was unequal access to computers between students from the two universities; students felt that more face-to-face interaction is needed. The issue of unequal access to computers and the internet is highlighted as a crucial issue for e-learning in the South African context, and for the fostering of a democratising educational discourse.

The use of information and communication technology by South African physiotherapy students

“…This finding is in contrast to the literature, which has identified ICT as offering a means of both improving communication and peer support (Johns, 2003;Rohleder et al, 2007;Mitchell et al, 2001). This highlights the potential to improve this aspect of communication between lecturers and students.…”

“…Respondents indicated a preference face-to-face contact as the means by which support could be accessed, which was in agreement with Rohleder et al (2007) who found a similar preference for face-to-face interaction between students and staff in higher education. When considered alongside the findings by Stiller et al (2007), who reported that Australian physiotherapists would prefer a model for clinical education that encouraged more, not less, face-to-face contact time, it seems that ICT should not be used to reduce face-to-face contact time, as has been suggested by Eksteen (2005).…”

“…Despite this, the use of ICT to facilitate learning has found support among many scholars (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005;Rohleder et al, 2007). The South African government has also indicated that ICT has the potential to improve the quality of education and training and has pledged to "...invest in national initiatives to increase access...and provide electronic resources of the highest quality..." to students in South Africa (Department of Education, 2004, p. 11).…”

“…Social constructivism is one theoretical approach that advocates the use of ICT in education, as it facilitates active student engagement with content, educators and each other, enhances problembased learning, improves information gathering skills, improves communication between educators and students, ensures the accessibility of coursework and enhances administrative tasks (Johns, 2003 Rohleder et al, 2007). The use of ICT in education has also been shown to increase the channels of communication and facilitate collaborative learning (Boulos et al, 2006), creating a framework for the social construction of knowledge.…”

‘Ah, but the whiteys love to talk about themselves’: discomfort as a pedagogy for change

“…For more information about other aspects of the project and study from the pilot course in 2006, and the courses implemented in 2007 and 2008, see Bozalek et al (2007), Leibowitz et al (2007), Rohleder et al (2008aRohleder et al ( , 2008bRohleder et al ( , 2008c and Swartz et al (2009). For the purposes of this article, 91 final, reflective assignments were analysed (see the Appendix for the details of this assignment).…”