Abstract
The realisation of the advantages offered by e-learning accompanied by the use of various emerging information technologies has resulted in a noticeable shift by academia towards e-learning. An analysis of the use, knowledge and adoption of emerging technologies by academics in an Open Distance Learning (ODL) environment at the University of South Africa (UNISA) was undertaken in this study. The aim of the study was to evaluate the use, knowledge and adoption of emerging e-learning technologies by the academics from the selected schools. The academics in the Schools of Arts, Computing and Science were purposively selected in order to draw on views of academics from different teaching and educational backgrounds. Questionnaires were distributed both electronically and manually. The results showed that academics in all the Schools were competent at the use of information technology tools and applications such as emailing, word-processing, Internet, myUnisa (UNISA’s online teaching platform), and Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel. An evaluation of the awareness of different emerging technological tools showed that most academics were aware of Open Access Technologies, Social Networking Sites, Blogs, Video Games and Microblogging Platforms. While the level of awareness was high for these technologies, the use by the academics was low. At least 62.3% of the academics indicated willingness to migrate to online teaching completely and also indicated the need for further training on new technologies. A comparison of the different schools showed no statistically significant difference in the use, knowledge and willingness to adopt technology amongst the academics.
Highlights
With advances in information and e-learning technologies, academia has witnessed the growing need and challenges to migrate from known traditional methods to alternative technology-based teaching methods
We looked at e-learning as a concept which academics with different academic backgrounds in sciences and humanities were involved in
The study was conducted at the University of South Africa (UNISA), and the Schools of Computing, Science and Arts were purposively selected to represent academics from different academic backgrounds and teaching areas, i.e. sciences and humanities
Summary
With advances in information and e-learning technologies, academia has witnessed the growing need and challenges to migrate from known traditional methods to alternative technology-based teaching methods. The realisation of the advantages that e-learning brings has resulted in an extensive move towards e-learning, accompanied by the use of various emerging technological tools (AlShemmary, Niir & Katheeth 2012; Delich, Kelly & McIntosh, 2008). While e-learning is still elective or not fully utilised by various institutions, recent developments indicate that distance education institutions and academics have to adopt emerging e-learning technologies since they cannot escape the fact that migration to online e-learning is a reality (AlShemmary et al, 2012; Veletsianos, 2010; Kumar et al, 2008). Being prepared to adopt and use technology becomes a must for open distance learning lecturers
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