Academics Wrestling with the Dynamic Impact of Social Connectivity to Integrate Emerging Technologies into Higher Education Curricula

This article considers how academics wrestle with integrating emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) into their teaching, and the benefits that they reap as a result. The effective integration of these emerging ICTs into higher education curricula poses a significant challenge for academics to manage the complex interactions that support teaching and learning in higher education. Emerging ICTs create unprecedented opportunities for academics to collaborate on a widespread scale, crossing campus, disciplinary and institutional boundaries to create educational resources and design innovative curricula, yet ongoing effort is required to maximise the potential advantages of those opportunities. This article proposes the authors’ contemporary updating of Latane’s (1981) Dynamic Social Impact Theory (DSIT) in order to assist in explaining the post-2010 reality with which higher education professionals wrestle to reap the benefits of integrating emerging ICT capabilities into their respective higher education curricula. The implications of this connectivity are explored with reference to knowledge management processes, namely how academics deploy ICTs effectively to create, improve, store, use and share aspects of their curricula with students and peers, thereby enhancing teaching and learning outcomes in contemporary universities.

[1]  Alan Levine,et al.  The 2010 Horizon Report. , 2010 .

[2]  Tony Wragg.  Modelling the Effects of Information Campaigns Using Agent-Based Simulation , 2006 .

[3]  T. Brabazon.  The University of Google: Education in the (Post) Information Age , 2007 .

[4]  Dolene M Rossi,et al.  Learning relationships in online contexts: a substantive theory constructed from the integrated analyses of learner-learner interaction and knoweldge construction in an undergraduate communication course , 2010 .

[5]  Ojelanki K. Ngwenyama,et al.  Factors affecting ICT expansion in emerging economies: An analysis of ICT infrastructure expansion in five Latin American countries , 2009, Inf. Technol. Dev..

[6]  Feng Miao,et al.  CAPACITY-BUILDING FOR ICT INTEGRATION IN EDUCATION , 2010 .

[7]  Mariano Corso,et al.  From ICT outsourcing to strategic sourcing: managing customer-supplier relations for continuous innovation capabilities , 2008, Int. J. Technol. Manag..

[8]  Jerry Willis,et al.  Scholarly Knowledge Development and Dissemination in an International Context: Approaches and Tools for Higher Education , 2010 .

[9]  Michael Bittman,et al.  The mobile phone, perpetual contact and time pressure , 2009 .

[10]  Paul T. Jaeger,et al.  Information Worlds: Social Context, Technology, and Information Behavior in the Age of the Internet , 2010 .

[11]  Rafal Rohozinski,et al.  Stuxnet and the Future of Cyber War , 2011 .

[12]  R. Sutherland,et al.  Introducing ICT into schools in Rwanda: Educational challenges and opportunities , 2011 .

[13]  Lucian Gideon Conway,et al.  How Communication Shapes Culture. , 2007 .

[14]  B. Latané.  The psychology of social impact. , 1981 .

[15]  J. Leach.  Do new information and communications technologies have a role to play in the achievement of education for all , 2008 .

[16]  BlinFrançoise,et al.  Why hasn't technology disrupted academics' teaching practices? Understanding resistance to change through the lens of activity theory , 2008 .

[17]  Joy Chalke,et al.  Consideration of the uses of e-learning: Does one size fit all? , 2010 .

[18]  Dean A. Shepherd,et al.  Entrepreneurial Spirals: Deviation–Amplifying Loops of an Entrepreneurial Mindset and Organizational Culture , 2010 .

[19]  Dolene Rossi.  Online learning communities: adopting a learner-centred perspective to frame lifelong learning futures , 2008 .

[20]  W. Powers.  Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age , 2010 .

[21]  Geraldine Fitzpatrick,et al.  Classroom e-Science: Exposing the Work to Make it Work , 2009, J. Educ. Technol. Soc..

[22]  Shirley Reushle,et al.  Inquiry into a transformative approach to professional development for online educators , 2005 .

[23]  Steven Warburton,et al.  Second Life in higher education: Assessing the potential for and the barriers to deploying virtual worlds in learning and teaching , 2009, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[24]  Steve Wheeler,et al.  Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of Web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education , 2006, BMC medical education.

[25]  Claudio U. Ciborra,et al.  Risk, Complexity and ICT , 2007 .

[26]  M. Bourgeois,et al.  Cultural Elements Emerge From Dynamic Social Impact , 2004 .

[27]  P. Goodyear.  Affect, Technology and Convivial Learning Environments , 2011 .

[28]  Mary McAleer Balkun,et al.  Literary analysis as serious play in Second Life , 2009 .

[29]  H. Corriveau,et al.  A qualitative study of in-home robotic telepresence for home care of community-living elderly subjects , 2007, Journal of telemedicine and telecare.

[30]  Benjamin A. Kehrwald.  Social presence and learner support: understanding learners' experiences with mediated social processes in text-based online learning environments , 2007 .

[31]  Thayaparan Gajendran,et al.  Emerging ICT trends in construction project teams: a Delphi survey , 2009, J. Inf. Technol. Constr..

[32]  James Gleick,et al.  The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood , 2011, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory.

[33]  Françoise Blin,et al.  Why hasn't technology disrupted academics' teaching practices Understanding resistance to change through the lens of activity theory , 2008, Comput. Educ..

[34]  Heshan Sun,et al.  The Complexity of Different Types of Attitudes in Initial and Continued Ict Use , 2022 .

[35]  T. Fetherston.  Becoming an Effective Teacher , 2007 .

[36]  Isa Jahnke,et al.  Dynamics of social roles in a knowledge management community , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[37]  T. Brabazon.  Digital Hemlock: Internet Education and the Poisoning of Teaching , 2002 .