Disruptive use of emerging technologies in teaching and learning: Lecturers’ experiences at a university of technology in South Africa

Gachago, D., Ivala, E. & Chigona, A., 2013. Disruptive use of emerging technologies in teaching and learning – lecturers’ experiences at a University of Technology in South Africa. progressio, 35(3): 37-60.Despite widespread adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) in higher education (HE), research continues to show that the impact of ICT has fallen short of the rhetoric that it would produce radical change in learning and teaching. There has recently been increased interest in technologies which are often not institutionally controlled and originate from students’ social lives, such as social media applications, which seem to have the potential to impact positively on teaching and learning. The study at a large University of Technology in South Africa used a mixed-method study design, with an institution-wide survey of staff and follow-up interviews with five lecturers, to explore the complex interplay between structure, culture and agency in lecturers’ transformative practices using these so-called emerging technologies. Drawing on Czerniewicz and Brown’s (2005) adaptation of Laurillard’s conversational framework (2002a), findings revealed that lecturers who used emerging technologies extensively engaged in a wider range of ICT-based learning strategies, particularly dialogical and collaborative learning strategies, which in turn can lead to more effective and appropriate pedagogical practice. The in-depth interviews revealed that these emerging technologies promoted studentcentred learning, openness and flexibility and integration of students’ personal, academic and professional lives, characteristics of disruptive technologies. Results also showed the impact of a lecturer’s beliefs and assumptions about teaching and learning on their willingness to take risks, which drove them to experiment and appropriate technologies that had a transformative impact on their teaching and learning practices. Further research is needed on recent developments in the context of emerging technologies to explore students’ response to and engagement with these