This document summarizes a presentation on the potential for Education 3.0 in developing contexts using Giddens' structuration theory. It describes how students and the world are changing with digital technologies. Education 3.0 encourages student-created content and personalized, open learning. However, challenges to Education 3.0 in South Africa include legal issues, physical access to technology, and rigid higher education structures. Opportunities include tech-savvy students, mobile opportunities, and some institutional openness. Structuration theory shows how technology both shapes and is shaped by social structures through individual actions over time.

1. THE POTENTIAL FOR
EDUCATION 3.0 IN A
DEVELOPING CONTEXT USING
GIDDENS’ STRUCTURATION
THEORY
Michael Paskevicius (PSKMIC001) - Date Submitted: Saturday July 11, 2009
EDN6102S – Educational ICTs for Developing Contexts

2. Tag Cloud

3. Presentation Agenda

4. The World Today
Analog ⇒ Digital
Tethered ⇒ Mobile
Isolated ⇒ Connected
Generic ⇒ Personalized
Consumption ⇒ Creating
Closed ⇒ Open
Wiley, 2008

5. The Student Today
 Media mogul
 New expectations of pace and content
 Mobile
 Resourceful
 Short Attention Spans
 Advancing technical ability
 Increasing use of digital communication

6. Skills Required for the 21st Century
 Digital Age Literacy
 Inventive Thinking
 Social and Personal Skills
 Producer of High Quality State-of-the-Art Results
Metiri Group

7. Education 3.0 Primer
 Consider all of the facilities
available to a student interacting
with a social network such as
Facebook
 How do they create, share,
validate, and disseminate their
digital artefacts
Creative commons image by rutty
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rutty/2193213362/

8. Education 3.0
 There is no need to assume scarcity
 Institutional boundaries are blurred
 Students create content
 Students design their own learning
 Physical aggregation is not required
Keats & Schmidt 2007
Creative commons image by craignos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/craignos/1098510795/

9. The Role of Technology
Studying without the use
of technology is
increasingly like learning
to dive without water.
Tony Bates
http://www.tonybates.ca/2009/06/24/e-learning-and-21st-century-skills-
and-competences/
Creative commons image by lucias clay
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucias_clay/2207148004/

10. Structuration Theory Basics
 When considering social life both macro and micro level
perspectives must be consider equally
 Repetition of acts of individual agents reproduce structure
 Social structures are not unchangeable or permanent
 Social structures constrain the actions of individuals
 Structure and action constrain each other in an evolving way

11. Structuration Theory and the Role of Technology

12. Recreation of Structure
 People engage with technology Actions of
in social settings and in doing so Agent
(Unintended or
create or recreate the structure Intended)
of those social environments.
 People’s repeated engagement
with new technology Creates Anew Recreates
consequently can produce new
forms of structure.
Structure

13. Technologies in Practice
When people use technology they draw on:
 Properties of the technological artifact
 Properties inscribed by the designers
 Properties added by users through
customization
 Their own skills, power, knowledge, assumptions,
and expectations
 Their own training, communication, and expertise
 Knowledge of and experience within the
institutional contexts in which they live and work
Orlikowski, 2001

14. The Principle of Choice
 People have the option, at any moment
and within the existing conditions and
material to choose to do otherwise with
technology. The potential for innovation,
learning and change lie in the possibility to
do otherwise.
(Orlikowski, 2001)
Creative Commons image by night86mare
http://www.flickr.com/photos/night86mare/2461659034/

15. Technology Landscape
 Many principles that embody the education 3.0 movement are already
being adopted by students in other social settings.
 Students are using social networks to create artefacts which exist having
education 3.0 like properties.
 Consider the use of Facebook and similar social networks and the
collaborative nature in which they allow people to share, review, rate, and
remix digital content.
 The relative ease of use built into these systems and the signification
gained from participating with others in this social network seem to provide
incentives to participate.

16. Challenges to Education 3.0 in South Africa
 Legal Landscape (Legitimation, Moral Norms)
 Physical Access (Domination, Resources)
 Skills Access (Domination, Authority)
 Rigid Structure of HE (Signification, Legitimation,
Interpretive Schemes)

17. Opportunities for Education 3.0 in South Africa
 Evidence towards shrinking skills divide
 Tech-Savvy Students
 Opportunities for Mobile Use
 Institutional Openness (Avoir, OER UCT)

18. Conclusion
 Technology as enabler
 Technologies themselves are changed by users in
order to afford desired structures
 Principles of choice will change assessment and
classroom models

19. Thanks to Dr. Dick Ng’ambi for running such
an interesting and engaging module!
Keats, D, Schmidt, P, The Genesis and Emergence of Education 3.0 in Higher Education and its Potential for Africa (2007)
First Monday, Volume 12, Number 3, March 5th, 2007 http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/
article/view/1625/1540
Metiri Group, 21st Century Skills Brief, http://www.metiri.com/21/Metiri-NCREL21stSkills.pdf
Orlikowski W. Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A Practice Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations.
Organization Science [serial online]. July 2000;11(4):404-428.
Wiley, D, Openness and the Disaggregated: Future of Education, (2008) Brigham Young University Presentation from E-
Learn 2008-Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/660 Accessed June 30, 2009
Any creative commons images found within this presentation should be reused/sourced from their original locations on flickr.

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Commercial-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License. To view a copy of this
licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/za/ or
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