Download pdf - Participation in Adult Education through ICT / New Media ?

05.09.2013 | Faculty of Human Sciences | General Education Media Education | Prof. Dr. Petra Grell | 1

Prof. Dr. Petra Grell

Increase in participation to adult education through ICT/new media?

2nd Networking Meeting Research on adult education and lifelong learning in Germany Co-organised by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) and the University of Hamburg (UHH)

Hosted by ESREA / Humboldt University Berlin


Conclusion

Increase in participation to adult education through ICT/new media?

Uh, no, not yet. (But maybe in the future?)


1.  Promises

2.  Gap

3.  Challenges & Perspectives


“It would be foolish to ignore the tremendous opportunities the Social Web offers to education.”

(Steve Wheeler 2009)

Promises


“Current social software allows users to communicate, collaborate and publish in a number of ways, in a variety of media, and it also helps learners act together to build knowledge bases that fit their specific needs.”

(Owen et al., 2006: 28)

Promises


Promises – MOOC Massive Open Online Course

https://moocfellowship.org

„Nothing has more potential to lift more people out of poverty (...). Nothing has more potential to unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest problems. And nothing has more potential to enable us to reimagine higher education than the massive open online course, or MOOC, platforms“ (Thomas Friedman, Ney York Times, Jan 26, 2013)


Open Educational Resources (digital)

„The potential for open educational resources (OER) to transform the global educational landscape is immense.

OER have emerged as one of the most powerful resources to transverse the global education landscape (along with the World Wide Web and the Internet) in the past century.“ (Olcott 2012, p. 283)

Don Olcott Jr. (2012) OER perspectives: emerging issues for universities, Distance Education, 33:2, 283-290, DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2012.700561; OER Global Logo CC by Jonathas Mello


Data


Increasing Use of the Internet (German Speaking Inhabitants, +14 Years)

(N)Onlineratlas 2013

2001 – 37,0%

2013 – 76,5%

ARD/ZDF Onlinestudie 2012

1997 – 6,5%

2012 – 75,9%


ARD/ZDF-Onlinestudie 2012 90% or more

Men Women

In professional education Employed Not employed / retiree

Overall


(N)Onliner Atlas

2013: onliner by household income <1.000 €: 55,0% 1.000-2.000€: 66,5% 2.000-3.000€: 84,9%

>=3.000€: 93,0%


Internet-User Types (D21-Digital-Index 2013)

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On occasion at home

Cautious pragmatic

Smart mobile

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Internet-User Types (D21-Digital-Index 2013)

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D21-Digital-Index 2013, http://www.initiatived21.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/digialindex_03.pdf , S. 49

On occasion - at home

•  Female, 44 years old •  Education: low – medium •  50% not employed •  98% using Internet •  Only superficially familiar with new technologies •  Television is favoured


The Gap

Adult Learning in the Digital Age (Neil Selwyn, Stephen Gorard & John Furlong 2006)

Learning online? Educational Internet use and participation in adult learning, 2002 to 2010 ( Patrick White & Neil Selwyn 2012) DOI:

10.1080/00131911.2011.626123

Patrick White & Neil Selwyn (2012) Learning online? Educational Internet use and participation in adult learning, 2002 to 2010, Educational Review, 64:4, 451-469


The Gap

„The results of multivariate analyses show that although there was a substantial increase in both Internet access and non-educational use of the Internet during this period, there was comparatively little growth in ‘educational’ Internet use.“ (Patrick White & Neil Selwyn 2012)


The Gap

„As with participation in adult learning more generally, educational Internet use was structured by age, occupational class and educational engagement.” (Patrick White & Neil Selwyn 2012)


The Gap

„The growth in the availability of Internet access and the development of new technologies appears to have neither increased nor widened participation in adult learning.“ (Patrick White & Neil Selwyn 2012)


The Gap

„The nature of the available data also means that very little can be said about the reasons underlying the respondents’ engagement or non-engagement with the Internet for educational purposes.“

(Patrick White & Neil Selwyn 2012, p. 463)


Challenges & Perspectives

•  ICT, digital media, the Internet offer great opportunities to local and global participation, collaboration, sharing knowledge, enhance learning and education

•  But (educational) technology does not fix existing structures of inequality.

•  We do know that!

•  Shall we go on describing this?



•  What kind of research might gain new insights that could help to solve these well-known problems?

•  Are we asking the right questions?



•  What hinders people to realize their interests in life and to broaden their abilities to cope with challenges?

•  What do we know about their hidden (learning) strategies?


Challenges and Perspectives

„Furthermore, the ever increasing technologically rich learning environment in which today’s learners and teachers are immersed is raising issues in terms of social exclusion; the technological divide might be narrower but it is deeper – those not connected or not using these new technologies are being left behind at an alarming rate.“ (Conole 2012, p. 131)

Gráinne Conole (2012) Fostering social inclusion through open educational resources (OER), Distance Education, 33:2, 131-134, DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2012.700563
