1. The University of the Western Cape
“joins the evolution”

2. Education in the 21st Century
Technology has revolutionized business -
now it will revolutionize learning
Anywhere - Anytime - Anyone
Just-in-time access to information and knowledge
Higher retention of content through personalised learning
Improved collaboration and interactivity between students

3. GOALS
• To understand the use of technology in
Higher Education
• To look at instant messaging as a tool for
providing additional learning space
• To identify benefits and challenges of
using instant messaging as a T & L tool

4. THE
SOUTH AFRICAN
CONTEXT

6. Rationale for the study
• In a 2005 report about teens and their
use of technology, teenagers were found
to prefer new technology for
communicating (Lenhart 2005)
• Connecting after hours
• Logistical limitation on individual support
• Lack of internet access
• Academic support

7. Tools currently used
Ways to synchronously communicate
online with your students:
–Blackboard’s Virtual Classroom
–E-learning (VULA)
–Wiki’s, podcasts
–And so on.
• Focus here is on instant messaging.

8. What is Instant Messaging?
• “Instant messaging (IM) is a form of
real-time communication between two
or more people based on typed text.
The text is conveyed over a network
such as the internet”
Wikipedia

9. IM Usage in Education
• Virtual office hours
• Collaborative workgroups
• Class discussions
• Mentoring/ ‘buddies’

10. The Perils of IM in
Direct Instruction
“The online re-creation of the face-to-face
classroom can be a dismal failure for
both faculty and students.”
(Carnavale, 2000b)
Students find nothing more boring than
reading screen after screen of text when
an instructor is attempting to re-create a
lecture online.

11. Potential Challenges
IM adds more time to the lecturers’
workload:
• Time spent online
• Impact on other activities
• Increase current workload

12. Benefits of using IM
• Easily accepted by students
• Provides increase collaborative
opportunities
• Connect from anywhere
• Heightened “social presence”

13. My reasons:
• Connecting after hours
• Logistical limitation on individual
support
• Student lack of internet access
• Academic support

14. IM
Advantages Disadvantages
Easy to use Network problems
Instant response Contacts maybe offline
Saves money Can be distracting
Rapid feedback Viewed as a time waster
Interaction in groups
Various services

15. Mxit: “join the evolution”
• Activate a contact
• Register online
• Notify the students “anonymity”
• Schedule availability and parameters
• Gain input from…

16. IM Culture
• Use frequent, shorter messages
• Don’t worry about typos or misspelling
• Capitalisation and punctuation are
optional
• Learn some of the abbreviations:
- Lol (laugh out loud)Lol (laugh out loud)
- Brb (be right back)- Brb (be right back)
- Btw (by the way)- Btw (by the way)

17. Conclusion
““If the culture has moved to adoptIf the culture has moved to adopt
technology in commerce, in industry, intechnology in commerce, in industry, in
recreation, and in daily life, higherrecreation, and in daily life, higher
educationeducation
may be legitimately slow to react, but reactmay be legitimately slow to react, but react
it must.”it must.”
- Philip D. Long