Rationale for the Cape Skills e-Literacy materials approach
The Cape e-Literacy learning modules offer a new approach to ICT education. Many past training manuals designed to train people to ICTs have been hampered by their foundationalist approach to the teaching of computer use. Their lengthy, multi-step and overly detailed units bombard novices with technical information about computers and their parts, which belabours the instruction of basic tasks and obscures and postpones the rewards of ICT use. Some critics have also faulted them for what’s been called a “just-in-case approach” that gives students excessive amounts of information, but little idea of the context in which it might be useful.
The cluster of learning materials provided in the Cape e-Literacy modules offers a change of pace from foundationalist teaching styles. Its educational modules, which comprise three self-paced lessons, three sessions of group instruction and an interactive learning module, are based on the recognition that learning how to use a computer is no end in itself; rather, each component is built on the acknowledgement that learning how to use technology to do things more quickly, more cheaply and with greater accuracy is what motivates the drive toward ICT integration and adoption. This approach is different because it gives priority to the needs and incentives of learners.
Such a learner-centered methodology calls for a different instructional style and schedule. The assortment of self-paced, interactive and group sessions aims to restructure the content of lessons so that students can build their confidence as early as possible. Rather than direct students by rote, the materials are designed to help students with the process of puzzling through applications and interfaces to derive general rules for solving problems quickly and independently.
The structure of lessons provides incentives for novices to work through the frustrations of some aspects of computer use by delivering profound and exciting experiences as early as possible in the lesson. In-class sessions also postpone the instruction of confusing, alien but necessary antecedents such as file management and user authentication until after novices have seen what the rewards of ICTs and connectivity can be.
At the same time, the collection of e-Literacy materials also takes a balanced approach to instruction. Students come to computer classes with a range of learning styles, experiences, and, importantly, confidence. While some novices may be comfortable enough with self-paced work to derive benefit from independent study of written material only, others may need more structured guidance in order to be able to engage with applications and tasks. The complimentarity of self-paced and classroom instruction is intended to make the learning modules as accessible and inclusive as possible.
It’s envisioned that the diverse catalogue of instruction materials will allow students to customise the subjects they learn according to their needs, strengths and time. Simultaneously, the reference-based written material and challenge-based in-class work allows students to focus on solving problems as they arise rather than learning expansive procedures from start to finish.
Such a varied structure of learning materials fits with the aim of the Cape e-Literacy programme. The point of ICT instruction is not to produce rule-followers who depend on their memory to use computers; instead, its aim is to produce inquisitive students who have the confidence to experiment, make mistakes, and develop intuition for figuring out how to use applications and the Internet for their own purposes. The set of in-class exercises and self-taught material together drive students toward these learning outcomes.
These three foundations – the importance of allowing students the opportunity to sense the speed and ease of their skills acquisition, the recognition that learning styles are diverse, and the importance of engendering in learners an intuition for puzzling through applications – place particular demands on the facilitators in group learning sessions.
The Cape e-Literacy lesson plans are not lectures. Each group module has been founded on the idea that students learn computers by doing, not by listening. The facilitator’s role is to provide the engagement necessary to foster participants’ understanding of the ways they can think about, see and interpret their interaction with any given application as they work toward a concrete goal such as sending an email or searching the Internet for specific information. The goal is to produce in students general strategies for solving problems so that they will be equipped to develop and realise their own ends with ICTs.
Much of the development of those general strategies also depends on the provision of context-sensitive assistance. Students are most receptive to instruction not when the solution is pre-emptively provided (as it is in just-in-case approaches to teaching) but when a student faces a particular barrier at a particular point in their own completion of a task. The lessons are structured so that facilitators can assign a task and then give individual support at each workstation; this kind of ‘at the shoulder’ help is fruitful because the context of the problem – arising, unanticipated, in the middle of something else – replicates what it’s like to have difficulties with ICTs. The problem and its solution become more punctuated.
But the focus remains the development of a set of tools and instincts for deciphering interfaces and getting applications to do what students want. These sets can be collectively forged by the entire class. A major thrust of the lessons, then, involves asking questions of students and encouraging them to offer suggestions, draw conclusions and experiment with a problem placed before them. Peers may often be sources of learning as valuable as the teacher.
In the lesson plans, facilitators will find suggested questions for leading the class as well as material sufficiently detailed to escort students through different stages of the lesson if the class requires additional guidance. But the hoped-for approach is that discussion and engagement with peers, the facilitator and the specific tasks will together produce the answers to the questions posed.
Still, facilitators are responsible for imparting information and giving instruction. In general, at the beginning of the lesson, the kind of information facilitators impart might be very specific and instructive. But as students gain the few skills necessary to figure out how to perform tasks, facilitators increasingly challenge the students to develop their intuition, built on what they’ve done before, to solve a particular problem.
It’s hoped that toward the end of the lesson, facilitators will be giving fewer instructions (e.g., ‘click here’, ‘type this’, etc.) and articulating goals instead (e.g. ‘find this’, ‘change that’).
Each lesson concludes with a challenging exercise that prompts students to extrapolate on what they’ve learned by completing a structured task. Students should be encouraged to work in groups. The facilitator should be available for help to interpret the assignment and offer advice in increments, but should by no means escort the class through the work.