Extro-Reachability Actualising New Digital Spaces for Academic Teaching Practice Continuity
The emergence of mobile technologies and their features has had a disruptive impact on every fabric of our daily activities. Due to their portability, ubiquity and pervasive connectivity, these artefacts have penetrated teaching and learning environments. Most academics and learners own smartphones and interact with them daily, allowing universities or other institutions to deploy varying technologies to augment and enhance classroom and other teaching practices. Nevertheless, studies show that integration can be ineffective, culminating in high failure rates and is mired in challenges such as dips in use, slow abandonment and a decline after adoption. In most cases, integration of mobile technologies mirrors virtual learning environments without offering more affordances that can be impactful. This has not deterred academics from leveraging mobile technologies in different ways to mitigate circumstances where certain practices are enhanced by mobile applications. In this regard, this study focuses on academic perspectives of using mobile technologies in their practices. Focusing on an academic perspective adds and improves clarity and understanding based on the gap in knowledge about what mobile technology artefacts are supposed to be used for in an educational context. This study explores, clarifies and articulates artefacts use in higher education by evaluating secondary literature and applying affordances theory to be able to understand academic perception and action, sensemaking to provide meaning in the face of mounting challenges. Evaluating secondary case studies shows varying degrees of lacklustre mobile technology use and, in some cases, slow abandonment. The outcome of the case studies was used to develop a preliminary framework to understand how academics use mobile technology in higher education, which led to framing how primary data will be collected. Data was elicited from 40 academics using semi-structured interviews in three case studies (Management Science, Engineering and Medicine department). Applying Abductive thematic analysis and interpretative paradigm using affordance and sensemaking theories shows that academics lean towards using mobile technologies for teaching practice communicationextension, which has a better chance of reaching learners socially. The findings in this study led to a new definition of mobile technology use in higher education, which is Extro-reachability. Extro-reachability is about reaching learners where they are socially beyond the immediate teaching environment, culminating in nuanced visibility, active presence, interactivity and an augmented extension of academic communication cognition. It is about teaching practice continuity outward, where learners are congregated. The perceptions and actions taken by academics in this study, including finding meaning in the face of enormous challenges, are changing practice routines and habits. Extro-reachability provides valuable insights into behaviours that academics exhibit in low and middle-income countries, but can also show how, given the same circumstances in developed countries, it can be useful to adopt this concept.
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