Internet provides a helpful service and is indispensable

An attempt to edge out the Internet by imperatives that are at variance with the benefits of supportive and relational pedagogy is ill-advised.

After attending a Partnership for Pedagogical Leadership (PedaL) in Africa Central Training under the auspices of the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research supported by UKaid’s Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education Innovation and Reform programme and working with Alliance for Research Universities in Africa, Institute of Development Studies of the University of Sussex and five implementing universities in Nairobi recently (August 7-14, 2018) the inevitable conclusion was that the Internet provides a helpful service and is indispensable.

PedaL is organised around a series of interlinked activities designed to implement features and processes that drive pedagogical leadership in selected social science graduate programmes, developing capacity for Lead Course Instructors, catalysing systemic change in teaching and learning methods, creating and sustaining an active Community of Professionals around PedaL Pedagogy, supporting the delivery of graduate social science programmes using PedaL Pedagogy, sharing lessons across the partnership and facilitating the institutionalisation of PedaL in 12 partner universities. The training highlighted the expanded diversity of new forms of teaching and learning.

The practice-based training reflected the expanded conception of the purposes of computer technology-enhanced teaching and learning via the Internet. It was also about moving their functions beyond academic preparation for transformative education.

It provided information not only on what the Internet offers and provides, but also revealed the risks its users have generated. It highlighted the capabilities of the Internet.

There was nothing so fulfilling as learning the tricks of editing educational films, videos and sound tracks on-line, infusion of texts with images and graphics, importation of words from convivial on-line scholarly neighbours, re-configuring them, restructuring and reworking texts into new creations.

Repurposing of teaching and learning gave rise to new strategic models for the provision of quality education across institutional, industry partnerships and trans-global arrangements with diversified modes of knowledge delivery.

Several advanced theoretical sessions triangulated with practice clinics and laboratories contained discussions on educational theories, concepts, ideas, connexions and paradoxes.

All of them were pertinent to the purposes and goals of education for development; its practices and pedagogies.

It became obvious that the Internet enhances learning through on-line research activity, enables lecturers and students to disseminate their research findings to a wider audience, enables academic communities develop and maintain personal or team websites as repositories of knowledge, reporting on their research and maintaining personal online profiles.

Research writing via technology enhanced teaching and learning is visible in terms of real-time increase of knowledge and how it is disseminated and communicated.

That the nature of daily life of a university lecturer is pervaded by Internet intrusions became apparent through in-depth discussion of the contemporary ICT dynamics, but we might conclude that positive Internet-based propinquity and conviviality are inescapable.

We all can no longer escape each other’s company, can we? The Internet as a platform for the production and consumption of research outputs, is now the source from which professionals, university teachers and students now collect information for their projects.

It is the library of this millennium. One test of academic interest and core values though, is whether Internet threats are important enough to go to war about.

PedaL made rethinking pedagogy possible thereby extending the frontiers of pedagogical repertoire. While acknowledging the risks emanating from the social media frenzy and existence and proliferation of undesirable activities characterising Internet platforms made possible by the ICT revolution, the technologies and communities that enable lecturers and their students to create and share text are continuously growing, morphing and are inescapable.
We simply have to learn to live with the do-gooders as well as the annoyers, shouldn’t we? I have no hesitation in making a recommending to colleagues who attended the training to pack PedaL into their tool-kit. The initiative should be rolled out to all universities.

Mr Baligidde teaches at Uganda Martyrs University-Nkozi.