TRACING THE EMMERGING USE OF COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION
A Literature Review
Marta Pinto
1
, Francislê Souza
2
, Fernanda Nogueira
3
, Ana Balula
4
, Luís Pedro
5
, Lúcia Pombo
6
,
Fernando Ramos
7
and António Moreira
8
1
Department of Education, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, Aveiro, Portugal
2
Department of Education, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
3
Department of Education, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
4
School of Technology and Management of Águeda, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
5
Department of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
6
Department of Education, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
7
Department of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
8
Department of Education, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Keywords: Communication Technology, Higher Education, Teaching, Learning.
Abstract: Communication Technologies being used in Higher Education Institutions worldwide are producing
changes in the design of teaching and learning practices, giving rise to learning paradigms such as e-
learning, b-learning and m-learning. Research embraces different perspectives on how the use of Internet
and Communication Technologies potentiate innovation and disruptiveness of more traditional forms of
education, as well as promotion of changes in the way teachers and students work and in the roles they
adopt. The present review suggests that web 2.0 technologies has promoted new forms of communication,
interaction and sharing between users and content in formal education settings. Furthermore, the realization
of how vast and disperse the body of literature is, revealed as significant the main goals of the project
“Portuguese Public Higher Education Use of Communication Technologies”, that aims to characterize
Portuguese higher education institutions according to their use and best practices, disseminating the
information obtained through an online information visualization tool. The ultimate goal of the project is to
contribute towards making valuable and up-to-date information available to Higher Education Institutions
and users, facilitating and potentiating research in the area.
1 INTRODUCTION
The adoption and promotion of Communication
Technologies (CTs) is happening throughout the
world of Higher Education Institutions, especially
because CTs are now embedded in people’s lives,
shifting into more ubiquitous and networked
participations. This is estimated to further contribute
towards the future of economy, society and personal
quality of life, by simultaneously demanding Higher
Education (HE) institutions to compete in the
globalised economy, cooperating among themselves,
and resorting to a variety of technological services
that add to their capacity to potentiate best practices
and innovation. As to the existing impact of CTs in
HE, programs such as i2010 and entities like
UNESCO and OECD report that students are mostly
using the web to interact, communicate and produce
content, being increasingly influenced by Web
intelligent services that empower user to distribute
content and customize Internet applications. In this
article CTs are defined as the hardware and software
that allow and promote communication and
information distribution supported by the Internet
(Armstrong and Franklin, 2008); (Grodecka et al.,
2009).
The vast emerging and disperse body of
literature justifies the relevance of the present
literature review, aiming to provide a synthesis of
the research conducted in the field, and to draw
some conclusions as to the impact of these CTs in
181
Pinto M., Souza F., Nogueira F., Balula A., Pedro L., Pombo L., Ramos F. and Moreira A..
TRACING THE EMMERGING USE OF COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION - A Literature Review.
DOI: 10.5220/0003920301810186
In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2012), pages 181-186
ISBN: 978-989-8565-06-8
Copyright
c
2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
HE teaching and learning environments. In this
setting, it challenges of the project “Portuguese
Public Higher Education Use of Communication
Technologies” - TRACER, under development at the
University of Aveiro, are enhanced, once it aims to
trace and disseminate the information expected to
characterize the Portuguese Public Higher Education
Institutions (PPHEI) as to their adoption and use of
CT, disseminating the information obtained through
an online information visualization tool. This will
contribute to making information of interest to
institutions and users, available and up-to-date,
proposing the dissemination of best practices.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
METHODOLOGY
A systematic literature review search was
undertaken from June to November 2011, in the
attempt to answer two questions: a) which CTs are
being used in HE? b) how are CTs being used in
HE? The need to answer these questions relates
to the development of the aforementioned research
project TRACER, looking specifically for
publications concerning web 2.0 tools, services and
platforms use in HE. The review was made in the
following international online bibliographic
databases: Scopus, Eric, Springer, B-On and Google
Scholar. Search was also performed directly in the
UNESCO and OECD websites. The keywords used
were: higher education, communication
technologies, communication technologies, web 2.0,
e-learning, blended learning, mobile learning,
immersive worlds, and personal learning
environments, all combined with the boolean
operator “AND”.
Search resulted in a total of 193 documents,
limited to the English and Portuguese languages,
namely: 22 books; 22 conference papers; 95 journal
articles; 28 reports; 18 work thesis; 2 series
documents and 2 webpages.
3 CTS USED IN HE TO SUPPORT
TEACHING AND LEARNING
PRACTICES
The use of CTs in HE has evolved, alongside the
evolution of the web and web technologies, from
web 1.0 tools with no interactive components, to
web 2.0 tools which embrace interaction and
promote social network media tools and applications
(O'Reilly, 2005).
CTs may be seen as becoming “an icon of early
21st century higher education provision” (Selwyn,
2007, p. 83), with increased investments on
computer infrastructures in developed and
developing countries, attempting to “‘blend’ ICTs
into all aspects of face-to-face teaching and learning,
as well as into students’ independent study”
(Selwyn, 2007, p. 83). In new learning
environments, new roles are adopted. Teachers
position themselves as facilitators and mentors,
continuously negotiating authority (Wesch, 2009), in
a shared process of scaffolding of learning, where
students gain more autonomy. With greater
autonomy students are empowered to create spaces
where learning can take place and skills are built,
managing information in different ways, analysing,
discussing, and sharing (Wesch, 2009), using and
transforming content. This is having its confirmation
in the exponential development and use of web 2.0
and social networking software for communication,
interaction, collaboration, establishing connections,
and sharing information, opinions and thoughts
(Downes, 2005).
Conversely et al., (2008) contested the idea of
disruption happening as a result of the impact of
technologies in HE. Their research showed that
between 2005 and 2006 the main use of one Virtual
Learning Environment (VLE) in Dublin City
University, did not go beyond replication of existing
practices, creating no disruptive change in
assessment methods and activities, where web tools
which demand collaboration or reflection are less
used than face-to-face teaching (Blin and Munro,
2008).
Other learning theories, such as connectivism
(Siemens, 2005), have revised the meaning of
learning, adjusted to reflect the changing and
connected learning environments.
3.1 Teaching and Learning Supported
by CTs
All the systems related with teaching and learning as
being supported by CTs in both the delivery of face-
to-face and distance modes – resorting to classical or
online approaches, may be defined as Distance
Learning (DL) (Bielschowsky, 2009). In this
context, teachers and students tend to nowadays
communicate resorting to several online tools and
media. When referring to distance learning we have
to understand Distance Education (DE) from which
it derives. DE is defined as being institutionally
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based, where teacher and student can be separate
geographically or in time, and CTs contribute to
diminish those distances (Schlosser and Simonson,
2009). The effort to develop DE supported by CTs is
extended to developed and developing countries, as
the UNESCO incentives African countries to invest
in the applications of CTs in HE, despite the need of
faculty training and the need to cooperate
internationally. The literature shows that within
learning supported by CTs, the concept of DL
comprises three learning paradigms, intersecting: e-
leaning, blended learning, mobile learning. For the
purpose of this article, the definitions of the learning
paradigms will only contemplate the formal learning
context.
3.1.1 e-Learning
e-Learning can be understood as a significant part of
the learning content made available via the Internet,
“the use of new multimedia technologies and
Internet, to improve the quality of learning by
facilitating access to resources and services, as well
as remote exchanges and collaboration”
(EuropeanComission, 2001), and the support of
online teaching and learning processes. E-learning in
European HE is considered to be strategic for the
education and training systems to become more
competitive and dynamic within a knowledge-based
economy.
It is expected that every HE institution in the
OECD area uses a learning management platform,
justifying the results of the OECD report on
Millennium Learners, which identifies the use of
VLEs by students (82.3% several times a week) as
one of the largest technologies used for academic
purposes (Pedró, 2009).
3.1.2 Blended Learning
Blended learning is considered to be a mix of face-
to-face and online learning, although “it is not clear
how much or how little, online learning is inherent
to blended learning” (Garrison and Kanuka, 2004, p.
97) and its instructional design must be flexible. It
requires a restructuring of the class, of the contact
hours between teachers and students, and of the
approach to teaching and learning (Garrison and
Kanuka, 2004). By practicing blended learning the
conveniences of online courses are gained without
the loss of face-to-face contact (Ellis et al., 2009).
Thus, a learning environment is created which is
richer than either a traditional face-to-face
environment or a fully online environment.
3.1.3 Mobile Learning
Mobile learning as a theory encompasses learning in
a society characterized by mobility of people and
knowledge supported by mobile devices (Sharples et
al., 2007) and by application software and
networking technology. The accessibility of mobile
technology to the average person is making learning
accessible anytime and anywhere.
Giorgieva (2011) states that mobile learning is a
new trend in the development of e-learning, in which
mobile devices help students get access to course
materials anytime anywhere. This is important for
HE because today’s faculty members and students
are arriving at universities with easy-to-use devices
such as laptops or mobile computers, fully equipped
with web development environments, music and
video displayers, productivity tools and prepared for
broadband web connections (Katz, 2008). Motiwalla
(2007), emphasizes that features such as alerts and
permanent access to interact and communicate may
help users be more productive, showing however
that differences reside in the tools used while the
pedagogies remain similar.
3.2 CTs used in HE to Support
Teaching and Learning
To look at CTs in HE means to look at web 2.0
tools. Longitudinal studies show the considerably
patchy and diverse use of web 2.0 social media
technologies in formal learning and change of
practices (Armstrong and Franklin, 2008); (Conole
and Alevizou, 2010) at the teaching and learning
levels. To sustain the review analysis we have
adopted the major categories of web 2.0 activity and
tools proposed in the BECTA Report (Crook et al.,
2008), also adopted in other reports (Conole and
Alevizou, 2010). Accordingly, 13 activities were
categorized, as transcribed (Crook et al., 2008, p. 9-
15.): “Trading; Media Sharing; Media manipulation;
Data/web mash-ups; Conversational arenas; Online
games and virtual worlds; Social networking;
Blogging; Social bookmarking; Recommender
systems; Collaborative editing; Wikis; Syndication”.
3.2.1 Web 2.0 Activities and Tools used in
HE
In result of the review, there was no evidence
concerning trading in educational contexts.
Mash-up websites composed by data from
different sources into a new Web service (Batty et
al., 2010), are seen as a set of tools and
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environments of emerging interest in HE (Wesch,
2009). Netvibes, a web 2.0 mash-up is increasingly
being used to create ideal learning environments that
maximize the exchange of ideas and interaction,
individually or in a community (Li and Li, 2011).
Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) may be
understood as an aggregation kind of tool. In fact,
University of Aveiro offers its community, since
2009, aggregation possibilities in SAPO Campus, a
technological platform supported by widgets, which
integrates web 2.0 tools for video and photo sharing,
a cross-institutional wiki and a blog platform
promoting a PLE construction culture (Santos et al.,
2011).
Social networking sites such as Facebook, Ning
or Elgg, are frequently used to create communities
of practice in HE (Conole, 2010), to include group
settings in formal learning, and for library and
administrative applications. Facebook is popular and
commonly used by students. College of Business at
Carbondale, reported to have 400 members on its
Facebook group, receiving school news,
communicating with the school community, to
publish reports of Facebook use and to market
school events (Roblyer et al., 2010). The Brooklyn
College Library has provided a MySpace portal to
its services containing links to documents, databases
and catalogues (Roblyer et al., 2010).
Wikis are user constructed, allowing: i)
collaborative writing in a peer group wiki, where
students share and discuss ideas, improve their
communication skills and comment on their writing
(Armstrong and Franklin, 2008), ii) teaching support
in their design for learning, a single space where
they can share the materials for a lecture (Armstrong
and Franklin, 2008).
Blogging, wikis, RSS are commonly offered by
HE institutions, being integrated in social
networking sites such as Ning and Elgg, frequently
used as VLEs (Brown, 2010); (Conole and Alevizou,
2010), concerning mostly the management and
sustaining of various kinds of online interactions
through several web applications (Brown, 2010).
Resulting from the analysis of 4 case studies in 4
different universities, Franklin & van Harmelen
(2007) made it evident that there are multiple
choices for implementing VLE systems and web 2.0
tools within those systems - besides podcasting and
personal blogs; wiki and a social networking sites
are offered, to promote campus life communication
information, work groups, sharing research findings
and participating in communities of practice.
Nevertheless, as reported in the study done by
Harinarayana and Raju (2010) study, which involved
57 university library web, the use of podcast was
used only by 3 of them. Universities have also
embraced web 2.0 tools for enhancing their library
services. In the Tripathi study (2010), results showed
that from 277 university libraries, 211 had adopted
at least one web 2.0 tool, whereas 23.8% did not use
any web 2.0 tools. The three most used tools were
instant messaging (43.7%), blogs (33.2%), and RSS
(31.4%) to convey relevant news and events.
Media sharing tools, allow sharing content in
open access and open participation contexts. Video
media sharing tools, such as YouTube, are being
used by HE institutions in order to have official
presence in video sharing services, making lectures
available to larger audiences, publishing educational
content (Armstrong and Franklin, 2008), and also
being used for delivering DE courses. A large
number of HE institutions have adhered to iTunes U,
allowing their lectures to be openly viewed and
downloaded online (Katz, 2008).
As to immersive worlds, the 2007 Horizon
Report classified virtual worlds as an emerging trend
likely to have an impact in HE. Increasingly being
used in HE, virtual worlds are enabling authentic
and scenario-based learning contexts and, according
to Conole and Alevizou (2010), over 250 HE
institutions worldwide are teaching using Second
Life, because of the interaction opportunities, and
also because it supports activities like seminar and
lectures, social interaction within realistic contexts,
conceptual experimentation and role play, which
may facilitate different interpretations of events
(Freitas, 2008). The high usage of 3D immersive
virtual worlds by teachers in HE is reflected on the
numbers Dalgarno (2011) presents, indicating that
from a total of 125 HE teachers from Australia and
New Zeland, 62 use 3D immersive virtual worlds in
their teaching, using Second Life (78.0%) and
Active Worlds (5.0%), the most commonly used
platforms, followed by OpenSim (4.0%) and
There.com (1.0%).
4 DISCUSSION AND SUMMARY
OF RESEARCH AIMS
Tracing the use of CT in HE is a time-consuming
task, due to the vast and fragmented information
published. The systematized analysis proposed was
challenging and a small sample of a complex work
possible to be built. It is possible to conclude that the
ubiquity of CTs are both in people’s lives and in
educational contexts. Web 2.0 tools and
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environments are popular regarding the interactions
and communications they potentiate, with strong
impact in the support of teaching and learning
practices in HE, and changes in the roles adopted by
teachers and students, into more student-centred,
reflected on activities involving collaboration,
interaction, connection between users and content,
sharing, consuming and producing. The idea of a
disruptive change in teaching and learning practices
is considered by some authors, while others state
that technologies are used in HE, but teaching forms
have not changed. The difference of scale of the
documents reviewed, the contexts to which they
refer and time-frame of their development offer us a
clear view of the wide view upon approaches made.
To systematize the richness of the information
collected as a whole, a longer and exhaustive review
is needed.
One of the main objectives of the TRACER
project is to characterize, as stated earlier, the
adoption and use of CT in the PPHEI, in order to
understand which tools are used, if they are mostly
used as support for already existing technological
processes and structures of teaching and learning, or
whether their potential is being used for innovation.
To achieve this objective, an exploratory study will
be held based on the results of an online
questionnaire, addressing key elements of the HE
institutions, so that an overall institutional view of
CTs used and their support mechanisms (social,
academic, logistic) is unveiled. An information
visualization tool will serve the purpose of giving
visibility to the collected data, making sense of a
vast quantity of information. The aim is to contribute
towards making information of interest to
institutions and users, available and up-to-date,
facilitating and potentiating research in the area.
5 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
As this literature review has revealed CTs have a
confirmed use in HE. The use of social Web tools
and environments is a trend in teaching and learning
practices in HE, placing challenges to teachers,
students, and institutions, at the level of the
interaction, production and delivery of educational
content. The ubiquity of web2.0 tools revealed a
strong relation to the idea of disruptive changes of
more traditional forms of education in HE. Despite
this, it is possible to conclude that HE is using social
web tools as a support for already existing
educational processes and adding them to
technological structures of teaching and learning
previously used. The change in the roles played by
teachers and students may also be disruptive of more
traditional ways of learning; although its use is not
always potentiated for innovation. The expectation is
for teaching and learning practices to change along
with an effective integration and innovative use of
CTs in education. Keeping up-to-date with the
information related to the adoption of CTs by HE
and to its' impact on the teaching and learning
practices, has become more and more difficult due to
the vast and fragmented publications, leading to the
need of serious and expedite systematising. That is
the ultimate goal of the online information
visualization tool proposed by the ongoing project.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to all the members of the project TRACER
for their contributions. Thanks also to FCT, the
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology
for financially supporting the project under reference
PTDC/CPE-CED/113368/2009 COMPETE:FCOM
P-01-0124-FEDER-014394.
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