Teaching with and Learning from Electronic Media: A Case Study on Satellite TV Instruction in Debre Berhan General Secondary School
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Date
2005-05
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Addis Ababauniversity
Abstract
The princip:ll purpos o[ this case study was to understand the teaching-learning process during
the satellite TV in. (ruction. The study further examined students and classroom l'eachers' roles
during televised lessons. Problem areas about the use of the new communication technology
were also addressed among other related issues. To achieve these objectives, data were collected
[rom Debre Berhan General Secondary School from Grade Nine students and teachers through a
duration of two-month participant-observation, in-depth interviews and related document
analysis. The participants were purposely selected based on their roles, concerns, responsibilities
and cooperativeness and other related qualities. Some thilteen participants (six students and
seven teachers) were interviewed using open-ended and semi-structured questions in the
conventional (informal) conversation style. As it is true for most qualitative case studies, the data
were presented in u.aI:@ive and vignette fonns based on the participants' understanding and
interpretations in addition to my own reflective analysis.
The findings revealed that the satellite TV instruction was predominantly suitable for
infOlmation transmission. As any traditional .,schools, teaching appeared to be transmission of
information while leaming was considered to receive it. As a result, learning was segregated and
important educational objectives like understanding, critical and creative thinking skills were
barely addressed.
Both teachers and students were disengaged from the teaching-learning activities. Classroom
teachers appeared to be de-skilled and de-professionalised in teaching since the planning as well
as the execution of the pre-packed school curricula were done principally by the televised
teachers.
Thus instead of running to teach all students the same thing at the same time in the same way by
the same person(s) through the new communication technology, which is associated commonly
with vested interests, context analyses should be conducted to meet the needs of students, the
cun'icula and the society at large. It is not appropriate to homogenize what is actually different in
many respects
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Keywords
Learning from Electronic