Inger Langseth
email: inger.langseth@ntnu.no

Halvdan Haugsbakken
email: halvdan.haugsbakken@svt.ntnu.no

Introducing Blended Learning MOOC -A Study of One bMOOC in Norwegian Teacher Education

Keywords: Teacher education, blended learning, MOOC, digital competence

Although MOOCs have been around for a decade, the use of MOOCs in teacher training is a new development. In 2015, a Norwegian teacher education received internal funding to develop a MOOC intended for blended learning, which we call bMOOC. The bMOOC consisted of four different modules, and the course content was created internally by highly competent teacher trainers. One goal with the bMOOC was to familiarize teacher students and teacher educators with the concept of blended learning. Another goal was to support students' academic writing processes across courses and possibly take some of the workload connected to instruction and feedback off the teacher trainers. The article analyzes the outcome of the implementation of the bMOOC, which shows low user adoption rate and low course completion. The study questions whether teacher educators see the pedagogical value in MOOCs and whether teacher students have enough digital competence to make use of online learning objects in formal learning.

Introduction

Our study discusses the introduction of a blended learning MOOC in teacher education, with an emphasis on the relationship between digital learning and teacher education. Although there is broad agreement that developing teacher students' digital competence is important, digital pedagogical innovation occurs primarily in the practice field and rarely in teacher education [START_REF] Haugsbakken | Using Social Media The Inside Out; A Aualitative Study of Four Different Local Models for Organizing Social Media in Organizations[END_REF]. Moreover, when teacher students and teacher educators are offered the possibility to use new digital learning objects (DLO), both groups tend to prefer more traditional practices, thereby missing out on the benefits of developing their digital competences. If this is the case, institutional practices in teacher education contribute to a status quo and the reproduction of the technology-practice gap in education, something that the field has been criticized for [START_REF] Irgens | Rom for Arbeid: Lederen som Konstruktør av Den Gode Skole[END_REF]. One possible consequence of this contradiction is that teacher education will lag further behind schools in the use of digital technology for teaching and learning and make goals set in national educational policies difficult to reach. Another peculiarity is that while teacher educators succeed in developing teachers' competencies in schools [START_REF] Postholm | Teachers Developing Practice: Reflection as Key Activity. Teaching and Teacher Education[END_REF][START_REF] Riksaasen | Endringer av Praksis i Klasserommet. En Artikkelsamling om Utviklingsarbeid, Aamarbeid, Erfaringer og Forskning[END_REF], they seem to struggle when developing digital competencies internally, among their own staff.

To illustrate some of the complexity of the challenges above, this paper analyzes the introduction and experiences of a blended learning MOOC (bMOOC) containing several learning objects in four modules. The bMOOC was implemented as an integrated course across subjects in Norwegian teacher education in the fall 2015. Our research question is: What happens when a bMOOC is introduced in teacher education?

To show our argument, we will first define the paper's conceptual framework, by focusing on recent and relevant MOOC research. We will frame what we mean by the bMOOC concept. Second, we will describe our methodological approach, where we outline the research strategies we used to analyze the data we collected in our study. Third, we will present our research findings. Finally, we will draw some conclusions.

A Need to Address Blended Learning in MOOCs

To frame what we mean with the bMOOC concept in teacher education, we will contextualize the concept in recent developments in the MOOC literature.

In terms of educational philosophies, the interest in MOOCs has developed across two trajectories over the last decade. On the one hand, from 2009, one saw the rise of cMOOCs. The cMOOC is characterized by the introduction of Connectivism and the work of Canadian scholars [START_REF] Ebben | Unpacking MOOC Scholarly Discourse: A Review of Nascent MOOC Scholarship[END_REF]. Later, the cMOOC was described as connectivist, due to its "loose" design, meaning that there is no standard technology platform, no formal course content and no formal assessment [START_REF] Bates | Teaching In a Aigital Age[END_REF]. Learning is interest-driven with an emphasis on social learning and based on networking and discussions among participants on social media. On the other hand, from 2012, a new scholarship, the xMOOC, emerged [START_REF] Ebben | Unpacking MOOC Scholarly Discourse: A Review of Nascent MOOC Scholarship[END_REF]. Here, the educational philosophy differs, in the sense that learning focuses on transferring pre-defined information from expert to novice. In this sense, xMOOCs are more "behavioristic", involving instruction by means of video lectures, automated feedback and assessment (by peers) [START_REF] Bates | Teaching In a Aigital Age[END_REF]. They are intended for global and scalable courses and offer a certificate upon completion. They also offer the possibility of big data analysis. The xMOOC is a development fronted by American elite universities and commercial actors.

There is a vast emerging body of research literature on MOOCs. In brief, the research literature investigates the outcomes of MOOCs that are offered to off-campus students, and develops around particular research streams. Looking at relevant research streams, studies that examine the social background of participants, report the reoccurring finding that students are males who have completed higher education and have an average age around 30 [START_REF] Ho | HarvardX and MITx: The First Year of Open Online Courses[END_REF]. Furthermore, user demographics show that MOOC courses are U.S. and Europe based and few studies in English show MOOC experiences from African and Asian countries [START_REF] De Waard | Using mLearning and MOOCs to Understand Chaos, Emergence, and Complexity in Education[END_REF][START_REF] Kop | The Challenges to Connectivist Learning on Open Online Networks: Learning Experiences During a Massive Open Online Course[END_REF]. MOOC research papers also examine learner perspectives, focusing on what it means to teach for large online audiences and why MOOCs have low completion and high dropout rates. In some studies, scholars break down course populations and analyze different types of user commitment [START_REF] Anderson | Engaging with Massive Online Courses[END_REF]. For example, Milligan et al. [START_REF] Milligan | Patterns of Engagement in Connectivist MOOCs[END_REF] classified three different types of participant groups -passive participants, lurkers, and active participants, a categorization indicating levels of student engagement. Many studies report that the dropout rate is at 94 percent on average [START_REF] Koutropoulos | Emotive Vocabulary in MOOCs: Context & Participant Retention[END_REF][START_REF] Jordan | Initial Trends in Enrolment and Completion of Massive Open Online courses[END_REF], but researchers identify the various reasons why students drop out and suggest strategies to make MOOC courses more sustainable [START_REF] Gomez-Zermeno | Research Analysis on Mooc Course Dropout and Retention Rates[END_REF]. Researchers attempt to establish the learning outcomes of a MOOC, something that has proven difficult to determine. Particular studies compared MOOC courses in mathematics with a similar oncampus course at an American university and found no significant difference [START_REF] Colvin | Learning an Introductory Physics MOOC: All Cohorts Learn Equally[END_REF]. Other studies show that the MOOC idea of being "large" is itself a challenge for learning. Large classes can lead to information-overload and loss of overview [START_REF] Liyanagunawardena | MOOCs: A Systematic Study of the Published Literature 2008-2012[END_REF][START_REF] Knox | Digital Culture Clash: 'Massive' Education in the e-Learning and Digital Cultures[END_REF], something which is also proven in studies on discussion forums [START_REF] Firmin | Case Study: Using MOOCs for Conventional College Coursework[END_REF]. Here, studies recommend some type of online intervention, for example in the form of a moderator that can guide students [START_REF] Dillenbourg | MOOCs: Two Years Later[END_REF]. Recent studies have explored the idea of gamification [START_REF] Crisp | Assessment in Next Generation Learning Spaces[END_REF], which is a method to award students with badges as motivation to complete courses. Here, studies claim that gamification can increase user enrolment and increase user engagement [START_REF] Vaibhav | Gamification of MOOCs for Increasing User Engagement[END_REF][START_REF] Chang | Exploring Engaging Gamification Mechanics in Massive Online Open Courses[END_REF].

MOOC is clearly a flexible concept that is under development. According to Bates [START_REF] Bates | Teaching In a Aigital Age[END_REF], there seems to be three distinct patterns within the development of MOOC courses: 1) the transfer of best practices from credit-based online courses, like the use of moderated discussion groups, 2) the opening up of regular campus classes to non-registered students and 3) the use of blended learning. Our study elaborates on blended learning and the bMOOC concept in teacher education.

The bMOOC is based on a social and connectivist approach to learning [START_REF] Siemens | Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age[END_REF], where online and campus-based teaching and learning merge to improve educational outcomes. We suggest a definition of six concepts in order to describe how technology integrates with teaching and learning in bMOOCs in the following educational philosophy:

1) Digital competence building: When online MOOC content is blended with oncampus courses, pedagogical uses of new technologies are modeled, scaffolded and explored. It is of vital importance that teacher students develop their digital competence in formal educational contexts in their pre-service training in order to be able to contribute to the digital competency development in schools when they graduate. Digital literacy is one of several concepts that try to capture what a pedagogical use of technology involves:

The awareness, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyse and synthesise digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations, in order to enable constructive social action; and to reflect upon this process. [START_REF] Martin | Digital Literacy Needed in an "e-permeated[END_REF] 2) Joint knowledge-construction: bMOOCs facilitate new ways of collaborative teaching and learning in formal education. Teacher educators can co-construct MOOC modules in subject areas that are taught across courses, something which facilitates both content validity and quality and collaborative learning and competence building among novices and experts in an area of study. Examples are MOOC modules in academic writing and scientific methods. Likewise, teacher students get constant access to preselected information in multiple modalities (text, video, visuals etc.), and they can share ideas and get timely feedback from a larger group of students and educators in the discussion forums.

3) Time saving design: The bMOOC design is time saving, in the sense that teacher educators can spend less time on content development and more time interacting with students, either online or in class, which according to Bates [START_REF] Bates | Teaching In a Aigital Age[END_REF] is important if students are to develop deep understanding, transformative learning, evidence-based critical thinking and high level decision making.

4) Transparency: The design is transparent, in the sense that bMOOC content -information, questions, feedback and user statistics and research data -is shared. The data informs teacher educators about troublesome knowledge, participation rates etc. in the learning processes and makes it possible to modify courses based on research and learning analytics.

5) 21st Century skills: bMOOCs encompass social elements like collaboration, cooperation, sharing, curating and social media use, which are powerful skills in the 21st Century.

6) Scalable and social: The bMOOC has its strength in the social fabric that potentially exists in and between the two learning spaces. It is possible to offer high quality information to scalable groups of students in the MOOC and provide scaffolding and feedback to individuals and smaller groups of students in the courses on campus, thus combining best practices from both MOOC technology and campus-based pedagogy.

The bMOOC concept has implications for how new educational practices are implemented in teacher education. The commonly used strategies, where stakeholders are informed by e-mail, in meetings or in a research and development project design, may not serve the purpose. For example, the reflection-on-action approach is typically based on previous experience in a learning context upon which participants are invited to reflect, thereby thinking in new ways, seeing things from other angles and using general theories to see possibilities for change and improvement in their teaching [START_REF] Clarà | What is Reflection? Looking for Clarity in an Ambiguous Notion[END_REF]. In new digital surroundings, participants may well be void of previous experiences with new digital teaching and learning to reflect upon. Moreover, due to the speed of the technological development, it is only partially possible to conduct theory informed teaching and learning in new digital contexts. Research says much about what has promoted formal learning, less about what promotes learning in today's and tomorrow's technology informed educational cultures [START_REF] Biesta | Reclaiming a Language for Education in an Age for Learning[END_REF]. Consequently, participants in their first bMOOC are exposed to some level of risk taking, and lack of confidence in their own digital competences and resistance to change might impede the learning process.

There is a need for a different approach to research-based education in digital contexts. One possible approach is to base development on reflection-in-action [START_REF] Clarà | What is Reflection? Looking for Clarity in an Ambiguous Notion[END_REF], where participants reflect while spending time to learn to master the new technologies and to move out of their own comfort zone and engage in "risk taking" activities that involve collaboration and sharing in one simultaneous action. This implies that reflection takes place in a situation where "all the events, together, are experienced at once, at the same time" [START_REF] Clarà | What is Reflection? Looking for Clarity in an Ambiguous Notion[END_REF]. Reflection is then demanded by digital conditions and stimulated by native curiosity in an ongoing process, also described in Schön's concept of reflection-in-action as spontaneous, common, real thinking that may make sense to the practitioner. In connectivist terms, learning then happens when patterns gradually emerge from chaos while engaging in a network of nodes [START_REF] Siemens | Knowing Knowledge: The leadership Perspective Key Note 12[END_REF].

Methods

Our data analysis is based on a mixed research approach. We used quantitative and qualitative methods. Our data is triangulated to check for reliabilities and valid measurements. This research strategy has consisted of comparing our research findings from our quantitative data analysis with research results from our qualitative data analysis.

Our quantitative research strategy consisted in collecting and analyzing course data from an LMS, which made up the technological platform of the bMOOC. After course completion, we reviewed registered course data on user participation to exclude invalid data. A total of 326 users or cases were registered at the start of the course, but 46 users were excluded from our data analysis, reducing our final data sample to 280, divided into 256 teacher students and 24 teacher trainers. From there, we derived an overview on descriptive statistics on user participation among teacher student and teacher trainers.

Our qualitative research approach consisted of collecting and analyzing data on user participation in the LMS and qualitative interviews with teacher students and teacher educators. The interviewees were randomly selected among volunteers present at one lecture and in one meeting. In total, twelve interviews were completed, six individual interviews with teacher students and six individual interviews with teacher educators. We used a semi-structured interview guide, where we asked a number of simple, short questions; how they learned about the MOOC, whether they accessed the MOOC, how they used the learning objects, and their thoughts on module contents. The interviews lasted from 15 to 30 minutes. The interviews were recorded on a digital audio recorder. Our data was collected from October to December 2015.

After completing the interviews, they were transcribed and translated into English. We used a constant comparative method [START_REF] Strauss | Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory[END_REF] and open coding strategy to analyze the the data from the interviews. We looked for patterns in our interview data. After coding our data material in several rounds, we arrived at some categories. We grouped the teacher students' and teacher educators' answers into larger categories in an interrelated method, where two researchers worked together. We used direct quotations to give our informants a voice.

The study is based on informed consent. The teacher education and the informants involved in the study have been made anonymous [START_REF] Nesh | Forskningsetiske Retningslinjer for Samfunnsvitenskap, Jus og Humaniora[END_REF].

Data Analysis -Presentation Of Research Findings

We have divided our data analysis into three sections. The first part describes the background and the context for the bMOOC and its overall course content. The second part presents research findings from our quantitative data analysis. The analysis focuses on course data and provides simple descriptive statistics on a number of defined variables, which are meant to highlight online activity or traffic in the bMOOC. The third part focuses on the study's qualitative data. Here, we provide an analysis of user experiences, where we analyze teacher students' and teacher trainers' use and evaluation of the bMOOC, including user experiences of one separate module on academic writing.

The Background for Initiating the bMOOC

The teacher education, which has about 450 teacher students and 70 teacher educators, is located in an urban area and is part of a Norwegian university. During the spring of 2015, the teacher education received internal funding to develop a blended learning MOOC, where the goal was to improve teaching and learning in higher education. There were several reasons for initiating the blended learning MOOC project. In order to improve the quality of the foundation courses on campus, one aim was to familiarize teacher students and teacher educators with the concept of blended learning. Another aim was to support students' academic writing processes across courses and possibly take some of the workload connected to instruction and feedback off the teacher trainers. The bMOOC was inspired by a "flipped classroom" model and involved the use of multimodal learning objects, student-based activities, sharing, cooperation and collaboration in the learning processes. The bMOOC intended to develop a community of digitally competent teacher educators and teacher students, who in the long term could contribute to changing existing teaching and learning processes in schools in the Norwegian K-12 system.

Looking at the design and the content in the bMOOC, it was intended as an online resource across subjects that teacher students and teacher educators could use throughout the semester, and additionally as a supplement to teacher students' individual competence development. Each of the four modules in the bMOOC intended to scaffold teacher students' key competences in their future professional career as teachers. The bMOOC modules were: how to master the art of academic writing, how to develop a personal learning network (PLN), how to master digital note taking and collaborative writing and the use of digital blackboards. Each module was estimated to 1-3 hours' work online. For example, the academic writing module discussed the pitfalls of academic writing. It consisted of texts, videos, discussions and an evaluation of the module. In addition, there were "reflection tags" indicating where teacher trainers could make use of the course on campus (blending). The module was divided in three sections: 1) an introduction to academic writing, intended to be read once 2) a presentation of the academic text structure, which was intended to be used in the writing process and 3) help when students experience a writer's block, which was specially intended for students who struggle with academic writing. The amount of time each student teacher or teacher trainer would spend in the bMOOC depended on previous experience with digital tools and academic writing. Taking the bMOOC was estimated to about 5 hours.

Quantitative Data Analysis of the bMOOC

We stress that our quantitative data analysis is not complete, only preliminary. In general, the analysis suggests that the bMOOC's online activity shares several traits seen in Social Network Sites (SNS) or online communities. For example, it is not uncommon that online communities experience a rapid adoption rate among users, but later have challenges to become sustainable and create active online engagement. This often results in an equal drop-down rate as online communities lose popularity. In our study, we find little data suggesting that teacher students and teacher educators initiate online contact with peers and engage in an online discussion in the bMOOC modules, something that one could expect in our case. There appears to be a small core group of users who have completed the four modules in the bMOOC. In our data set, the bMOOC has a high online activity in September, but this declines as the course progresses.

A pattern emerges when we look at distinct variables, like the teacher student's total time spent online in the bMOOC, as shown in the LMS analytics. When breaking down the mentioned variable on a more detailed level, interesting research findings emerge. We have for example divided the teacher students' online activity into four time subcategories or values. This division shows that 27 percent of the teacher students spent between 0-5 minutes, 41 percent used between 5-60 minutes, 22 percent spent between one to five hours, and 10 percent spent five hours or more. Largely, female teacher students have recorded most online activity. This means that the most expected characteristic user pattern consists of login on and engagement with the course material for an hour or two, before dropping out never to return. The data also demonstrates a "thinning" of number of teacher students, when an increase in recorded online time is considered. Only 22 teacher students have logged more than five hours of online activity.

Analyzing our course data on the teacher educators' use and online engagement, we see a similar user pattern. The teacher educators' total time spent on the bMOOC is somewhat similar to that of the teacher students. Of the 24 teacher trainers, 12.5 percent spent between 0-5 minutes, 37.5 percent used about 5-60 minutes, 37.5 percent recorded 1-5 hours, and 10 percent spent five hours or more on the bMOOC. Our data suggests that the teacher educators exhibit the same user behavior as those they intend to educate; many teacher educators seem to register and take a look at the bMOOC but never return to work with the online material.

Our initial observations are confirmed in other variables in our data set. Another way to conceptualize online activity is to look at the variable page views. Page views is a variable indicating how many times a web page in the bMOOC has been loaded. Descriptive statistics from the LMS analytics used to organize the bMOOC show that there were 4314 page views in September, 2239 in October, 641 in November, and 91 in December. Here, we can also observe a progressive decline in online activity, where the peak starts in September and follows a steady drop, as the bMOOC progresses.

Qualitative Data Analysis of the bMOOC

The qualitative data also confirms user experiences and online patterns established in our preliminary quantitative data analysis. Our qualitative data is only preliminary.

In our interviews, we explored the teacher students' user experiences. One surprising research finding was the teacher students' view on the value of online learning and the bMOOC. Some teacher students stated that online learning and the use of digital resources bring little benefit, and that they prefer other approaches to learning. This suggests a contradictory view on technology in education. On the one hand, teacher students are brought up in a digital world, but on the other hand, they approach and frame digital learning from a textbook perspective. Our data suggests that the teacher students are inexperienced with online learning and the demanding work it involves.

Data collected from the LMS confirms the above pattern. The course data shows that the teacher students did not actively participate in the academic writing module in the bMOOC. Course data from the module establishes that there are few online discussion entries, comments and replies.

The teacher students' low and passive online participation is utterly elaborated on in the evaluation of the academic writing module. Five of the seven teacher students who evaluated the module were women. Five of them reported that they took the whole module, while one took about half and one took selected elements. The respondents said that the module was useful to them, referring to different elements in the module. They were most positive about the middle section made for the more hands-on writing process, but all the three sections were considered relevant to them. They report that they to some extent understood more about the writing process after taking the bMOOC. The data shows that there was no collaboration in the discussion forums, even though they reported that they were willing to collaborate online with other participants.

In the online evaluation, student teachers reported that they had not been properly informed about the bMOOC. In the interviews, the teacher educators reported that only a few students were present when the bMOOC was introduced. Moreover, the presentation was optional. Six of the seven teacher students reported that their teacher educator had briefly informed them about the academic writing module, meaning that they never used the bMOOC actively in the course.

In the interviews, the teacher students reported that working in the bMOOC was too time-consuming. Consequently, the online material in the bMOOC was considered of little relevance to their exams in academic writing and learning. They preferred other approaches, like traditional feedback from the tutor and peer assessment on campus. This female teacher student favored writing an academic text on paper by herself, completing it the "old fashion way, in order to save time and get on with other things": I opened the MOOC and no, can't be bothered. It will take less time to just write the text yourself. Surely, a good thing, but it takes more time than you will get back from doing it, and you must read it, that is time better spent on writing the academic text itself or doing other things.

The interviews show that the teacher students had varying approaches and prior experiences with academic writing. In the module evaluation, two of seven teacher students reported that they had only been taught to write in secondary school, whereas five had been instructed in academic writing in higher education in previous courses. This finding is elaborated on in the interviews, where teacher students commented upon the relevance of a bMOOC in formal learning in academic writing

We asked the teacher students to explain how they learned to write academic texts. They suggested different methodological approaches involving help from peers and tutors on campus, but very few saw the value of online collaborative learning:

We get feedback on the first draft. Some teacher trainers have given very concrete feedback that helps. Students can also give peer reviews. That is not in all subjects, but in many. I think it helps, I get new perspectives and new ways of forming sentences. It is also scary. If it is good, I am afraid that the other students will steal my idea, if I think it is a bad text, it is a bit awkward.

The teacher educators' user experiences are different from those they are set to train as future teachers. The teacher educators saw and emphasized the potentially positive educational benefits with MOOCs, but this is contradicted in practice. A theme running through our interviews was the lack of information about the bMOOC itself. Six teacher educators explained that they had to a variable extent received information about the bMOOC and how to sign up for it. For example, they had challenges in remembering where to find URL links, which would enable them to login in to the bMOOC.

The teacher educators have a dual relationship with the bMOOC concept. On the one hand, they acknowledge the importance of the digital learning environment. On the other hand, they prefer the social and relational aspect on campus. This applies especially to feedback on teacher students' academic text production. For example: I think the f-2-f-relation we have with our students is important. I think direct contact with me is more important, and therefore we used the MOOC on 2nd year students. I believe these online resources can make our work on feedback easier. We have high scores on student evaluations, and that is because we spend a lot of time on relations.

The teacher educators underlined that the bMOOC could have a positive impact on the amount of time they spend giving feedback to the teacher students. Here, they saw the MOOC as a positive contribution to students' writing process and a valuable resource in their work: I use a lot, lot of time to give feedback on students' academic texts. It takes time to give many students feedback with notes: You need more references, you need to include theory before the end, you need to structure your text etc. My God, I spend a lot of time giving feedback. I spent two hours on one text today. Later in the studies, it is easier. I spend some 1-2 hours per text. Students have asked for help online. I see that we need to give more information about academic writing.

Finally, the teacher trainers emphasized that the success and impact of a bMOOC, depends upon certain organizational factors. Like any new practice introduced into an education system, the bMOOC must have legitimacy and support from the teaching institution. For example, when a bMOOC is implemented, it needs the support from the top-management. Suitable routines to inform all stakeholders must be established, so that potential users are aware of the existence of the bMOOC. In other words, the teacher trainers emphasized the need for better management strategies in the implementation of the bMOOC.

Discussion and Conclusion

Initially, we asked what happens when a bMOOC is introduced in teacher education. Our study tries to answer the research question by raising some questions that we wish to discuss, and that we believe might contribute to the research on MOOCs in teaching and learning. First, our research confirms previous research findings on social media and MOOCs. On the one hand, several studies have pointed out that many MOOCs have a low completion rate, with an estimated dropout rate of 94 per cent [START_REF] Liyanagunawardena | MOOCs: A Systematic Study of the Published Literature 2008-2012[END_REF][START_REF] Knox | Digital Culture Clash: 'Massive' Education in the e-Learning and Digital Cultures[END_REF]. Therefore, our data analysis appears only to confirm previous studies. On the other hand, there is a tendency in educational research on social media, for example, to question whether today's adolescents are truly "digital natives" [START_REF] Prensky | Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants[END_REF]. Some scholars have hinted that this is an ascribed myth that needs to be challenged. Various scholars point out both in studies [START_REF] Junco | The Relationship Between Frequency of Facebook Use, Participation in Facebook Activities, and Student Engagement[END_REF][START_REF] Selwyn | Faceworking: Exploring Students' Education-Related Use of Facebook[END_REF] and research reviews [START_REF] Aydin | A Review of Research on Facebook as an Educational Environment[END_REF][START_REF] Hew | Students' and Teachers' Use of Facebook[END_REF][START_REF] Manca | Is it a Tool Suitable for Learning? A Critical Review of the Literature on Facebook as a Technology-Enhanced Learning Environment[END_REF] that students in higher education might have a digital upbringing, but they seldom live up to expected standards defined in formal, digital learning. Rather, adolescents appear to be passive consumers of digital content and frame the educational online world from a textbook oriented approach. We see evidence of this in our analysis. The majority of teacher students and teacher trainers are inexperienced with formally structured online learning and seem to perceive the bMOOC as only vaguely beneficial to education and learning.

Second, as an extension of the above, we believe that our study brings interesting nuances as to how teacher students reflect upon how to develop their academic competences. Two features related to "reflection-on-action" [START_REF] Clarà | What is Reflection? Looking for Clarity in an Ambiguous Notion[END_REF] emerge in our study: that of time and effort. In a situation where teacher students have limited experiences with formal learning in digital surroundings, their reflection on how to improve their academic writing seems to exclude MOOCs. They also report that the time and effort they choose to spend on their academic papers is in line with the results they assume that they will obtain. Consequently, they conclude that there is no need to look deeper into yet another learning object in the bMOOC. Theoretically speaking, they experience a balance in the situation where they carry out the assignment [START_REF] Clarà | What is Reflection? Looking for Clarity in an Ambiguous Notion[END_REF]. From this follows that 1) extending teacher students campus based artefacts to also include online MOOCs seems to be too much of an effort. Our study shows that they enter the MOOC, spend a limited amount of time and leave, never to come back. 2) Behind our findings related to the low adoption rate of the bMOOC, we also find that teacher students' reflection on their own competence development seems to a large extent to be related to personal goals to reduce study hours. 3) Our study also reveals that when confronted with an academic writing assignment, teacher students prefer the" trial and error" strategy to theory informed and research based strategies in the bMOOC. At the same time, teacher educators report that teacher students to a variable extent make use of feedback from educators in their writing processes on campus. These findings suggest a gap between student teachers' perceived and actual competence in academic writing and a lack of strategies to close it. Contrary to this trend, we find another pattern. 4) Among the few teacher students who have made use of the bMOOC, they report to a large extent that they find academic writing hard work, and that the bMOOC is worth the effort when completing the academic writing assignment. Our findings suggest that these students have made their reflection-on-action based on previous experiences with online learning and a realistic assessment of their own academic writing skills. Summing up, when deciding what actions to take, teacher students seem to consider whether the bMOOC is worth the time and effort based on previous experiences with online learning and perceived level of confidence in their own academic writing. In previous studies, Dysthe [START_REF] Dysthe | Pedagogiske Endringer etter Kvalitetsreforma og Konsekvensar for Laering. Utfordringar og Strategiar Videre[END_REF], for example, found that Norwegian students had a form of "resistance" towards obligatory activities that were not graded, and that students invested the least possible effort to pass requirements set by their teachers. Our study extends Dysthe's findings to digital surroundings and graded assignments. In the interviews, the teacher educators state that students' competence in academic writing needs to be developed and that they spend a lot of time giving basic feedback on features that, we argue, could have been learned in the bMOOC.

Third, this pattern of beliefs and behavior reproduces the theory-practice gap that we initially described, and the pattern is strengthened when the implementation strategy in the institution is not adequate. We suggest that introducing MOOCs in formal education needs to be more organized and emphasized through active participation in "reflectionin-action" [START_REF] Clarà | What is Reflection? Looking for Clarity in an Ambiguous Notion[END_REF]. In order for teacher students to reflect upon the value of online learning, like in the bMOOC, they must be introduced to it on campus, by teacher educators who make advantage of the benefits of social networking and multimedia learning objects. This presupposes that teacher educators are familiar with the MOOC concept. If this is not the case, like our research findings suggest, the possibility of extending the students' learning context to involve online learning and collaboration can be lost. The question that needs to be asked is how to implement digital competence in teacher education. We suggest that the more traditional approach that involves reflection-on-action is not adequate, since it is based on a limited set of digital knowledge and skills. Reflection will then not lead to creativity and invention, which is necessary for change. We suggest that new technologies be introduced in a blended learning approach, where teacher educators jointly are allocated time to develop their digital competence. Two of the participants in our study, who had previously participated in a bMOOC, reported on results that affected their teaching, learning and assessment strategies on campus.

Fourth, as with any research, our study has limitations that have to be acknowledged at this point. This case study contains data that is to a limited extent generalizable to other educational contexts. Other studies can attain other research results. We believe however that our research findings might contribute to a better understanding of the challenges connected to implementing blended learning in educational cultures. Another limitation is that this study is only preliminary. In addition, we did not conduct any research in the classrooms or campus lectures.

The goal of this paper has been to introduce the bMOOC concept into current research on MOOCs and push the field in a new direction. Our study suggests that teacher education has work to do to enhance future teacher students and teacher teachers' digital competences. If the technology-practice gap is not addressed, we are afraid that we can see a widening of this gap in our K-12 education system.


Javier Osorio
email: javier.osorio@ulpgc.es

Julia Nieves
email: julia.nieves@ulpgc.es

Vingt Ans Après: Analysis of WG 3.7's Published Work on Information Technology in Educational Management (1994-2014)

Keywords: ITEM, proceedings, research topics, research methodologies

In this paper, articles published in the proceedings of the IFIP Working Group 3.7 conferences during its twenty years of existence are reviewed. This work is a continuation of a previous one that classified the most relevant topics addressed by the Group in its first ten years and the major research methodologies adopted by the contributors to carry out their work. The paper has been structured to facilitate the comparison of the Group's first decade of activity with the second decade. The review shows that the topic of Assimilation and Integration of IT into Educational Management continues to be the leading theme in publications. The published work by IFIP Working Group 3.7, which accounts for some 213 papers, is a good indicator of the maturity of the research on information technology in educational management (ITEM).

Introduction

The first international conference on information technology in educational management (ITEM) took place in Jerusalem in 1994. Since then, the Working Group 3.7 of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) has held a total of ten international meetings. During the conferences, researchers, academics and professionals have discussed and contributed to a better development and understanding of all the issues associated with the use of information technology (IT) in educational management. Most of these contributions, generally presented as papers, have been published, eventually becoming an important body of knowledge and experience.

ITEM studies have been considerably enriched by the varied profiles and backgrounds of the participants in these working conferences, to the point of acquiring certain characteristics of their own. This situation was described in 'ITEM: synthesis of experience, research and future perspectives on computer-assisted school information systems' [START_REF] Visscher | ITEM: synthesis of experience, research and future perspectives on computer-assisted school information systems[END_REF]. ITEM analysis has been approached from very different perspectives that correspond to diverse academic disciplines, which is probably the underlying reason for the area's conceptual richness. After twenty years of uninterrupted periodic meetings with outstanding academic results, it seems worthwhile to pause to reflect on what has been achieved during this period.

In the year 2006, during the conference that took place in Hamamatsu (Japan), a synthesis study was presented on the scientific production of Working Group 3.7 in its first ten years of existence [START_REF] Osorio | Ten Years of ITEM Research[END_REF]. The aim of the present paper is to study the literature resulting from the international ITEM conferences organised by the IFIP Working Group 3.7, comparing two periods, the first from 1994 to 2006, and the second from 2008 to 2014. The same structure will be followed as in the initial study in order to facilitate the comparison of the two periods.

Analysis Methodology

Since the WG 3.7 began its activity, a total of 11 conferences have been held on all the continents. The first, where the foundations of the group were established, took place in Jerusalem in 1994. All the conferences have been followed by publications comprising the most relevant papers presented. These publications have been edited by prestigious companies specialised in publishing scientific papers. Table 1 shows the city and country where the conference took place, the year, book title, publisher, year of publication, and the number of articles published in each book.

The publication corresponding to the 2014 Conference includes a total of 28 contributions, of which 16 are directly related to the ITEM field. This is due to the fact that the 2014 Conference joined two IFIP working groups, the WG 3.4 on Professional and Vocational Education in ICT, and the aforementioned WG 3.7 on Information Technology in Educational Management. Therefore, only the 16 papers corresponding to ITEM have been analysed. The information resulting from papers' analysis has been classified into two groups: first, according to the topics addressed in each article; and second, considering the research methodology applied, in order to further group them considering the type of approach employed. This type of organization was chosen to maintain the format adopted in the publication corresponding to the review of the first 10 years of WG 3.7 (1994WG 3.7 ( -2004)). In the tables, the data have been added from the study of the next ten years of the work group, until the group's conference which took place in Potsdam (Germany) in 2014. Tables have been included with the data since the first publication to facilitate comparison of the two periods. In order to classify the articles under a specific topic and research methodology, the titles and abstracts of all 96 papers published during the 2006-2014 period were studied. In those cases where the classification was unclear the text was revised. In case the paper could be assigned to more than one topic or the research methodology was unclear, the two researchers that carried out the classification process confronted their opinions and jointly agreed the assignment to a specific category.

Data Analysis

Tables 2 and3 show a set of general topics discussed at the international conferences of IFIP Working Group 3.7. Table 2 covers the 1994-2004 period, while Table 3 covers the 2006-2014 period. Both tables show the number of papers on each topic and the percentage they represent of the total number of papers per publication, as well as the accumulated total. The last column in Table 3 summarizes the total numbers for the whole period (twenty years).

The topics comprise rather large classification areas in an attempt to obtain significant results. Otherwise, a more detailed classification might have made the results excessively fragmented. For example, Grover et al. [START_REF] Grover | Analizing methodological rigor of MIS survey research from 1980-1989[END_REF] suggests 20 IT related topics applicable to any study area, and authors such as Claver et al. [START_REF] Claver | Estudio de la investigación en sistemas de información a través del análisis de dos revistas (1981-1997)[END_REF] increase this number to 30. If it was considered each different type of educational management application as a research topic, this would probably result in an excessively large number of themes. In this case, it was decided to group all these applications in one single category, making no distinctions between the specific applications. This approach could offer a clearer vision of the attention given to this topic at the different conferences, which would be more difficult to perceive if the analysis was more fragmented. A total of 9 topics were identified, although some have an irregular appearance over time. An initial comparison of Tables 2 and3 shows a difference in the number of papers published between the two periods. This is due to the fact that in the first period 6 conferences were held, compared to 5 in the second period, yielding 117 and 96 publications, respectively. The last column in Table 2 shows that the most popular topics during the first ten years were Assimilation and integration of IT into educational management (23%), followed by Assessment of IT support for educational management (17.1%), IT applications in educational management (17.1%), and National, regional and local experience in the use of IT for educational management (15.4%). Together, these topics represent 76.2% of all the papers published in that period. Interestingly, the most recurrent topic during the first 10 years of publications was Assessment of IT support for educational management, which has been repeatedly addressed because of the importance of analysing the results obtained after implementing new strategies, policies, techniques or tools. However, this topic has progressively lost importance in the second period, judging by the decreasing number of papers published about it.

In the 20 years of publications about ITEM, Assimilation and integration of IT into educational management is the topic that has received most attention (24.9%). In both periods, this topic has led the number of publications. The tables show that of the three topics with the greatest number of publications in the first ten years of WG 3.7 publications, two of them continue to figure among the three most frequent topics in the second period. These topics are: Assimilation and integration of IT into educational management, and IT applications in educational management. The topic Assessment of IT support for educational management was no longer among the most repeated topics in the second period, ceding its position to the topic of IT applications for teaching. Although the latter is not directly related to the scope of the WG 3.7, this theme gradually gained importance in the second period of analysis, doubling its former percentage and occupying the third position in the number of publications in the second period (16.7%). However, it is proposed that ITEM practitioners and researchers consider the reasons for this increase, given that this topic corresponds rather to other fields of study, such as IT use for educational purposes.

In both periods into which the analysis was divided, the following three topics produced fewer publications: ITEM state of the art, the discipline's present situation and trends; Mathematical tools employed to create models for educational management; and Teacher and manager training in the use of IT for educational management.

Regarding the research methodology, the papers that were reviewed can be divided into theoretical studies and empirical studies. The theoretical studies were grouped into conceptual and illustrative categories, and the empirical studies were classified as case studies and field studies. Each of these methods will be described briefly.

Theoretical studies are fundamentally based on ideas, structures and speculations, rather than a systematic observation of reality. Although non-empirical articles may contain some empirical observations or facts, they will be of secondary importance. In other words, the emphasis is on ideas rather than facts. Theoretical studies can have a conceptual and illustrative nature. Conceptual studies describe structures, models or theories, and they offer explanations and reasons. The illustrative ones, on the other hand, are designed to guide practice and make recommendations for action or establish stages for attending to certain circumstances. The emphasis is on what and how, than why.

The essence of the research carried out in empirical studies is to observe the reality being investigated. This is where case studies can be placed. These kinds of studies are becoming more numerous in the field of IS/IT, mostly for the following reasons [START_REF] Benbasat | The case research strategy in studies of information systems[END_REF]: (a) the researcher can study IS/IT in its natural environment, learn about the state of the art, and generate theories based on practice; (b) case studies allow researchers to answer questions about how and why and, therefore, understand the nature and complexity of the process that is taking place; and (c) they are appropriate for investigation in areas with few previous studies, and they are often the first stage of empirical research. However, case studies have often been criticised for their lack of scientific rigour, although this is not due to a problem in the method itself, but rather to the fact that often the label 'case study' has been given to what is merely a recounting of anecdotes [START_REF] Lee | A scientific methodology for MIS case studies[END_REF].

Field study is another empirical research method that analyses one or several organisations commonly with regard to a set of variables. There is an experimental design, but no experimental control, which means that the researcher collects information about uncontrolled situations. The object of study operates in its usual fashion while the research is conducted. The aim is to relate results to certain explanatory variables. It is similar to the case study in that phenomena are analysed in their natural environment without introducing any variations in it. However, the methods differ in that field study is not interested in the whole phenomenon, but only specific aspects or variables. Moreover, the analysis of information in case studies is mostly qualitative, whereas field studies generally use quantitative methods.

Tables 4 and5 show a classification of papers considering the research methodology employed. As in Tables 2 and3, Tables 4 and5 show the total number of papers per period, as well as the percentage of each according to the methodology used, and the progression of each method over time, expressed for each of the publications considered. The last column in Table 4 shows total values for the first period, while the last two columns in Table 5 summarize the total values for the second period and for the entire range of years. In the 20-year period analysed, it can be observed that the proportion of publications based on theoretical studies is quite similar to the proportion based on empirical studies, being slightly more in the latter group. An analysis of Table 4 shows that most of the articles published during the first period are empirical, exceeding the theoretical ones by more than ten percentage points. However, for the second period, Table 5 shows that the tendency of the first period was inverted, with the number of publications based on theoretical studies being greater than the number based on empirical studies. Among the theoretical studies, the illustrative type is the most frequent and doubles the conceptual type in each period and for the 20 years under study. By contrast, for publications based on empirical studies, the tendency was inverted, going from a greater percentage of publications based on case studies during the first ten years to a greater role of field studies during the second period. However, in the total calculation, there is still a predominance of empirical research based on case studies.

Conclusions

The interest in overcoming problems derived from adapting a new and changing technology such as IT to educational management has set the standards for ITEM research during the 20-year existence of Working Group 3.7. In this period of time, eleven books have been published containing the main conclusions of the work conferences, which allows us to confirm that this area of study has reached maturity.

Nevertheless, ahead of us is the task of completing a compact body of knowledge consisting of theories that can help ITEM to acquire its own identity. This is not an easy task, due to its multidisciplinary nature and its strong dependence on a changing support like IT.

Table 1 .

 1 International ITEM conferences and resulting publications.

					Year of	Number
	Place	Year	Book title	Publisher	publica-	of papers
					tion	published
	Jerusalem	1994	Information Technology in	Chapman	1995	31
	(Israel)		Educational Management [3]	& Hall
	Hong-Kong	1996	Information Technology in	Chapman	1997	26
	(China)		Educational Management for the	& Hall
			Schools of the Future [4]
	Maine (USA)	1998	The Integration of Information for	Felicity	1998	17
			Educational Management [5]	Press
	Auckland	2000	Pathways to Institutional	Kluwer	2001	11
	(New		Improvement with Information
	Zealand)		Technology in Educational
			Management [6]
	Helsinki	2002	Management of Education in the	Kluwer	2003	14
	(Finland)		Information Age: The Role of IT [7]
	Gran Canaria	2004	Information Technology and	Springer	2005	18
	(Spain)		Educational Management in the
			Knowledge Society [8]
	Hamama-	2006	Knowledge Management for	Springer	2007
	tsu (Japan)		Educational Innovation [9]

Table 2 .

 2 Papers classified by research subject (first period[1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004].

	CONFERENCE

Table 3 .

 3 Papers classified by research subject (second period 2006-2014).

				CONFERENCE
		2006	2008	2010	2012 2014	Total	TOTAL
	Topic						(second	(20
							period)	years)
		N.	N.	N.	N.	N.	N.	N.
		%	%	%	%	%	%	%
	Strategies to integrate IT into	-	2	5	-	-	7	16
	educational management	-	11.1	25	-	-	7.3	7.5
	Assimilation and integration of	5	5	4	4	8	26	53
	IT into educational management	19.2	27.8	20	25	50	27.1	24.9
	ITEM state of the art. The	1	2	-	-	-	3	6
	discipline's present situation and	3.8	11.1	-	-	-	3.1	2.8
	trends
	Assessment of IT support for	2	3	3	1	-	9	29
	educational management	7.7	16.7	15	6.3	-	9.4	13.6
	National, regional and local	1	-	1	2	1	5	23
	experience in the use of IT for	3.8	-	5	12.5	6.3	5.2	10.8
	educational management
	IT applications in educational	6	4	2	5	3	20	40
	management	23.1	22.2	10	31.3	18.8	20.8	18.8
	Mathematical tools employed to	2	-	1	-	1	4	10
	create models for educational	7.7	-	5	-	6.3	4.2	4.7
	management
	IT applications for teaching	7	2	4	1	2	16	24
		26.9	11.1	20	6.3	12.5	16.7	11.7
	Teacher and manager training in	2	-	-	3	1	6	12
	the use of IT for educational	7.7	-	-	18.8	6.3	6.3	5.6
	management
	TOTAL	26	18	20	16	16	96	213
		100	100	100	100	100	100	100

Table 4 .

 4 Papers classified by research methodology (first period[1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004].

					CONFERENCE
	Research methodology	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004	Total
								(first period)
		N.	N.	N.	N.	N.	N.	N.
		%	%	%	%	%	%	%
	Theoretical studies	15	15	4	5	4	7	50
		48.4	57.7	23.5	45.5	28.6	38.9	42.7
	Theoretical -conceptual	6	4	2	1	1	4	18
		19.4	15.4	11.8	9	7.2	22.2	15.4
	Theoretical -illustrative	9	11	2	4	3	3	32
		29	42.3	11.8	36.4	21.4	16.7	27.3
	Empirical studies	16	11	13	6	10	11	67
		51.6	42.3	76.5	54.5	71.4	61.1	57.3
	Empirical -case studies	13	10	9	2	7	8	49
		41.9	38.5	52.9	18.2	50	44.4	41.9
	Empirical -field studies	3	1	4	4	3	3	18
		9.7	3.8	23.5	36.4	21.4	16.7	15.4
	TOTAL	31	26	17	11	14	18	117
		100	100	100	100	100	100	100

Table 5 .

 5 Papers classified by research methodology (second period 2006-2014).

				CONFERENCE
		2006	2008	2010	2012	2014	Total	TOTAL
	Research methodology						(second	(20 years)
							period)
		N.	N.	N.	N.	N.	N.	N.
		%	%	%	%	%	%	%
	Theoretical studies	15	13	10	6	6	50	100
		57.7	72.2	50	37.5	37.5	52.1	47
	Theoretical -conceptual	5	3	4	-	3	15	33
		19.2	16.7	20	-	18.8	15.6	15.5
	Theoretical -illustrative	10	10	6	6	3	35	67
		38.5	55.6	30	37.5	18.8	36.5	31.5
	Empirical studies	11	5	10	10	10	46	113
		42.3	27.8	50	62.5	62.5	47.9	53
	Empirical -case studies	5	2	4	4	2	17	66
		19.2	11.1	20	25	12.5	17.7	31
	Empirical -field studies	6	3	6	6	8	29	47
		23.1	16.7	30	37.5	50	30.2	22
	TOTAL	26	18	20	16	16	96	213
		100	100	100	100	100	100	100


Richard Pankomera
email: rpankomera@gmail.com

Darelle Van Greunen
email: darelle.vangreunen@nmmu.ac.za

An ICT model to enhance teaching and learning in a resource constrained setting: A case of Malawi

Keywords: Model, Resource constrained, Malawi, Holistic Approach

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a pivotal role in enhancing learning and teaching at all levels of education across the globe. Many developed countries appreciate that the use of ICTs has improved the quality of education. Developing countries such as Malawi have also incorporated ICTs in various curricula of programmes at all levels of education. Unfortunately, these resource constrained countries face a number of challenges in gleaning the maximum benefits of ICT in education sector.

This paper discusses the fundamental challenges underlying ICT development in the education system in Malawi. Some recommendations have also been made on how to mitigate the challenges that are encountered in the education sector in Malawi. The paper further advances the notion that the ICT intervention in education can be meaningful and effective if all stakeholders such as government, private sector, policy and decision makers, communities, students, teachers and international agencies are engaged at all levels of the education system. An attempt has also been made to compare different models of implementing ICT in the education system in a resource constrained environment. The paper finally proposes an inclusive model for the ICT intervention in education system in Malawi.

Introduction

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are indispensable tools in enhancing learning and teaching at all levels of education across the globe. Many developed countries appreciate that the use of ICTs has improved the quality of education. Developing countries such as Malawi have also strived to incorporate the usage of ICT tools in various curricula of courses at all levels of education. Unfortunately, these resource constrained countries face a number of challenges in gleaning the maximum benefits of ICT in education sector. This paper therefore endeavours to highlight the emerging challenges of the usage of ICT in the education system of Malawi. It then gives some recommendations to address these challenges. The paper finally proposes a holistic approach to the ICT intervention in education system in Malawi. Section 2 gives the objectives of the study which is followed by section 3 on methodology. Section 4 provides the background of the study. Section 5 outlines the challenges underlying ICT development in education in Malawi. This is followed by section 6 which discusses a holistic model to ICT interventions in education system. Recommendations are succinctly explained in section 7 which is followed by a conclusion of the paper in section 8.

Objectives of the study

The aim of conducting the study is to propose a model that will be used by various stakeholders including teachers, policy makers, decision makers and others in implementing ICT in the education sector at all levels in Malawi. The

Methodology

The study embraced the systematic review of different journal articles, peer reviewed conference papers and books with an aim of answering specific research questions. This involved the formulation of research questions; searching of relevant work from multiple sources; describing study characteristics; summarising the evidence and finally interpreting the findings [START_REF] Gough | An introduction to systematic reviews[END_REF]. A number of articles by various researchers were accessed from electronic databases such as Science Direct, Google Scholar, web of science, ERIC and EBSCOhost. Most of the journals that have been analysed are from 2002 to 2016. The study also endeavoured to examine other documents such as Malawi ICT National Policy, Global Information Technology Report, E-learning Africa report and books.

A combination of keywords such as model, framework, guideline, ICT, computer, education, developing, underdeveloped, poor setting, implementation, challenges, barriers, ICT interventions, resource constrained and Malawi were used to select appropriate articles. This resulted in displaying more than 10,000 articles. Special Boolean operators like AND, OR and NOT were employed in order to alter the scope of the search. These articles were further filtered by year and title of the publication with their relevance to the implementation of ICT in education and learning in a resource constrained setting such as Malawi.

Background

Context Setting

Malawi follows an 8-4-4 education system which is composed of primary schools, secondary schools and University. This means that primary school, secondary school and university education takes 8 years, 4 years and another 4 years to complete respectively [START_REF] Maluwa-Banda | Gender sensitive educational policy and practice: the case of Malawi[END_REF]. With a population of approximately 16 million, Malawi has a total of 4,449,000 pupils enrolled in primary and secondary education. 83% of them are enrolled in primary education [3]. It is also interesting to note on average 62% of 15 to 24 year olds do not complete primary education in Malawi. However, the literacy rate is 72% among the youth population; this is higher than the average youth literacy rate in other low income countries [3]. For the purpose of this paper, literacy rate is the ability to read and write with understanding a simple statement related to one's daily life. With regards to ICT literacy, most public primary schools do not offer computer lessons. It is only in the isolated few private primary schools where pupils can learn the basics about computers. At the secondary school level, very few isolated schools offer computer studies as a subject due to a number of challenges. As for public institutions of higher learning, only Mzuzu University, the University of Malawi and Malawi University of Science and Technology offer degree programmes in either computer science or ICT.

ICT interventions in education

Many ICT interventions have been put in place in an effort to circumvent the aforementioned challenges. The major goal of these interventions is to improve the quality and quantity of learning and teaching at all levels of the education system since ICT has proven to provide opportunities for teachers and students to collaborate within the schools and the rest of the world [START_REF] Davis | A core curriculum for telematics in teacher training[END_REF].

The government of Malawi adopted a National ICT Policy in December 2005 which aimed at developing the ICT industry and at the same time promoting the development and use of ICTs in all sectors including the education sector [5]. It was therefore envisaged that the use of ICT in education sector would assist in improving the management of education systems in Malawi, thereby transforming Malawi into an information and knowledge driven ICT literate nation [5]. This would consequently enable the improvement of ICT literacy levels by both students and teachers. To achieve these objectives, many strategies were developed such as ensuring that primary, secondary schools and colleges have adequate and reliable computers; building facilities to promote ICT training and education in schools and colleges; promoting e-learning, e-teaching and e-distance learning; and developing user-friendly electronic management information systems to improve the quality of management of educational institution [START_REF]Malawi National ICT policy[END_REF]. Institutions were therefore formed to facilitate the implementation of the National ICT policies. In collaboration with the Department of E-Government, the responsibility of the Ministry of Education is to promote and facilitate the development and utilization of ICT skills in the education sector. On the other hand, Malawi Regulatory Authority is an ICT regulator that promotes the development of the ICT sector through investment, monitoring, research and training to professionally deliver reliable and affordable communication services throughout Malawi [START_REF] Macra | Protecting ICT universal Access[END_REF].

There are a number of projects that assist to bridge the digital gap in Malawi. For instance, Computer for African Schools (CFAS) is a scheme that was administered by British council in collaboration with SchoolNet Malawi Trust. This enabled the introduction of computer lessons in some of the secondary schools in Malawi in 2003. The scheme provides computers to schools that have the right facilities and security to house the equipment. Erach and Roshan Sadri Foundation (ERSF) is another charity organization which has managed to donate a number of ICT equipment including desktop computers, wireless access points, laser printers and internet access to various schools. The secondary school beneficiaries are Blantyre, Chichiri, Zingwangwa and Chipasula secondary school. For instance, in appreciation of this ICT intervention, the headmistress of Blantyre secondary school said, "The lab has increased the enrolment ratio of students pursuing computer studies. It has also simplified teaching and learning for the teachers and the students" [START_REF] Erach | Itschoolsafrica[END_REF]. This is one of the scenarios that assert how ICT can transform the teaching and learning environment in schools. Table 1 summarises some of the projects in education in Malawi. It must be known that most of these projects are donor funded and they are not centrally run by the government.

Challenges in ICT in education in Malawi

Malawi is rated as one of the poorest countries in the world owing to a number of factors. For instance, its infrastructure is underdeveloped. There is poor road network infrastructure, poor and few number of school facilities. There are few schools with limited number of classrooms. As a result of this, most pupils learn under the tree. Therefore increasing number of schools remains a priority over the acquisition of computers in introducing computer lessons at all levels of education. The power supply in Malawi remains unreliable. There is intermittent power supply across the country. In some instances, black out may even last for days. World Bank states that 8% of the population in Malawi has access to electricity. In addition to this, 84% of the population lives in the rural areas where there is no electricity [START_REF]USAID Malawi health systems strengthening fact sheet[END_REF]. This means that the national electrical energy system is accessible to less than 1% of the rural population [START_REF] Gamula | An Overview of the Energy Sector in Malawi[END_REF]. It is an undeniable fact that computers need regular supply of power for them to operate. This poses a number of difficulties even in primary, secondary and let alone university where computers lessons have been introduced.

High cost of telecommunications aggravates the feasibility of introducing computer education at all levels of education too. Malawi still remains a country where the cost of internet access is high [START_REF]Malawi -Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband -Statistics and Analyses -See more at[END_REF]. Unfortunately, some computer lessons at all levels of education require access to the internet in order to obtain current and updated study materials. Internet access may be necessary when students and teachers need to communicate in real time over a long distance. As these problems are not enough, cellular network coverage still remains limited. Even though, better cellular network is found in the urban areas, over 80% of the population live in the rural areas. Introducing ICT at all levels of education remains a hassle in Malawi because most pupils cannot afford to acquire even the basic ICT gadgets. The penetration of mobile and fixed phones too is one of the lowest in Malawi as compared with other countries across the African continent. 45% of the households in Malawi use a mobile phone while 1% use fixed phones [START_REF] Vega-Mana | [END_REF] [START_REF] Macra | Protecting ICT universal Access[END_REF]. It is therefore not surprising that Global Information Technology Report ranked Malawi as among the countries that is below the average Network Read Index (NRI) [START_REF]The Global Information Technology Report[END_REF].

The quality of education in Malawi is very low with high student/teacher ratio of 63:1 at primary level. The absence of teaching and learning materials, adoption of pedagogical learning and deployment of untrained teachers especially at primary level contribute to the dwindling quality of education in Malawi [START_REF] Maluwa-Banda | Basline Survey Report on Meeting Development and Participation Rights of Adolescent Girls in Malawi: Final Report for UNFPA, UNICEF[END_REF]. Most teachers in the primary, secondary and even at the university level are computer illiterate due to negative attitude towards technology change. No wonder there is a proliferation of sub-standard ICT syllabi and poor ICT service delivery in the schools. This presents difficulties in offering computer lessons to pupils or students at all levels of education in Malawi. Besides this, most qualified trained ICT teachers opt to go for greener pasture. They either migrate from Malawi to other countries especially within SADC region or they may opt to move to a private sector rendering the public schools still in dire need of ICT competent teachers.

Due to high levels of ICT illiteracy in schools, teachers have problems in appreciating the introduction of ICT in education. To this end, most teachers who are used to traditional ways of teaching may not have enough confidence in embracing the ICT interventions.

As one of the poorest countries in the word, Malawi still depends upon donors for financial support across all sectors. Since ICT is taken as an enabler to the implementations of core services, it is not given enough financial allocation. In fact, approximately 40% of the national budget for Malawi comes from donors.

With the dynamic advancement of internet technology, most researchers can easily collaborate and even easily share research publications. This is not the case where there are high levels of ICT illiteracy. As a result, current best practices of teaching and learning are not incorporated in the curriculum.

In conclusion, Malawi being part of Africa, it shares the some problems with the other countries in the adoption of ICT in education system as stipulated in the Elearning Africa 2015 Report. Generally, common obstacles that prevent greater use of ICTs are: high cost of ICT services, unavailability of ICT equipment, poor electricity or energy, lack of awareness of how best to use ICT in education, lack of government investment or support, lack of private investment, lack of relevant content and lack of confidence in embracing ICT [START_REF] Elletson | The eLearning Africa Report[END_REF].

Approaches in implementing ICT in resource constrained setting

There are a number of models that have been used to implement ICT in the education system in resourced constrained settings such as developing countries. Hawkridge stipulated six rationales for adoption of ICT in schools especially in the developing countries [START_REF] Hawkridge | Machine-Mediated Learning in Third-World Schools? Machine-mediated learning[END_REF]. First, the preparative rationale ensures that students use ICT so that they are equipped with skills for their social and vocational functioning. Second, the pedagogical rationale uses ICT as an enabler to improve student learning, understanding and retention. Third, catalytic rationale employs ICT as a catalyst to stimulate educational change. Fourth, the accessibility rationale ensures ubiquitous access to education by every student. It is noteworthy that mobile learning technology seems to be a promising solution in enhancing accessibility in remote and resource constrained setting. Fifth, the motivational rationale entails that ICT motivates students to engage in learning activities. Sixth, the administrative rationale uses ICT to monitor students and manage educational processes and components in institutions [START_REF] Hawkridge | Machine-Mediated Learning in Third-World Schools? Machine-mediated learning[END_REF]. It is not surprising that most models and approaches in implementing ICT interventions evolve around these rationales. Mishra and Koehler proposed a generic Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework that facilitates technology integration in the teaching and learning environment. It is envisaged that this framework requires that teachers have technological pedagogical content knowledge to competently embrace ICT in the classroom environment [START_REF] Mishra | Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge[END_REF] [START_REF] Chai | Modeling primary school pre-service teachers' Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) for meaningful learning with information and communication technology (ICT)[END_REF]. On the other hand, the Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition Model (SAMR) emphasizes different levels of ICT integration; from enhancement to transformation of lessons. At the enhancement level, technology acts as a direct tool to be used firstly with no functional change but secondly with an improvement change. At the transformation level, technology allows for the redesign of significant task and also it allows for the creation of new tasks which were inconceivable before [START_REF] Puentedura | The SAMR model: Background and exemplars[END_REF]. SAMR model has been used to evaluate the deployment of ICT intervention in the mobile learning environment. On the other hand, Donnor and Kentaro recommends the model of ICT integration in education that focuses on processes and outcomes rather than the supply of hardware and equipment [START_REF] Donner | Persistent themes in ICT4D Research: priorities for intermethodological exchange[END_REF]. This is related to Hamel's human development approach that employs the technology to enable people to collaborate, network and learn beyond national borders [START_REF] Hamel | ICT4D and the human development and capabilities approach: The potentials of information and communication technology[END_REF].

Another promising approach in resource constrained environment is mobile learning technology intervention. The benefits of mobile learning are: i) It is flexible to learners as they can use their mobile devices anywhere and at any time with different forms of data such as video, text and audio. ii) Content in mobile platform is concise which contributes to better completion rate by learners iii) Online communities enhance collaborative learning. iv) It enables learners to assimilate concepts at their own pace as it facilitates an increasing personalised learning. Despite all these benefits, implementation of ICT in the education sector in resource constrained environment has not been rosy. Table 2 endeavours to compare some of the different approaches in deploying ICT interventions in the education sector in some of the resource constrained environments.

Much as the ICT has been appreciated in advancing the quality of education at all levels, it is of paramount importance not all ICT solutions that have worked in developed countries can also be successfully implemented in a resource constrained setting such as Malawi. These solutions need to be customised in response to the local knowledge and cultural beliefs. The relevant and appropriate solutions must meet the needs of the developing country such as Malawi. In this context of argument, a simplistic model is proposed that must be followed when implementing ICT interventions in a resource constrained setting such as Malawi. This model has three major phases: planning; implementation; monitoring and evaluation. Figure 1 depicts these phases as explained in the following [START_REF] Donner | Persistent themes in ICT4D Research: priorities for intermethodological exchange[END_REF]:

i) Planning

This may involve establishing institutional goals at district, regional and national levels. Stakeholders and necessary resources need to be identified to meet the formulated visions, goals, and objectives. Planning teams need to be formulated for the acquisition, deployment and disposition of the resources. Technological, social, cultural, financial and political requirements that are necessary for the deployment of ICT interventions must succinctly be explored. Staffing and training needs must be considered during the budgeting process during this phase. It is important that all stakeholders such as teachers, parents, policy makers and even students are involved at an early stage as possible.

ii) Implementation At this phase an action plan must be designed and fully implemented. This may involve the actual acquisition of the necessary resources as well as the planning of their integration in the classroom to meet the institutional goals. Other activities may include the design and implementation of course content; design an approach to classroom assessment; design professional development activities for teachers; and the design of monitoring and evaluation framework.

iii) Monitoring and evaluation

Once the ICT interventions are fully operationalised, the monitoring and evaluation framework assists the management and other stakeholders to determine whether the objectives have been accomplished. This paper therefore endeavours to provide a number of recommendations. Since mobile technology has an advantage of being accessed ubiquitously, it is a promising technology for resource constrained settings especially where road network infrastructure is bad as it regards to Malawi. With the proliferation of basic mobile phones, an investment of mobile application in education by both the public and private sector stake holders is very much recommended. Strides must be made so that applications that are used in education sector must be developed in a language and cultural context of the learner. This may eventually reduce the learning curve when ICT interventions are introduced. This will also motivate the leaner to accept the new technology. The major problem of internet connectivity in education systems needs to be addressed if ICT is to reap adequate benefits. Private-public partnerships can be set up in order to improve poor ICT infrastructure and limited cellular network coverage. Policies must be formulated in order to assist rural areas to have an access to affordable ICT gadgets and services.

As it has been noted that most teachers and instructors at all levels of education are ICT illiterate, deliberate policies must be put in place to ensure the acquisition and development of ICT skills. This can be done by incorporating ICT in the curriculum at all levels. Through e-learning, e-teaching and e-distance learning, students and teachers must be encouraged to adventure various ways of improving their ICT skills. It is argued that channelling resources towards empowering teachers in ICT skills and professionalism will have a longer-term and sustainable impact on the education of the students [START_REF] Punya | ICTs in Schools: Why Focusing Policy and Resources on Educators, Not Children, Will Improve Educational Outcomes[END_REF]. Being one of the poorest countries, Malawi lacks a number of resources including computers and network equipment. It is therefore recommended that collaborative effort must be made among government, international agencies and private sector to ensure the availability of computer hardware and software in primary schools, secondary schools and colleges. There is a need for ICT policies to be formulated so that they are in tandem with promoting ICT education. This will facilitate the adoption of ICT as a tool for research and e-learning. There must be a political will by the government to promote the implementation and utilization of ICT in education. To circumvent the lack of electric power, solar energy can be used to power mobile devices. Teachers need to be involved in the creation of content of course content for mobile technology learning as early as possible. Finally, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms must be put in place in collaboration with the public and private sector to ensure the sustainability of ICT policies and projects in education. This is why a model is proposed in introducing ICT interventions in the education system in Malawi. This model can be sustainable only if there is fiscal discipline in as far as the political will is concerned.

Conclusion

This paper has highlighted the ICT interventions that have been put in place by various stakeholders in order to improve the quality of education at all levels. It has also endeavoured to outline the challenges that are encountered in a resource constrained environment such as Malawi. This paper has highlighted that, even though there are workable ICT solutions in the developed countries, not all of them can successfully be implemented in a resource setting. This is because of disparities in terms of cultural, technological and social differences in this setting. Recommendations have been therefore made to address these challenges in a resource constrained environment. It is also recommended that a model be adopted in planning, implementing monitoring and evaluating of ICT interventions in education at all levels of the education system in Malawi. Emphasis is therefore made that this model can be sustainable only if there are enabling policies such as, fiscal discipline, in as far as the political will is concerned. It is envisaged that the implementation of the model will ensure the availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability of ICT in the education sector while enhancing teaching and learning especially in the resource constrained environment.

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: A model to ICT interventions in Education system in Malawi 7 Recommendations

  following specific research questions are addressed during the study: i) What is the status of ICT interventions in the education sector in Malawi? ii) What are the challenges that are encountered in implementing ICT interventions in the education sector in Malawi? iii) What model can be used to implement sustainable ICT interventions in Malawi?

Table 1 . Some ICT Project interventions in education in Malawi

 1

	No	Project		Focus			Beneficiaries
	1	MAREN		Internet connectivity for the	Institutions	of	higher
				tertiary education and research	learning in Malawi: Mzuzu
				sectors in Malawi [9].		University and Chancellor
							college, College of Medicine
	2	FAIR Denmark	Bridging the digital divide	Secondary Schools in the
				between	developed	and	northern and central regions
				developing	countries	by	which received over 1000
				providing	refurbished	ICT	desktop and laptops
				equipment [10].
	3 ITSchoolsAfrica -	Creating e-learning centres for	Secondary Schools such as
		Computers	for	students and training of teachers	Blantyre,	Chichiri,
		Malawian Schools	[11].			Chipasula, Zingwangwa.

Table 2 : Approaches in implementing ICT intervention in some of the resource constrained environments.

 2

	No Country	Framework/ Approaches	Focus/ Components
	1	South Africa	A Pragmatic framework for integrating ICT into	 Mobile instant messaging service  Mobile tutoring platform
			education in South Africa	 Mobile teaching platform
			[20]		 Learning content by content providers  Learning management systems
					 Various learning activities  Multiple learning models
	2	Nigeria	ICT integration in education	 Establishment of computer laboratories in
			[21].		university and some institutions with support
					from external sources  Computers and blended learning being used in
					the distance learning programmes of some
					teacher raining institutions  Radio and television in distance learning
					 Establishment of ICT laboratories and cyber
					cafés
	3	Tanzania	An approach to ICT based	 Introduction of mobile computing laboratory
			school Tanzania [22] education	in	facilities  Computer assisted instruction-learning/web
					based learning
					 Computer supported teaching  Institutions of higher education adopting the
					nearby schools