A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book
Future Technology Lab: A Plug-in Campus as an Agent of Change for Computing Education Research in the Global South
Authors: Ntinda, Maria; Apiola, Mikko; Sutinen, Erkki
Editors: Apiola, Mikko; López-Pernas, Sonsoles; Saqr, Mohammed
Publishing place: Cham
Publication year: 2023
Book title : Past, Present and Future of Computing Education Research: A Global Perspective
First page : 259
Last page: 278
ISBN: 978-3-031-25335-5
eISBN: 978-3-031-25336-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25336-2_13
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25336-2_13
Computing Education Research (CER) has experienced substantial growth and its demand continues to expand. The University of Turku, in the Global North has formed a partnership with the University of Namibia, in the Global South to reform or contextualise Computing Education (CE) and CER among many initiatives to improve the relevance of CER through the establishment of the Future Technology Laboratory (FTLab). An analysis of the FTLab was applied using Design Science Research. Lessons learned, and how the initial goal of the FTLab could be improved in ways that require the rethinking of CE and CER in the context of the Global South to pioneer a novel CER approach locally and globally are presented. A Design Reality Gap framework was applied to show how to inform the process of making CER more relevant in each context, in our case by the FTLab plug-in campus. While progress has been made in CER in Namibia, challenges in realising the goal of the FTLab persist. This study contributes to the literature on how to reform or contextualise CER to improve its relevance in developing countries.