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A Theoretical Argumentation and Evaluation of South African Learners' Orientation towards and Perceptions of the Empowering Use of Information

A Calculated Prediction of Computerized Learning for the Marginalized

Sasolburg High School

This article attempts to illustrate how African learners orient themselves towards information in a pre-computerized learning environment. The critical objective of the article is to show that the disempowering elements in learning might again be replicated in computer-mediated learning or communication. The article illustrates that young African learners are situationally and not critically empowered by information as presented in its current form by institutions of learning. We assume that the African learner's accommodation to the context and the forms of information transfer inhibits an authentic development of ways of learning and critical knowledge construction. The interaction with and orientation to the current contexts, which mediate and present information, might not be an empowering experience. The article hopes to contribute to the formulation of program design for computer-mediated communication. It conceptualizes a learning environment with a new culture, one based on the learning elements of social constructivist theory and the communal principles of Gemeinschaft [community] in a postmodern era. It is also intended to suggest to learning program designers how to facilitate conscientization and the empowerment of the African learners in their interaction with information.

Key Words: community • computer-mediated learning • critical empowerment • critical theory • epistemology • knowledge construction • postmodernism • situational empowerment • social constructivism

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