BERNADETTE LEGER GUIRAND

ADAPTATION OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) IN EDUCATION TO SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT OF LEARNERS – APPROACH OF A CUSTOM MAP PEDAGOGY OR EDUCATION ON DEMAND

Information and Communication Technology revolutionizes the quasi totality of our manners and customs. While individual users capture creatively the overwhelming pool of tools and applications to their satisfaction, ICT in education follows the conventional setting, as a universal set of contents, practices, and methods of transmission of knowledge. A “One Size Fits All” educational design which purportedly answers the needs of each person regardless of one’s preexisting knowledge. This approach not only limits the capabilities of these intelligent digital tools, but also undermines the learners’ inputs which are attached to their immediate environments. Consequently, the application of ICT in education remains inadequate to engaging a variety of expressions. It instead contributes to invalidate and remove all interpersonal experience-based knowledges and competences. In the presence of comprehensive validation, learners very often contribute to the enrichment of the subject matter under discussion in ways that go undocumented, unreported, and wasted. It is understood that given the uniqueness of each learner, the quest for validation multiplies to create a wide range of divergent solicitations.  In this paper we propose to examine what we teach, how we teach and the consequences. And how encompassing learners’ personal insights with the adaptation of existing instructional materials would respond to these ever growing solicitations. As John Dewey (1944) has said: If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow. Paraphrasing the great Mahatma Gandhi we would also add: If you do it for me without me, you do it against me.  Bio