Abstract
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.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the designers of the concept tree of the plug-in campus. The concept tree was designed by Tuula Kaisto with the assistance of Maria Ntinda, Hilma Aludhilu, Sebulon David and Erkki Sutinen. We would also like to thank the industry and the community involved in different projects at the plug-in campus.
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Ntinda, M., Apiola, M., Sutinen, E. (2023). Future Technology Lab: A Plug-in Campus as an Agent of Change for Computing Education Research in the Global South. In: Apiola, M., López-Pernas, S., Saqr, M. (eds) Past, Present and Future of Computing Education Research . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25336-2_13
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