Impact of StuddyBuddy on the Culture of Zambia
The StuddyBuddy is one of the innovations that have been introduced to improve students’ performance especially those who retain little content (Claude, 2015). Despite the success of StudyBuddy project in the US, it would significantly impact on the lives of students that live outside the US with specific interest in Zambia, Africa. Evidently, their socio-cultural practices are different from those in US. As such, this would place significant pressure on their way of life. In this regard, therefore, this paper seeks to discuss some of the ways in which the technology would affect their practices. Indeed, this will be instrumental in determining how the impacts may be mitigated to ensure that the people’s cultures are not deformed.
Impacts of StudyBuddy on the Culture of Zambia
In Zambia, the culture of consulting from tutors or teachers physically is essentially prevalent since there are many employed teachers (Honigsfeld & Cohan, 2010). Actually, some of them conduct private tutoring in their respective residents especially during the holidays and weekends. As such, StudyBudy imparts competition against tutor consultation and private coaching it helps learners to carry out their research more efficiently. In addition, the fact that the technology does not require movement of students and it is not subject to geographical or time-based restrictions makes it more attractive to students. Moreover, the use of StuddyBuddy is more economical and affordable as compared to acquiring a tutor to coach and assist in revisions and specific areas of studies. Importantly, however, the technology would affect the relationship between students and teachers. This is based on the fact that the need for students to consult teachers would reduce significantly and hence increase the distance between the two. Besides, the effect will subsequently lead to a more complex cultural paradigmatic shift whereby the importance of the teacher figure, which is currently much respected, will also reduce significantly.
Time Scheduling and Allocation of Duties
The culture of Zambia requires that every individual engage in social roles allocated to them. For example, children are under social-cultural obligation to help their parents in some chores at home (Zambia : situation analysis of children and women, 2009). The use of StuddyBuddy will eventually affect this because it requires more communication of mobile or computer devices. For example, a student may require more time to discuss a question or a topic with their tutor online. As a result, using it will mean that they have to forego some duties at home. This results in a new culture whereby students are mostly using their phone and as such missing out on fundamentally vital basic skills. This change puts a lot of pressure on the culture of the people since they have to start adapting to some of these tendencies.
In summary, these social and cultural modifications will put pressure on the culture of Zambia especially at school and home level. In this case, it will reduce the interaction between teachers and students thus reducing the cordial and strong relationship that exists between the two parties. Indeed, it must be understood that the social relationship between the two is very crucial because the students also needs to acquire interpersonal skills and learn how to be respectful to their seniors. However, this comes with some benefits such as the ability to interact with tutors from other countries such as the US on an online platform. This will help to broaden their thinking in terms of global orientation (Simson, 2013). In addition to this, students will also become less active especially when it comes to accomplishing chores at home.
References
Chapman, C., & King, R. (2009). Differentiated Instructional Strategies for Reading in the Content Areas. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Claude, F. (2015). Innovative App, StudyBuddy, Introduced to Help Increase Study Performance Business. Retrieved April 29, 2016, from http://a-scam.beforeitsnews.com/business/2015/07/innovative-app-studybuddy-introduced-to-help-increase-study-performance-2727242.html
Honigsfeld, A., & Cohan, A. (2010). Breaking the mold of school instruction and organization: Innovative and successful practices for the twenty-first century. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education.
Simonson, M. (2013). Distance Education : Statewide, Institutional, and International Applications of Distance Education: Readings From the Pages of Distance Learning Journal. Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing
Zambia : situation analysis of children and women (2009). Lusaka, Zambia : UNICEF Zambia, 2009
