Teaching Green Information Technology Inside and Outside the Classroom: An Undergraduate Case-Study in the South African Context

One socio-economic and environmental challenge facing the leaders of tomorrow is how Green Information Technology can be applied effectively by organisations to contribute to the global green revolution. The author teaches 1500 undergraduate students yearly about Green Information Technology to influence awareness positively in terms of efficient ways that computer resources can be used. In order to facilitate this process, the author supplemented the theory component with a practical assignment leveraging a number of interactive learning tools, including: social networking, on-line collaboration, and 3-D programming. These tools can be classified as one of the components of social computing. Social computing is seen as the convergence of information technology with social behaviour, and the resulting interactions. The tools used include: Alice©, Facebook©, and pbWiki©. The students were tasked with creating an animation using Alice© teaching people about Green Information Technology. Upon completion of the assignment, a questionnaire was distributed in order to ascertain what their view of Green Information Technology was. This paper details the nature of the Green Information Technology teaching techniques that were employed and details the findings of the questionnaire. The paper merges theory and practical aspects of teaching Green IT and provides educators and researchers with insight in terms of interactive teaching tools that can be employed.