Category Archives: Class Discussion

Phys Ed and Mobile Technology

In my own experiences at several different elementary schools across Calgary, the most significant mobile technology has been the iPad, as the overwhelming majority of our students at the K-4 grade level do not own phones nor bring them to school. We currently have a district wide mobile technology contract that students and parents need to read through and sign before permission can be granted to individual students to bring mobile devices to school. Some of our grade 4 students bring their phones to school, but they turn them off during the school day and only use them at the end of the day to communicate with parents or friends. Truthfully, the schools that I’ve taught at over the years have been very well equipped with iPads and laptops, and the students haven’t demonstrated much interest in using their phones during class time, despite the fact that they would have permission to do so while under teacher supervision. With regular access to iPads and laptops across the school, our students don’t seem to feel the need or see the benefit in using their phones to complete tasks and assignments that could just as easily be completed with our school owned mobile devices.

As far as my own pedagogy is concerned, mobile technology has been an important part of my teaching practice in Physical Education. While I don’t often make use of laptops in the gym, iPads have become a part of our shared experiences in daily physical activity. In particular, even a single iPad in the gym can be implemented in a variety of ways to support student learning and achievement while encouraging collaboration and feedback. Compared to other curriculum areas, Technology and Physical Education are not quite as readily connected with each other, despite the fact that there exists tremendous potential for the use of mobile technology, including iPads, in daily physical education classes. With the demand for focus and funding in other curriculum areas oftentimes being driven from administration or district levels, teachers are often left lacking the knowledge or support to connect technology with Phys Ed. Nevertheless, teachers can integrate mobile technology into daily physical activity to help enhance and support student learning, progress, and achievement.

A single iPad in the gym, especially when connected to a projector, becomes a powerful means of presenting or displaying information to students. This could include demonstrating skills, instruction of new games and activities, sharing of goals and objectives, and communicating information and ideas in ways that get students excited, motivated, and engaged about physical activity. The use of iPads offers opportunities to utilize a wide variety of instructional videos and game demonstrations to provide visual support for student learning. Scoreboards and timers are no longer required tools in physical education sessions, as iPads offer a wide variety of apps for use in keeping score in games or timing student performance. These scores and times can be saved and documented as part of daily formative assessment in Phys Ed.

With an iPad on hand, teachers always have a camera to photograph or video record student activity and document progress. According to Ciampa (2013), students enjoy having their efforts and achievements recognized by others, and in order to make this learning visible, an environment must be created that allows for the engagement of motivation through recognition. Mobile technology, including iPads, provide affordances for this type of collaboration and recognition, and students’ ability to learn and perform motor skills increases with the use of tools such as digital video. By recording students performing a skill or task, teachers have a means of providing meaningful formative assessment directly to students to help guide their learning and development. Through the opportunity to watch themselves performing these skills or tasks, students are able to analyze techniques and self-reflect to guide further progression in Physical Literacy. Collaboration becomes an important component of video analysis, as students are able to watch and critique the work and progress of their peers, while providing constructive feedback to help guide reflection and further skill development. Videos may also be used as a method of summative assessment to document student achievement at the end of a particular unit, or while performing a routine or planned series of skills. Numerous apps are available for use in Video Analysis, with many of these allowing for complex and detailed examinations of skills and techniques, including those utilized by athletes and coaches at high levels of competition.

With the ultimate goal of promoting student motivation and increasing overall participation and engagement, iPads can be used to infuse gamification into daily physical activity. Apps that guide or instruct students in learning skills and movements can enhance teaching and learning in Physical Education, and these can be utilized by individual students, small groups, or during whole class activities. Augmented Reality offers exciting new possibilities in delivering engaging physical activity to students. The use of iPads in physical education can help support and enhance student knowledge, motivation and skill development, while providing teachers with opportunities to engage in varied methods of documenting student progress and achievement in formative and summative assessment. When implementing technology in Physical Education, it becomes essential that lessons follow the guidelines outlined in Bates’ SECTIONS framework (2014) and continue to be based on achieving a maximum level of student activity, rather than focusing on the skill of using the technology. The use of iPads offers students and teachers significant benefits while requiring minimal time to learn and implement during Physical Education lessons.

 

References

Bates, J. (2014). Teaching in a digital age, Chapter 8. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation.Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcal.12036/epdf

 

Mobile Technology Use in CPD

In the context of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), I don’t see a lot of use of mobile technology for the actual delivery of programs. Most courses remain in the tradition lecture format with supplemental hands-on workshops. There has been some attempts to use audience-response apps such as ‘Poll Everywhere’ or ‘Top Hat’ and these apps are quickly replacing our dependence on iClicker devices in the lecture hall.

Many online courses exist but at this point, most of those I encounter are designed to be viewed on a larger monitor. As technologies now exist to design courses simultaneously for screen, tablet or smartphone, I believe that more courses will be available in this format. For busy professionals, on the go, it will be most beneficial for them to access CPD material anywhere.

One way I do see mobile technology used regularly, is the use of Twitter or other forms of texting during courses and conferences. Large conferences will release a Twitter address for the event. For the organizers, it is a great way to release updated information, such as “Lecture 2 has been moved to Room 7”. Many participants will use the Twitter feed to comment on interesting information they are exposed to. Sometimes their colleagues who were not able to attend the conference will check in on Twitter to see how things are going and if there is any information posted that is relevant to their own work.

Sometimes, the most interesting conversations at a conference happen on Twitter while a lecture is going on. Dozens of people listening to the same lecture will Tweet their comments and questions on the material. Instantly, a small learning community develops with rapid-fire exchanges in real time. Although it can be a distraction, it certainly keeps learners engaged in the subject at hand.

This type of exchange gives learners control within the learning environment, engages others in cooperative learning, gives individuals recognition for their contributions and even fosters friendly competition and challenge when people are trying to best each other at coming up with ideas or other sources information. In short, it hits all of Malone and Lepper’s six categories of intrinsic motivation (1987, as cited in Ciampa, 2013).

Resource:

Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96.

 

Depending on Your Goals

Alright, in case you didn’t get to read my introduction I’ll just to bring everyone to the same page.  I am not a classroom teacher anymore and the majority of my work deals with the development of self-directed learning for the produce industry.  The work is led by industry groups that inform and guide the development of any projects or programs that I undertake.  In addition, the work of the organization itself is guided by volunteer leadership.

The reason why the SECTIONS model works so well in my instance is that I have to take in account a lot of difference circumstance and points of view (Bates, 21014).  Yes, the students are important, but for the most part, they aren’t the only client needs that I have to take into account.  I need to ensure that member organizations that may purchase learning for employees also are comfortable with how the product is offered.  So in a sense, like a classroom teacher, I have several hoops to jump through when it comes to implementing mobile learning.  However, in another sense, I also need to take into account any circumstances that may exist in a workplace environment.  This includes, among other things: creating accessible content, device access issues, and the possible employer/employee dynamic.

Another instance of particular note is that I have to take into account the wide variety of digital literacy skills that exist within the possible group of learners.  There could be new university graduates who are very adept at anything technical, and I could have a learner who has taken no formal learning in years and may or may not know how to use a computer.   I have to design for both and try to engage them with the material and with each other.

In terms of mobile, that adds and entirely new dimension.  For the most part, the learning material has been developed to be delivered on a desktop, as it’s the most likely form of delivery for our current offering if purchased by an employer. Really, I need to design for the type of device that an employer would offer.  However, because of the rise of tablets, and the fact that individuals can also purchase courses there still need to be responsive elements built into the courses as they could still be accessed from a mobile device. Fortunately, Moodle and quick authoring programs seem to make this easy.  So, although they can be accessed, I wouldn’t really call them mobile learning friendly courses. They can be long, and there are interactions built in that are just easier to accomplish on a desktop.

However, I’ve been thinking more and more of developing smaller “snack sized” pieces aimed as a just in time learning as a way for our members to encourage their staff.  I feel like these pieces would be suitable to a mobile learning environment and a library could be developed to act as small easily accessible bits of learning on product knowledge, handling of fresh fruit and vegetables, and even food safety.  I would say there is even potential for industry to develop consumer education pieces on these topics including different methods of growing produce, how it’s harvested, and even how some products make it to the retail and food service operations.

 

References:

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a Digital Age (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework). Retrieved January 29, 2016, from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage

Missing out on cool stuff

When I left from working in a high school, it was back in 2011. Our school policy at the time was that students were not allowed to be on their phones during class hours. The reasoning behind this decision from the administration was because we as an institution emphasised face-to-face communication and socializing as an element of the learning experience. While I suppose that teachers could have used their phones for learning purposes, not a lot did and I would assume that more than a few would feel it as contrary to the goal of the school to build community. However, when I left, the iPad had just come out and quite a few teachers/administrators were excited about the possibilities of the new device. It took the school until 2013 but they did end up implementing an iPad program for all the students. So there obviously a change took place within the administration’s idea about mobile learning technology. Coming from the tech support side of things, I could see many management and administrative obstacles with regards to going with a campus-wide mobile environment. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to be a part of that rollout.

Personally speaking though, mobile devices have really transformed my life as a student. It is really amazing to use my iPad to load up all my reading materials, plan out my schedule, and browse the web easily and seamlessly. I am a big advocate of using mobile devices and I look forward to seeing them mature in educational environments.

Mobile Technology Limbo

Mobile technology at my school is neither banned, nor allowed, rather, it’s in a constant state of flux. Somedays we seem to make huge leaps in the use of mobile technology, while other days we seem to be more like Luddites. Here is a brief overview of the situation at my school and my analysis of the situation.

I won’t delve into censorship or political concerns as I briefly touched on these in a previous discussion post. It is not an exaggeration to say that rules are created, discarded, enforced and ignored at my school in a constant and dizzying cycle. A common phrase used to describe this cycle is: “This is China”, but I don’t think it can be explained by three empty words. The administrative structure, or chain of command, at my school is complicated and there are many cultural considerations at play that are not appropriate for me to speculate on because it’s not my culture. However, I can say that the structure allows many people to create rules and leaves others to enforce them. Communication is not always clear, so no one seems to know who created the rules or who is responsible for enforcing them. With that little bit of context, let me present you with some examples of mobile technology related “rules” from the past few years:

  1. Cell phone signal blockers installed in the student dormitories, blocking all cell phone signals (not just 3G/4G–EVERYTHING!)
    1. Removed after parents complained its adverse affect on student health.
  2. Certain classes given 1:1 laptops and wifi. Other classes not provided with laptops, no wifi access, and BYOD wa (and still is) forbidden.
  3. Parents’ committee suggested that students could bring cellphones to school, but they would be confiscated by their homeroom teachers during teaching hours (7:20am-10:00pm, Monday-Friday). The school accepted this suggestion and enacted it last year.

Are these rules strictly enforced? The short answer is no. This is a good thing, because it means there is room for negotation and change. Allow me to attempt to analyze the situation.

Our school is not short on mobile technology. We have a bank of 40 laptops that can be checked out for any teacher to use in class. Most students have a smartphone; a recent survey of grade 10 students revealed that only 11 students out of 379 do not have a smartphone. 3G and 4G access in Shenzhen is affordable (I pay 5 CAD a month for 300mb) and almost all students have access via their phones. Six classes have 1:1 laptops and wifi access. Sounds incredible, right? Wrong. We’re in mobile technology limbo. The following situation is typical of how the integration of technology is approached.

Our bank of laptops arrived a few months after two (Canadian) teachers attended a 21st Century Learning conference. The teachers came back full of ideas, armed with printouts of resources and countless links to educational websites which were informative and useful (that’s how we got started with Edmodo, which I loved.) The school, encouraged by the teachers’ enthusiasm, bought in to their suggestion to purchase a class set of laptops and they arrived in the blink of an eye. However, at the Canadian staff meeting where this idea was introduced, I, along with the other IT teacher, had advised against moving forward so quickly. Our issue was that there was no implementation plan. No one had considered what software would or should be purchased, how the laptops would be monitored (our IT labs have monitoring software), if the school’s network could support the increased bandwidth demand, or, even the most basic consideration—how would the laptops be used? Our concerns were pushed aside, deemed pessimistic and anti-technology. At the time, I was frustrated by being labeled anti-technology, but now I find it funny, considering our questions are some of the considerations found in Bates’ (2014) SECTIONS model.

After reading Ciampa’s (2013) study results, I believe the teachers who made the suggestion to purchase laptops were motivated by some of the same discoveries outlined in Ciampa’s study: they saw the laptops as an avenue to motivate students to challenge themselves, pursue their curiosity, and take control of their learning. However, without a plan in place for the implementation, the students never had the chance to get to this point. The laptops sit mostly unused in a locked cabinet. When they are checked out, they are used solely for word processing. Why? The only software on the laptops are the preloaded offerings, there is no monitoring software, the school’s network couldn’t support the addition of wifi access for each classroom, and no one seemed to know what they wanted to do with the laptops. I could gloat about being right, but I feel awful that the school’s investment is lying dormant. It’s sobering to know the school has the resources to get almost anything we ask for, yet we do not use our resources to their full potential. That’s part of the reason I am in the MET programme—so that the next time we discuss purchasing technology for the school I am in a position to give a recommendation that is buoyed by a degree and a belief that I have the expert knowledge to give the recommendation.

Does our school have the potential to use mobile technology to motivate student learning in some of the ways revealed by Ciampa’s (2013) study? I think so. However, I think the first step is for each teacher to look at their courses and decide how and when they could use technology. Second, we must develop an acceptable use policy for cell phones so that all invested parties (parents, administration, teachers, and students) are on the same page; then, and only then will the arbitrary rules and the arbitrary enforcement of said rules end. Finally, we must develop an implementation plan for our bank of laptops–it’s better late than never, right?

Disclaimer

I always feel hesitant when contributing discussion posts because my situation is difficult to compare to Canadian contexts. The culture here is so different (and that’s not good or bad, it’s just a statement), that I feel like many instinctively feel that my situation is strange, or incorrect, or just plain wild. While my situation can be challenging, it’s not insurmountable and there are so many positives to working at a school like mine; it just so happens that our experience with mobile technologies hasn’t been overwhelmingly positive. What this post doesn’t outline is how supportive the administration is of my pursuing my masters in this programme, or how they send me to conferences and professional development events frequently (two this year!) As a school, we’re continuously learning how to work together and respect both Canadian and Chinese culture, teaching methodologies, and communication styles. I want to be clear that I’m not bashing my school, the culture, or my situation, rather, I’m trying to give an accurate indication of my personal experience.

References

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. (Chapter 8). Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82-96. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcal.12036/epdf

Mobile Devices and lack thereof in the Toronto District School Board

I work for the Toronto District School Board, the biggest board in Canada, with over a quarter of a million students (Yau, Rosolen & Archer, 2013). It’s a big, bloated juggernaut of a school board, a result of an amalgamated city in the late 1990s. It has been riddled with controversy throughout its existence and there is at this point a strong argument for breaking up the board (Ross, 2015). Among myriad other problems is a lack of a consistent policy on technology. According to the Handbook of Community Partners in TDSB schools, “It is strongly recommended that all staff, volunteers, and community partners turn off their devices (or put in vibrating mode) during assigned work hours in the school. The Principal will explain how the cell phone policy applies to the specific school.” (TDSB, 2011). And if the Principal doesn’t, or is unclear? Then it’s the wild west.

This year I teach French, Drama and Music to grades 3-6 at an Alternative elementary school where our Principal is split between our school and another and is seldom present, so pretty much all policies are determined by teachers for their own classrooms, including use of devices. I use one of the school’s 12 iPads almost daily, mostly for video of presentations and students singing songs which play back as I give them feedback, then upload to Google classroom to post on class blogs for parents and students to see. I have tried giving small groups their own iPads to record and self-assess but students tend to get off task by opening other apps or going online.

For the 3 previous years, I worked at a grade 7 and 8 school, and while the aforementioned “turn off devices” policy ruled for the first couple of years, a new principal started flirting with BYOD. As a French immersion teacher, I would use my “Word Reference” dictionary app whenever my French vocabulary failed me, or take pictures of the board to post them on the LMS we used before erasing the board. I would sometime allow students to use their phones for photographing or filming presentations, or use my own phone and play back video of student presentations through a projector for self and peer assessment. I’d allow students to take pictures of missed work on the board to send to their absent friends. Sometimes when we had the mobile laptops in the class, certain student preferred using the school’s wifi on their own phones for research, and I allowed it. I also allowed students to use them as calculators when most of the class set were stolen or destroyed. For a geometry unit, I had one partner describe the rotations, reflections and translations (en français) while the other partner played Tetris. As Ciampa (2013) asserts, these activities provided combinations of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for learning over their analog counterparts.

In a public school setting, access to a mobile device continues to be an issue. I can’t see BYOD working the way it did in the video “Cell Phones in the Classroom : Learning Tools for the 21st Century” (2009) because for economic, health or other reasons, up to 40% (Goodman, 2009) of my middle school students would not have cell phones. At an age where social acceptance is bigger than any lesson in school, it would be totally irresponsible for a teacher to tell a child that he needs a phone, or to leave a child out of an activity because she doesn’t have access to one. If the school doesn’t have enough tablets for ALL the children, any argument 0f motivation, constructivism, or any other benefit ascribed to using mobile devices is moot.

References:

Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation.Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96. Retrieved fromhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcal.12036/epdf

Goodman, ?. (2009, December 12). Cell Phones in the Classroom : Learning Tools for the 21st Century. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXt_de2-HBE

Ross, S. (2015, April 17). What to do with TDSB? A new panel mulls breaking it up and other possible reforms. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/what-to-do-with-tdsb-a-new-panel-mulls-breaking-it-up-and-other-possible-reforms/article24007422/

TDSB. (2011). Handbook of Community Partners in TDSB schools. Retrieved from: http://www.tdsb.on.ca/Portals/0/Nursing/4b%20CUOS_Handbook-FINAL.pdf

Yau, Rosolen & Archer. (2013). TDSB Students and Families: Demographic Profile. 2011-12 Student & Parent Census. Retrieved from: http://www.tdsb.on.ca/Portals/0/AboutUs/Research/2011-12CensusFactSheet1-Demographics-17June2013.pdf

Herding cats and harnessing their power!

Okay so my title is a little dramatic, but honestly, that’s how technology in the classroom sometimes feels.  It’s like trying to stay on top of 20+ spinning plates, because if you can, you can generate enough power to light the room for a week.  This is what has been true in my experience, anyway, in my position within a school that had good wifi, 1:1 device:student ratio, and a subscription to EBSCOhost through the library.  All of my students were comfortable with mobile devices like tablets or smart-phones, but only for entertainment purposes.  They viewed their laptops as the tools that could bridge over to academic usage, and left their phones for ‘fun’ only – unless a laptop was broken and they had to get creative with how to continue on with their work.

From day one, I made it clear to students they were expected to use technology responsibly – that it was a privilege with incredible potential, but not a right.  We co-constructed expectations for device use together, and this set the ground-rules – if they broke them, I just had to remind them of what we had agreed was acceptable behaviour.  Thankfully I rarely had to confiscate a device after a verbal warning, and so we were able to use technology without many issues – it wasn’t perfect, but I was also willing to renege a certain level of control. With my senior students I made it clear deadlines were tight and expectations were high – if they didn’t take their work seriously, they were making their own beds to lie in.  With that established, I would help them cultivate research skills that would not only following  criteria of academic integrity, but lead them in the best directions to satisfy their curiousity on topics of their choosing within the framework of the course work or assignments.

What was created was essentially the blended classroom – technology was a tool that enriched my face-to-face interactions with students.  I used Edmodo as a way to post homework and for quick messaging between students, and WikiClassrooms as a main ‘hub’ for course activity.  There I would post learning goals for the lessons, curated resources for students to access, and any lesson content that they needed in order to proceed either in their groups or individually.  Assignments were also posted to the wiki, and occasionally class discussions took place there as well.  In the future I would like to maximize the constructivist potential of the Wiki by requiring students to create there for each other more actively – I had tried once before and found the results messy and disorganized, but swinging entirely in the other direction wasn’t satisfying either.  Part of the challenge there was that students would inadvertently over-write each other’s work if they were editing the same page at the same time, which was frustrating and de-motivating.  Any real-time collaborative work would therefore take place on platforms like Google docs or slides, or Padlet.

Although students saw their mobile devices as best suited for recreational use, they were able to find ways to incorporate it into their educational tasks through a few different methods.  One was with interactive class-based quizzes on the platform Kahoot!, which functioned as review, assessment, or simple survey.  It was low-stakes competition that they always got a kick out of, even if it was just a mood-lifter during the period.  Another was as recording devices – more than once I asked students to record each other and then either edit the recordings (e.g. to create news broadcasts), or at the very least upload them to YouTube (as unlisted) and then share with the class on the Wiki for future reference.  This helped weave into the classroom a sense of collaborative creation, which was often done preceding more individual tasks of creation.  For example, I asked students in my grade 11 English class to write a piece around their relationships with identity and language, then record themselves reading it to post to the wiki.  Many chose to write poems (as I had left the format open and was not grading their expertise within the chosen form, but rather their understanding of the prompt), since they had previous experience with poetry, and so we ended up with a nice collection of read poems for them to read and listen to aloud.  Later, I asked them to create Blogs (on a platform of their choice, though many chose Tumblr) on this same theme, and they could both collect past work to post and create new pieces.  They were required to visit each other’s blogs and leave feedback on a set number of posts, although some went above the basic number outlined.  Because they were already comfortable sharing their work with each other, and we had modeled constructive feedback during class time, they were wonderfully respectful and thoughtful on each other’s blogs.

What this all meant was that I spent a huge amount of my time conferencing with students one-on-one or in small groups to check in with them on their work, either in their chosen forms of technology or in their thought processes when developing content.  I could monitor group work when they added me to Google docs from my desk, but the best interactions came from checking in with them either during class or by following the links to their work after class-time, and then nudging them in the right direction either online or the following day.  An extreme example of tech. use from this past year once involved me using a free temporary chat room app I found through a Google search to do side-by-side essay conferences with students, after I lost my voice entirely after the flu.  It was odd, but oddly effective!

I was lucky to be able to learn how technology as a tool can better enrich my learning environment. I am not a fan of ‘technology for technology’s sake’, but thanks to creative peers and reliable recommendations, I haven’t used much that I wouldn’t use again (perhaps with some tweaking).  The fun part is that when it’s clear to my students that I to am learning, but that the goals are worth it, the use of tech. becomes less about making me happy and more about making their own work easier and more effective – extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation.  All in all, as per Ciampa’s article this week, I’ve been able to witness and learn within the six elements that help contribute to this shift in a learner’s motivation through tech., and I look forward to further refining my own skills to better guide those of my students.

References

Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation.Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96. Retrieved fromhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcal.12036/epdf

Mobile devices and Med Ed

Medical education is still in its infancy when it comes to use of mobile devices in the classroom. There’s no rule against the use of mobile technologies, but I can’t say that it is promoted either. Students are free to bring whatever device they see fit for their learning. I’ve seen many iPads and other tablets as well as smartphones. Some lecturers use polling through smartphone but its few and far between. In the hospital, point of care apps, medication apps, and pregnancy wheel apps are often used. Some apps are provided for free to students and residents through our library. However, these are not usually used for direct teaching purposes. It’s more for self directed learning.

At this point I guess you could say that mobile technologies are usually used to access reference materials. But could they be used for other purposes in medical education? Could it be used as a teaching device? Absolutely! We, as instructors are likely the greatest barrier to its implementation. It’s our lack of knowledge and experience regarding the use of mobile technology as a learning tool. If we were comfortable and knew that students would be more engaged and thus active in their learning, I think we would embrace it.

I don’t personally have a success story regarding the use of mobile devices in the classroom. But I know of a general surgeon at our university who started making podcasts for students and residents and these are used not only by our own students but students across the globe. Many access it with their mobile devices to help them learn during their rotation. Here’s a great article summarizing his work.

Mobile devices makes a big difference in accessibility. As mentioned by Ciampa (2013), being able to learn “anytime, anywhere” engages students, promotes self-directed and self-paced learning. I think they are a highly effective media if used correctly. The challenge is to use them in such a way that it incorporates the six aspects of successful learning systems; challenge, control, curiosity, recognition, cooperation, and competition (Ciampa, 2013). In the article, it appeared that they were using educational apps that were already developed. But what happens when you can’t find one that’s applicable? I don’t have the technical skill to make something like that nor do I have the time to learn. I would need a team to help me develop a course that uses mobile devices successfully. Does my university have the resources necessary for this? What will my time commitment be? Or is there something that’s already developed that I don’t know about? I don’t have the answers to these questions but as I make my way through this program and my career progresses as I take on more teaching responsibilities at my University, I am confident I will find them along the way.

Reference

Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcal.12036/epdf

Mobile Learning

In recent years mobile technologies has become the focus of my professional life and a passion. I believe that mobile technologies mark then next big evolution in education and that pedagogy and practice need to change in order to fully realize the potential of mobile learning. Instant access to information on a portable device allows the learner to move beyond the physical confines of the classroom and continue their learning in meaningful ways. The ability to author high quality content with little technical knowledge makes mobile devices one of the most user-friendly and important developments in education. Students can now create high quality video, author content, upload and download directly to their device – concepts which would have been very difficult just 5 years ago. Collaboration, especially through social media provides students and teachers with new platforms to continue the learning that happens in a f2f environment.

However, in many ways education is struggling to keep up with the innovations that are provided by mobile devices. Too often schools are bound by mobile device policies which prohibit the use of devices in the classroom. I find it ironic that schools ban the device that students use most in their lives, one would think that educators would try to leverage the device to make it an instrument to support learning. In addition, the perception of many educators toward mobile technologies create a negative atmosphere around the use of technology in the classroom.

Over the past 5 years I have developed and implemented a 1:1 iPad program in the CORE (grade 7 and 8) department at my school. Currently we have 250 students with 15 staff members using the iPad as their primary learning/teaching device. This program required a change in the teaching ‘culture’ at my school. The iPad forced teachers to rethink what they had been doing in the classroom and what the goals of their teaching was. This ahs been a difficult experience for some teachers – it is easy to blame technology, ‘it is a distraction’, ‘it takes too long’, ‘that’s nice, but how can I use that in my classroom?’. For many it was the realization that we hare preparing students for a very different world then in the past. For many, they will work in careers that don’t yet exist. It is our job to teach them the skills that will make them successful in that future – and mobile technologies will be the instrument that they use more often then any other. Educators need to move away from traditional notions of knowledge retention, and move to a teaching style that promotes collaboration and creativity. The ability to work in teams and problem solve will be 2 of the greatest skills students can have in the 21st century. The role of the teacher too needs to be redefined. No longer are we the keepers of knowledge, it is impossible to think that we have the answers to all questions. Teachers are now facilitators, people who create opportunities for learning to take place, give guidance and direction when required. IN the age of mobile learning, teachers and students are equal partners in the learning experience.

The Little Elementary school that COULD use iPads

What is the position of your workplace regarding the use of mobile devices in the classroom/for learning? Who is allowed to use mobile devices: teachers, students? What for?

My workplace is an elementary school (Grades K-5). The school encourages the use of iPads but there is no provision for smartphones and tablets for students. Additionally, the grade 3-5 students are in a 1-to-1 Mac program, while the K-2 students have access to a laptop cart and a computer room with PC computers.

Teachers are asked not to use their smartphones in the classroom. Video and photos of learning should be taken with the class cameras or an iPad. However, many teachers chose to disregard this rule since their phones are already synced to upload files automatically to the school Google Drive.

Students use the iPads for a variety of learning experiences: from educational apps (across all subjects) to creating movies with iMovie or animations with the app iMotion and a variety of other purposes. My students are currently in love with the game Pet Bingo for practicing operations such as adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

 

What are the obstacles?

The obstacles that we face are minor. The school has a limited supply of iPads, and they must be booked in advance. There are no iPads that belong to an individual classroom.

The second obstacles are the memory size of the iPads. Since the devices have a large number of apps on them, there is little storage space for videos. When students create movies using iMovie the Photo Album usually needs to be erased first to have enough space to record the videos needed to make an iMovie. Additionally, at the end of each month, all iPads have all photos deleted.

 

Are there any success stories?

Success stories are numerous. In my Grade 2 classroom, our third Unit of Inquiry was about technology. The summative assessment was for the students to make an instructional video using iMovie to explain how to use one of the apps that we had learned during the Unit. It is quite interesting to watch the planning, recording and editing ability of students who are only 7-8 years old. The assessments were well done overall. We watched the series of instructional videos in a film festival atmosphere to celebrate our learning and as a way to peer assess each others work.

 

How does the use of mobile devices change the way we teach and learn?

Mobile devices offer so much to teaching and learning. From choice to self-paced study/ review, a mobile device can assist in giving differentiation in tasks and assessments thus our school is able to address some of the factors of motivation that the Ciampa paper discusses. Students are now creators rather than workbook or worksheet completers. This is just the tip of the mobile device iceberg.

 

References

Ciampa, K. (2013, 08). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82-96. doi:10.1111/jcal.12036