Mobile Learning and Higher Education

Challenges in Context

Helen Crompton,John Traxler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315296715
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica inclusiva

Mobile Learning and Higher Education provides case studies of mobile learning in higher education settings to showcase how devices can transform learning at the undergraduate and graduate levels. With the rapid diffusion of networked technologies among the adult populations of many countries and the supersession of the once-ubiquitous lecture approach with active learner-centered teaching for deep understanding, mobile devices are increasingly used in higher education classrooms to offer unique and effective new approaches to teaching and learning. A cutting-edge research volume, this collection also provides a springboard for building better practices in higher education institutions.

1

THE IPAD SIX YEARS ON

Progress and Problems for Enhancing Mobile Learning with Special Reference to Fieldwork Education

W. Brian Whalley, Alice L. Mauchline, Derek France, Julian Park and Katharine Welsh

Introduction

Fieldwork is an important part of research and educational activities in several disciplines. Geography, geology and bio- and ecological sciences are perhaps the most obvious, but this list can be extended to civil engineering and surveying, archaeology and history. Simply taking students out of the classroom can make their learning more engaging, as can being immersed in the environment that they are learning about. However, active learning is more than just being outdoors. Active learning includes any instructional method that engages students in the learning process by doing meaningful learning activities, especially thinking, questioning and problem-solving in the field (France, Whalley, & Mauchline, 2013). Examples of active learning approaches include problem-based learning, enquiry-based learning, types of peer-to-peer instruction and group/collaborative learning. These are in addition to traditional fieldwork attributes of observing, note-taking, data recording and interpretation.

The advent of the Personal Digital Assistant led to the smartphone, in particular Apple’s iPhone, from 2007. A new dimension was added to the hardware with the rapid development of a wide variety of apps, some of which could be used for fieldwork enhancement, especially in higher education (HE). It was not until the arrival of Apple’s iPad in April 2010 that screen sizes became suitable for reading and annotating PDFs as well as other visual academic tasks.

To enable data and information to be recorded in the field, the paper notebook has traditionally been a central part of the fieldwork equipment, with waterproof or water-resistant paper, for note-taking and sketching. Users of paper notebooks might also need various other devices for field-orientated tasks: camera, hand lens, compass and clinometer, light meter and/or sound meter. For the most part, the iPad can incorporate all these functions. Traditional, paper-based methods can be replaced or supplemented by an iPhone or iPad. Note-taking in the field can be performed or enhanced digitally, photographically or with audio recording. Images of paper notes can be used to back up fieldwork and added to a digital notebook. Additionally, the digital facilities in smartphones and tablets can be used to enhance the accessibility of such notes.

The use of computers in fieldwork is of long standing. Gardiner and Unwin (1986) extoled the virtues of using computers for fieldwork data analysis and report writing. At that stage, however, personal computers were large and, even if they could be used in the field, they were expensive and had a short battery life. Student use of computers tended to be in the laboratory or classroom after the day’s fieldwork. Even the advent of inexpensive ‘netbooks’ from about 2007 did not solve many of the difficulties of ‘field computing’ until the arrival of the iPad and the widespread uptake of apps. The iPad is essentially an upgrade of Alan Kay’s ‘Dynabook’ of 1972 but, with the use of owner-selected apps, it has some of the characteristics of Neal Stephenson’s ‘Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer’ (Stephenson, 1995) in that it grows with the owner/user.

The Enhancing Fieldwork Learning Project

The (UK) Higher Education Authority-funded project Enhancing Fieldwork Learning (EFL) started in 2010 with the aim of using mobile devices to help enhance fieldwork learning. This chapter reports some of our investigations, particularly in the areas of biology, geography, earth and environmental sciences (Bio-GEES) fieldwork. We have used iPads and, to a lesser extent, iPhones as a means of extending student participation in fieldwork, primarily because they were the market leader at the start of the project. We have continued with them in several forms because of the wide number of apps available. Other types of smart devices could equally be used appropriately in the situations we describe. The EFL project has been concerned with developing the use of the iPad from the original function of a media-consuming device to become part of a personal learning environment (PLE) for students. By using an iPad, together with appropriate apps and affordances in pedagogically sound ways, students can benefit from these devices to promote their own active education (McHaney, 2011).

In order to investigate the potential of tablet computers to enhance field teaching and learning we initially purchased six (original) iPads in 2010, but this has since been supplemented by several iPad Minis (versions 2 and 4), increasingly as departmental stock. We loaned these to geography and bioscience fieldwork practitioners for their separate field trips (both one-day and residential) to explore how tutors and students could use iPads to develop teaching activities and to gauge how students responded to the use of mobile technologies. Most Bio-GEES student fieldwork is done in small groups. We examined how this class set of 12 iPads was used to support group work (usually four people per group) in the field for day classes as well as one or two week-long residential trips in the UK at several locations and abroad (New York, Iceland). Students were responsible for taking the iPads to the venue from their home departments.

This progressive-use approach allowed us to explore the breadth of pedagogic possibilities provided by iPads and the use of a selection of education-related apps that we wanted the students to use for particular exercises. Initially, this was practitioner-led and the learning tasks were set prior to the trip. The students were not always able to spend much time familiarizing themselves with the devices before the fieldwork but all students had a chance to use them to support their learning in the field. The limited number of iPads did not present a problem because of the group work. Some apps were recommended to the students for particular tasks, but the students were also at liberty to explore and use other apps as required. This also allowed the students to explore the capabilities of iPads and appropriate them for their learning.

Students’ Learning Spaces

Students work in a range of educational spaces (Savin-Baden, 2008) and fieldwork provides one such ‘learning space’. The notion of ‘person plus computer’ means that we can take our cognitive learning spaces around with us (Gärdenfors, 2004). By extension, ‘fieldwork’ no longer means in remote locations but anywhere users are located: home, hospital, lecture theatre or laboratory. A ‘Personal Learning Environment’ (PLE) can be defined by an individual person, but can be greatly enhanced by the possession of a device such as an iPad (or Stephenson’s ‘Illustrated Primer’) and supplemented by ‘the cloud’ and Wi-Fi. Not only can digital information be stored, but inter-connected repositories can be searched and information retrieved and (re-)transmitted in a manner that is far more cost-effective than in pre-iPhone days. For example, information literacy skills can be developed by students searching electronic databases for additional information to incorporate into reports. The EFL project capitalizes on these attributes of information storage, connectedness and sharing data and analysis in any location.

When a student joins a university or college, an institutional app may provide information about the local milieu, including maps, social scene, lecture theatre locations and perhaps lecture times. The student can use their PLE in this everyday sense and add their academic work to this mobile environment. Academic work might include suggested reading, notes on the reading, bibliographic information and work to be submitted to tutors. The iPad alone is not the PLE but part of the knowledge network, and is probably more useful than the local Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) because it is mobile and can be personalized. Information sharing is of course already highly developed by students at an informal level via social media. Moreover, iPads are highly portable and may well evolve with their owners such that social and academic lives can, with care, be part of any individual’s overall education. We have developed this concept further where we refer to the iPad and apps as a vade mecum (Whalley, France, Mauchline, Welsh, & Park, 2016). We suggest that these ideas concerned with mobile technologies need to be further developed in all areas of HE.

Early Adopting Practitioners: Teaching Staff

We have examined both student and tutor/lecturing staff (‘faculty’ in the US) by questionnaires and focus groups on fieldwork events. At an early stage we asked fieldwork practitioners in the Bio-GEES disciplines about their use of mobile technologies to support learning in the field. Participants were surveyed by questionnaire in 2011 to help understand their practical and pedagogic motivations. The majority of the 89 respondents indicated that data processing (including data capture, analysis and sharing) and information and communications technology (ICT) skills development were their primary motivations (Welsh, Mauchline, Park, Whalley, & France, 2013). The main barriers to adoption were the cost and reliability of the equipment as well as concerns over staff and student capabilities. We also noticed (Welsh, France, Whalley, & Park, 2012) that students were worried about damaging their own or an institution-provided smartphone, yet rarely voiced the same concerns about very expensive specialist equipment used in the field such as a differential GPS.

The main fieldwork learning tasks teaching staff devised involved the use of iPads to: take photographs and videos, enable web browsing, enter raw data, collect GPS-linked data and geo-reference photographs (Welsh et al., 2012). Other activities included the use of Twitter for communication and the creation of short reflective videos. However, we concurred with a JISC report (Linsey et al., 2011) that students, ‘do not use their personal technologies for learning unprompted’. However, we also found 12 per cent of our practitioner questionnaire responses about emerging technology (in 2010) indicated that devices will become interconnected in the field; thus: ‘People expect to be able to work, learn and study whenever and wherever they want to’ (Johnson, Adams, & Cummins, 2012). Our showcase events and publication (France et al., 2015) show how this may be achieved. The HEA funding allowed us to put on annual two-day events.

Initial Student Responses

At the beginning of the project, few students had used an iPad. In our mixed-methodology approach, 173 undergraduates on six fieldtrips responded to a questionnaire (Welsh et al., 2015) used to gain some idea of how students used iPads during fieldwork and the perceived benefits and drawbacks of their use. The iPad is designed to be intuitive to use and we found that students were able to adapt to working with these devices very quickly. The students reported that the multi-functionality of the iPad and its portability were the main benefits. There were some misgivings by students at first, that they might break or damage their loaned iPads, as well as some issues relating to internet connectivity availability in the field. To obviate damage to iPads we purchased protective cases for student use. This increases their bulk and weight a little and can be a nuisance when some accessories, such as supplementary lenses, need to be used. In fact, over the project we had no problems with damage and the cases ensured that one iPad survived being submersed in a geothermal pool on a trip to Iceland!

In our survey (Welsh et al., 2015) the students largely focused on the technology aspect of the device with 26 per cent recognizing that the iPad was convenient as an all-in-one or multi-tool device. They did not, however, recognize pedagogic benefits such as increased engagement and the iPads’ use as a reflective tool. This was a similar finding to that of Woodcock et al. (2012), which suggested that students rely on guidance from their tutors in the use of mobile devices.

Some Examples of iPad-Supported Tasks in Fieldwork Learning

Although we found students took to using iPads with enthusiasm in their fieldwork, they frequently had to be told what facilities were available as affordances of the iPad and the apps that would be useful. We have listed many of these in France et al. (2015). Some other student experiences in using iPads are further discussed in Whalley et al. (2015). Although smartphones provide pedagogic affordances for some mobile devices, the larger screen offered by tablets provides much greater usability than small smartphones as it enhances the ‘device aspect’ of Koole’s (2009) FRAME model.

That an iPad can act as a device for note-taking and photography, still and video, is only one aspect of their capabilities. Apps are available for making it easier to accomplish quite complex tasks, such as editing video or still photographs and audio dubbing. For some applications an instructor has to know the capabilities of the iPad as well as the apps available before going into the field. For example, in geological sciences it is often necessary to take angular measurements and direction of rock strata (dip and strike). The traditional method is to use a separate clinometer and compass, take many measurements in the field and then undertake the data reduction and plot it back at base. Only there was it possible to look at field sampling and the data’s statistical significance. Now it is possible to take these measurements with an iPad in the field. F...