Learning with Mobile and Handheld Technologies

John Galloway, Merlin John, Maureen McTaggart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317584346
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

As technology evolves we are ever more reliant on the use of handheld and mobile devices, yet what do we know about their impact on learning? While there is a lot of interest in mobile technology, many schools still aren't sure how to best use it for learning and teaching.

Learning with Handhelds and Mobiles explores this landscape and offers examples of how these technologies have been used for learning, how the problems that have arisen are being addressed, and offers ideas for the future. This invaluable book gives a voice to teachers and educators using mobiles and technology-enhanced learning in and out of schools, for regular school work and for innovative projects through exciting partnerships like Apps for Good.

Learning with Handhelds and Mobiles shows the changes that are taking place within schools as a direct result of these emerging technologies, and contains case studies with accounts of best practice in a variety of settings including primary, secondary, and special schools, and learning beyond their boundaries. The book also explores themes of pedagogy, communication and affordances, collaborative learning, individual creativity and expression, self-directed and informal learning and outdoor education.

The learning potential of handheld and mobile devices has excited teachers and educators, but until now there has been no structured, systematic overview available along with reflections on how this technology is changing educational practice. This book brings these together to provide a clearer picture of what is currently a fragmented area, and offers expert views of how we can understand these, and where it may take us next.

PART I The context

DOI: 10.4324/9781315741833-1

Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781315741833-2

Mobile learning is a term used to define the type of learning that takes place when the learner has some kind of mobile computer, making use of its connectivity, location awareness, content and applications to learn at a time and place of the learner’s choosing.

(Wolverhampton’s Learning2Go)

In other words, ‘Having available the full range of resources and capability that ICT offers in the best classroom – at all times and in all places’ (Dave Whyley, education consultant who led the Learning2Go project in Wolverhampton).

The headlines speak for themselves: ‘Every school child in Los Angeles to get an iPad’ (Daily Mail);¹ ‘Malaysia adopts Google Apps, Chromebooks for education’ (Znet.com);² ‘Kent school gives an iPad to each of its 1,400 pupils’ (Metro).³

Mobile technology for learning has become, as widely and long predicted, a big story worldwide. But what is the reality behind the headlines? Where is the learning and what do teachers, school leaders, administrators, learners and their families need to know to best take advantage of the potential of mobile technologies for learning?

Despite all that has been learned in schools about putting the learning first and then attending to the technology, it seems there is no shortage of decisions that reflect the opposite when it comes to digital tablets, and Apple’s iPad in particular, which was first to market and took the dominant share. Sobering reading for anyone wanting to avoid intoxication by the potential of 1:1 schemes is ‘A second look at iPads in Los Angeles’, a blog post by US academic Larry Cuban, an analysis of how ‘The rollout of iPads in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is becoming a classic case study of what not to do when implementing any innovation whether it is high-tech or low-tech.’⁴

Of course schools have always been interested in new and mobile technologies, but the days of technology being designed and produced specifically for them are, for the most part, gone. Consumerisation of technology is now the dominant trend.

When technology is easy to use schools can be very quick adopters. Digital cameras were an early success, as were the Flip video cameras which also helped accelerate the uptake of reflective practice, a trend that is still growing. And the ease of use that touch technology brought to mobile devices is already opening opportunities for those working in special needs and inclusion (see Chapter 2).

Once upon a time in the UK, schools conducted pilot projects with mobile technology. They were usually set up with commercial partners and technical support, and some were partnered with university researchers looking for learning gains. The area of work even had its own annual conference, Handheld Learning, created by education entrepreneur Graham Brown-Martin, which blossomed into the excellent Learning Without Frontiers before its demise in 2013.⁵

There were also research reports. One early report, produced by a team at the University of Bristol and published by the now-defunct Government ICT agency Becta in 2007, was broadly positive. While it warned that implementing a project using personal digital assistants (PDAs) was ‘logistically challenging and requires careful planning and commitment from all partners’, with this in place, said the report, ‘promising innovative practice is likely to ensue’.⁶

Ironically, their observations chime with those of Larry Cuban in his post about the LA iPads fiasco. ‘Teachers need to play an integral role’, the report warned. ‘Where there is a good match to needs, teachers are more likely to make use of the devices.’

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that the technology back in the 1990s still wasn’t quite ready for anytime, anywhere use. However, the admirable optimism of educators and the enthusiasm of learners, coupled with the promise of new advances in technology, certainly fuelled impressive pilots. And the research into these was mainly positive, despite the identification of administrative issues, like managing distribution and charging, as key obstacles.

One of the first UK successes was the Docklands Learning Acceleration Project in East London, run by the National Literacy Association with partners in the mid-1990s. Around 600 7-year-olds, across some 15 schools, were issued with Acorn Pocket Book handheld computers (rebadged Psion clamshell devices). No technical issues were reported and only one was lost. Improvements were recorded in children’s literacy.

The organisers were clear about the role of the ICT. Project coordinator Ray Barker, who went on to become director of the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), commented: ‘This is a literacy not an IT initiative. The technology is only one tool for learning and is supported by more traditional methods.’⁷

Where pedagogy took the lead there were other early successes. One project in Wolverhampton’s ground-breaking Learning2Go programme took primary school pupils on a field trip to Tenby in South Wales where they were able to pin their digital productions – notes, photos, videos – to maps using GPRS and newly developed software from Wild Knowledge (with on-site support from Steljes educator Dewi Lloyd). Suddenly, map making came alive for learners, and their PDAs were able to operate as the digital notebooks envisaged by pioneering staff.⁸

And over at Goldsmiths, University of London, the E-scape project demonstrated that mobile technology could be used to unlock the potential of peer evaluation to create a highly effective and accurate assessment system that impressed educators by its respect for both process and product, making it a good example of technology enabling changes in practice. Despite being overlooked by UK politicians and policy makers, what once was E-scape is now being sold to happy customers in Sweden, Israel, Ireland, the USA, Australia and Singapore as LiveAssess and ACJ.⁹

As their experience and confidence grew, UK educators specified their ideal device – an education digital assistant (EDA). This would be a digital notebook for photos, text, audio, in fact any media that could be used in support of learning. Such was the enthusiasm that a team involving Wolverhampton headteacher consultant David Whyley actually persuaded Fujitsu Siemens to manufacture one.¹⁰

Unfortunately, the technology still couldn’t match the rapidly developing desires. But very soon it could, with the appearance of Apple’s iPod Touch, even without a dedicated keyboard. This was the nearest thing to an EDA that schools had seen. ‘Instant on’ was a breath of fresh air for people plagued by machines that needed minutes to boot up. And an ‘all-day’ battery was another clincher.

Within a relatively short time projects had shifted from ‘Let’s try and do something interesting with this nice new device and see if there’s any learning to be had,’ to ‘We know the kind of learning we want to do and this is the best device to support it’. And the people who turned everyone’s heads by achieving this to scale – school-wide – can be found in Bolton, at Essa Academy (see Chapter 6).¹¹

Through thoughtful leadership and vision, Essa Academy ranks as one of the happiest and most successful schools in the UK. ‘All will succeed’, its motto, is not optional. The focus is on engaging all the students in rich, effective learning, anytime and anywhere. And their first brave step, after an initial pilot and positive feedback from students, was to give everyone in the school – all learners and all staff – an iPod Touch.

Former Essa principal Showk Badat and his staff have innovated the learning at the school and the iPod was the first device to come along that best supported it. Visitors who are starstruck by the technology, and think it’s an Apple story, miss the point. It’s far more than that, with personalisation of learning at its heart.

The most important management message from Essa for education decision makers comes from Showk Badat, who had charts on his office walls for every department, including both their results and their costs. ‘They show that the costs of getting grades A, B and C are getting smaller,’ he explains. ‘What appears to be a high level of cost for a particular resource, ICT, gives us a high impact on grades so it has given us better value for money.’

This school leader is very conscious of the price of success. And, for Essa, the judicious use of mobile technology to support great learning has actually lowered that price. The evidence is there to be shared. Back in 2009 Essa worked out that the cost per C+ grade was approximately £3,990. The use of ICT brought that down to £2,380 by 2010 – a saving of £1,610 (40 per cent).

Now the school has moved on. It has replaced the iPods with iPads, which were not available when the original decision was taken. Interest in Essa is at such a level that the school has timetabled public tours and, as you might expect from an innovative school, they are supported by curriculum work involving students. It might interest UK Conservative politicians, who would like state schools to be more like private schools, that one of the visits was by the English school that educated so many of the UK Coalition Government’s cabinet ministers – Eton College.

Teachers and school leaders who had pioneered the use of mobile technologies now feel free to take quick steps forward as mobile devices become suitable for both school and home use. Carl Faulkner, award-winning headteacher at Normanby Primary School, Middlesbrough, demonstrates this cusp in this reflection on school use of digital video: ‘When we first started using video I would carry the video camera and a colleague would walk behind me carrying the battery. It might take us a month to edit the footage. Now my learners can shoot a video on their iPod Touches, edit it on the fly, and if they don’t like it they can reshoot it.’¹²

Normanby Primary School has already been carrying out its own successful 1:1 iPod Touch pilot and working on interesting new ways to integrate the exciting new technologies becoming available with teachers’ own tried and tested classroom favourites (see Chapter 4). While the school’s vision for learning guides its developments there is also a healthy streak of pragmatism that ensures sensible use of resources.

That’s also very much the attitude at Cramlington Learning Village in Northumberland, ‘Where the Art of Teaching meets the Science of Learning’, according to its school motto. A state secondary school in the north-east of England, it has been at the thoughtful edge of learning and technology for a number of years, also working with developers to ensure that its teachers and learners have access to technology that supports its highly developed policies for learning and teaching (see Chapter 7).¹³

Never one to follow the crowd, Cramlington considered iPads for its 1:1 plans but opted instead for 7-inch Android devices from Samsung. Interestingly, Cramlington recognises the rapid development in technologies and does not feel itself wedded to any particular hardware platform – it does not consider itself ‘an Android school’ and is open to other developments, like Windows tablets.

Cramlington can take this position because it has carefully built up an impressive ICT infrastructure of virtual learning environment and curriculum content that can work with a range of hardware. It’s an important point for other schools looking to adopt mobile devices for staff and students, and representatives of the school were on hand at the Tablets for Schools conference in London in December 2013 to help demonstrate the diversity and choice available.¹⁴

That’s also important because a technology sea change is taking place in UK schools as the move to mobile devices gathers pace. And as the clamour surrounding mobile technology increases, there has been no central, independent source of objective research and advice for schools since the incoming Coalition Government closed down the national ICT education agency Becta in 2011.¹⁵

In fact, the new government’s lack of understanding of learning with technology took educators and schools by surprise. Questions on the issue went unanswered and it took the then education secretary Michael Gove MP more than a year to make a statement on the issue. His keynote presentation to the BETT 2012 educational technology event in London that January was a superficially reassuring commitment to the importance of technology for learning. However, the technology advisory team of civil servants that had prepared the speech had been disbanded within months.¹⁶

The Westminster policy on ICT for learning was clear – there was no policy. Schools should work it out for themselves. Stung by criticism by Google boss Eric Schmidt of the role of technology in the English national curriculum, the government handed over responsibility for curriculum reform to BCS – the Chartered Institute for IT (known as the British Computer Society) and the Royal Academy of Engineering. The result was a new subject, Computing, heavily weighted towards computer science.¹⁷

It would be a mistake however to focus solely on policy for English schools. Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland all have their own distinctive approaches to curriculum and technology deployment. Wales, in particular, is looking well placed for the adoption of mobile technology because its new Hwb national network for learning has been designed to work on all technology, from mobile phones and handhelds through digital tablets to desktop machines. And Scotland has already pioneered the use of off-the-shelf computer games, on mobile devices too (Nintendo DS), through the ground-breaking work of Derek Robertson at the sadly now-defunct Consolarium.

Despite the virtual disappearance of national UK leadership on technology for learning, schools might have reconsidered the place of ICT for learning but they certainly did not appear to relax their investments. Market research conducted by British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) in 1,238 UK schools (731 primary and 507 secondary) indicates that they expect to spend record le...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I: the context
• Part II: the practice
• Part III: the analysis
• Bibliography
• Index