Learning & Teaching

I have just returned from a rare event in the world of educational technology; Apple have finally stuck their head above the parapet in the UK and co-hosted an event with Handheld Learning with the title The Rise of Mobility in Education.  It didn’t didn’t take me long to discover the mnemonic RoME in the title, which seemed a highly appropriate hash tag to use on Twitter, as I intended to tweet throughout the event. Scheduled for two hours and situated in Apple’s Executive Briefing Center in the heart of London I was fully aware of the rarity of such an event as Apple have been very quiet about the educational uses of their mobile devices. The iPod range being the most popular mobile device in history. Of course my interest was more vested than simply my usual passion for all things Apple, I have an iPod Touch pilot scheme running currently and this was a rare opportunity to be in the company of experts.

I just prayed that the event wasn’t going to be another product pitch or technical dissemination on why the iPod is the only gadget for education. I wanted to hear about pedagogy, learners and those who facilitate that learning, in fact, as I walked along Regent Street prior to the seminar I became resolute that if the event was pitched at the sales/technical level then I would ask determined questions about the latter. I had done a little preparation by familiarizing myself with the chapter on mobile and wireless learning (pg180-190) in Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age (Beetham, Sharpe et al, 2007). I created another mnemonic to summarize and aid me in remembering the basic characteristics of ubiquitous, mobile, learning technologies. It was;

Situated

Informal

Mobile

Personalized

Learning

Experience

Simple and effective.

As it turned out, I had no need for this invasive tactic as the lecture was purely embedded in educational paradigm.  Our speaker, Gordon Shukwit (Worldwide Director of I.T & Learning, Apple) introduced himself and was quickly off the mark. An explanation of how pedagogy, content and technology can overlap following the  TPACK model (see Figure 1) ensued. This model clearly shows how the three primary constituents of knowledge can form a complex interplay, creating hybrid knowledge where they intersect.

Fig.1 TPACK Model

“Considering P and C together we get Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Shulman’s idea of knowledge of pedagogy that is applicable to the teaching of specific content. Similarly, considering T and C taken together, we get Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), the knowledge of the relationship between technology and content. At the intersection of T and P, is Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), which emphasizes the existence, components and capabilities of various technologies as they are used in the settings of teaching and learning.

Finally, at the intersection of all three elements is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). True technology integration is understanding and negotiating the relationships between these three components of knowledge. A teacher capable of negotiating these relationships represents a form of expertise different from, and greater than, the knowledge of a disciplinary expert (say a mathematician or a historian), a technology expert (a computer scientist) and a pedagogical expert (an experienced educator). Effective technology integration for pedagogy around specific subject matter requires developing sensitivity to the dynamic, [transactional] relationship between all three components.” (Mishra & Koehler, 2006)

I had not come across this framework before and, for the first time, I recognised a model which I could adopt for the m-SM project and possibly a whole lot more besides. It was one of those moments in which you can feel a ‘shift’ happen in your logic, perhaps this was that ‘defining moment’ I had been looking for? The framework itself is still at the early stage of development but has made it beyond theory into praxis, with several case studies available. The most informative of which being Brigham Young University’s Instructional Technology for ElEd and ECE course. On the course website can be found links to a number of trainee teacher’s reflections in which they have evidenced the use of the TPACK framework in their practice. The blogs can be found here.

Shukwit continued onto how students are required to be ‘librarians’ and understand classification systems in order to access content, drawing comparisons with folder structures and libraries. He asked the question, “How do students know when to delete a folder or portion of content?” and how multiple views of content can be ambiguous, demanding a need for content creators/organisors to be clear and succinct.

The next model presented was entitled the Technology Adoption Life Cycle and was based around Rubens’ SAMR model of ICT integration. The model is a progressive four tiered adoption scheme which begins with Substitution, followed respectively by Augmentation, Modification and finalizing in Redefinition. See Figure 2;

SAMR Model (Rubens, 2006)

A explanatory podcast with audio by Ruben can be found here.

It is strange to think back to a time when using a spellchecker was considered cheating by a great number of institutions. These attitudes are to be expected and are often necessary for the innovators to control their innovations, they serve to open the idea to a greater degree of open scrutiny, challenge assumptions and eventually mold it into a more streamlined concept. This concept  can then become embedded in society.

“When Technology fails (it’s learners) it’s Technology itself that gets the blame, never the content or pedagogy.” (Shukwit, 2009)

The Digital Learning Environment (DLE) has been driven by an ‘us’ or shared ideology and three basic types of technology have been the vehicles for this i.e. tethered, portable and mobile. It would be timely to give definitions to these innovations:

Tethered: wired technologies such as desktop pc’s.

Portable: can be wired on wireless such as laptops and tablet pc’s.

Mobile: wireless and can ‘fit into your pocket’ such as mobile phones, PDAs and mp3 players.

Tethered and portable technologies are predominantly shared user content and collaborative devices where the emphasis is on networking. Mobile however carries it’s own unique learning qualities, where the emphasis is on ‘me’ and singling out students as individual learners with their own requirements and needs. Hence the emergence of Individual Learning Plans (ILP) in which the student takes control of their own learning e.g. downloading content ‘as and when’ they require it to be used ‘as and when’ they please. Teachers can now identify a learners specific requirements and ‘push’ content to that learners device, or the learner can ‘pull’ content from content rich servers.

Apple’s iPhone Enterprise Programme allows content to be delivered and received in this way. It bypasses the now standard iTunes (us) model and utilizes a fundamentally different and ‘me’ centered approach, where learners target or are targeted by educators for content pertinent to their specific learning needs.

The remainder of the seminar was presented around the iPhone Enterprise Programme and all of it’s merits, I have to admit that the proceedings became overly technical and resembled the instructions on the back of a MicroSoft product package (sorry Apple!) and I switched off. I did however manage to ask a couple of questions to which the answer’s were wholly unsatisfactory I felt. I asked whether or not ActiveSync was a robust system to which  ‘no comment’ was pretty much the reply, Shukwit was either unable to comment on another companies product or unwilling to. I had assumed that since Apple were engaged with this particular Microsoft product they would be wholly endorsing it as ‘secure’, in this sense, I was suprised at the reply. The reason I required confirmation was not a sleight on MicroSoft, but more to assure my own institution (who are extremely reluctant to install AciveSync due to ‘horror’ stories they had heard) that ‘even Apple’ considered it safe enough to use. Now I am left with the feeling that it is either not secure or Apple simply couldn’t or wouldn’t confirm this for whatever reasons. Several other attendee’s tried to push the question farther nut where met with the same dance.

The other concern I raised was the lack of a quality camera and video capture on the iPhone/Touch making it less suitable for educational purposes than other similar mobile devices. The reply was similar to my previous attempt, I was requested to add it to the feedback sheet we were all given because “we like to listen”. On that note I left the seminar bursting with inspiration, by the time I had reached Regent Street the inspiration had dissolved into frustration. In that short journey in the lift I remembered what I faced back at RSAMD. ActiveSync was the key to unlocking a great resource in both educational and productivity terms, these rumors of it being vulnerable were stemming a potential groundswell of technological enhancement. Paranoia was the real enemy here, as well as an ignorance of how technology, content and pedagogy can be a trinity to be reckoned with.

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A new framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record. 108(6), 1017-1054.

Ruben R. Puentedura. Transformation, Technology, and Education. (2006)

Shukwit, G. ( March 12th , 2009). in proceedings of the The Rise of the Mobile in Education seminar, London, UK.