Padagogy

This is a repost of some excellent work of a friend, Allan Carrington, who is also an Apple Distinguished Scholar and has considerable experience with integrating technologies into classrooms and lecture theatres.  His work blends Bloom's taxonomy with the verbs needed to articulate the specific learning outcomes desired for a course of study, the activities you might engage in with students to support the learning outcomes, and ultimately, some of the tools available on the iPad to help support those activities.

It is a very nice piece of work and well worth discussion. Go HERE to download a copy of the current iteration of the Padagogy Wheel or HERE to read more about Allan's work if you haven't already come across his work. Enjoy.

Technology-assisted Language Learning

Technology-assisted Language Learning (TALL), Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL) have been part of the tool set for language learning for over 50 years, with one of the very early innovations created at the University of Illinois in the form of the PLATO project in 1960.

Fast forward 50 years and The new generation of learning tools includes smart phones and tablets, and phablets (devices that are somewhere between a phone and a tablet in size), with more computing power, memory and connectivity than could be imagined even just a decade ago. Then you can add to the mix cloud computing and cloud-based applications that are all accessible through wireless and 3G and 4G networks, and the opportunities for language learning are almost endless.

However, putting the pieces together remains a non-trivial task particularly when you move from content delivery to students, to content creation and reflection by students. In some of the work undertaken with colleagues, we have combined cloud-based applications, mobile technologies and ePortfolios to create learning environments where the place of the teacher is important in order to develop and support (modelling and feedback) the learning framework and learning goals, While simultaneously providing an environment that is implicitly student centred and controlled, allowing students to present artefacts (in a coherent and creative manner) they have created to provide evidence of their development of language skills and proficiencies (in this example, English).   The figure below shows the structure of the learning environment, indicating which parts of the environment are entirely student controlled and centred, which parts are shared between students and students (and students and teachers), and which parts are teacher designed and organised.  Feedback welcomed. Please note, the graphic is released under a Creative Commons license and may be reused in not-for-profit contexts and it would be appreciated if the author (Professor David M. Kennedy) was acknowledged, should someone wish to reuse or repurpose the image. We are also looking for collaborators interested in language learning research.

2010: The year the mWorld becomes mainstream?

I have deliberately used a provocative title based upon all of the articles that are appearing touting the rise of mobile computing in 2010, moving from the fringes of education to the center. But will it happen in higher education in the West? I am inclined to agree with Tony Bates when he suggests that the revolution will occur, but not where we might expect it to.

On a trip through Rajasthan in 2008, a relatively desolate place of sand and scrubby trees with little sign of habitation, I was constantly amazed to find a mobile presence - a connection to a mobile network on my mobile phone. More recently, attending a UNESCO event in Paris (Dec. 2009) I was intrigued and very engaged when the presenter talked about the impact that a project funded by Nokia was making on the lives of farmers in developing countries. Can you think of a more contrasting image to that above? Farming practices that have remained unchanged for hundreds of years, supplemented by real-time instant updates via a mobile phone to market prices for produce in the city.

In developing countries, where a small fraction of the population has access to a traditional library, the mobile phone provides a link to the internet for a much larger proportion of the population. The concept of learning via mobile phones is compelling, because that is the medium of communication and collaboration, providing access to the wider world, to markets, improving the fundamental aspects of peoples lives. In one sense, in developed countries we are too rich - we have so many other avenues by which we can access information, and so many alternative means available to us for collaboration.

Arguments for appropriate pedagogy when considering the use of technology in teaching and learning occasionally miss the point - pedagogy does not exist in a vacuum, anywhere. The local context, perceived educational needs and motivation, and the educational intent and knowledge of learning design of the teachers who design and develop learning activities are also key drivers that impact on the adoption of any technology - most especially mLearning. Having said that, it is clear that there is an unstoppable change occurring, with small mobile computing devices (netbooks, laptops and mobile phones in particular), outselling desktops. Mobile phones now have features that just a few years ago required a desktop with an ethernet connection. There seems to be an opportunity or two here to engage students with the technology they always carry and is always on.

Mobile application: iCount

One of the more interesting outcomes from the trip to Thailand was the use and testing of a very simple tool called iCount. The iCount tool is designed to do just what it says, count things. When students undertake field trips they are often required to create frequency graphs of a variety of objects. For example, on this particular field trip students were required to count pedestrians, different kinds of vehicles, and/or the variety and nature of signage in the business district. Traditionally this is done with a notepad and pen or pencil, a list of things to be counted and some kind of frequency counting method involving simple strokes on paper. However, it is not this activity that is specifically valued. What is important is what the students can do with the data, the interpretations they make and the conclusions formed. The iCount tool is intended to make the first part very easy, data collection, while simultaneously putting the data into a format that can be analysed using Excel, for example. The figure on the right shows a screen captured from a PDA during the data collection process undertaken by the students on the field trip.

The iCount tool is simple in the extreme. Once the data has been captured the saved file is in the form of a .CVS file. When students download the file to their PCs and click on it, it opens automatically in Excel. The issues of transferring data from paper to electronic form for analysis disappear. Students are better able to focus on the key requirements of analysis, graphing and interpretation of the data. In discussions with students this particular tool was valued because of its:

• ease-of-use; and
  
• ability to create a file ready for analysis using Excel.

The students were very pragmatic in their use of the PDAs for data collection and analysis purposes. Implicitly, they subscribed to the KIS principle, keep it simple! They did not value any tools that were complex or difficult to use, thus requiring a steep learning curve.

Creating a file that the iCount tool uses as its source file is relatively simple also. The source file is an XML file. One of the students modified the original demonstration file in order to count different types of signage -- one of the prescribed tasks. This was about five minutes after being shown how the source files could be created. The text from a typical source file is shown below.
The XML file is of the form:


The iCount tool would seem to be one of the success stories of data collection and analysis on this particular field trip using a PDA. I have received inquires expressing considerable interest from others who have heard of the tool and want to use it in a similar way with their students. If you would like to use the tool, you are free to download it from my personal web site (http://people.cite.hku.hk/dkennedy/DMK/dmk7.html). I am interested in working with people to develop the tool futher and make it even more useful and user-friendly. Please send me an e-mail if you are interested in collaborating.