Reflections on Mobile Learning

The fact that mobile technology has changed the world is something all fields are facing. From the disruption of traditional businesses like transportation, retail, banking and television, the traditional modes of teaching and learning is not safe from technological disruption[i] . 

Mobile learning(mLearning) is one of the areas where there has been huge leaps and bounds in expanding what is possible when it comes to teaching and learning [ii]. AAs highlighted by Squire, the possibilities are endless and the innovations are not ending anytime soon.

While imagining the possibilities and endless opportunities mlearning has opened up, one of the questions raised by Kurzweill and echoed implicitly by Romrell et.al, and numerous is the issue of use and consistent engagement with the technology by students for various reasons. As Romrell et.al pointed out, sometimes students need to be taught how to use their own devices beyond the information acquisition and dissemination functions.

This highlights the issues of secondary access especially in education[iii] . While a lot of students have access to technology, using it for more functional operations as required in education is not a strength. In addition, the technical and management issues that affect standardizing educational tech products across all the different phone platforms is not easy. This puts the onus on the instructional designer to be mindful of design choices and practices and how they affect learning and teaching for all students, not just the ideal student.

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[i] (Bill Joy, 2004; Chalmers, 2010; Kurzweil, 2005)

[ii] (Dikkers, Martin, & Coulter, 2012; Romrell, Kidder, & Wood, 2014)

[iii] (Dolan, 2015; Helsper, 2012; Norris, 2001; Warschauer, 2003)

Learning first, tech Second.

The important aspect of viewing games and how their impact is affecting education is tackled from the design perspective here.  With the different pedagogical approaches to how games can be effective in teaching and learning, understanding how design and its implementation ultimately affects both the teaching and the learning process is essential[1](Hirumi, Appelman, Rieber, & Van Eck, 2010; Shelton & Wiley, 2006)

By trying to understand how the instructional goals of designers does not necessarily lend itself to games at first brush the papers make a case for instructional designers to understand the aspects of play and flow.   This is because by understanding the perspective of the ‘play’ as encompassed by games, helps the instructional designer to come up with a better educational game as highlighted by Shelton et.al and Van Eck[2]. I believe the instructor and by extension the instructional designer is helped in their design of curriculum and instruction processes.

The other interesting aspect of this is how even with dgbl and all this cutting edge technology, the learning experience is highly impacted by the knowledge and expertise of the designer at the design level and that of the instructor at the instructional level. This is a traditional educational problem plaguing dgbl which with all the technology still needs to be solved.

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[1] (Hirumi et al., 2010; Shelton & Wiley, 2006)

[2] (Van Eck, 2015)

A reflection on Halverson and Collins’ Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology.

As a technology skeptic, who also understands that we are in the midst of the most profound tech revolution to disrupt not just education but society at large, Halverson and Collins speak to me in how they lay out the history of the pro and con side of technology in education[i].

 By laying out the point of view of the technology optimist, the authors as far back as 2009, identify different areas where technology has the potential and ability to change education. In 2017, their words have proven to be prescient. Online learning is expanding and gaming has become a mainstay of education across different educational settings[ii]. In addition, scaffolding and distance learning have become mainstays at the higher educational levels[iii] where they are main selling points in recruiting and retaining students. there is also a battle royal going on between all the  major technology companies; Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others to control the educational technology space.

While technology is gradually fulfilling the optimist’s utopia, significant problems as identified by Halverson and Collins still remain. Some of these include cost, the lack of training for instructors and the continued co-option and marginalization of technology by schools. The problem of solving primary access to technology to provide a 1:1 ratio of equipment to students has for the most part been solved[iv]. However, what is becoming increasingly clear, is the fact that, there is a second level technology divide which is increasing inequality contrary to the promise of technology in the educational and by extension, social realms[v].

In the end, while normally a skeptic, I do understand and appreciate the great promise of technology. This promise is being fulfilled in the continued democratization, expansion and access to education and information facilitated by technology since 2009 when the authors published this piece. In addition, I believe technology is slowly winning the battle to become a core functionality of education as argued by skeptics. However, as has been outlined by Cuban and numerous others, technology still faces a lot of challenges the least of which is the unintended expansion of the inequality gap it is exacerbating.

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[i] (Collins & Halverson, 2009)

[ii] (Allen & Seaman, 2017; Ho et al., 2014)

[iii] (Vlachopoulos & Makri, 2017)

[iv] (Dolan, 2015; Miller & Norris, 2016; Yelland & Neal, 2013)

[v] (Büchi, Just, & Latzer, 2016; Helsper, 2012; Meyers-Martin & Lampert, 2013; Warschauer & Matuchniak, 2010)

Reflections on DGBL Literature

The extensive reviews done for digital game based learning (dgbl) shows a growing body of research using different taxonomies, methodologies and subject areas. They are all mostly coming to the same conclusion that games and simulations are increasingly proving to be effective in both the cognitive and psycho motor learning process in  various settings [1].

 While the effectiveness of dgbls is true and increasingly being shown, the other aspect is the traditional nature of the challenges facing the field. It is unmistakable that, digital game based learning is faced with some of the same issues faced by traditional approaches to learning. This includes effective pedagogy, understanding cognitive process and effective evaluations and taking into account the cost-benefit of implementing dgbl in place of other models.

For as exciting and exhilarating as dgbls are, these leads to the question of how different are they, if we are still answering the same questions as it pertains to traditional education and learning models. As pointed out by various researchers and authors including Prensky, van Eck and others, the experience in a dgbl environment while cutting edge is still highly dependent on the instructor, curriculum and available resources[2] . This makes for sober reflection and understanding of the dgbls as serious educational tools. They need to be utilized with h understanding that they are not the cure-all for all that ails education.

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[1] Koehler, M. J. ( 1 ), Arnold, B. ( 1 ), Greenhalgh, S. P. ( 1 ), Boltz, L. O. ( 1 ), & Burdell, G. P. ( 2 ). (2017). A Taxonomy Approach to Studying How Gamers Review Games. Simulation and Gaming, 48(3), 363–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878117703680

Tobias, S., Fletcher, J. D., & Wind, A. P. (2014). Game-Based Learning. In Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology (pp. 485–503). New York, NY: Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3185-5_38

Vlachopoulos, D., & Makri, A. (2017). The effect of games and simulations on higher education: a systematic literature review. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 14(1), 22. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0062-1

[2] Cuban, L. (2009). Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom (Google eBook). Harvard University Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=sdSutyVQfzYC&pgis=1

Hirumi, A., Appelman, B., Rieber, L., & Van Eck, R. (2010). Preparing Instructional Designers for Game-Based Learning: Part 2. TechTrends, 54(4), 19–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-010-0416-1

Lester, J. C., Ha, E. Y., Lee, S. Y., Mott, B. W., Rowe, J. P., & Sabourin, J. L. (2013). Serious Games Get Smart: Intelligent Game-Based Learning Environments. AI Magazine, 34(4), 31.

https://doi.org/10.1609/aimag.v34i4.2488

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Game Based Learning. icom (Vol. 152). Retrieved from

http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=citeulike01-21&path=ASIN/3866440103

Van Eck, R. (2006). Digital Game-Based Learning: It’s not just the Digital Natives Who are Restless. Journal, Vol 41(Issue 2), 16–30. Retrieved from http://edergbl.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/47991237/digital game based learning 2006.pdf

Playing around in Qualtrics

Qualtrics can simply be classified as an information gathering technology that is used mainly in survey form and other data collection modes. It is one of the main research tools in most academic settings, and widely adopted across the Ohio University campus. The use experience has been great for me so far but also challenging. While the interface is easy to use and follow, building effective surveys or questionnaires with this is more challenging that it seems.

My starting skill level in this game was at the beginner to intermediate level. While I have used this in the past, it had been to build very basic surveys and the interface has been extensively updated since my last use.

Playing around Qualtrics this time has been a good learning experience this time around. As mentioned above, while building a simple questionnaire in Qualtrics is easy. It takes some playing around to find some really interesting features. For example, including logic questions with embedded if, and, or statements can help a researcher build different levels into surveys. In addition, there are so many fascinating and different ways to structure questions and the previews actually make it really easy to understand the various structure and types of questions.

The one thing that is interesting and you will think will have been figured out by now is the background stuff. For example, saving the same surveys in the different interfaces you can get to them gives you very dramatic experiences. Sometimes you get the new interface where you can update all aspects of the survey, other times, you get a very stripped-down version which does not enable you to do as much.

 The reason I chose to write about Qualtrics is the fact that, at least on this campus and most other university campus, it is a tool that is available and used widely. In addition, from using this, a lot of research classes and methodology for designing questionnaire’s made sense from seeing the different question types that is possible. It also seems to be a very easy way to introduce some aspects of coding to people who are not necessarily coders with the logic statements and ability to stratify questions or blocks of different surveys.