Abstract
Scholarly literature on education technology uptake has been dominated by technological determinist readings of students’ technology use. However, in recent years there has been a move by sociologists of education to highlight how the contexts in which educational technologies are introduced are not tabula rasa but socially and culturally complex. This study approaches technology as a social construct, arguing that students construct discursive meaning of, rather than simply respond to, technologies for learning. The study explores students’ constructions of a mobile learning app that was introduced into lectures during a year-long university course. Students largely rejected the app, constructing it as unfitting for the context, a socially uncomfortable experience and an unacademic way of learning. The paper highlights the limitations of technological determinism and closes by arguing for readings of educational technologies that pay close attention to students’ voices.
Highlights
Mobile technologies are an increasingly integral part of young adults’ lives
Aware of contemporary university students’ familiarity with online spaces, we introduced a smartphone app to our lectures and encouraged students to use the app to engage in formal synchronous online learning during lectures
The students dominantly saw the ideal lecture as an opportunity to engage in didactic learning (Brown & Race, 2014; Covill, 2011), which led them to direct their attention towards note-taking, and subsequently construct the interactive app as unfitting for the context
Summary
Social networking apps on mobile devices like Instagram and Facebook have become online spaces in which users interact, make plans, share experiences, engage in politics and create their identities (Boyd, 2014; Davis & Gardner, 2013). Aware of contemporary university students’ familiarity with online spaces, we introduced a smartphone app to our lectures and encouraged students to use the app to engage in formal synchronous online learning during lectures. The app we chose was Collaborate Ultra, which enabled students to ‘chat’ online during lecture time and write directly onto the shared lecture slides. It thereby facilitated opportunities for sociable and (inter)active lecture experiences. The students broadly rejected the online space, framing it variously as ‘unacademic’, ‘unfitting’ and ‘uncool’
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