Using mobile technologies to create interwoven learning interactions: An intuitive design and its evaluation

Abstract

Numerous studies have proposed and implemented various innovative designs of mobile learning practices, and several pedagogical affordances of mobile technologies in different subject domains have also been suggested. This study proposes a notion for helping instructors design an innovative mobile learning practice in their subject domain. The proposed design notion, interwoven learning interactions, means that the mobile technologies unobtrusively record specific type of social interactions among learners as digital information, and the digital information is synthesized with the rules and principles of subject content to represent the instructional information. When social interaction among peers enables their stimulation and exploration of subject content as well as display of students' thoughts and reasoning, learning is then constructed on the realms of both physical and social experiences linked with the abstract learning content. To illustrate the proposed notion, a sample design is provided and evaluated. The pilot studies and evaluation results illustrate a clearer picture of the design guidelines and offer supporting evidences of the claimed learning benefits. Implications are provided to shed light on this innovative mobile learning design.