Mobile Learning In Schools Research Articles

Investigating the use of innovative mobile pedagogies for school-aged students: A systematic literature review

The empirical evidence surrounding innovative technology-enhanced-learning practices in K-12 education is at best patchy. This study seeks to address this problem by investigating innovative mobile learning pedagogies for school-aged learners, including the extent to which these approaches may be disruptive to traditional school structures and practices. It adopts a rigorous Systematic Literature Review (SLR) methodology to interrogate this phenomenon, with fifty-seven high quality articles published between 2010 and 2017 meeting the stringent selection criteria. Content and thematic analysis showed low to medium degrees of innovation in most studies, with only 3 articles showing radically innovative, disruptive mobile learning practices. Illustrative examples are discussed across this ‘innovation spectrum’ and the notion of feasible innovation is proposed in the context of mobile learning in schools. The findings have implications for educators interested in designing and enacting effective innovative mobile learning practices, and researchers interested in the nature of innovation in mobile pedagogies.

Mobile learning and student cognition: A systematic review of PK‐12 research using Bloom’s Taxonomy

AbstractThe rise of mobile learning in schools during the past decade has led to promises about the power of mobile learning to extend and enhance student cognitive engagement. The purpose of this study was to examine trends to determine the cognitive level students are involved in within mobile learning activities. This systematic review involved an aggregated and configurative synthesis of PK‐12 mobile learning studies from 2010 to 16 and used Bloom’s Taxonomy as a theoretical framework for categorizing the cognitive level of student activities. Major new findings include that students are involved in activities at all six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. This study shows that over 60% of researchers are developing activities that require high levels of cognitive processing, a large increase from past studies. Nonetheless, 40% are integrating mobile devices in ways that keep students working with minimal cognitive processing. In both elementary and secondary studies, there was a 40/60% split in the use of lower versus high level thinking opportunities. New findings show that mobile devices were integrated into science, mathematics, social studies, literacy, art and special education. Studies in science settings were the majority of the studies (40%), followed by literacy (24%).

A sustainable model for deployment of mobile learning in schools

As an educational technique, mobile learning is referred to as any kind of learning that takes place inside or outside traditional learning environment via mobile devices. Mobile devices are able to move with the learner to allow learning anytime, anywhere. Despite the familiarity with mobile learning as a new paradigm in modern education, there has been a shortage of research concerning how to deploy this technology in a successful way. There are models that examine the implementation of mobile learning and instructions to start with the deployment of mobile learning, but there are no clear instructions for sustainability of mobile learning deployment. In this research, factors affecting mobile learning are identified and a model is suggested for the sustainable deployment of mobile learning in education and learning in schools. Evaluation of the proposed model was conducted in order to deploy a sustainable mobile learning via 100 teachers and eventually this model was revised. The revised model can be used as a road map for both stages before and after the deployment of mobile learning. Furthermore, Education Organisation and schools can use the model for mixing mobile learning with traditional learning using a planned approach to improve education and learning.

A sustainable model for deployment of mobile learning in schools

As an educational technique, mobile learning is referred to as any kind of learning that takes place inside or outside traditional learning environment via mobile devices. Mobile devices are able to move with the learner to allow learning anytime, anywhere. Despite the familiarity with mobile learning as a new paradigm in modern education, there has been a shortage of research concerning how to deploy this technology in a successful way. There are models that examine the implementation of mobile learning and instructions to start with the deployment of mobile learning, but there are no clear instructions for sustainability of mobile learning deployment. In this research, factors affecting mobile learning are identified and a model is suggested for the sustainable deployment of mobile learning in education and learning in schools. Evaluation of the proposed model was conducted in order to deploy a sustainable mobile learning via 100 teachers and eventually this model was revised. The revised model can be used as a road map for both stages before and after the deployment of mobile learning. Furthermore, Education Organisation and schools can use the model for mixing mobile learning with traditional learning using a planned approach to improve education and learning.

Taking an instrumental genesis lens: New insights into collaborative mobile learning

AbstractIn this paper, we argue that in order to gain a deeper understanding of collaborative mobile learning in schools, it is important to know not only how mobile devices affect collaborative learning but also how collaborative learning emerges and is mediated by these devices. We develop our argument by applying the instrumental genesis theory and the collective instrumented activities and situations model for the analysis of learners' collaborative learning in the tablet‐mediated classroom. This analysis is grounded in data collected in four elementary Swedish schools (ie, from fourth to eighth grade). From the data, we considered the learners' conversation in English as a foreign language, inquiry‐based learning in the natural sciences classroom and game‐based learning in the arithmetic classroom. On the one hand, the scrutiny of these specific activities led us to distinguish the pragmatic, epistemic, and reflexive instrumental mediations that have already been theorized in the instrumental genesis theory. On the other hand, they helped us to identify two additional ones, which we call emotional and spatial. Based on these findings, we claim that collaboration in the tablet‐mediated classroom is a complex activity that emerges from a variety of instrumental mediations that configure contemporary collaborative mobile learning.

Foundations of Socio-Cultural Ecology: Consequences for Media Education and Mobile Learning in Schools

This conceptual paper offers insights to the foundations of Socio-Cultural Ecology and relates this concept to traditional concepts of Ecology e.g. media ecology or Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development. It will further discuss the term «ecology» as a relation between learners and their surrounding physical and structural world, e. g. an ecology of resources or the classroom as an ecological system. Thirdly more recent concepts in ecology will be considered e. g. Digital Media Ecology including media ecology (German: Medienökologie) from a German perspective. This contribution tries to describe common principles of (media) ecologies and will ask after their meaning and relation to media education and mobile learning. One of the main results is the realisation that cultural practices of school learning and cultural practices of media acquisition take place in different worlds or in different ecological spheres. The question is thus again of how to bridge these ecological spheres, and how «agency» developed outside school, can be nourished inside school. In other words: how can we bridge socio-cultural and technological structures within these cultural practices.

A framework for sustainable mobile learning in schools

AbstractWhile there are studies that have looked at the implementation of mobile learning in educational institutions, particularly the identification of issues encountered, few studies have explored holistically the elements that sustain mobile learning. This study dissects the findings of a longitudinal study of a secondary school adopting a personal digital assistant programme and proposes a person‐centred sustainable model for mobile learning.