Håkan Sollervall

Theoretical and methodological considerations regarding the design of innovative mathematical learning activities with mobile technologies

The design of innovative learning activities supported by mobile technologies calls for the coordination of theories and methodologies from several research domains. The authors of this paper have been engaged in several collaborative research efforts involving expertise in mathematics education and technology-enhanced learning as well as in-service mathematics teachers. Within the methodological framework of design research, we coordinate and make use of specific theoretical and methodological constructs in order to stimulate the collaborative creation of innovative trajectories for the learning of mathematics. We illustrate this design approach by accounting for a specific activity designed to support a learning progression over time and across contexts, aiming at enacting the learning of geometry in an outdoors context. The outcomes of these efforts have provided us with valuable insights into how collaborative design research and mobile technologies can be used in school contexts to guide and support novel ways to enact mathematical learning.

Towards a Decentralized and Self-Adaptive System for M-Learning Applications

Through the analysis of the different iterations of the Geometry Mobile (GEM) project, a mobile learning effort in the field of mathematics, we have identified a major architectural issue to be addressed in the design and implementation of m-learning applications. Due to the dynamic nature of the field many challenging requirements are continuously emerging. One of them relates to the possibility to support collaborative activities that demand sharing resources between students and their mobile devices in constantly changing conditions. These situations generate the need of using decentralized distributed architectures in which mobile devices can share resources to carry out the activity covering the concerns defined by the different stakeholders. This paper describes our current efforts connected to identifying a set of requirements for M-Learning activities. Thereafter, we elaborate on why a decentralized distributed system (DDS) can be used to provide a novel solution to tackle the mentioned above problems. Moreover, initial aspects related to the design of a DDS, including a self-adaptation mechanism are presented.

Supporting Teachers’ Orchestration of Mobile Learning Activities

In this chapter we explore how an innovative mobile learning activity, designed by the authors can be implemented by mathematics classroom teachers. The focal part of the activity involves spatial orientation tasks that are executed with the support of customized mobile technologies in an outdoor setting. In this chapter, we present a comprehensive account of our research efforts spanning a five-year period and focus on providing didactical and technological support for teachers’ informed orchestration of the technology enabled learning activity.