Kevin Burden

Mobile learning for teacher professional learning: benefits, obstacles and issues

This paper reflects on the role of mobile learning in teachers’ professional learning. It argues that effective professional learning requires reflection and collaboration and that mobile learning is ideally suited to allow reflection-inaction and to capture the spontaneity of learning moments. The paper also argues for the value of collaborations between teachers and students in professional learning. It suggests that authentic artefacts and anecdotes, captured through mobile technologies, can enable the sharing, analysis and synthesis of classroom experiences by teachers and students. Such analysis and synthesis helps to encourage collaborative reflective practice and is likely to improve teacher and student learning as a result. Ethical issues that might arise through using mobile technologies in this way are also discussed. Teacher voice is presented to indicate the range of views about mobile learning and to indicate current practices. Practical, school systemic, attitudinal and ethical factors may inhibit mobile technology adoption; these factors need to be researched and addressed to realise the potential of teacher mobile professional learning. Keywords: mobile learning; professional learning; teaching; education DOI: 10.1080/09687760903247641

Mobilising teacher education: a study of a professional learning community

This paper reports on a study of a community of university educators that investigated the introduction of mobile technologies into their learning and teaching. The study was conducted by a subgroup of that community. Given the ubiquity of mobile devices, members of the community felt they needed to develop expertise in mobile learning so that they could incorporate it into their teaching. They studied their own learning, supported by a critical friend who evaluated the community’s functioning and activities, providing valuable feedback. Activities of this group were informed by and focused on: development of awareness of the potential of mobile devices for learning; construction of action plans within the community; and implementation of these plans. They also included investigating best-practice approaches by interviewing experts in the field, exploring the literature on mobile learning and then initiating and testing some mobile learning pedagogies in the context of their own teacher education subjects. The community met regularly to discuss emerging issues and applications. The paper shares some of the findings gained from studying the community, and discusses the challenges and constraints that were experienced. The authors conclude with recommendations for professional learning communities aiming to learn about technology-mediated teaching practices.

Access denied? Twenty-first-century technology in schools

This article considers how developments in technologies have transformed the kind of social interaction possible over the Internet, making it feasible to undertake discourse and dialogue without having to rely solely on text-based mediation. This represents a fundamental change to learning, shifting from passive acquisition of someone else’s ideas to active learning experiences that empower people to inquire, critique, create, collaborate, problem-solve and create understanding. Such technologies are also about the portability of mobile digital devices which now have the potential to allow any-time access for users either through Wi-Fi or mobile broadband providers and for those devices to become personal. The implications for education are enormous and the anticipated change probably ranks alongside the introduction of the printing press in terms of historical importance. This article considers those implications and draws on research recently conducted in schools and other educational settings in the United Kingdom. The authors conclude that the need to allow use of personal digital devices in schools seems inexorable, the further we go into the new millennium. This simple premise is fraught with many difficulties and challenges, however, which suggest that for many students the current situation is ‘Access denied’.

Exploring mobile learning in the Third Space

Mobile learning is enabling educators and students to learn in ways not previously possible. The ways that portable, multi-functional mobile devices can untether the learner from formal institutional learning give scope for learning to be conceptualised in an expanded variety of places, times and ways. In this conceptual article the authors articulate this notion by using the metaphor of the Third Space to envision what can be achieved with mobile learning. They outline their use of the metaphor, consider how it extends notions of twenty-first century learning and use a previously established Mobile Pedagogical Framework to provide a context for the discussion. They conclude with implications of learning in the Third Space for teachers and students. These implications suggest that roles of teachers and students and structure of the curriculum need to change to ensure we leverage the potential of mobile learning.

Conceptualising Teachers' Professional Learning with Web 2.0

Purpose – This paper seeks to identify and develop an exploratory framework for conceptualising how teachers might use the affordances of Web 2.0 technologies to support their own professional learning.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on a large corpus of literature and recent research evidence to identify the principal elements and features of professional learning and the underlying affordances of Web 2.0 technologies and applications. It generates an exploratory conceptual framework based on the emerging findings from this review using a socio‐cultural theoretical perspective. The framework is explored through three individual illustrations which are drawn from a much larger case study which the author is undertaking within a newly established Academy in the North of England.Findings – The findings indicate that there is potential value in exploring professional learning with Web 2.0 technologies in the ways described. The framework offers an exploratory instrument to examine how professio...

Teachers learning to use the iPad in Scotland and Wales: a new model of professional development

In learning to use a new technology like the iPad, primary teachers adopt a diverse range of experiential, informal and playful strategies contrasting sharply with traditional models underpinning professional development which emphasise formal courses and events led by ‘experts’ conducted in formal settings such as the school. Since post-PC devices like the iPad have been linked with transformational educational learning, there is an imperative to better understand how teachers can be encouraged to use them more effectively. Despite their growing popularity in schools, there is little research to indicate how and under what circumstances teachers learn to integrate these technologies into their daily practices. This paper uses data collected from two national studies of iPad use in Scotland and Wales to propose a new model of professional development. This model reflects findings that the teachers reject traditional models of sequential, or staged, professional development (often led by external providers or ‘experts’), in favour of a more nuanced and fluid model where they learn at their own pace, in a largely experiential fashion, alongside their pupils in a relationship which reverses the traditional power nexus. The model has the potential to inform professional development for both trainee and serving teachers in learning to use the iPad in the primary classroom.

Conceptualising Authentic Mobile Learning

Conventional accounts of authentic learning focus on contextual factors: tasks, processes, how situated the learning is and the extent to which learners engage in simulated or participative real-world activities. This paper theorises how ubiquitous mobile technologies are fracturing the boundaries that demarcate traditional accounts of authentic learning affording new opportunities to reconceptualise what authenticity means for learners when they use a boundary object such as a mobile device. Whilst some of this has been captured previously with terms like ‘seamless’, ‘contextualised’ and ‘agile’ learning, this paper argues that the concept of authentic mobile learning is a highly fluid construct which will continue to change as the technologies develop and as the pedagogical affordances become better understood by educators and end-users. The paper offers a three-dimensional model of authentic mobile learning and argues that further empirical research is required to understand what is authentic mobile learning from the perception of learners.

Changing knowledge, changing technology: implications for teacher education futures

Recent research in teacher education futures has identified two themes that require further study: the changing nature of knowledge and the changing capabilities of technologies. This article examines the intersection of these two themes and their implications for teacher education. The research employed futures methodologies based on scenario creation. With a focus on the above themes or dimensions, a panel of experts was interviewed to draw on its collective wisdom to explore alternative teacher education futures. Data from these interviews were analysed to stimulate the construction of four future teacher education scenarios. Feedback on the scenarios was obtained from teacher educators in Europe and Australia. The scenarios were then revised based on this feedback. The final scenarios are presented here as a way of provoking discussion among teacher educators about teacher education futures.

Investigating and critiquing teacher educators’ mobile learning practices

Purpose This study aims to investigate contemporary mobile learning practices in teacher education, exploring the following research question: how are teacher educators exploiting the pedagogical features of mobile learning? Design/methodology/approach The study uses data from an online survey that elicited information about how 46 teacher educator participants were using distinctive mobile pedagogical features (Personalisation, Authenticity and Collaboration) in their mobile learning practices. It uses the iPAC theoretical framework to analyse the data collected. Findings Findings indicated high self-ratings of authenticity, and positive perceptions of collaborative sharing (Collaboration construct), often involving generative tasks that required use of creative, media production mobile applications. There were weaker perceptions of personalisation and online conversation (Collaboration construct). In light of these findings, we discuss implications for teacher education and recommend future directions for research and development. Research limitations/implications This study underlines our contention that teacher educators struggle to exploit the entire range of mobile pedagogical approaches. The findings suggest that teacher educators are cautiously exploring the potential for online collaboration mediated through mobile devices, but have not yet fully grasped the opportunities to design tasks which exploit (and model) the personalised nature of m-learning. The limitations of the study include the size of the sample (46), its self-selected nature and its bias towards Australian and the UK respondents. Practical implications In response to the issues raised in this paper, the authors are developing a mobile learning toolkit (www.mobilelearningtoolkit.com) for teacher educators. Originality/value There is a scarcity of m-learning studies in teacher education exploring pedagogical insights, and the views of teacher educators themselves are often absent.

Translational research principles applied to education: the mapping educational specialist knowhow (MESH) initiative

MESH is a part of a research project applying knowledge management principles which are well known in other sectors, public and private, to the education sector (Leask, 2011, 2012; Leask and Younie 2013, Leask and Preston 2012). The goal is to develop and test out the new ways of working now possible with digital technologies which can address long standing improvement challenges faced by education sectors in all countries.