Louise Mifsud

Alternative learning arenas-pedagogical challenges to mobile learning technology in education

ICT-implementation in education has mostly been aimed at enhancing learning informal arenas-the classroom. However, accepting that learning does not only forego in the formal learning arenas, it is proposed that mobile technology can be used as a bridge between the formal and informal learning arenas. The question is whether the bridge between school and other arenas open or closed-is there a barrier? The paper asks what strategies/changes/challenges have to be in place for the school to access and utilize learning arenas which are alternative to the formal learning arena?.

Reconsidering off-task: a comparative study of PDA-mediated activities in four classrooms

Mobile technology is ubiquitous and diverse and permeates many aspects of daily life at home, during leisure activities, and in public spaces. The study presented here is of two sixth grade classes in Michigan, USA and two seventh grade classes in Norway. The students and the teachers in these four classrooms were equipped with mobile technologies (PDAs). We found that the students’ PDA-mediated actions in the classroom were not exclusively used for the tasks and activities set by the teacher, but that the students also used the PDAs on their own initiative – so-called ‘off-task’ activities. We analyze the findings by reconsidering off-task activities from a sociocultural perspective.

Mobile learning and the socio-materiality of classroom practices

The use of socio-material perspectives as a perspective for understanding new technologies in education has experienced a resurgence. At the same time, mobile learning as a concept is growing fast. This paper takes up the notion of mobile learning and classroom practices from a socio-material perspective, and looks at what socio-materiality has to offer for the understanding of mobile learning and classroom practices.

An analysis of teacher-defined activities with mobile technologies: predecessor and successor tool use in the classroom

In this paper, different perspectives on the role of the teacher in a classroom equipped with personal digital assistants (PDAs) are presented. We report on four classroom studies conducted in two countries, Norway and the USA. The overall aim is to understand the use of new tools in different contexts. The key question that we explore concerns the teachers’ pedagogical use of the new tool and why certain tools are adopted and others are not. In one case, the activities simulated the affordances and constraints of the tools used prior to the PDA. In the other case, the activities harnessed the affordances and constraints offered by the successor tool, the PDA. We raise the question as to why these tools were used in two different ways. We analyse our findings in terms of sociocultural theory and concepts of human–computer interaction. Finally, we summarize our results and discuss some educational implications.