NSW LearnScope Blog & Podcast

Last night Caryl Oliver introduced herself as caryloliver.com ; another innovator going solo. Sometimes, she said, you can have more influence from outside the system.

This morning, as Chair, Caryl kicked off the mLEARN2007 conference with stats that now, nearly 30% of the world’s population owns a mobile phone. In Australia we own over 19m phones, nearly one per person on average.

Glyn Davis, Vice Chancellor at the University of Melbourne, provided an opening address. Warned of making assumptions about students access and readiness to engage with technology. Battling with dialup connections.

Angela McFarlane presented the first keynote for the day - Devices and Desires: researching the pedagogy of mobile learning - sharing some work and ideas in progress to kick start thinking for the conference…

Some points I took away….
- the nature of the (mobile) device is changing rapidly - the market is so unstable - therefore we cannot focus on devices in education but must accept the mixed economy of devices and the idiosyncratic nature of learners

- digital native = small privileged section of world population with cultural capital and financial benefits

- having a device does not mean people can use them for the benefit of their learning

- what happens when handheld devices enter learners lives? - what is the pedagogic shift?

- in a world where we now must continuously update and refresh knowledge, we must explicitly induct learners into the process - the development of this metacognition is not automatic - it does not develop in MOST by simply being involved

- assumptions about learners ability to contextualise their own learning have been found to be wrong - most learners need assistance

- we must provoke learners to revisit and reflect - its the job of teachers in managing learning - we need to provide opportunities for iteration - triggers have to be there

- not everything teachers know about managing good learning becomes redundant when we shift to m-learning !

- smaller screens good for kids who are hesitant at ‘mark-making’ and filling A4 pieces of paper

- we throw technologies into unstable pedagogy at peril

- we over respect the digital native at our peril - they may look engaged but may have no understanding of what they are doing - no productive learning occurs

- learner autonomy - based on skills about making good choices about the tools they use

- affordances of digital text writing seem to be ignored - non-use of predictive text etc

- choice - commitment in curriculum - and making informed choices about their learning

- learner production as part of strategy - creating stuff on a device is the key - producing own content via informed choices and using multiple modes