So, I know for this week’s assignment Professor Zimmerman said: “Before you select your readings,  ask yourselves about the new kinds of learning interactions that you could foster in your classroom, workplace, community organization, health care organization, museum, or training program”?  Here’s the thing, I wasn’t sure exactly which of the three types of learning I want to foster in my classroom, so I picked a few different ones so that I could get a feel for them and hopefully have a better idea after.  I focused on augmented reality, was by no means what I really thought it was, mobile e-books, and finally wearables. I actually felt like each form of mobile learning certainly had its benefits (not entirely sure on the wearables article, but there was something there), therefore in some ways making the direction I would like to go for my final project slightly more difficult.

I started with the article about augmented reality and I will be honest, it isn’t what I really though AR is and that is probably because I was only thinking of AR as the way I see it today.  When I think of AR, in my head, I automatically went to the Google AR presentation that was done at my school. So what I pictured it as was “place independent” and largely “vision-based”. In some ways, I guess Google AR would also be considered in some ways a “Vision-Based 3D Model Embed, as Google AR absolutely has 3D overlays, not sure that is the correct term.  The reasons I would attribute those characteristics to Google AR is well, according to the reading, is an AR activity is place independent, then it is highly portable and not dependant on a specific location (Dunleavy et. al, 2014). The article insinuates that place-dependent AR probably provides for a better learning experience because it is situated in that place, that context (Dunleavy et. al, 2014).  I have to say that after seeing the Google AR demo, I would have to agree. Now, I do need to keep in mind that it was a DEMO and therefore not a full-blown designed lesson, but what I witnessed that day was a lot more ooh’s and ahh’s rather than authentic learning actually occurring. As I dove more into the article, I came to realize that AR is much more than what my limited view was. I also came to understand that AR can absolutely be effective depending on how it is designed.  

I guess there were a few things that immediately stood out about AR for me, the first was that at the time this article was written there were two forms of AR available; location-aware and vision-based (Dunleavy et. al, 2014).  I am curious to see if that has changed with the change of technology. As I mentioned above, the concept of place dependant vs. place independent was interesting also. I could see how in a mobile learning course, the portability of the experience would be one of the key factors, but the research doesn’t show that to provide the best learning experience.  If you go back earlier in the article, there is discussion about which learning theories AR works best with; situated learning and well as constructivist learning. “Situated learning theory posits that all learning takes place within a specific context and the quality of the learning is a result of interactions among the people, places, etc.”(Dunleavy et. al, 2014, p. 736).  Essentially in order for AR to effectively work in situated learning theory, there needs to be a specific context/place that the learning is situated in. I also was particularly interested in what AR affords and its limitations. What I was thinking largely while reading the limitations is that many of the ones that are listed really no longer exist. I also wonder if the implementation has gotten easier as technology has improved.  Again, all I saw was a demo for Google AR, but it was easily picked up by the students, I guess the same could be said of something like Pokemon Go, so I have a feeling that ease of implementation, as well as use, has improved significantly. Finally, I was shocked to see the features that would be considered AR. I had such a limited view of what AR was, and hadn’t considered the multitude of tech features that would be considered AR.

The second article I chose, seems to be from our very own Professor Zimmerman.  It involved an e-trail guide, which I guess in many ways could be comparable to an e-book.  So, I did not pick this article because of Professor Zimmerman, but instead because of a project idea (I didn’t end up doing it) I was kicking around in the fall semester.  We needed to create a design blueprint around a mobile learning lesson and I was toying with the idea of something similar to this e-Trailguide (without knowing that one existed) but I never ironed out the details.  There was a concept in this article, that was probably my favorite thing I read all weekend and that was the idea that any good technology-enabled learning activity includes “heads up” behavior (McClain et. al, 2016).  I can’t emphasize how truly important I think this is for all mobile learning. I feel like in this day and age we have a tendency to get our head stuck in a device and we need to find more ways to ensure that especially if the device is being used for learning, that the user engages with the surroundings around them as well.  I will admit that I was a little leery of the idea of taking digital devices into nature, I mean the point of being in nature is interacting with as well as observing nature. They way the -Trailguide was designed though, it seems as though it actually did a great job of ensuring that interaction was happening via heads up observations, pointing, and tactile investigations (McClain et. al, 2016).  Those interactions were even improved with the second iteration of the e-Trailguide. An important point was made in the conclusion “ A challenge for environmental educators is introducing mobile learning in such a way that it enhances people’s experiences outdoors, rather than creating a dependency on the device’s screen” (McClain et. al, 2016, p. 13). Just like the idea of having “heads up” moments when designing these mobile learning situations, I think it needs to be of primary concern that the device and the activity enhances the experiences instead of the device sucking in the individual.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t have a lot of positive things to say about the final article I read.  I read the Lee article about Fitbit devices and opportunistic uses of them. I was skeptical when I chose it but was intrigued to see where it would go educationally.  Well, it didn’t go very far for me. The only learning I really saw happening for the students was learning statistics and how to realize that outliers can significantly affect data results.  I can see where the authors were going somewhat, in that they were taking an existing tool that was already being used and implementing it in an opportunistic way to see what types learning experience could be derived from it.  It just didn’t do enough for me and if I had more time (I did my reading etc. a little late for this week) I would have considered choosing another article.

Overall, I will say on a whole I enjoyed being able to select the articles that appealed to me and think it allows for a more personalized approach to this class.  

 

Resources:

• Dunleavy, M., & Dede, C. (2014). Augmented reality teaching and learning. In J. M. Spector et al. (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 735–745). New York: Springer.
• McClain, L. R., & Zimmerman, H. T. (2016). Technology-mediated engagement with nature: Sensory and social engagement with the outdoors supported through an e-Trailguide. International Journal of Science Education, Part B, 8455(March), 1–15.
• Lee, V. R., Drake, J. R., Cain, R., & Thayne, J. (2015). Opportunistic uses of the traditional school day through student examination of Fitbit activity tracker data. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (pp. 209-218). ACM, Medford, MA.