Introduction

This module in my Learning Pathway is about techniques used in a Flipped Classroom environment. The idea of a Flipped Classroom is something I have been interested in for a long time and is one of the driving factors in deciding to work towards my Master’s degree in Learning, Design, and Technology. As an art teacher, much of what we do is hands-on and in the classroom. However, it often seems like there is a constant battle with time to get everything finished. Demonstrations, and activities that do not involve creating a work of art, use up a lot of class time that would be better spent actually working on making artwork, getting ideas from watching other classmates work, working through challenges and successes, and getting feedback from myself and other classmates. The Flipped Classroom model would work well in a school that had a 1:1 tech to student ratio, and there are more and more districts out there that meet that condition. For an art classroom, the Flipped model would allow students to view demonstrations and art content at home, freeing up time in class to either begin work or clear up misconceptions. Since students would be expected to bring their tech to class with them, they could also review materials before they began working. Having a portion of the class presented online would also provide other opportunities for enrichment and engagement such as games, review work, writing prompts, or other items that would be useful for students who finish a project early or want to learn more about a topic. If set up correctly, students could also complete an introduction or review activity when they enter or leave class.

The videos and assignments below are part of a watercolor unit designed for a high school introductory art class such as an Intro to Art, Painting I, or Watercolor I. The videos demonstrate very basic watercolor techniques and assignments geared towards practicing and identifying those techniques. This unit would be beneficial as a review for students who have painted with these techniques before or as a way for students who have not painted with watercolor at all to get caught up and ready to create their own work of art using watercolor. These videos and assignments are theoretical and have not been used in an actual classroom before.

Step 1: Sample Videos

In this first video, I tried recording in Zoom using the annotation and screen capture tools. I wanted to make sure I could actually create a video that showed lines and text being added to an image before creating a finished video. This sample was only concerned with visuals so I did not record sound.

The second sample video would have been a finished part of my lesson, however, I noticed that after I wrote “Wet-on-Wet” on the page, it appeared to be backward on the screen. I stopped the video to try to figure out what had gone wrong. I checked to see if there was a setting I missed somewhere and to make sure that my camera was set up correctly. What I didn’t do was play the recording to make sure the text was actually flipped backward like a mirror image. If I would have done that, I could have saved myself a lot of time re-recording, because as you can see at the end of this video. The text was in fact written correctly. I’m still not sure why it looked like a mirror image while it was recording.

After two attempts of recording the assignment and still seeing the writing displayed as a mirror image, I decided to try and write the words backward so that they would be facing correctly on the screen. As you can see in the video, they were recorded as they were written – backward. It wasn’t until I viewed this video later that I realized the mirror image was only displayed while the video was actually recording. The finished video displayed everything correctly. For my final lesson video, I ended up editing the audio from this video over the video from the previous video.

Step 2: Flipped Classroom Lesson with Video

The first part of the lesson demonstrates some basic watercolor techniques that students would need to know in order to create their own artwork. I give a brief description of each technique and demonstrate how to create or use it. This part of the lesson is intended to be completed at home but also available during class time as a review. In the second part of the lesson, students are asked to find 8 images of watercolor paintings. Across those 8 images, they need to label at least 5 different techniques. While this may seem like an activity that should be done before part two of the lesson, I believe students will need to actually try each technique on their own so that they know what qualities to look for in a finished work. This part of the lesson is to be completed after finishing and turning in their practice paintings. It can be used to fill any time left in class after they turn in their work. If it isn’t completed in class it can be finished at home for homework.

Games are a popular form of entertainment, especially mobile games. So what would happen when a game was introduced to a group of children from India who had little or no engagement with mobile technologies? That is what the research study in A comparative analysis of a game-based mobile learning model in low-socioeconomic communities of India sought to find out. The goal of this research study was to answer three major questions. 1. Could children with little or no experience using mobile technology figure out how to use the introduced tech without a lot of adult interaction, 2. What are the steps or processes that the children went through to try and figure out the introduced tech, and 3. Were there any factors that seemed to give some groups of children an advantage over other groups. They conducted a research study with 210 children in different rural and urban groups around India. The children were divided into groups of 1, 3, and 7 for the experiment and given one device per group. The findings showed that, yes, all students can learn how to interact with a new piece of technology without adult interference and with little or no previous exposure to other forms of technology. The research findings also concluded that there were four stages that these children went through while interacting with the new technology: 1. Exploration, 2. Recognition, 3. Interaction, and 4. Iteration. The children would not always go through these stages linearly and would return to stages 1 and 2 even after reaching stage 4. Essentially they found that the children would use trial and error (Exploration), realize that something they did had an effect on the technology (Recognition), try to repeat what they had done to create the effect (Interaction), and applying that new knowledge with new or repeated knowledge to try and get a new effect to occur (Iteration). The research also found that children from urban areas and children in groupings of three were significantly more successful. They determined that urban children had likely had more experience with technology because there was more technology to be found in urban areas. The groupings of three were determined to be successful because it was a good combination of collaboration and only people to share the device. Groups of one didn’t have to compete and didn’t have anyone to collaborate with, and groups of 7 had too many hands trying to be in charge of the device. The article states: “…we believe there is a specific need for…research on effective ways to involve children as partner in every step of the way in ICT4D projects…”, and as such the findings of this research study are also in line with the research study by Dunn et al. that children’s voices need to be heard in order to advance learning with mobile technology.

The second article I read was A contextual game-based learning approach to improving students’ inquiry-based learning and performance in social studies courses. This was about a research study that sought to use inquiry-based learning to see if students would achieve more. They used a video game scenario that taught students about finances. Their goals in doing this experiment were to find out if they could improve students’ learning achievement, motivation, satisfaction, and flow states compared to a control group that was not learning about finance through a video game. “Flow state” is a term used to describe the “…balance between challenge and skills”. The game was an RPG style game so that students felt like they were in the game and were learning in a ‘real’ world setting. They also found out what students’ perceived learning styles were beforehand and determined that students with a more active learning style benefited more from the gaming approach than their more passive counterparts. Not surprisingly, the research study found that students learning achievement, motivation, satisfaction, and flow state all improved in the group learning through gaming. They also got a lot of positive feedback from interviewing random students from the gaming group.

The final article I read was titled Students’ and teachers’ use of Facebook. I thought this article would give information about how teachers and students use Facebook in an educational setting but rather, it described all uses of Facebook mainly by students. Most of the research in this article was focused on Facebook as a way to “…form and maintain social capital”, and not so much about education. The research did find that based on the average amount of time students reported using Facebook, it didn’t necessarily impact study habits in a negative way. The article also mentioned that Facebook is not often used for educational purposes. I think this is due to two major reasons: teacher privacy from students, and lack of access to Facebook at the school district level.

Dunn, J., Gray, C., Moffett, P., & Mitchell, D. (2018). ‘It’s more funner than doing work’: Children’s perspectives on using tablet computers in the early years of school. Early Child Development and Care, 188(6), 819–831.

Kim, P., Buckner, E., Kim, H., Makany, T., Taleja, N., & Parikh, V. (2012). A comparative analysis of a game-based mobile learning model in low-socioeconomic communities of India. International Journal of Educational Development, 32(2), 329–340.

Hew, K. F. (2011). Students’ and teachers’ use of Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(2), 662–676.

Hwang, G. J., Chiu, L. Y., & Chen, C. H. (2015). A contextual game-based learning approach to improving students’ inquiry-based learning performance in social studies courses. Computers & Education, 81, 13–25.

As I continue my research into mobile technology and its impacts on learning, I find myself reading “Tablet use in schools: a critical review of the evidence for learning outcomes” by B. Haßler, L. Major and S. Hennessy. This is a research study that basically seeks to find out if tablets actually help students to learn better or show ‘learning gains’ and what contributes to those gains if they are there. They used a complex system to evaluate what research was out there on the topic and weeded out many published forms of research that did not meet their criteria. In total, they found 33 articles or journals that met their strict criteria and based their findings off of those journals. They found that all but two of the studies they looked at found that tablets increase student learning or have a neutral impact on learning outcomes. They found the following factors to be key in students showing learning gains through tablet use:

• Easy to use and have many features
• Easy to customize
• Use of a touchscreen
• Portable

They also looked at 1:1 versus 1:m (many) and found that 1:1 use might not be the best course of action for schools to take for both fiscal and academic reasons. They believe that students produced better quality ‘artifacts’ when working as a group with one tablet because of the ability to collaborate verbally as a group. This would be a less expensive option for a district as well if they planned for only one tablet per group of students. As a teacher, I feel that having the option for both 1:1 and 1:m is important because the structure and needs of your lesson plans change constantly throughout the year. This article mentioned briefly that districts should also make sure that their staff is adequately trained in order to implement tablet use successfully, rather than assume that teachers already know how to best use the technology in their classroom.

The second article I read was “Thou shall not try to speak in the Facebook language: Students’ perspectives regarding using Facebook for chemistry learning.”. This article was supposed to describe the students’ attitudes towards using Facebook both for educational purposes and non-educational purposes and also to describe the needs of the students. I do not feel that this article did a good job explaining their feelings towards using Facebook but did an okay job explaining their needs (or things they didn’t want/need). The article spent a lot of time talking about formulas and research that I think was good, but not entirely needed for the results they were looking for. To sum up the findings, students seemed to give more useful responses in the form of things they didn’t want to see, based on the chart of ‘Thou Shall Not’s provided in the article. The study also found that students seemed to find the Facebook chemistry group less important to their learning after the second year, which the author even said might prove there needs to be a further study across a longer time frame.

The final article I read was, “Mobile devices and apps as scaffolds to science learning in the primary classroom.” This article sought to find how app scaffolding was used by students and how the teachers planned to use the apps within their teaching. The findings were not entirely surprising that the students preferred the use of video and audio scaffolding over textual scaffolding. What was surprising was that the students seemed to use the scaffolding pertaining to the experimental steps more often than the scaffolding for concepts. The author warned that teachers shouldn’t assume what scaffolding the students will be more likely to use because of surprises like that one. During the conclusion, the author also talked about the fact that a well-planned lesson and carefully-chosen apps are most important in designing a lesson. A common theme that I have seen in many readings. The reason this was added at the end was because of the fact that the teachers needed to help facilitate at many points during the experiments, thus showing the need for a teacher to be present during an app-guided lesson.

I found these articles to be useful as they pertain to my final project because I would like to plan on using tablets or laptops to create a flipped environment. In the first article, I had hoped to read about whether or not tablets seem to provide positive learning outcomes in the classroom, and was happy that the results were there and in a concise format. In a flipped environment there needs to be a learning management system of some kind, and at the moment I am open to ideas. I read the Facebook article hoping it would provide some anecdotal evidence that swayed me one way or another towards using it as a LMS, but I didn’t think the article provided enough information for that. In the final article I read, I wanted to read about the impact of apps in the classroom, as I would like to use apps for supplemental purposes after an art project is made. I found it to be helpful because it reminded me that even with supplemental materials or art games, students will still need my support in getting things to run smoothly.

Falloon, G. (2017). Mobile devices and apps as scaffolds to science learning in the primary classroom. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 26(6), 613–628

Haßler, B., Major, L., & Hennessy, S. (2016). Tablet use in schools: A critical review of the evidence for learning outcomes. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 32(2), 139–156.

Rap, S., & Blonder, R. (2017). Thou shall not try to speak in the Facebook language: Students’ perspectives regarding using Facebook for chemistry learning. Computers & Education, 114, 69–78.

The first article I read was “Potential negative effects of mobile learning on students’ learning achievement and cognitive load—a format assessment perspective” and it discussed an experiment that intended to determine if students would be negatively impacted by technology if they had a higher cognitive load than students in a traditional setting with the same criteria. The article was difficult to read as it listed off a lot of formulas and acronyms related to the study. The main findings of the study concluded that if the children in the study had a higher cognitive load (which was determined by a formula) while using the mobile technology, that the technology was negatively impacting their learning. To me, it sounded more like the PDA version was harder and could be confusing compared to the traditional classroom model. However, they determined through theories and formulas that the two methods were comparable and attributed the lower scores and higher mental strain to the technology. They did mention near the end of the article that they felt “…with a proper learning design, the effect of mobile and ubiquitous learning can be much better than that of the traditional approach.” So perhaps they were acknowledging that the design of the lesson on the PDAs was the problem after all and not the PDAs themselves.

The second article I read was “‘It’s more funner than doing work’: Children’s perspectives on using tablet computers in the early years of school” and it was centered around the viewpoints of children as they pertain to their education. They did a study that was set up to view the impact of tablets on math and literacy skills in a group of children in Ireland. By the end of the article, it seems that they didn’t have conclusive evidence of improved skills in either area. They only had recommendations for what types of things to take into consideration when choosing apps for student mobile devices. They identified three key themes across their data sets, which were: “links with home, fun and games, choice and competition.” They talked about the fact that children in this study had seamless interactions between home and school on their tablets, but they discussed more home details when talking with researchers about their use. They would mention the names of people and places where they would use their tablets, showing that these things were important to them. When talking about tablet use at school, they didn’t mention names or locations. There was also a big emphasis on games, choice, and competition. Children enjoyed those three things the most when talking with researchers about what apps they liked to use. The competition included a competition to beat their own high scores, not just to compete with others. They also liked when they had to earn a high enough score to get a prize or reward, such as new in-game content. The article concluded by basically saying that we need to listen more to children and what they say about apps when choosing what apps to use with each age group. Children were described in the article as being the primary source of information about what children like and respond to, and as such, their voices should be heard.

The third article I read was “Seamless flipped learning: A mobile technology–enhanced flipped classroom with effective learning strategies” and it was about flipped classrooms and the use of mobile technology. The whole idea behind a flipped classroom is that the content that would traditionally be covered in class is covered before or after class, and the content and tasks that are traditionally done before or after class would be done during class. In this way, students would learn and construct knowledge outside of class (perhaps at home) and then do their homework or project during class. In this way, it creates more dialog between the teacher and student in clearing up confusion and clarifying and solidifying new ideas. The article also discussed the 5C’s of 21st-century learning/skills and proposes that a flipped classroom and flipped learning could better contribute to learning the 5C’s than a traditional classroom setting.

A theme that I keep seeing come up was mentioned here. It should be a no-brainer but apparently is a big hang-up for some when designing their lesson and unit plans. That theme is: “…that the success of mobile technology-supported seamless learning heavily depends on the teachers’ learning designs.” Basically, the success of the lesson depends on how well the teacher designs and implements it. With this in mind, the article finishes by sharing examples and in-depth ideas for promoting the 5C’s and the flipped classroom in general.

Finally, the case study I chose is also about the flipped classroom and it is titled “A Learning Analytics Approach to Investigating Factors Affecting EFL Students’ Oral Performance in a Flipped Classroom”. It describes an 18-week case study of students who are taking English as a foreign language and using Facebook as their classroom’s platform.

1. Chu, H. C. (2014). Potential negative effects of mobile learning on students’ learning achievement and cognitive load—a format assessment perspective. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 17(1). 332–344.
2. Dunn, J., Gray, C., Moffett, P., & Mitchell, D. (2018). ‘It’s more funner than doing work’: Children’s perspectives on using tablet computers in the early years of school. Early Child Development and Care, 188(6), 819–831.
3. Hwang, G. J., Lai, C. L., & Wang, S. Y. (2015). Seamless flipped learning: A mobile technology–enhanced flipped classroom with effective learning strategies. Journal of Computers in Education, 2(4), 449–473.
4. Lin, C., & Hwang, G. (2018). A Learning Analytics Approach to Investigating Factors Affecting EFL Students’ Oral Performance in a Flipped Classroom. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 21(2), 205-219. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/stable/26388398

First of all, I would just like to say that outside of drawing, photo editing, and coloring, there aren’t a lot of quality art apps out there (at least based on my searches). I chose to try out and review the following apps: Sketch by Sony Mobile, Photoshop Express by Adobe, DailyArt by Moiseum, Crayola Create and Play by Crayola, and the Newsela app by Newsela. All five apps seem to be good at what their intended uses were and I will discuss each more in depth below.

Sketch by Sony Mobile

Sketch was a good all-around drawing application. I used it on my Android phone, but it is also available for iOS. The biggest limitation I found with this app is that it is definitely geared for a tablet, rather than a cell phone. I thought that trying to draw with accuracy was possible, but difficult when using my fingers on such a small screen. The app had a variety of drawing options including different brushes and nibs, special effects such as smudging, and the ability to add ‘stickers’ to your drawing. You could also use a photo as the basis for your drawing or stickering which was a surprise as I thought this was an app for drawing only, not photo editing. This app would be good for promoting critical thinking and creativity skills, just as a regular art class would through the decision-making skills needed to create. I would consider this app to be ‘constructive’ but also a ‘knowledge and skill building’ app because it would allow for the discovery and experimentation described in the article Educational Apps Ontology (Notari, M. et al. 2016) while also asking a user to practice their drawing skills. There is another feature of the app that allows the user to share and view their art with other users. Someone viewing a work of art can favorite it or add a comment. While there is some level of communication going on with that feature, I personally do not think it is enough to consider it a ‘communication’ app according to the research in Educational Apps Ontology (Notari, M. et al. 2016). I think the best age group for this app would be 6th grade and up due to the slight challenge of navigating the different menus. However, with enough practice, students as young as grade 2 could probably use this app to create art. This is a free app.

Photoshop Express by Adobe

I was pleasantly surprised by how many functions and options this app had. I haven’t used Photoshop in almost 10 years so it’s possible that the number of features is typical of photo editing software today. There honestly were so many features that in some cases it was hard to see the difference that each filter or effect was making. This would be a great application for adding mood to a photo that is otherwise ordinary. In addition to the photo editing portion of this app, you can also add borders, text, and ‘stickers’ to liven up any photograph. This would be another good app for fostering creativity and problem-solving skills, although not quite as much as creating your own art from scratch. I would consider this app to be in the category of ‘other’ because its use is so specific, however, I feel that one could argue that it also falls into the ‘knowledge and skill building’ category due to the construction of knowledge via a creative activity (Notari, M. et al. 2016). This app would be best suited for grades 5 and up due to the subtleties involved in photo editing. I don’t really think a younger student would appreciate the slight variances in mood and tone of an image based on just the filters. Younger grades might appreciate the stickering and text editing portion, but I think the multiple menus they would have to dig through to find those features would throw them off too much for them to enjoy it. This is a free app.

DailyArt by Moiseum

This app is very simple and has one main feature of sharing a work of art with the user. The work of art is accompanied by a brief article about the piece and its significance. This would be a good supplemental activity for early-finishers to learn more about art and art history. The free version of this app has advertisements at the bottoms and every 4 or so artists, which is a little annoying but bearable. Also, the app lets you scroll through the previous artworks and articles one day at a time for more than a month’s worth of ‘daily’ information. You cannot select a reading level or language with this app so it further limits the grade level and type of students who could successfully use the app and learn from it. This app would fall under the category of ‘knowledge and skill building’ because it offers art history information that students could learn about (Notari, M. et al. 2016). I think this app would be best for students in grades 5 and up because the language might be too difficult for the ‘average’ fourth grader or younger. This is a free app with an option to pay for other features (no cost listed).

Crayola Create and Play by Crayola

This app was fun to play with and had a lot of features for kids. You could draw, color, create a coloring page of your face by using the camera function, raise a pet, and play games. The only downside to this app is that it only has a 24-hour free period and then you are billed $5.99 a month through your Apple Store or Google Play account. This app definitely fosters creativity and problem solving not only through its drawing and coloring features but through its educational games and puzzles. I would categorize this as a ‘knowledge and skill building’ app as well as being ‘instructive’ and ‘constructive’ (Notari, M. et al. 2016). This app is geared for young children and would only be useful for PreK through 4th grades.

Newsela app by Newsela

I went out on a limb a little with this app in the hopes that it contained art-related articles. I was pleasantly surprised to find not only articles about art but options to change the reading level based on a reader’s Lexile number and change languages on some articles. You can also take quizzes for each article and give an open-ended written response. As an educator, you can assign articles and assignments, too. This app improves global awareness, social and cross-cultural skills, and information literacy through its articles and quizzes (IMLS 2009). This app would fall into the ‘knowledge and skill building’ or ‘other’ category due to the ability of the user to construct new knowledge and gain information from it (Notari, M. et al. 2016). This app would be good for ‘early finishers’ as an enrichment activity or an activity for a substitute if you didn’t want the students using art supplies while you were out. Its limitation as a news application is that it isn’t as interactive or engaging as some of the other apps I reviewed. This is a free app.

“New Forms of Engagement”

In terms of creativity, a device is only going to aid in creativity and will only be as creative as the person using it. If a person only uses and sees their device as something to play games and check social media on, then that device will probably only be used for a small number of creative purposes. However, devices can be used for so much more than that. Users can create and edit photos and videos, share information through the use of social media, blogs, and wikis, and can interact with people and places via a digital interface. Additionally, anything that a person can create on their phone can be shared online or with other individuals. I feel that mobile devices can harness all of the above and tie it into education. The only limitations would be the creativity of the instructor and the meaningfulness of how these functions are applied.

Badges in Education

Before reading these two articles about badges, I had never heard of them before or thought I hadn’t. This is an instance where a component of video games is trying to cross the divide to become integrated into an educational setting. Badges are essentially like getting a certificate of achievement for completing some type of task or a certain amount of work. The basis for earning a badge is decided by the person or people who are giving them out. The reason I mentioned video games is that this sounds just like the achievement systems used by certain video games when a task or goal is completed. I kept thinking of earning achievements in World of Warcraft and noticed it was a very similar system to badges.

In the first article I read, An Online Badging System Supporting Educators’ STEM Learning, discussed using badges in conjunction with professional development. Honestly, I didn’t see how this would be beneficial myself, other than showing an administrator that you were doing your PD work. If I were given this same opportunity to learn about my subject area I wouldn’t really care about the badges unless they were useful for something outside of the PD itself. This sentiment was described in more detail in the second article I read, titled: Digital badges in afterschool learning: Documenting the perspectives and experiences of students and educators. Badges were used to show students that they had achieved something or learned something, but when interviewed, many of the students either didn’t know what they were or didn’t understand why they were supposed to be important. I agree with the discussion in the article that badges would be useful if students could use them to show colleges or potential employers that they had obtained a particular skill set that would set them apart in some way and make them a more appealing candidate. However, because this wasn’t the case, students didn’t find the value in them. I would also agree that a larger system would need to be in place for something like that the work. There is no way for a separate institution from the one issuing the badge to tell if the badge is a good quality attribute or not. To quote one person interviewed from the program issuing the badges, “…it’s going to be hard for people to sort you know, crap from good stuff.”

If I were to use badges in my classroom, I would use them one of two ways. One, I would tie them into a positive reward system. For example, if a student earned a badge in something, they could earn a ticket for a prize raffle or some other token in a token economy. Or two, I could use badges as they were mentioned in the first article I read, as being used for evaluation. Earning badges could be a way to show that they have learned a certain skill or completed a task and that in turn could be their key to progressing in a course. Rather than having me administer an assessment and then decide if they should move on to a new topic, students could digitally earn badges and move through the course material on their own. I have always wanted to create a classroom setup that allowed students to choose their own art projects and content and proceed through a course, however, I didn’t have a good plan in mind for how to monitor their progress other than when they turned in an assignment. Badges would provide me with a good way to check in on students and see their progress at a glance, rather than having to manually check on their progress.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality gives students the opportunity to interact with an assignment by means of virtual reality. It provides students with an authentic and engaging experience that is open-ended and provides the opportunity to use problem-solving and exploratory skills. The article talks about the pros of this type of learning being: 1:1 interaction, working with multiple perspectives, and high engagement and motivation. Cons were: cognitive overload, incompatibility with standards-based school cultures, and technical problems. This was a very introductory article that placed a lot of emphasis on theories behind using AR in the classroom rather than instances where it was used in practice. For my own content area, I have only read about one instance of AR for art. This was in the form of a field trip to a museum that uses an app where students can take a photo of a work of art and the app tells them information about that work. Otherwise, while I’m sure there are many places in the art curriculum that AR would be useful, I haven’t seen or heard or any other instances of it in practice. This makes me wonder is AR lends itself more to certain fields than others.

• Davis, K., & Singh, S. (2015). Digital badges in afterschool learning: Documenting the perspectives and experiences of students and educators. Computers & Education, 88, 72–83.
• Dunleavy, M., & Dede, C. (2014). Augmented reality teaching and learning. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. Elen, & M. J. Bishop (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology(pp. 735-745). New York, NY: Springer.
• Gamrat, C., & Zimmerman, H. (2015). An online badging system supporting educators’ STEM learning. In D. Hickey, J. Jovanović, S. Lonn, & J. E. Willis (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Open Badges in Education Co-located With the 5th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK 2015)(pp. 12–23). CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Poughkeepsie.
• Klopfer, Eric. (2012). New Forms of Engagement [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=691&v=_UHA9XYAXjA

This week’s readings provided a lot of research around mobile learning and how to categorize different aspects of it. While all of the articles mentioned transitioning from one location to another with mobile devices, the article Leveraging mobile technology for sustainable seamless learning: a research agenda was almost entirely about using mobile devices for learning outside of the classroom. One such instance was a unit on the 3R’s that led students to come to many of their own conclusions about reducing, reusing and recycling. Students had to take photographs, record interviews, and transmit data using a mobile device. They also discussed their findings with their classmates using the same devices. In this instance, I would agree with the statement made in this article that, “The portability and versatility of mobile devices have significant potential in promoting a pedagogical shift from didactic teacher-centered to participatory student-centered learning.”

In, Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective the authors discussed similar concepts to the above reading and also attempted to categorize different aspects of mobile learning based on their research. They also tried to tie in aspects from the perspective of the socio-cultural theory. Through their research, they would eventually end up with the categories of “authenticity, collaboration, and personalization”. The authors of this article also had several examples where they extrapolated data to help back their findings.

I believe that the final article from this week’s readings, titled, Framework for Designing Mobile Learning Environments did the best job covering all aspects of mobile learning and categorizing them in a succinct way. They abbreviated their research into RASE – resources, activity, support, and evaluation. Perhaps I liked this model the best because it is very similar to how I have to write lesson plans as it is. There needs to be an in-depth list of steps, evaluation, and resources meanwhile keeping the student learning goals in mind. Like the other articles, this one also discussed mobile learning from the aspect of different learning theories. I also found the most connections to art education in this article, particularly on pages 5 and 6 where they discussed problem-solving and the theories of Jonassen from 2000. In art students need to construct artifacts using problem-solving skills and “strategic decision-making and planning”.

My only struggle at this point in this course is thinking of ways that art can be included in the grand scheme of mobile learning. While I do have some ideas, I fear that the arts may fall by the wayside as they do in other ways when it comes to supplemental materials. It will be interesting to see in the future of this course if I find more apps other than the ‘museum tour apps’ created by museums.

Learning Theories and Education: Toward a Decade of Synergy

This goal of this article was to discuss a synergistic view of traditional research methodologies that pertain to learning and education. There were three strands of learning discussed in the reading: 1) Implicit learning, 2) Informal learning, and 3) Designs for formal learning and beyond. Of the three, the first two strands of learning were the most related. I can also see both of them relating to technology in many ways. First of all, students can learn about apps from a very young age due to Implicit Learning. In my experience, I have seen many children bang around on a tablet or phone until they get the hang of an app and what types of interactions cause things to happen on screen. They don’t know that they’re learning, but they are. I can see how Informal Learning could happen with technology for similar reasons. A child is using some form of tech for leisure purposes and is learning through doing so without even realizing it. Finally, the third section reminded me of interviewing for teaching jobs when the chapter discussed the KUD, how you know when a student is successful, and the process to get them there. The final section of the article also talked about pedagogical content knowledge, innovation, 21st-century learning, and ideas like knowledge building. All the things that I have had to explain on many occasions during an interview. All in all, this article was very informative but I definitely felt that it could have been shorter or at least used fewer repeated examples.

Mobile Learning: Small Devices, Big Issues

This article stood out to me as being well organized and not too long. It discussed ways to successfully use mobile devices to improve learning, which makes mobile learning successful, and challenges for evaluation of mobile learning. I saw many parallels between how learning situations were designed for mobile integration and regular classroom instruction; as they should parallel each other. The article finished up with three levels of evaluating technology in an educational environment, and three in-depth examples of tech use. The one that resonated the most with me as an art teacher was the MyArtSpace project because it enhanced the learning potential of an art-related field trip.

Media Use, Face-to-Face Communication, Media Multitasking, and Social Well-Being Among 8- to 12-Year-Old Girls

This research study provided a more negative view of the impact of media and technology on social interactions. I think that more studies would need to be done to really show the correlation, but it begs the question if the results would be the same if students were polled on their feelings and interactions only while at school. It could be that students with lower self-esteem are less likely to engage in social activities that are face to face, whereas the results from this study make it seem like students who use more media have more negative social perceptions because of using more media. This could just be my own misinformed interpretation but the tone of the article appears to be trying to make a connection that perhaps isn’t there; that using more tech causes you to feel like you are a social outcast and have a poorer self-image. Despite my opinion, the article does give the statement, “This study cannot establish whether there are a cause and effect relationship between media use and [social consequences]. And if there are such relationships, they could well run in both directions simultaneously.”

Identity as an Analytic Lens for Research in Education

While a very interesting read, the main thing I gathered from this selection was that there are different modalities through which people can identify or be identified. On page 109, the reading includes technology to say that a person engages in a variety of different combinations of things, including “…using objects, tools, or technologies in a certain way.” The only connection I can make is that people will see themselves in a certain way depending on how much technology they do or don’t use. This could get in the way of education or help it, depending on how strong a person’s viewpoint of their tech use is. For example, a person might consider themselves to be, ‘old-fashioned’ and thus reject the use of technology in their classroom just based on that identity. They could also see themselves as ‘tech-savvy’ and try to use too much tech in their classroom based on that identity.

Splicing the Divide

The part of this research paper that talked about the integration of popular culture and student interest stood out to me as being very important in this article. I think that this is true for all aspects of education, not just for integrating technology. If a student is learning about something and a pop culture reference is somehow used in relation to the lesson, then the student is more likely to relate to, and thus learn, the material. I also thought it was interesting to see that low-SES schools are more likely to use computers to drill or use a word processor, but the reasons provided didn’t seem to actually be what I have seen in my experiences in low-SES schools. Basically, the author says that students are parked on a computer to give them something to do to keep them from misbehaving. While this is very negative and may be true in some instances, I don’t feel that this is entirely the reason. Students in low-SES schools and neighborhoods are less likely to have as strong of an educational support presence at home than a student from a high-SES area. Because of that fact, students are coming to school less and less prepared every year and therefore need more practice. I have seen many students who don’t know the alphabet or even their name when they start school. Since these students need more remediation than their peers in high-SES areas, it stands to reason that this could be part of the cause for more students to be on computers doing drills. If a student doesn’t have basic skills then they are going to be hard-pressed to do some of the things that high-SES schools were described to be doing on computers. I am not a researcher so perhaps this really isn’t the case, but I can definitely speak from experience in a low-income school that provides education to a low-income area.

Mobile Learning

This article gives a lot of examples of mobile learning that could happen in a classroom setting. What I don’t think this article does very well is delving into the possible successes and failures of each example. While the end of the article does give some general ideas, everything is very brief. I think his ideas for critical success factors are decent, but perhaps ownership should be moved to a different category. In my experience, student ownership of their own devices has caused more issues than anything else, although that is mainly because we don’t have a BYOD policy at the school I work at. I could also see a lot of potential issues even if we did have a BYOD policy or a 1:1 ratio of school-provided tech.

Income, Race, and Class

I liked that this article did not focus entirely on the differences between each group but also talked a lot about the similarities. I also thought it was good that the article gave seemingly valid and believable reasons for why each group responded the way they did. One line stuck out to me as being important, especially as someone who teaches in an urban school, and that was, “Managing and monitoring social media use are secondary concerns.” It really hit home for me because I was never able to understand how parents could allow their children to use their phones in the way that they tend to, but no one had pointed out to me before the obvious fact that being in a low-income situation, those same parents have bigger concerns than what their child is doing with their cell phone. This article was definitely an interesting read.

My name is Jamie Hicks and this is my introduction and blog post about our first week’s reading. I am a K – 8 art teacher at an urban school district in York, PA. I have been teaching since 2010 and would like to incorporate more technology into my classroom. I am studying for my M. Ed. in LDT through Penn State, World Campus to learn as much as I can about how I can use technology to an art classroom.

Our first week’s reading is all about mobile technologies and their classroom applications. Even though this chapter discusses ideas that are in some cases over 10 years old, it still has many valid points about the application of such technologies in learning ecologies. The first couple of paragraphs under the subtitle, Motivation on pages 427 and 428 basically sums up the reason for being in this course right now. With the cost of tech constantly decreasing while it’s capabilities increase, and due to the fact that many schools have a 1:1 ratio of Chromebooks or laptops to students, technology should be integrated into classrooms seamlessly and effectively. By effectively, I mean to increase student knowledge and achievement and not just as an enrichment activity (not that there is anything wrong with enrichment activities, mind you).

The chapter goes on to describe possible uses for handheld wireless devices, or WILDs as they continuously refer to them. The authors briefly mention learning outside of school using these devices. I know that some school districts near me use the 1:1 ratio of Chromebooks to their advantage on snow days by having teachers upload the day’s lessons, readings, homework, etc. into a digital classroom so that students don’t miss a day of school due to inclement weather. This is greatly advantageous to keeping students in an educational mindset even on days off but also in keeping the district on pace per their calendar year (no need for built-in snow days or tacking days onto the end of the year!). They also briefly mentioned on page 434 using ‘WILDs to foster deeper understandings, inquiry processes, and collaborative problem-solving whether as small groups or in whole classrooms.’ After finishing LDT 467, I know that this is a huge reason for the use of technology in classrooms. We learned about all the ways that technology can be used to foster inquiry, collaboration, communication, and incorporate problem-solving abilities through the use of Wikis, blogs, applications, and more. There was also a mention of using cell phones basically as clickers for real-time feedback, questions, and group learning. I think that this would be a great way to include cell phones in the classroom and have used mine during teacher training days with the Kahoot app before for this very reason.

In summation, this chapter described many ideas for how to use technology in the classroom and the reasons why it should be used, such as lower costs and higher performance of WILDs. It also focused on the idea that quality of education was the main goal for using said technology in the classroom at all. There was a point near the end of the chapter that I think really encompasses my own opinion about technology in the classroom and I will share it here as a quote, “…a third type of convergence would also be beneficial to societies worldwide: a convergence between the technical integration being pursued by industry, the research and development being advanced by the learning sciences, and the wisdom of practice of K – 12 educators.” No matter how much technology you add or use in a classroom, it is important that the teacher still be a part of the equation.