As our world is rapidly moving into an advanced technological age, it seems important that education systems catch up and use these new tools to enhance learning. In my generation, we did not grow up with cellphones or tablets, and our first home computer was very limited in its capabilities. As an undergraduate college student, basic computers were available to use to write papers, but there were no online connections at the time. Therefore, I don’t have personal knowledge on what it is like to grow up in a technology-driven world, but I can see how the childhoods of my children and students are radically different than my own.
I have struggled with student engagement over the years because they are simply not wired to learn through long, teacher-led lectures, which is what my education was designed around. Students tend to have shorter attention spans because they have instant access to information provided in chunks online. I used to visit my local library and read books in my spare time. Students now play video games. On the one hand, I think using video games in education is a good idea as a format students are familiar with. The only drawback I see (aside from funding these games) is that we would be encouraging students to maintain short-term engagement. I wonder what will happen when they enter the workforce and can’t engage in a long staff meeting? Take a look at this video on games in education, see how one student is improving academically with them, and listen to some drawbacks and restrictions:
Conversely, mobile learning can provide some of the benefits of gaming, but here too there are restrictions. Horton (2012) seems to be a champion of mobile learning, but, in my past experiences, I don’t see how an entire college course can be done effectively in a completely mobile format. There are a few tools that Horton feels are valuable for mobile learning, and ones that I agree with relate to online access to content. Post uses Blackboard for their classes, and students can use an app if they want to access each week’s content online. I don’t agree with Horton’s ideas for submitting audio papers or emailing documents to the instructor via Dropbox. From the perspective of an instructor, I can’t even imagine the nightmare of trying to correct and grade these types of submissions. How would an instructor provide feedback to their students? What would be the quality of the papers if they are typed on a phone with two thumbs? Also, there wouldn’t be an instant check for plagiarism, which is a task Blackboard can do. When students submit their written assignments on Blackboard, they are perfectly arranged in the Grading Center for the instructor to find them. As well as plagiarism checks, there are online rubrics that the teacher can fill out with a series of clicks, and there are comments section to provide more feedback. Instructors can even leave notes within the body of the paper to provide even more specific feedback. I simply don’t believe that mobile devices are compatible enough with computers in order to use them exclusively in education.
Horton, W.K. (2012). E-learning by design. 2nd ed. Pfeiffer.
VOA News. (2009, Jul 17). Video games are the new teaching tool. [YouTube]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCaZrnstw8g
Tracy Collamore PLE Project 