Abstract
The classroom environment in the 21st century has increasingly utilized many types of technologies as supplemental tools for teaching and learning including instructional design, development, and delivery. The level at which schools are encompassing more technology is often restrained by financial constraints and rapid advances in the static equipment, making the equipment outdated within a short period of time. However, the use of relatively low cost mobile technologies such as tablets and cell phones in the classroom setting have reduced the social and logistical barriers in education and enhanced the creative active learning processes. The primary objective of this chapter is to offer insights into the importance of using mobile technology to educate students in today's connected society and to identify the multi-faceted advantages of mobile technology within an active learning curriculum design to encourage a meaningful learner-centered experience.
TopBackground
Reviewing the history of the emergence of digital technology and the implications of its growth within our society can help educators understand the future importance of embracing technological advancement and growth. Delving into the assumptions of the important pedagogical dynamics of mobile learning, this chapter discusses the criticality of how they are interconnect, their effect on the development of educational design, and the implications for the learner. This historical look shows signs of foreshadowing the future needs of implementing mobile technology-based learning and implementation of current views of technology-based learning tools.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Disruptive Technology: Disruptive technology is any technology that can revolutionize the way students learn.
Active Learning: Learning where students are actively engaged with the material they are studying (e.g., reading, writing, projects, group discussions, personal reflection).
Mobile Inverted Constructivist Model (MIC): An educational model enhance through the use of mobile technology (social media) that flips the interaction design of the traditional classroom with learning taking place first by student led discovery and then collective discussion and exercise in the class room, thus allowing a more interactive learning experience within the classroom.
Constructivism: Learning which takes place when knowledge is built through an active process and contextual observances of their experiences and of the world, allowing for the learner to build their own understanding rather than acquiring it through lecture or memorization.
Substitution Augmentation Modification and Redefinition (SAMR): An educational model that was designed to assist educators in the infusion of technology into curriculum to increase enhanced favorable impact on student outcomes.
Digital Native: A term that speaks to a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and is therefore familiar with and more apt to be fluent in computers usage and the Internet from an early age.
Mobile Learning: Learning facilitated through the use of portable technology devices e.g. smartphones and tablets.
Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): Courses available online that are aimed at unlimited participation through the open access of the internet consisting of traditional course materials such as films lectures, reading materials as well as interactive forums and collaborative communities for student interaction.
Digital Literacy: The ability of learners to effectively access and use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.
Inverted (Flipped) Classroom: A pedagogical model in which the traditional structure of the learning environment is flipped instruction is received at home through video, reading or alternate forms of media while in-class time is used for group discussion, projects or exercises.
Internet of Things: (IoT) : A system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects and people that through the use of sensors built in to them are distinguished by unique identifiers that have the ability to communicate and transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.