Who am I?

Jocelyn Wishart

University of Bristol, UK

University researcher and teacher specialising in the use of new technologies to support education, especially science education

What am I going to present?

Draw on your students work and your own to tell us what should be in a scenario so that it communicates to (1) teachers, (2) other researchers.

j.m.wishart@bristol.ac.uk

Scenarios, or simulated case studies, are a means of articulating issues from real-world experiences and of providing a vision or way forward for the future (Kamtsiou, Koskien, Naeve, Pappa & Stergioulas, 2006).

Such an approach supports contextualisation of issues, exploration of multiple perspectives, reflection, and opportunities to develop collaborative solutions (Herrington, Oliver & Reeves, 2003).

Their use in an ethics workshop (adapted from Howard, Lothen-Kline and Boekeloo (2004)) implies need for three elements:

• The scenario.

• An ethics framework, set of principles or ethical decision-making strategy in the context of which the scenario is to be considered.

• A set of questions to stimulate ethical discussion of the scenario.

RESEARCHERS

Scenario: Where do you stop?

Key Issue: Boundaries between formal-informal, public-private, home-school, real-virtual etc.

Research question: What use can undergraduate university students make of social networks to support their formal learning?

Description: This is a project funded by a National Teaching Innovation Grant and run by a university lecturer who is concerned that their topic is perceived by students to be a particularly ‘dry’ one. They are interested in developing their teaching to make more use of collaborative learning opportunities enabled by students using mobile phones to access social networking sites at a time and place convenient to them. They have set a task to be completed on line through, say, Facebook, where students work with each other on a set task.

Scenario: Where do you stop?

Questions to be considered:•    Who should be asked for consent and how should they be informed?•    When is a discussion ‘on task’ and thereby included and when is it ‘off-

task’?• What are the pros and cons of having the lecturer as a ‘friend’? • What are they to do on coming across unexpectedly personal

information?  •    How to anonymise the data?

Other similar situations:Any research involving a mobile device that is used in personal as well as work contexts is likely to lead to access, wittingly or unwittingly, of personal information unrelated to the project.  A participant may be unaware when giving consent to the research of the extent of the personal data stored on the phone.

PRACTITIONERS

Each scenario to cover:

• Sector

• Subject

• Pedagogy (teaching strategy and planned learning outcome)

• Technology (device and apps)• Organisational/logistical issues with focus on practicalities

(charging, coverage, replacement...)

• Acceptance/attitudes

• Sustainability/scalability issues

• Ethical accessibility or m-safety concerns

• Outcomes evaluation and

• Acceptable use guidelines

NB Currently rare to find scenarios of what didn’t work

 

A Current Scenario: Handheld rather than mobile learning?

James asked school students to use a school supplied PDA for four science learning activities in a Year 10 class:

• Quick response (QR) codes linked to resources that allow students to find supporting information for the set task,

• Camera to record stages in a chemistry experiment linking photos to appropriate equations,

• E-book on Global Warming and • Data logging software and light gates to record velocity in an

experiment exploring momentum.

Students found data logging app difficult to understand and use but the other activities showed how e-books, mobile cameras and QR codes can empower learners to have increased choice and independence in how they approach their learning.

References:

Herrington, J., Oliver, R. & Reeves, T. ( 2003). Patterns of engagement in authentic online learning environments, Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 19(1). 59-71.

Howard, D.E., Lothen-Kline, C., & Boekeloo, B.O. (2004). Using the case-study methodology to teach ethics to public health students. Health Promotion Practice, 5, 151-159.

Kamtsiou, V., Koskinen, T., Naeve, A., Pappa, D., & Stergioulas, L. (2006). A glimpse at the future of technology enhanced-professional learning: Trends, scenarios and visions. In European Networking and Learning for the Future, Eden conference.

Wishart , J. (2013) Ethical Issues in Mobile Learning: scenarios to aid research planning. Available at http://www.iamlearn.org/ethical-issues-mobile-learning/research-planning

Traxler, J. & Wishart, J.  (2011) Making Mobile Learning Work: Case Studies of Practice, Bristol: ESCalate: HEA Subject Centre for Education. Available at   http://escalate.ac.uk/downloads/8250.pdf