tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/technology-in-education-9121/articlesTechnology in Education – The Conversation2023-07-26T12:18:56Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100992023-07-26T12:18:56Z2023-07-26T12:18:56ZDo smartphones belong in classrooms? Four scholars weigh in<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539214/original/file-20230725-23-c94xjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C4099%2C3671&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Academic performance improves when schools ban smartphones, research shows.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/happy-teenage-girls-in-class-looking-at-cell-phone-royalty-free-image/1011461988?phrase=smartphones+classrooms&adppopup=true">Westend61 via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Should smartphones be allowed in classrooms? A <a href="https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/sites/default/files/medias/fichiers/2023/07/Summary_v5.pdf">new report</a> from <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/brief">UNESCO</a>, the education arm of the United Nations, raises questions about the practice. Though smartphones can be used for educational purposes, the report says the devices also disrupt classroom learning, expose students to cyberbullying and can compromise students’ privacy.</em></p>
<p><em>About 1 in 7 countries globally, such as <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-07-04/mobile-phones-to-be-banned-from-dutch-classrooms-next-year">the Netherlands</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/12/570145408/france-moves-to-ban-students-from-using-cellphones-in-schools">France</a>, have banned the use of smartphones in school – and academic performance improved as a result, particularly for low-performing students, the report notes.</em></p>
<p><em>As school leaders in the U.S. wrestle with <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/the-schools-that-ban-smartphones/673117/">whether or not to ban smartphones</a>, The Conversation has invited four scholars to weigh in on the issue.</em></p>
<h2>Daniel G. Krutka: Use smartphones to encourage ‘technoskepticism’</h2>
<p>While the issue of smartphone use in schools is complicated, evidence suggests that spending more time on smartphones is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000403">associated with young people being less happy and less satisfied with life</a>.</p>
<p>Technology scholars have long argued that the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/132784/technopoly-by-neil-postman/">key to living well with technology</a> is in finding limits. However, in banning smartphones, I worry educators might be missing opportunities to use smartphones to encourage what I and other researchers refer to as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00317217231168262">technoskeptical thinking</a>; that is, questioning our relationship with technology.</p>
<p>For example, students might be encouraged to consider the benefits and drawbacks of using navigational apps to travel from one place to another, as opposed to old-fashioned paper maps. Or, students might explore their social media feeds to critique what algorithms feed them, or how notifications get their attention.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Zj0urDUAAAAJ&hl=en">my research</a>, I have looked at how teachers can encourage students to go on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.03.009">techno-fasts</a> – that is, abstaining from the use of technology for a certain period of time. This, I argue, will give students time to reflect on the time they spend <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.03.009">away from their devices</a>. </p>
<p>Policy debates often focus on whether or not to put smartphones out of reach during the school day. But I believe educators might find it more beneficial to make the phones an object of inquiry.</p>
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<img alt="A group of kids in a classroom looks at a phone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539365/original/file-20230725-25-4vcd0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539365/original/file-20230725-25-4vcd0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539365/original/file-20230725-25-4vcd0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539365/original/file-20230725-25-4vcd0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539365/original/file-20230725-25-4vcd0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539365/original/file-20230725-25-4vcd0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539365/original/file-20230725-25-4vcd0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Jeffrey Riley recently said the state may begin encouraging school districts to ban cellphone use in schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/group-of-high-school-students-looking-at-message-on-royalty-free-image/976330346?phrase=cell+phone+classroom&adppopup=true">monkeybusinessimages/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Sarah Rose: Consult parents, teachers and students</h2>
<p>While there is evidence that classroom phone usage <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.229">can be a distraction</a>, it can also promote <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2019.1702426">engagement and learning</a>. While research about the potential positive and negative consequences of classroom phones can be used to inform school phone policies, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.11.007">views of those</a> who are most directly impacted by the policies should also be taken into account.</p>
<p>The views of parents matter because their views <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.11.007">may influence</a> the extent to which their children follow the policy. The views of children matter because they are the ones being expected to follow the policy and to benefit from it. The views of teachers matter because they are often the ones that have to enforce the policies. Research shows that enforcing cellphone policies is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.011">not always a straightforward issue</a>. </p>
<p>In my research, I have found that children – aged 10 and 11 years old – in collaboration with their parents, were able to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12583">come up with ideas for ideal policies</a> and solutions to help enforce them. For example, one parent-child pair suggested mobile phone use in school could be banned but that a role of “telephone monitor” could be given to an older pupil. This “telephone monitor” would have a class mobile phone that children and parents could use to contact each other during the school day when necessary.</p>
<p>This recommendation reflected how parents and middle and high school students – whether from rural and urban areas – felt cellphones were important to keep in touch with each other during the school day. Beyond safety, children and parents also told us that phones were important for keeping in touch about changing plans and for emotional support during the school day.</p>
<p>I believe policies that simply ban phones in schools may be missing an opportunity to educate children about responsible mobile device use. When parents and children are involved in policy development, it has the potential to increase the extent to which these policies are followed and enforced. </p>
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<img alt="A group of kids in a classroom look at their phone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539366/original/file-20230725-23-ju7ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539366/original/file-20230725-23-ju7ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539366/original/file-20230725-23-ju7ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539366/original/file-20230725-23-ju7ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539366/original/file-20230725-23-ju7ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539366/original/file-20230725-23-ju7ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539366/original/file-20230725-23-ju7ly8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2020, cellphone bans were in place in 76% of U.S. schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/multi-ethnic-group-of-students-using-smartphones-royalty-free-image/962475588?phrase=cell%2Bphone%2Bclassroom">gorodenkoff/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Arnold L. Glass: Cellphone use in college lectures hurts performance in ways that are hard to see</h2>
<p>The intrusion of internet-enabled electronic devices, such as laptops, tablets and cellphones, has transformed the modern college lecture. Students now divide their attention between the lecture and their devices. Classroom studies reveal that when college students use an electronic device for a nonacademic purpose during class, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2018.1489046">it hurts their performance on exams</a>.</p>
<p>When attention is divided between an electronic device and the classroom lecture, it does not reduce comprehension of the lecture – at least, not when measured by within-class quizzes. Instead, divided attention reduces long-term retention of the classroom lecture, which hurts performance on unit exams and final exams. </p>
<p>When some students open electronic devices, it also negatively affects the performance of all the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.003">students around them</a>. Research has shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.003">student performance on final exams was worse</a> when electronic devices were permitted during classes that covered exam material versus when the devices were not.</p>
<p>Many students won’t think their divided attention is affecting their retention of new information. It may not be for the moment, but a couple of weeks later or down the line, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.003">research shows</a>, it does.</p>
<h2>Louis-Philippe Beland: Bans help low-achieving students the most</h2>
<p>Numerous studies indicate that low-achieving students stand to benefit the most from the implementation of mobile phone bans in schools.</p>
<p>In a 2015 study, my co-author, <a href="https://www.richardmurphy.org/">Richard Murphy</a>, and I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2016.04.004">examined the impact of banning mobile phones on student performance</a> in high schools, using data from England. By comparing schools with phone bans to similar schools without the bans, we isolated the effect of mobile phones on performance. Our study found that banning mobile phones significantly increased test scores among 16-year-old students. The effect is equivalent to adding five days to the school year or an extra hour per week. Low-achieving students benefited more, while high-achieving students remained unaffected. </p>
<p>Similar <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/AEA-05-2021-0112">studies in Spain</a> and <a href="https://openaccess.nhh.no/nhh-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/3069282/_%2016_00464-33%20thesis_abrahamsson%20732139_2_1.PDF?sequence=1">Norway</a> using a similar approach demonstrated compelling evidence supporting the benefits of banning mobile phones. In Spain, grades improved and bullying incidents decreased. In Norway, the ban raised middle school students’ grade-point averages and their likelihood of attending academic high schools while reducing bullying. Evidence from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12214">Belgium</a> suggests banning mobile phones can be beneficial for college student performance. </p>
<p>Psychological research sheds light on potential mechanisms behind the impact of mobile phones and technology on student performance. Multitasking, common with mobile phone use, has been found to hinder <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903620106">learning and task execution</a>. Taking notes by hand has been shown to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2013.767917">better enhance memory retention</a> compared to typing on a computer.</p>
<p>In sum, banning mobile phones in schools can yield positive effects, improve academic performance and narrow the achievement gap between high- and low-achieving students. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that mobile phones and technology can also be valuable educational tools when used appropriately.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louis-Philippe Beland receives funding from SSHRC insight grant and SSHRC insight development grant.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arnold Lewis Glass, Daniel G. Krutka, and Sarah Rose do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report proposed restrictions on the use of technology in the classroom.Louis-Philippe Beland, Associate Professor of Economics, Carleton UniversityArnold Lewis Glass, Professor of Psychology, Rutgers UniversityDaniel G. Krutka, Associate Professor of Social Studies Education, University of North TexasSarah Rose, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Child Development, Staffordshire UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2003142023-03-12T07:42:13Z2023-03-12T07:42:13ZChatGPT is the push higher education needs to rethink assessment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512841/original/file-20230301-28-24bhvd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With proper teaching, students can use ChatGPT to develop their arguments and build their essays.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-is-the-push-higher-education-needs-to-rethink-assessment-200314&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic was a shock to higher education <a href="https://www.iesalc.unesco.org/en/2020/05/27/iau-global-survey-on-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-higher-education-around-the-world/">systems everywhere</a>. But while some changes, like moving lectures online, were relatively easy to make, assessment posed a much bigger challenge. Assessment can take many forms, from essays to exams to experiments and more. </p>
<p>Many institutions and individual academics essentially outsourced the assessment process to software. They increased their use of <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-must-stop-relying-on-software-to-deal-with-plagiarism-113487">programs like Turnitin</a> to check for matched wording in students’ assignments. And for closed-book, timed tests they <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-shouldnt-use-software-to-monitor-online-exams-heres-why-188327">used tools such as Proctorio</a>, which monitor a student’s computer or phone while they write exams. </p>
<p>But universities did not seize this chance to reflect on what higher education is for and how assessment might be used to enhance its achievement. Instead they doubled down on the status quo, breathing a sigh of relief once isolation and lockdown orders were revoked and things could return to “normal”.</p>
<p>The advent of ChatGPT and similar chatbots provides another opportunity for the sector to reflect on why and how it assesses – and what higher education is for. </p>
<p><a href="https://mashable.com/article/what-is-chatgpt">ChatGPT</a> is a chatbot technology, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), that enables users to have natural, human-like conversations with a computer. It uses advanced language processing techniques to understand user input and provide natural, contextual responses. With ChatGPT, users can converse with a computer in a way that feels like talking to a real person. It scrapes information from a large database mined from the internet and uses this to create a unique response to a prompt.</p>
<p>So, for instance, it can write an essay on any topic – “the advantages of breastfeeding” or “the social complexity of the refugee crisis in Europe”. It can also be trained to provide context-specific essays. </p>
<p>We are academics from South Africa, Australia, the UK and the US, working in fields related to education, ways of learning and teaching, and academic practice. We believe ChatGPT could be a powerful impetus to shift from understanding assessment as the assurance of an educational “product” to assessment as learning. </p>
<p>Used properly, it could be a valuable way to teach students about critical thinking, writing and the broader role of artificial intelligence tools like chatbots in the world today.</p>
<h2>Threat or opportunity?</h2>
<p>The advent of ChatGPT has prompted a variety of reactions from universities all over the world. In the UK, for instance, the reaction towards ChatGPT and higher education has veered from <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/does-rise-ai-spell-end-education">the hyperbolic</a> – will AI ruin universities? – to the <a href="https://wonkhe.com/blogs/chatgpt-assessment-and-cheating-have-we-tried-trusting-students/">more measured</a>, such as considering what students think of the technology.</p>
<p>If the purpose of higher education is that students memorise and summarise a body of knowledge, and that this is then certified via assessment, then ChatGPT is an existential threat. The market value of credentials is directly threatened if universities can no longer confidently assert that the texts assessed by academics have indeed been produced by their students.</p>
<p>But if the purpose of higher education is to nurture a <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/transforming-university-education-9781350157231/">transformative relationship</a> to a particular body of knowledge that enables students to see the world – and their place in it – in new ways, then assessment takes on a vastly different meaning. </p>
<p>Used well, ChatGPT and similar tools can show students the wonders and responsibilities of acquiring and building powerful knowledge. It can assist rather than being seen in opposition to their learning.</p>
<p>Here are four ways this might happen.</p>
<h2>Four potential applications</h2>
<p><strong>1</strong>. Students can reflect on articles produced by ChatGPT which have fabricated references and distorted information and then deliberate on the potential consequences of this in an era of fake news. </p>
<p><strong>2</strong>. Students can be set assignments that require them to compare ChatGPT’s answers to ones they have developed and ascertain whether they know the material and how it might be represented differently. </p>
<p><strong>3</strong>. ChatGPT can be used to support essay writing and to help foster a sense of mastery and autonomy. Students can analyse ChatGPT responses to note how the software has drawn from multiple sources and to identify flaws in the ChatGPT responses which would need their attention.</p>
<p><strong>4</strong>. Students can be encouraged to consider the extent to which their use of ChatGPT has enabled or constrained their access to powerful knowledge. This is a chance to critically reflect on where and how the use of AI is taking place in society and their potential future professions.</p>
<p>There is already <a href="https://www.learnersedge.com/blog/50-chat-gpt-prompts-for-teachers">a multitude of ideas</a> available online about how ChatGPT can be used to create prompts for assignments. Lecturers and students can explore these to see how they might be adapted for their own learning and teaching needs.</p>
<p>None of these ideas will be simple to implement. Academics will need support from their institutions in considering what such technological developments mean for their disciplines. And, we’d argue, that support must help academics to move beyond seeking ways to trick the software or to monitor students. </p>
<h2>Innovation and inclusion</h2>
<p>Society and the higher education sector squandered the opportunity that COVID presented to reflect on what higher education was for and how assessment might be used to enhance learning. </p>
<p>Rather than signalling the end of higher education, ChatGPT has instead presented the sector, and society more broadly, with another opportunity. This is a chance to develop innovative and inclusive teaching, learning, and assessment aligned to such understandings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Students could learn about critical thinking, writing and the broader role of artificial intelligence tools like chatbots.Sioux McKenna, Director of Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Rhodes University & Visiting Research Professor in Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Rhodes UniversityDan Dixon, Adjunct Lecturer, University of SydneyDaniel Oppenheimer, Professor of Decision Science and Psychology, Carnegie Mellon UniversityMargaret Blackie, Associate Professor, Rhodes UniversitySam Illingworth, Associate Professor, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1899212022-09-13T12:33:06Z2022-09-13T12:33:06Z5 challenges of doing college in the metaverse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483585/original/file-20220908-20-lxhmps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C69%2C4641%2C3487&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A student wears virtual reality goggles and headphones as part of a digital learning experience.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/connor-powelson-graduate-assistant-and-phd-candidate-news-photo/1240927332">Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More and more colleges are becoming “<a href="https://theconversation.com/six-benefits-that-the-metaverse-offers-to-colleges-and-universities-188950">metaversities</a>,” taking their physical campuses into a virtual online world, often called the “metaverse.” One initiative has <a href="https://www.victoryxr.com/our-partners/meta/">10 U.S. universities and colleges</a> working with Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and virtual reality company VictoryXR to create 3D online replicas – sometimes called “<a href="https://steve-grubbs.medium.com/the-advantages-of-a-digital-twin-virtual-reality-campus-563b77c951cc">digital twins</a>” – of their campuses that are updated live as people and items move through the real-world spaces.</p>
<p>Some classes are <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-benefits-that-the-metaverse-offers-to-colleges-and-universities-188950">already happening in the metaverse</a>. And VictoryXR says that by 2023, it plans to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawhitford/2022/09/03/metaversity-is-in-session-as-meta-and-iowas-victoryxr-open-10-virtual-campuses/?sh=606238016f25">build and operate 100 digital twin campuses</a>, which allow for a group setting with live instructors and real-time class interactions. </p>
<p>One metaversity builder, New Mexico State University, says it wants to offer degrees in which students can take all their classes in virtual reality, <a href="https://www.protocol.com/enterprise/metaverse-in-education-morehouse-meta">beginning in 2027</a>.</p>
<p>There are many <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-benefits-that-the-metaverse-offers-to-colleges-and-universities-188950">benefits to taking college classes in the metaverse</a>, such as 3D visual learning, more realistic interactivity and easier access for faraway students. But there are also potential problems. My recent <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=g-jALEoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">research</a> has focused on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/MITP.2022.3178509">ethical, social and practical</a> aspects of the metaverse and risks such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102542">privacy violations and security breaches</a>. I see five challenges:</p>
<h2>1. Significant costs and time</h2>
<p>The metaverse <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-benefits-that-the-metaverse-offers-to-colleges-and-universities-188950">provides a low-cost learning alternative in some settings</a>. For instance, building a cadaver laboratory costs <a href="https://skarredghost.com/2021/08/04/victoryxr-fisk-vr-cadaver-lab/">several million dollars and requires a lot of space</a> and maintenance. A virtual cadaver lab has made scientific <a href="https://www.fisk.edu/featured/fisk-university-htc-vive-t-mobile-and-victoryxr-launch-5g-powered-vr-human-cadaver-lab/">learning affordable at Fisk University</a>.</p>
<p>However, licenses for virtual reality content, construction of digital twin campuses, virtual reality headsets and other investment expenses do <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mcgivney/files/introductionlearningmetaverse-april2022-meridiantreehouse.pdf">add costs for universities</a>.</p>
<p>A metaverse course license can cost universities <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/08/03/college-metaverse-here-higher-ed-ready">at least $20,000, and could go as high as $100,000 for a digital twin campus</a>. VictoryXR also charges a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawhitford/2022/09/03/metaversity-is-in-session-as-meta-and-iowas-victoryxr-open-10-virtual-campuses/?sh=3dbfa7cf6f25">yearly subscription fee of $200</a> per student to access its metaverse.</p>
<p>Additional costs are incurred for virtual reality headsets. While Meta is providing a <a href="https://www.insightintodiversity.com/metaversities-offer-new-possibilities-for-education-but-some-experts-urge-campuses-to-be-mindful-of-potential-risks/">limited number of its virtual reality headsets – the Meta Quest 2 – for free</a> for metaversities launched by Meta and VictoryXR, that’s only a few of what may be needed. The low-end 128GB version of the Meta Quest 2 <a href="https://store.facebook.com/quest/products/quest-2/">headset costs $399.99</a>. Managing and maintaining a large number of headsets, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/08/24/the-accessibility-and-affordability-of-the-metaverse-in-education-right-now/?sh=1ea2ba5d7f8f">including keeping them fully charged</a>, involves additional operational costs and time. </p>
<p>Colleges also need to spend significant time and resources to <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/08/03/college-metaverse-here-higher-ed-ready">provide training to faculty to deliver metaverse courses</a>. Even more time will be required to deliver metaverse courses, many of which will need <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mcgivney/files/introductionlearningmetaverse-april2022-meridiantreehouse.pdf">all-new digital materials</a>.</p>
<p>Most educators don’t have the <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mcgivney/files/introductionlearningmetaverse-april2022-meridiantreehouse.pdf">capability to create their own metaverse teaching materials</a>, which can involve merging videos, still images and audio with text and interactivity elements into an <a href="https://roundtablelearning.com/how-to-create-original-vr-content-everything-you-need-to-know/">immersive online experience</a>.</p>
<h2>2. Data privacy, security and safety concerns</h2>
<p>Business models of companies developing metaverse technologies <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mcgivney/files/introductionlearningmetaverse-april2022-meridiantreehouse.pdf">rely on collecting users’ detailed personal data</a>. For instance, people who want to use Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headsets must have Facebook accounts.</p>
<p>The headsets can collect highly personal and sensitive data <a href="https://store.facebook.com/legal/quest/privacy-policy/">such as location, students’ physical features and movements, and voice recordings</a>. Meta has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/13/privacy-vr-metaverse/">not promised to keep that data private or to limit access</a> that advertisers might have to it.</p>
<p>Meta is also working on a high-end virtual reality headset called <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/28/project-cambria-is-a-high-end-vr-headset-designed-for-facebooks-metaverse/">Project Cambria</a>, with more advanced capabilities. Sensors in the device will allow a virtual avatar to maintain eye contact and make facial expressions that mirror the user’s eye movements and face. That data information <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/13/privacy-vr-metaverse/">can help advertisers measure users’ attention</a> and target them with personalized advertising.</p>
<p>Professors and students may not freely participate in class discussions if they know that all their moves, their speech and even their facial expressions are <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/institutions/article/15293003/what-could-the-metaverse-mean-for-higher-education">being watched by the university as well as a big technology company</a>.</p>
<p>The virtual environment and its equipment can also collect a wide range of user data, such as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/metaverse-huge-opportunity-education-big-tech-must-not-ruin-it-opinion-1693962">physical movement, heart rate</a>, <a href="https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2022/03/29/cybersecurity-privacy-and-constitutional-concerns-risks-to-know-before-entering-the-metaverse/?slreturn=20220714213359">pupil size, eye openness</a> and even signals of emotions. </p>
<p>Cyberattacks in the metaverse could even cause physical harm. Metaverse interfaces <a href="https://securityintelligence.com/articles/metaverse-security-challenges/">provide input directly into users’ senses</a>, so they effectively trick the user’s brain into believing the user is in a different environment. <a href="https://it-online.co.za/2022/02/08/meta-safety-meta-security-metaverse/">People who attack virtual reality systems</a> can influence the activities of immersed users, even inducing them to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/TDSC.2019.2907942">physically move into dangerous locations</a>, such as to the top of a staircase.</p>
<p>The metaverse can also <a href="https://www.emergingedtech.com/2022/04/where-is-edtech-heading-rise-of-metaverse-quick-guide/">expose students to inappropriate content</a>. For instance, Roblox has launched <a href="https://education.roblox.com/">Roblox Education</a> to bring 3D, interactive, virtual environments into physical and online classrooms. Roblox says it has <a href="https://www.connectsafely.org/roblox">strong protections to keep everyone safe</a>, but no protections are perfect, and its metaverse involves user-generated content and a chat feature, which could be <a href="https://www.familyzone.com/anz/families/blog/roblox-parents-review">infiltrated by predators</a> or people <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/roblox-virtual-strip-clubs-condo-games-sex-1197237/">posting pornography</a> or other <a href="https://www.bark.us/blog/is-roblox-safe-for-kids/">illegal material</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gOLI_OIV3nc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Stanford University class took students on an exploration of world-merging virtual and physical elements.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Lack of rural access to advanced infrastructure</h2>
<p>Many metaverse applications such as <a href="https://www.vodafone.com.au/red-wire/what-5g-networks-mean-for-the-future-of-vr-ar-technology">3D videos are bandwidth-intensive</a>. They require high-speed data networks to handle all of the <a href="https://www.fisk.edu/featured/fisk-university-htc-vive-t-mobile-and-victoryxr-launch-5g-powered-vr-human-cadaver-lab/">information flowing between sensors and users</a> across the virtual and physical space. </p>
<p>Many users, especially in rural areas, <a href="https://www.vodafone.com.au/red-wire/what-5g-networks-mean-for-the-future-of-vr-ar-technology">lack the infrastructure to support the streaming of high-quality metaverse content</a>. For instance, 97% of the population living in urban areas in the U.S. has <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/covid-digital-divide-learning-education/">access to a high-speed connection, compared to 65% in rural areas and 60%</a> in tribal lands.</p>
<h2>4. Adapting challenges to a new environment</h2>
<p>Building and launching a metaversity requires drastic changes in a school’s approach to <a href="https://www.incitevr.com/about/company">teaching</a> and learning.
For instance, metaverse <a href="https://www.uoc.edu/portal/en/news/actualitat/2022/143-education-metavers.html">students aren’t just recipients of content</a> but active participants in virtual reality games and other activities.</p>
<p>The combination of advanced technologies such as <a href="https://www.incitevr.com/about/company">immersive game-based learning and virtual reality with artificial intelligence</a> can create personalized learning experiences that are not in real time but still experienced through the metaverse. Automatic systems that tailor the content and pace of learning to the ability and interest of the student can make learning in the metaverse <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mcgivney/files/introductionlearningmetaverse-april2022-meridiantreehouse.pdf">less structured</a>, with fewer set rules.</p>
<p>Those differences require significant <a href="https://www.uoc.edu/portal/en/news/actualitat/2022/143-education-metavers.html">modifications in assessment and monitoring processes</a>, such as quizzes and tests. Traditional measures such as <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mcgivney/files/introductionlearningmetaverse-april2022-meridiantreehouse.pdf">multiple choice questions are inappropriate to assess</a> individualized and unstructured learning experiences offered by the metaverse.</p>
<h2>5. Amplifying biases</h2>
<p>Gender, racial and ideological biases are common in textbooks of <a href="https://verdemagazine.com/checking-the-source-scrutinizing-the-biases-in-our-curriculum">history, science</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15290824.2018.1532570">other subjects</a>, which influence how students understand certain events and topics. In some cases, those biases prevent the achievement of justice and other goals, such as <a href="https://files.adulteducation.at/voev_content/340-gender_books.pdf">gender equality</a>.</p>
<p>Biases’ effects can be even more powerful in rich media environments. <a href="https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jsser/issue/19098/202639">Films</a> are <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/08/03/college-metaverse-here-higher-ed-ready">more powerful</a> at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2011.616239">molding students’</a> views than textbooks. <a href="https://aber.apacsci.com/index.php/met/article/view/1804/2138">Metaverse content</a> has the potential to be <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/08/03/college-metaverse-here-higher-ed-ready">even more influential</a>. </p>
<p>To maximize the benefits of the metaverse for teaching and learning, universities – and their students – will have to wrestle with protecting users’ privacy, training teachers and the level of national investment in broadband networks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nir Kshetri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are benefits to taking college classes in the metaverse, but there are also potential problems.Nir Kshetri, Professor of Management, University of North Carolina – GreensboroLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1889502022-08-23T12:23:29Z2022-08-23T12:23:29ZSix benefits that the metaverse offers to colleges and universities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480440/original/file-20220822-64811-9ghveh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C22%2C7348%2C4880&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Colleges are offering more virtual reality experiences as they become 'metaversities.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/brainstorming-virtual-reality-glasses-look-royalty-free-image/1051052494?adppopup=true">vadimguzhva via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even though it’s <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/web3-and-metaverse-the-future-of-the-internet.html">unclear what exactly the metaverse is</a> and whether <a href="https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2022/08/what-are-benefits-digital-identity-metaverse">it even exists</a>, colleges and universities have jumped onto the metaverse bandwagon. They have augmented in-person and remote video learning with features such as <a href="https://app.gather.town/app/ZMF4gi9L05UhV4Ud/UChicago">gamified interactive virtual worlds</a>, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/08/03/college-metaverse-here-higher-ed-ready">virtual reality</a> and <a href="https://case.edu/research/sites/case.edu.research/files/2018-08/Mixed%20Reality_%20A%20Revolutionary%20Breakthrough%20in%20Teaching%20and%20Learning%20_%20EDUCAUSE.pdf">mixed reality</a>.</p>
<p>In one of the largest efforts thus far, 10 U.S. colleges and universities have teamed up with U.S. technology company Meta and Irish virtual reality platform Engage to <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-06-01-with-money-from-facebook-10-colleges-turn-their-campuses-into-metaversities">create 3D digital versions of their campuses, known as a metaversity</a>. Students will engage in learning wearing immersive virtual reality headsets.</p>
<p>In my recent <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=g-jALEoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">research</a>, I have examined <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000767">the metaverse</a> and how it affects <a href="https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/it/2022/02/09770453/1D9GcnchH44">organizations</a> and <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9811499">societies</a>. I see six benefits that the metaverse offers to colleges. </p>
<h2>1. Makes educational resources affordable</h2>
<p>Colleges are <a href="https://universityservices.wiley.com/top-higher-education-challenges/">facing budget constraints</a> and lack access to resources necessary for learning. The metaverse can help them overcome such constraints.</p>
<p>For example, Nashville, Tennessee-based Fisk University hasn’t purchased cadavers due to high costs and maintenance challenges. The university is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF6BhJDeWtg">enhancing its pre-med program with virtual reality cadavers</a>, which are a more affordable alternative.</p>
<p>In the virtual reality lab, a human heart can be pulled out from a cadaver’s chest cavity. It creates the sense that students can feel the weight of the heart in their hands and examine it. They can enlarge it. The class sees and touches the ventricle walls. Students can compare different hearts to understand the results of health decisions that humans made when they were alive. They <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/08/03/college-metaverse-here-higher-ed-ready">engage in discussion and agree on the correct diagnosis</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A virtual cadaver lies on a table in a virtual lab." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480441/original/file-20220822-54904-sjlooy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480441/original/file-20220822-54904-sjlooy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480441/original/file-20220822-54904-sjlooy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480441/original/file-20220822-54904-sjlooy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480441/original/file-20220822-54904-sjlooy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480441/original/file-20220822-54904-sjlooy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480441/original/file-20220822-54904-sjlooy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fisk University is using virtual cadavers for its pre-med program.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fisk.edu/featured/fisk-university-htc-vive-t-mobile-and-victoryxr-launch-5g-powered-vr-human-cadaver-lab/">Fisk University</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Virtual cadavers don’t degrade and are easy to maintain. Additional features, such as <a href="https://www.fisk.edu/featured/fisk-university-htc-vive-t-mobile-and-victoryxr-launch-5g-powered-vr-human-cadaver-lab/">surgical procedures and comparative learning between humans and animals</a>, can be added over time. </p>
<h2>2. Enhances student performance</h2>
<p>Virtual training provides an effective means of visually demonstrating concepts with step-by-step instructions to illustrate tasks. They provide opportunities for learning by doing. Immersion in games can <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/04/how-the-metaverse-could-change-work">increase engagement in learning activities</a>. </p>
<p>Atlanta’s Morehouse College has piloted a metaversity that involves courses in world history, biology and chemistry. The college found that virtual reality classes <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/news/263419-college-in-the-metaverse-is-here-is-higher-ed-ready/fulltext">increased student satisfaction, engagement and achievement</a> compared to traditional and online formats and increased students’ academic performance. For instance, the virtual reality world history class <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/08/03/college-metaverse-here-higher-ed-ready">had a 10% increase in students’ GPAs</a> compared with the same class taught via Zoom and face-to-face the year before. </p>
<h2>3. Makes virtual interactions more like real ones</h2>
<p>The internet performs well for sending emails, spreadsheets and PDFs from one device to another to be reviewed or modified independently and asynchronously. It wasn’t <a href="https://time.com/6197849/metaverse-future-matthew-ball/">built for person-to-person type live and interactive experiences</a>, especially with many participants. Likewise, virtual spaces such as Zoom mostly allow a single conversation. In physical events, participants can move fluidly from one conversation to another. </p>
<p>Some universities are <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/27/virtual-communication-without-sniper-rifles-how-the-2d-metaverse-is-changing-virtual-spaces/">using metaverse technologies to overcome limitations of the internet and video meeting tools</a>. Metaverse-related technologies bridge the gap between real-life and virtual interactions by allowing people to interact more naturally.</p>
<p>Professors and students at the <a href="https://college.uchicago.edu/winterfest/uchicago-gather-campus">University of Chicago</a> and the <a href="https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/318091-beyond-zoom-virtual-gathering-spaces-metaverse">University of Pennsylvania</a> use virtual meeting space Gather, which mimics features of real-life interactions. Users create avatars and navigate a virtual map that represents the physical environment, such as a building. The proximity chat feature make users feel that they are running into other students and professors in the hall. Users see and hear video and audio feeds of participants close to them. When they move away, the sounds cannot be heard and the video disappears. Unlike on Zoom, users aren’t forced to be in a single conversation. They can <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/27/virtual-communication-without-sniper-rifles-how-the-2d-metaverse-is-changing-virtual-spaces/">move fluidly between conversations as speakers or listeners</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Futuristic outlines of people interact with one another in an office." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480477/original/file-20220822-84822-84sf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480477/original/file-20220822-84822-84sf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480477/original/file-20220822-84822-84sf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480477/original/file-20220822-84822-84sf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480477/original/file-20220822-84822-84sf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480477/original/file-20220822-84822-84sf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480477/original/file-20220822-84822-84sf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New technology makes it possible to socialize in the metaverse in ways that resemble interactions in the real world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teamwork-in-metaverse-with-cyber-city-skyline-royalty-free-image/1403176138?adppopup=true">XH4D via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The University of Pennsylvania’s computer and information science department used Gather to recreate Levine Hall, which is home to the department. The virtual building’s layout <a href="https://www.thedp.com/article/2020/10/gather-town-penn-cis-virtual-office-hours">mimics classrooms, laboratories, elevators, stairwells and other features of Levine Hall</a>. The student-run hub of technological innovation, Weiss Tech House, has also been <a href="https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/318091-beyond-zoom-virtual-gathering-spaces-metaverse">recreated virtually</a>. </p>
<p>The Gather space accommodates 200 students and supports multiple conversations simultaneously. There are six virtual spaces that correspond the building’s six floors. Small groups can <a href="https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/318091-beyond-zoom-virtual-gathering-spaces-metaverse">branch off into subgroups to work on tasks or engage in conversation</a>.</p>
<h2>4. Enables experimentation with hard-to-create phenomena</h2>
<p>In some situations, learning in real-world environments, such as those involving chemical experiments and flying airplanes, is risky. In such cases, special equipment, such as virtual reality headsets, software and special gloves for haptic responses, <a href="https://greatperformersacademy.com/interesting/education-3-0-how-virtual-reality-will-change-the-way-we-learn">can create immersive simulations of real environments</a>. Learners feel <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-020-00494-y">as though the digital world is real</a>.</p>
<p>These technologies can create scenarios that are impossible or impractical to create in the real world.</p>
<p>In Fisk University’s planned in-person history courses, students visit <a href="https://www.fisk.edu/featured/fisk-university-htc-vive-t-mobile-and-victoryxr-launch-5g-powered-vr-human-cadaver-lab/">historically significant locations</a> wearing virtual reality headsets. They include the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee; and the National Mall in Washington.</p>
<p>In chemistry classes, virtual reality allows <a href="https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2022/03/emerging-technologies-help-hbcus-retain-students">visualization of how atoms are arranged in a protein</a>. This insight helps pharmaceutical drug research. </p>
<h2>5. Increases accessibility for remote students</h2>
<p>Big gaps exist in higher education between rural and urban areas. </p>
<p>In 2015, <a href="https://pnpi.org/rural-students-in-higher-education/">18% of men and 20% of women 25 and older</a> living in rural areas of the U.S. had earned at least a bachelor’s degree compared with 32% and 33%, respectively, in urban areas.</p>
<p>Metaverse technologies can close this gap by making educational resources accessible to remote students. South Dakota State University <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-06-01-with-money-from-facebook-10-colleges-turn-their-campuses-into-metaversities">expects that its metaversity</a> will help reach the state’s rural students.</p>
<h2>6. Attracts a young demographic</h2>
<p>Children and young adults are the dominant populations in well-known metaverses, which are in the gaming sector. </p>
<p>About half of Roblox players <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/why-are-major-global-brands-experimenting-with-nfts-in-the-metaverse">are under 13</a> and <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/387591">66% are under 16</a>. Likewise, two-thirds of Fortnite’s players in 2021 <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/387591">were young adults</a>. Compared with older generations, this demographic is <a href="https://www.inc.com/kate-l-harrison/why-vr-is-the-perfect-way-to-woo-gen-zers.html">more experience-driven</a> and sees <a href="https://assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2022/04/08132920/2203015_crosstabs_MC_TECH_INTEREST_IN_THE_METAVERSE_Adults-2.pdf">interesting and exciting learning opportunities in the metaverse</a>.</p>
<p>Universities are using the metaverse to attract them. Southwestern Oregon Community College’s leaders think that <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-06-01-with-money-from-facebook-10-colleges-turn-their-campuses-into-metaversities">its metaversity will increase enrollment</a>. This is because higher proportions of younger generations, such as Generation Z, grew up with <a href="https://www.inc.com/kate-l-harrison/why-vr-is-the-perfect-way-to-woo-gen-zers.html">virtual reality technologies</a>. </p>
<p>Younger generations show a higher level of interest and involvement in the metaverse. In a <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2022/04/11/metaverse-activities-generations-survey/">survey conducted in the U.S. in March 2022</a>, 64% of Gen Z respondents were interested in having a digital avatar and 56% were interested in attending a music event in the metaverse. The proportions were 28% and 25% for baby boomers.</p>
<p>Unique experience provided by metaverse technologies, such as virtual reality, <a href="https://www.inc.com/kate-l-harrison/why-vr-is-the-perfect-way-to-woo-gen-zers.html">is thus appealing</a> to younger generations and can become a key tool to attract them to universities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nir Kshetri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sitting in the front row of a lecture hall could become obsolete as more colleges and universities enter the metaverse.Nir Kshetri, Professor of Management, University of North Carolina – GreensboroLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301432020-01-21T14:15:03Z2020-01-21T14:15:03ZSchool tech: teachers explain what they need to make it work better<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310880/original/file-20200120-69539-1fo3ved.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Technologies like Virtual Reality can play a role in schools, but teachers must be properly empowered and involved.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rushay/Shutterstock/For editorial use only</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the start of each new year there’s a global flurry of excitement and attention around education’s new directions. Technology has become a key part of the discussion. Increased pressure on educators to improve student performance, combined with <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/tuod-aoi041119.php">increasingly disconnected, inattentive students</a>, means that schools and universities are desperate for solutions. So they look to technology for change. </p>
<p>As 2020 started, for instance, pundits <a href="https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/722/199523.html">predicted</a> that schools will buy ever more educational software. These writers believe that educational technology - enhancing teaching and learning with technology - will continue to take centre stage both at schools and universities.</p>
<p>This is happening despite numerous <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp8939.pdf">studies</a> which <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w22237.pdf">suggest</a> technology is <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-10-11-00-technology-not-the-elixir-of-education/">not bringing about</a> the learning gains that were expected.</p>
<p>One of the reasons this technology may not be delivering on its promise is that educators – teachers and lecturers – don’t get much say in decisions about what, when and how to use technology. Research has identified several factors that must be in place before educational technology is effectively used: these include <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318734977_Modelling_the_complexity_of_technology_adoption_in_higher_education_teaching_practice">leadership and vision</a>, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321246745_The_role_of_value_on_teachers'_internalization_of_external_barriers_and_externalization_of_personal_beliefs_for_classroom_technology_integration">positive attitudes</a> among teachers and <a href="https://www.infona.pl/resource/bwmeta1.element.elsevier-72f13ea2-d239-372f-abd6-15f2af6a5022">proper training</a>.</p>
<p>But, as researcher and academic Irena White <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318734977_Modelling_the_complexity_of_technology_adoption_in_higher_education_teaching_practice">has argued</a>, the key factors that affect how teachers use and adopt educational technology are “dynamic, non-linear, (and) complex”. A clearer understanding of teachers’ needs is required if schools and universities are to be better prepared for a future where technology is key to teaching and learning.</p>
<p>This is what prompted me, just more than five years ago, to start asking educators <a href="http://allourideas.org/teaching">the fundamental question</a>: “What do you think is most important for successful technology-based teaching?” I’ve done this using an innovative, dynamic wiki survey tool called All Our Ideas. It allows respondents to add items they feel should be included, which are then voted on by future respondents. It’s a powerful correcting approach, which I’ve explored in my <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-6300-896-9_16">other research</a>, and has resulted in rich data and insights into teachers’ needs. </p>
<p>Three of the top 10 items or “needs” were user generated. This shows why it’s so crucial to listen to stakeholders, such as educators – as we may not even be asking the right questions or identifying the right issues when it comes to their concerns.</p>
<p>What’s emerged is a sort of hierarchy of needs that can help schools and universities make informed decisions about how best to implement effective technology-based teaching.</p>
<h2>Hierarchy of needs</h2>
<p>In the five years since I launched <a href="http://allourideas.org/teaching">the survey</a>, approximately 900 votes have been cast by educators from all over the world.</p>
<p>Analysing the results shows that <a href="https://www.act.click/uploads/1/1/1/2/1112016/maslows-hierarchy-of-teachers-top-10-teaching-with-tech-needs_orig.png">a range of needs</a> are important for a successful approach to teaching with technology. Many of these echo what’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318734977_Modelling_the_complexity_of_technology_adoption_in_higher_education_teaching_practice">already been reported</a> in <a href="https://www.infona.pl/resource/bwmeta1.element.elsevier-72f13ea2-d239-372f-abd6-15f2af6a5022">previous research</a>, including <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-6300-896-9_16">my own</a>: having the basic technological platform in place, effective training, support, and social aspects like school support communities for idea sharing. </p>
<p>However, what is is particularly interesting is that the top 10 factors align closely with psychologist Abraham Maslow’s <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html">hierarchy of human needs</a>. This model helps to explain human motivations.</p>
<p>Needs lower in Maslow’s pyramid, such as food, sleep and clothing (what he calls physiological needs) must be satisfied before higher needs such as respect, self-esteem and freedom (esteem needs) can be tackled. When considering the top 10 needs for effective teaching with technology, it becomes apparent that a similar hierarchy exists.</p>
<p>At the most fundamental “physiological” level are needs associated with working technology and appropriate training. The second “safety” layer sees the need for supportive leadership and access to experts. The third set of “love and belonging” needs is associated with teachers experiencing a sense of buy-in and having networking opportunities. The fourth level of “esteem” needs relates to the freedom of teachers and students to try new things. The fifth and highest layer of “self-actualisation” is the need for ultimate seamless integration of content and digital-age teaching approaches.</p>
<p>Addressing all of these needs, beginning with the most “physiological” basic needs is, in the view of teachers, key to a successful move towards effective technology-based teaching and learning. </p>
<h2>Solutions</h2>
<p>So how can this be done?</p>
<p>Firstly, teachers’ most fundamental needs must be addressed. They want working technology, along with appropriate training in technology and in how it can be applied to teaching. In most developing countries, including South Africa where I conduct my research and teach, while working technology is improving, the basic needs around training are woefully lacking.</p>
<p>Once these needs have been addressed the second level – support needs – can be tackled. Here, structures must be put in place to provide support to the teachers both internally from school leadership and externally from experts in technology and teaching methods. </p>
<p>With a supportive environment in place, the third level of social needs should be addressed. A positive active social space where teachers can connect with other teachers and share successes and failures, needs to be developed and facilitated within and between schools.</p>
<p>Then, what I’ve grouped as “space needs” must be addressed. Teachers and students need space: to make mistakes, to experiment, and to try new approaches. Teachers need space to try new things without fear of sanction. Students need space to experiment with new ways of engaging with content. </p>
<p>Finally, once all of the other needs have been addressed, the need for seamless integration of technology and approaches to teaching and learning in schools can be addressed. This would see teaching enhanced by technology in such a way that education is foregrounded while technology becomes invisible. This should be the educational technology’s ultimate goal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Craig Blewett is the author of the book "Wake Up Class!: 5 Activating Digital-Age Pedagogies that will Revolutionize your Classroom" and runs the website <a href="https://www.act.click/">https://www.act.click/</a> that trains educators to teach effectively with technology.</span></em></p>A clearer understanding of teachers’ needs is required if schools and universities are to be better prepared for a future where technology is key to teaching and learning.Craig Blewett, Senior Lecturer in Education & Technology, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1045872018-10-14T10:35:21Z2018-10-14T10:35:21ZMarrying technology and home language boosts maths and science learning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240236/original/file-20181011-154567-n28194.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Technology has a lot to teach kids, especially if it's available in more than one language.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rich T Photo/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Technology, like mobile apps and online learning platforms, is becoming an increasingly important <a href="https://en.unesco.org/news/mobile-technology-key-bringing-education-all-says-broadband-commission">teaching tool</a> all over the world. That’s also true in emerging markets; accessible technologies can essentially be used to take information and digital resources into remote, rural and under-resourced schools.</p>
<p>But is this technology useful if it’s not also provided in diverse languages? In subjects like maths and science, pupils must have a certain level of competency to comprehend and effectively respond to tasks. <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1023%2FA%3A1011996002062.pdf">Extensive research</a> shows how important language is in helping pupils better understand concepts. </p>
<p>I set out <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/saje/article/viewFile/143683/133397">to evaluate</a> the role of language in mobile maths and science learning platforms like apps and websites. The aim was to enable pupils’ access to mobile learning resources for maths and science subjects. I also wanted to see whether providing this technology in pupils’ home languages would enhance their learning experience. </p>
<p>I found that providing the mobile teaching tools in multiple languages increased pupils’ engagement with their work. My research was done in South Africa where language use in schools remains a contentious issue. </p>
<p>I tracked the use of an app I’d developed that allowed children to switch between languages. My research showed that it helped children grasp maths and science concepts much quicker. This suggests that schools in the country should consider offering mobile learning technology in multiple languages to help pupils learn better in subjects like maths and science. </p>
<h2>Testing an app</h2>
<p>The study was conducted with teachers from urban, rural and peri-urban schools in South Africa’s economic hub, Gauteng, and the neighbouring North West province. More than 90 pupils were involved. The study was conducted over three years, and pupils’ and teachers’ experiences were evaluated several times. </p>
<p>Each school was able to use an adaptive mobile learning app, called Mobile Thuto (that’s the Setswana word for “learning”). The app provides text book resources, practice exercises, quizzes and teachers class notes for mathematics and science subjects for children in grades 10, 11 and 12.</p>
<p>I developed the app in collaboration with teachers and subject heads, allowing them to tailor the content to their teaching plan so they could practice blended learning. This refers to the combination of technology and traditional lessons as part of the teaching and learning process. </p>
<p>One of the app’s key features was the ability to support code-switching – the switch between two languages or more as a form of communication by bilingual or multilingual speakers. Code-switching can be used to enable a better understanding of concepts, especially where pupils have not been able to fully grasp the teaching language. For example, the app allows pupils to switch between English and Setswana content. Setswana and Sepedi were the most common home languages among the pupils we worked with.</p>
<h2>The results</h2>
<p>Once each phase of use of the app was finished, teachers were interviewed and, in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/jeductechsoci.18.1.308.pdf?casa_token=Ej5DBjK6QTkAAAAA:UTdbTlXVh-Ke3ZE_HJ9mX---9Avt4k_KnDR_Y-1rAOXbmyr-YSVj_dRHGjRawbSRIvCS4pNjVUI-kcVsgtIYnamFLTw06-qIX-3yV6x5uY6ggNEPhFw">a separate study</a>, pupils were also asked about their experiences.</p>
<p>Some of the teachers said they didn’t feel confident using technology in their classrooms. They wanted to be trained to integrate technology into teaching and learning. Many reported that they thought of technology as an additional task rather than as something that could support their current work and resources.</p>
<p>Despite this, the teachers we worked with were enthusiastic about the app and about the idea of working more with technology. They enjoyed helping their pupils to interact with the tasks set out by the app, and wove these tasks into their lessons.</p>
<p>The teachers found it useful that the app was available in more than one language. This helped pupils who struggled with English.</p>
<p>In the second study, pupils said they valued being able to learn on the go through their mobile phones. They enjoyed having mobile phones integrated into classroom teaching and learning. Those in the urban school weren’t overly concerned with having another language option; they spoke English competently and also said English had more social capital than other languages.</p>
<p>Those in the rural and peri-urban schools, meanwhile, found it very helpful to be able to switch between Setswana and English to help them grasp tricky concepts.</p>
<h2>Where to next</h2>
<p>My findings reflect the need for both ongoing support and training for teacher technology education in schools. This will help them – and their pupils – to really benefit from technology in this digital era. It’s also a valuable way to equip pupils with basic computer literacy and the confidence to effectively use online and offline technology resources to learn. </p>
<p>And language must not be ignored as a crucial factor. If technology is to have a positive effect, inclusion is key. By offering pupils educational technology in their own languages, you’re also providing good context and boosting their learning.</p>
<p>Now that the research project is complete, I am developing material for a Massive Open Online Course for teachers. This will guide them through embedding open education technology in their lessons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mmaki Jantjies receives funding from The South African National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>Schools should consider offering mobile learning technology in multiple languages to help pupils learn better in subjects like maths and scienceMmaki Jantjies, Senior Lecturer, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/905522018-02-02T10:34:57Z2018-02-02T10:34:57ZWhy putting the words ‘learning’ and ‘Facebook’ together isn’t an oxymoron<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204425/original/file-20180201-123849-17g7b8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has often spoken of the value of education and learning.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Brian Snyder</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s a rather impressive, if controversial, resume for a teenager: blamed for the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-blamed-trump-election-mark-zuckerberg-response-tone-deaf-2016-11">election of Donald Trump</a>, <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-blamed-for-1-in-5-divorces-in-the-us/">increased divorce rates</a>, <a href="https://www.nursingtimes.net/facebook-blamed-for-rise-in-syphilis/5012966.article">rising syphilis cases</a>, and <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article175970831.html">the advent of fake news</a>.</p>
<p>Facebook turns 14 on February 4. And the controversies continue unabated. But there’s one aspect of Facebook that should not be lost in all the noise: the extraordinary change it has brought about in how we connect, communicate, consume and share content – in the classroom, as well as in other spaces. </p>
<p>Putting the words “Facebook” and “learning” together may seem like an oxymoron. But my research has delved into the role Facebook has played in shaping how the new generation consumes and shares content. Understanding this is pivotal to understanding how we should be using technology to teach in the digital age. Quite simply, Facebook has changed the way that children learn.</p>
<h2>How students learn</h2>
<p>That’s what I’ve discovered through my research, which used a <a href="http://www.iiis.org/CDs2011/CD2011IMC/ICETI_2011/PapersPdf/EB962QE.pdf">cyber-ethnography</a> approach to try and determine how students are learning in our modern digital age. This involved essentially “living” with students while they connected, communicated, and learned in a Facebook space.</p>
<p>I spent an entire semester watching and interacting with students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa as they used a Facebook page as their primary learning portal. The students were given admin access to the space. This meant they could determine how the space was used: who had access to it, how it was designed, what was posted on the page, and even the level of anonymity of their posts. </p>
<p>This provided me with an opportunity to watch the students learn, unfettered from traditional learning constraints. However, it would take a while for the students to fully explore their learning within this new space. Initially the students would often attempt to defer to me and my guidance. Only after I repeatedly refused to control their learning experience did they begin to behave in a <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud">self-oraganising way</a> and allow me to observe their “natural” learning patterns.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-6300-896-9_16">research</a> revealed that Facebook provided students with a series of learning affordances. Affordances are “can do” oppportunies, some intentional and others unintentional, that technology spaces provide. In this instance the research revealed that the affordances at play were accessibility, connection, communication, control and construction. These affordances provide valuable insights into how students learn in digital spaces.</p>
<p>Once I understood this, I could turn my attention to the key need: developing ways of teaching, called pedagogies, that are appropriate for the digital age. Currently the focus on technology – the <em>what</em>, has distracted us from pedagogy: the <em>how</em>. Without understanding how best to apply these new technologies’ affordances, educators will not be able to effectively impact teaching in the modern classroom.</p>
<p>However, providing educators with a list of “how tos” isn’t much use without a system that makes the list easy to implement. As Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/14/465729968/a-nobel-laureates-education-plea-revolutionize-teaching">says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I can tell people they need to teach better. But if I don’t give them things that are easy for them to implement, they won’t do it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Activating the classroom</h2>
<p>That’s where the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wake-Class-Activating-Digital-Age-Revolutionize/dp/1520885016">Activated Classroom Teaching (ACT) model</a> comes in. I developed this model in a bid to create a taxonomy of teaching and learning for 21st century classrooms. A taxonomy is an ordered arrangement of items. One of the most famous of these is <a href="https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/">Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking</a>. The ACT model attempts to provide a taxonomy of digital-age teaching approaches.</p>
<p>The ACT model consists of five digital-age pedagogies that seek to maximise the affordances of technology, modern students’ approaches to learning and the development of key 21st century skills such as creativity, problem solving, curiosity, critical thinking, etc.</p>
<p>The focus is a shift from passive ways of teaching (consumption) to active approaches (curation, conversation, correction, creation and chaos). This aligns with <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-tweens-and-teens">research</a> that shows children are spending more than half their online time actively engaging: creating content, getting involved in “interactive consumption” and communicating.</p>
<p>Ignoring the tectonic shifts taking place in our classrooms is not the solution. Simply dropping technology into our classrooms is not the solution. Simply training teachers to <em>use</em> computers is not the solution. As British author and education expert <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms">Sir Ken Robinson</a> has said, we need a paradigm shift, but it’s more than that - we need a pedagogy shift. </p>
<p>The young teen, Facebook, has changed how we connect and learn. But, as the OECD pointed out in its <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/15/schools-wasting-money-on-computers-for-kids-oecd.html">global study</a> about educational technology: “If we want students to become smarter than a smartphone, we need to think harder about the pedagogies we are using to teach them. Technology can amplify great teaching but great technology cannot replace poor teaching.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90552/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Blewett is the author of the book "Wake Up Class!: 5 Activating Digital-Age Pedagogies that will Revolutionize your Classroom" and founder of the ACT Academy training site. </span></em></p>You may not “like” it, but Facebook has an important role to play in education.Craig Blewett, Senior Lecturer in Education & Technology, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/841252017-09-25T17:00:07Z2017-09-25T17:00:07ZTechnology can help kids learn, but only if parents and teachers are involved<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187024/original/file-20170921-8233-bjbxpx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mauritian physics students hard at work during the project's testing phase.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mauritius Institute of Education</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Educational psychologist Dr Benjamin Bloom wanted to understand how people learn. So in 1965 he and his colleagues created <a href="https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/">Bloom’s taxonomy</a>: a system for identifying, understanding and addressing learning. They came up with a system that’s composed of two elements: thinking and the ability to apply knowledge, and then feelings and emotions. </p>
<p>When a student learns about gravity, the cognitive elements would include knowledge and understanding of the concept of a force pulling an object towards the Earth; acceleration, mass and so on. The moment the student has developed understanding, she would be in a position to apply (psychomotor) – the acquired knowledge and skills in new situations. For example, she might want to see what would happen if something different was done to the same object – would it experience the same acceleration?</p>
<p>This learning process doesn’t happen in an isolated context. It takes place during interactions with peers and teachers – what the model refers to as the affective domain. That is the elements of learning that affect emotional development. Elements of interest, motivation and values would help the student to appreciate the discussion and value the ideas as well as encourage her to develop social skills appropriate to working in groups. Eventually, development of this domain benefits broader communities and society as a whole.</p>
<p>Some researchers <a href="https://www.securedgenetworks.com/blog/8-Studies-Show-iPads-in-the-Classroom-Improve-Education">claim</a> that integrating technology into teaching and learning improves students’ grades. Others argue that technology makes little difference to how students perform because traditional approaches to teaching still predominate. </p>
<p>A lot of research in this area has focused on technology as a tool. But what is the value of technology as a medium to encourage interactions between parents, teachers and students – tapping into the affective domain – and ensure that students construct knowledge?</p>
<p>Myself and other academics from the <a href="http://www.mie.ac.mu/">Mauritius Institute of Education</a> and London’s <a href="http://www.brunel.ac.uk/">Brunel University</a> wanted to know how technology could be used to transform the teaching and learning process into an innovative, interactive environment that promotes students’ cognitive development driven by the affective domain. So we embarked on <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2017.1343606">a study</a> that attempted to build a case for incorporating the affective domain in the teaching and learning of physics using technology. </p>
<h2>A space to develop the affective domain</h2>
<p>The study was carried out in two phases: exploratory and evaluative. The evaluative phase confirmed the findings made in the exploratory phase.</p>
<p>The exploratory phase involved one teacher, 22 students (all 13 and 14 years old) from a coeducational school situated in Mauritius’ central region and 19 parents.</p>
<p>In the evaluative phase 31 students from an all-girls’ school (in the same region as the first school), 15 parents and one physics teacher participated. </p>
<p>We developed a framework called the Pedagogical Technological Integrated Medium. It is founded on a well-documented framework, <a href="http://matt-koehler.com/tpack2/tpack-explained/">TPACK</a>, which was created to facilitate the use of technology in schools. Our framework helps learners to create knowledge and develop an understanding of physics through interactions between teachers, students and parents.</p>
<p>We created an <a href="http://science.mie.mu/physics/">interactive website</a> to monitor how parents, teachers and students were engaging with the framework. The site encompasses a series of home tasks (parent–student and parent-teacher interactions), in-class tasks (student-teachers) and out-of-school activities (parent-student-teacher interactions). </p>
<p>For instance, students used the website to consolidate their existing knowledge of <a href="https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/the-concept-of-measurement.257360/">measurement</a> as a concept in physics. They did this in collaboration with their parents before attending classes.</p>
<p>The experiment showed that learners benefited enormously from the approach we had adopted. By creating the affective domain through interactions with their parents (at home) and teachers (at school), the students were able to construct physics knowledge. The added dimension was that we used technology as a medium to meet this end.</p>
<h2>Benefits of our approach</h2>
<p>The framework was well received by students, parents and teachers. One parent told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was happy that my daughter was discussing with me and I encouraged her to complete all the tasks and to tell me if she had any difficulty.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Students said they wanted to do more activities and be provided with more notes on the website because this would help them “to learn better”. One said, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would like to try it first before learning it [the concept] at school.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The teachers were also happy. One said that, “the activities contained in the web lesson have helped me to understand in which specific areas students hold misconceptions”. The teacher also hailed the chance to “innovate in my teaching”. </p>
<p>Integrating the affective domain into our model has shown the potential of key educational stakeholders – parents, students and teachers – to collaborate. The teacher established a network with parents and learners and used the insights gained to construct her interactive lessons. </p>
<p>The schools we worked with are planning to use the website to sustain the interaction that’s been developed between teachers, students and parents. We also plan to get more schools in Mauritius using this system.</p>
<h2>The affective domain matters</h2>
<p>Our study has provided evidence of a change in students’ attitudes: they claimed to be interested, motivated and better prepared to learn new concepts in class. </p>
<p>It’s been known for a long time that educational technology can offer opportunities for cognitive development in learning science. We’ve now proved that this isn’t sufficient unless the affective domain forms an integral part of teaching and learning when technology is integrated into the process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yashwant Ramma receives funding from Mauritius Research Council. </span></em></p>The affective domain - motivation, interest and values and their inter-relationships - forms an integral component in facilitating learners’ construction of physics knowledge.Yashwant Ramma, Professor & Chair, Research, Mauritius Institute of EducationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/777282017-05-18T14:10:27Z2017-05-18T14:10:27ZTo stay in the game universities need to work with tech companies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169496/original/file-20170516-11941-p7tkp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world of higher and professional education is changing rapidly. Digitally-enabled learning, in all its forms, is here to stay. Over the last five years, massive open online courses (<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-dismiss-moocs-we-are-just-starting-to-understand-their-true-value-31037">MOOCs</a>) have enabled universities to share their expertise with millions across the world. This shows how rapidly developing digital technologies can make learning accessible. </p>
<p>These new technologies are shaking up traditional classrooms, too. And as the nature of work changes professionals are turning to high level, online courses to keep pace with new demands.</p>
<p>But much of this new technology is the preserve of private sector companies. This means that universities have to work with them. Yet partnerships with for-profit companies still don’t feel right for many in the higher education sphere. Knowledge has long been seen as a public good, and education as a basic right. Many of today’s universities were shaped by the principles of public funding. </p>
<p>This world was changing well before the disruptive impact of digital technologies, with tuition fees rising above the rate of inflation and the emergence of private universities as part of the higher education landscape. But there’s still unease about technology and its role. The reality, though, is that higher education institutions will have to get over their queasiness if they’re to survive in this brave new world.</p>
<p>Universities may not have the know how or the money to match the innovations coming onto the market through private tech companies. The decision by Nasdaq-listed technology education (<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/13/edtech-is-the-next-fintech/">edtech</a>) company 2U to acquire Cape Town based startup GetSmarter for <a href="http://africacapitaldigest.com/getsmarter-sold-in-103mln-deal/">R1,4bn</a> ($103million) is the largest price tag yet for a South African company working in digital education. </p>
<p>This is an indication of what it would cost a university to set up a full online division. Few institutions will have this money, or the ability to raise it. The alternative is to reconsider the advantages of public-private partnerships, taking care to retain authority over quality. For many universities this could be the only way of keeping pace with the changing world of education. </p>
<h2>The story of a start up</h2>
<p>The story of how GetSmarter got off the ground is a text book case of how a simple idea, combined with guts and luck, can reap huge rewards.</p>
<p>GetSmarter was launched in 2008 with a tiny budget and offered just one online course, in wine evaluation. By 2016 its annual revenues had grown to about R227 million. The foundation for this expansion has been a wide range of courses developed and offered in partnership with the University of Cape Town and, more recently, the University of the Witwatersrand and Stellenbosch University.</p>
<p>GetSmarter’s key breakthrough into the international realm came with professional programmes in association with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cambridge University. GetSmarter’s first course with <a href="https://harvardx.harvard.edu/">HarvardX</a> will soon be presented.</p>
<p>After its acquisition was announced I talked to the company’s CEO, Sam Paddock, co-founded with brother Rob. We discussed the lessons for other small digital companies – and for universities that are mulling the value of digital learning.</p>
<p>The Paddock brothers leveraged the cash flow from their father’s niche law firm to launch their first online course. They then used upfront payments for that course and the courses that followed to keep financing their next offerings. In the nine years that followed, <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-report-predicts-edtech-spend-to-reach-252bn-by-2020-580765301.html">edtech</a> has become a crowded and complex field. </p>
<p>GetSmarter’s purchase price has garnered a lot of media attention: it’s high, in US dollar terms, and is a vote of confidence in the company. The price represents a valuation of a company’s assets, intellectual property and know-how, and strategic positioning for the future. </p>
<p>But what does it say about the kinds of investments and partnerships that conventional universities will have to make as they adapt to the full disruption from new digital technologies? The key aspect of GetSmarter’s success is how its partnership with universities has played out. As Paddock points out:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are starting to realise the potential of public-private partnerships, where the credibility and resources of great universities can be combined with the skills of nimble private operators. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Good news for the digital economy</h2>
<p>This acquisition is also good news for South Africa’s digital economy. Paddock says GetSmarter will employ more South African graduates and give them international experience and expertise.</p>
<p>And, he says, ecosystems often develop from one significant investment in an individual company. “This was how <a href="https://www.stanford.edu/about/history/history_ch3.html">Silicon Valley</a> started, as well as London’s ”<a href="http://www.siliconroundabout.org.uk/">silicon roundabout</a>“. Cape Town, GetSmarter’s home city, has been trumpeted as South Africa’s own Silicon Valley: ”<a href="http://ventureburn.com/2016/06/citi-announce-africas-first-ed-tech-cluster/">Silicon Cape</a>“.</p>
<p>The opportunity to lead in digital innovation and application has been widely recognised, for example through the work of <a href="http://acceleratecapetown.co.za/programmes/digital-cape-town/">Accelerate Cape Town</a>. The <a href="http://www.citi.org.za/">Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative</a> (CiTi) has a range of initiatives underway, including a three year partnership with <a href="http://www.citi.org.za/bandwidth-barn-announces-a-three-year-innovation-and-technology-partnership-with-telkom/">Telkom </a> intended to build the digital workforce. </p>
<p>Last year, cellphone giant <a href="http://acceleratecapetown.co.za/digital-skills/">Vodacom</a> announced an investment of R600m to assist in developing South Africa’s digital skills.</p>
<p>GetSmarter’s big win is good news and proof - if universities needed it - that such initiatives can bolster higher education’s offering in a rapidly changing world. Universities in Africa know that they need to keep up with the relentless march of digitally enabled learning. GetSmarter’s journey from bootstrapped startup to a billion rand enterprise is a case study, worthy of attention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Hall advises GetSmarter on research priorities and academic governance</span></em></p>For many universities, working with private edtech companies could be the only way of keeping pace with the changing world of education.Martin Hall, Emeritus Professor, MTN Solution Space Graduate School of Business, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/709012017-01-25T00:02:24Z2017-01-25T00:02:24ZIt’s true, internet surfing during class is not so good for grades<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152734/original/image-20170114-11834-1xp0kab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Should laptops be used during class?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/catalystopensource/23887038194/in/photolist-CoPjf7-BujNYV-qR4AHy-GaZRJy-EkcBtK-AMAF77-FkvwEg-AMB23E-skAyBj-F8wDkc-Ekdvx4-ATeS9u-tTY5T7-drspwe-cEJnWs-cEJrdJ-P3cW8-P2Gsy-egDAjA-CWQjeE-drsqbZ-drsjsx-P2GqW-drsk1z-drsiUg-P2Gs1-43YU9U-43YUef-cEJjL1-drsB7q-cEJ6FG-cEJpCY-rfX2Xw-bzyULm-ibPN36-jfB2a2-hVL1YU-drsCcj-fuGmBy-ehBnRE-drsBxq-bx1jyp-cEJ1Zs-5uegbU-7Hkj6f-bx1skR-9FUKfq-8yksB8-fvT5PN-dn7w9M">Catalyst Open Source</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many universities <a href="https://tech.msu.edu/about/guidelines-policies/computer-requiremen">encourage students to purchase</a> laptops that they can bring to class. Charities like <a href="http://one.laptop.org/">One Laptop per Child</a> provide low-cost laptops to disadvantaged students.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that having a desktop computer or laptop in school is useful for writing papers, gathering information and learning how to program and use software.</p>
<p>But, as would seem obvious, surfing the internet during class – and connecting with friends, shopping or streaming movies – could also prove to be a source of distraction and hinder learning. </p>
<p>I am an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University. Over the past few years, I have noticed an increasing number of students who bring laptops to class. </p>
<p>So, I decided to use my research expertise in memory and attention to investigate: How do students use their laptop in class? How does it relate to their learning of class material?</p>
<p>Here’s what I found. </p>
<h2>Multitasking in the classroom</h2>
<p>Certainly, there have always been distractions in the classroom. Less high-tech distractions such as passing notes, doodling or reading the newspaper can be easily noticed. Even smartphone use is easy to tell, as there is a downward lap gaze.</p>
<p>In contrast, it is difficult to tell what students are doing on a laptop.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152735/original/image-20170114-11837-8kt691.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152735/original/image-20170114-11837-8kt691.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152735/original/image-20170114-11837-8kt691.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152735/original/image-20170114-11837-8kt691.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152735/original/image-20170114-11837-8kt691.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152735/original/image-20170114-11837-8kt691.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152735/original/image-20170114-11837-8kt691.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It is difficult to tell what students are doing on a laptop.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tostie14/93871481/in/photolist-9i7HP-79iEnu-5ur4p5-8BgNuK-8BgMpe-8amxUP-8apNJd-8apMNL-8BjTKw-3VCRgx-6eyxRH-rKi8G-afLB4o-8amxNe-2sqzdG-8apNCd-8amyyg-8amxCT-8amyfi-6kHo2J-8BjSzb-dYKMHp-bDoRd-dyhKpP-5wTW-8BjTPG-tfLWf-4BLDNn-8xdksf-7VFqFk-cWcyXh-7ThPTV-8DAsW-8amwNz-6eCFVb-JrAdC-bdu5z-6QvMwA-bBe6pr-WjL8-5sHXE4-bBe6gR-bqJJDz-rz82Ve-7w39DA-bojcEJ-5kLSKa-6df119-6AeZDz-6TVfCg">Kevin Tostado/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, studies have shown that laptops are a source of distraction in the classroom – not only for the student themselves, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512002254">but also for those sitting near</a>. Even if a students did not bring a laptop to class, the laptop screen of other students could be a source of distraction for those sitting in near proximity. </p>
<p>However, it is legitimate to ask: Could surfing the internet for academic reasons lead to better learning? Are some students smart enough to multitask in class?</p>
<p>We sought to answer these questions, among others, in a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797616677314">recent study</a> in which we tracked internet use in a large introductory psychology course. </p>
<h2>Our classroom internet study</h2>
<p>For our study, we used a proxy server to track internet use. Out of a class of 507 students, 127 agreed to participate. The proxy server recorded all internet requests that students made during class so that we would know what websites students were visiting and not have to rely on their memory. Not all the participants remembered to log in to the proxy server. So, we ended up with 84 students who logged into the internet regularly.</p>
<p>We were surprised by how much these students used the internet for nonacademic purposes. On average, over a third of the class time was spent on the internet in activities not related to the class.</p>
<p>We then calculated each student’s internet use and compared it to their final exam grade. We found that students who surfed the internet more during class were also more likely to have lower scores on the final exam. </p>
<p>To make sure that this relationship between internet use and exam scores wasn’t related to students’ lack of interest in the class, motivation or intelligence, we conducted some further analyses. </p>
<p>Interest, motivation and intelligence are big predictors of exam scores – the largest being intelligence. We measured intelligence by gathering students’ ACT scores that were used for college admission, as they are <a href="http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/koening2008.pdf">highly related to intelligence</a>. </p>
<p>As can be expected, our results show students’ class time surfing the internet for nonacademic purposes is related to lower grades. This is so even after accounting for all these other factors. If one imagines a pie chart representing all the reasons that students do well or poorly on the final exam, internet use would explain about 5 percent of performance. </p>
<h2>Benefits of browsing?</h2>
<p>What if students used the internet in class to browse academic material related to the class? Would it be beneficial to their grades? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152736/original/image-20170114-11831-xo3lw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152736/original/image-20170114-11831-xo3lw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152736/original/image-20170114-11831-xo3lw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152736/original/image-20170114-11831-xo3lw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152736/original/image-20170114-11831-xo3lw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152736/original/image-20170114-11831-xo3lw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152736/original/image-20170114-11831-xo3lw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Are students distracted even when surfing class-related materials?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/stanfordedtech/6468101599/in/photolist-ig4cJU-rnict-7BSB9i-8AXrkv-aRyFwT-cbe81W-6pfqFy-aRyE8e-9VnPuJ-aRyFki-bA4aJu-aRyGRk-afJ6vz-4vLwLk-aRyETa-4awaKc-7GJRQc-ig4tyP-4yiwBV-9VjYzX-9VjZb4-GAiEXN-xhSvR-nLZc7-aRyJgT-8dcya2-aRyK6p-bA4ayA-aRyGFi-4UTQnq-c9t5w5-aRyHrz-3fZfrw-aRyHWi-aRyHAk-aJsFwt-4yixE6-9Preuz-bmLZBU-7gpSJi-aRyDZ4-aRyF3r-aRyHg6-6cb6Uf-aRyH4p-agDd5h-bNXPBV-7gpSbr-gSMK3-ne1uL">EdTech Stanford University School of Medicine Follow</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some students browsed the class website and searched for materials being discussed in the classroom on Wikipedia. For example, some students searched for more information about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning">classical conditioning</a>, a learning procedure taught in psychology. We wanted to see whether this type of internet browsing would be beneficial for exam scores. </p>
<p>We found even when internet browsing was about such academic content, it was not associated with higher exam scores. In other words, even when students were browsing for class-related information, there was no related benefit to the final exam. </p>
<h2>It’s way too tempting for students</h2>
<p>Nonacademic internet use predicted lower exam scores, and this was so regardless of motivation, interest or intelligence. In other words, these factors did not explain why students surfed the internet during class. </p>
<p>When a laptop is being used to take notes or download class slides, it may become tempting to check email, catch up on homework for another class or see who won the game the night before. </p>
<p>In fact, avoiding nonacademic internet use might require a great deal of behavioral control. A recent study found people who had a greater tendency for impulsive behaviors <a href="http://www.cla.temple.edu/tunl/publications/documents/Wilmer2016.pdf">engaged more heavily with mobile devices</a>. The ability to avoid the temptation for a 100-minute class could tax the abilities of many students. </p>
<p>There are other other downsides as well of laptop use in class: Taking notes on a computer has even been shown to be less effective for learning <a href="https://sites.udel.edu/victorp/files/2010/11/Psychological-Science-2014-Mueller-0956797614524581-1u0h0yu.pdf">than writing them by hand</a>. Researchers have found that writing notes by hand forces students to think more deeply about the material because they have to paraphrase what has been said. Students are more likely to type information verbatim when they use a laptop. </p>
<p>In classes with no computer-based assignments, how about asking students to leave their laptops behind when they come to class?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Ravizza receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Laptops in class are distracting – even for the most motivated students.Susan Ravizza, Associate Professor of Psychology, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/600052016-05-30T13:05:33Z2016-05-30T13:05:33ZWhy schools shouldn’t approach technology like businesses once did<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124314/original/image-20160527-869-xo1syh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Computers aren't a magical silver bullet for learning.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Computers began reaching the business world during the <a href="http://www.livescience.com/20718-computer-history.html">1980s.</a> Companies used them to automate many routine manual tasks. This led to what economist Robert Solow dubbed the <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/productivity-paradox/background.html">Productivity Paradox</a>. In 1987, he famously <a href="http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/11/solows-paradox/">quipped</a>: “You can see the computer age everywhere <em>but</em> in the productivity statistics.”</p>
<p>The problem Solow had identified was that while computers could automate manual processes, real productivity gains would only be experienced when technology was actively used to reinvent business processes. </p>
<p>The best businesses soon realised that computers were not just a tool to improve efficiencies but to redesign business processes. This sort of thinking has given rise to many modern innovative businesses like <a href="http://www.twitter.com">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.uber.com">Uber</a> and <a href="http://www.airbnb.com">Airbnb</a>.</p>
<p>Now schools are falling into the same trap as businesses did 30 years ago. They are focusing on the wrong objective when it comes to using technology in their classrooms.</p>
<h2>The wrong objective</h2>
<p>I recently came across a newsletter written to headmasters of schools around South Africa. It began by posing a question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is technology a “nice to have”, or will it actually improve the learning and educational outcomes of the youngsters in the class? If it doesn’t, or won’t, there can be little justification for it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On face value this seems like a good question to ask. But it contains two dangerous flaws. The first is that visible “improved…outcomes” is presented as the main reason for using technology. The second is assuming that the relationship is just between “technology” and “improved learning”.</p>
<p>The writer, from an organisation representing school leadership, went on to list the advantages of using educational technology, using phrases and words like, “Time is freed up”, “convenience”, “ease of handling”, “efficient way of collecting and storing information” and “immediate access”. These phrases point to the underlying perspective that many teachers have about the goal of technology in the classroom. It is seen as a means to improve classroom efficiency. </p>
<p>This perspective also pervades students’ perceptions. A research project just completed by one of my Masters students, which we hope to publish soon, found that 92% of students listed technology providing “improved access to information” as a key reason for using it for learning. </p>
<h2>Stuck in the industrial age</h2>
<p>While businesses might be excused for initially adopting an efficiency objective when it comes to technology, schools cannot. This objective has already been shown to be ineffective for <a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/productivity-paradox/background.html">businesses</a>. More importantly though, efficiencies – unlike for business – should not be the objective of successful teaching.</p>
<p>British educationist and author Sir Ken Robinson has famously <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms">called on</a> schools to abandon the efficiency-driven, industrial paradigm. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zDZFcDGpL4U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Sir Ken Robinson explores how educational paradigms are shifting.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Schools have lauded the rise of a new era in education that celebrates diversity, opportunities and innovation. However, most are actually using technology to reinforce these same industrial approaches rather than revolutionising the classroom.</p>
<p>Pursuing efficiencies to get students through more content, faster and with less effort, is the wrong objective. The focus should be on <em>effective</em> rather than <em>efficient</em> teaching. Technology is not just about computerising existing processes – it is about rethinking ways to teach and learn.</p>
<h2>The missing pedagogy</h2>
<p>The second flaw in the letter-writer’s question is the mistaken assumption that technology is the only factor that has an impact on learning. This makes the serious mistake of ignoring pedagogy, or ways of teaching. </p>
<p>There is a framework that sets out how this can be avoided. The <a href="http://www.tpack.org/">TPACK model</a> argues that there are three key elements for effective teaching with technology - Technology, Pedagogy And Content Knowledge. Teachers know their subject content and increasingly know how to use technology. However, without the “glue” of an appropriate pedagogy or method, technology can’t be effective in teaching content.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FagVSQlZELY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">TPACK Model.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But many schools seem to assume that the technology vendors whose solutions they’ve implemented will be their teaching guides. It’s rather ironic to have teachers led by technologists! Other schools simply ignore teaching approaches, assuming by handing out iPads effective learning will spontaneously take place - leading to some spectacular <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/2599988/lausd-ipad-cancellation-is-a-failure-of-vision-not-technology.html">failures</a>.</p>
<p>The key to effective technology-based teaching is effective technology teaching approaches. Simply <a href="https://theconversation.com/outdated-teaching-methods-will-blunt-technologys-power-40503">copy-pasting</a> traditional approaches is ineffective. This is confirmed by research that I completed recently, which <a href="http://www.teachernology.com/uploads/1/1/1/2/1112016/phd_-_craig_blewett_-_learning_in_a_facebook_environment_vs.pdf">found</a> that digital teaching methods must revolve around active learning approaches to bear fruit.</p>
<h2>A digital pedagogy</h2>
<p>Technology affords opportunities to move from traditional passive consumption learning to active approaches. These include curating content, engaging in conversation and developing content through iterative cycles of correction. </p>
<p>Such approaches form the basis of what I call the <a href="http://www.activatedclassroom.com">@CTIVATED Classroom model</a>, which is designed to support those who are teaching with technology.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123984/original/image-20160525-25247-n3883e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123984/original/image-20160525-25247-n3883e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123984/original/image-20160525-25247-n3883e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123984/original/image-20160525-25247-n3883e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123984/original/image-20160525-25247-n3883e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123984/original/image-20160525-25247-n3883e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123984/original/image-20160525-25247-n3883e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">@CTIVATED Classroom Model.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The letter I quoted from earlier concluded that, “Staff must be taught to use the technology.” Only part of this is correct: they must be taught how to teach <em>with</em> the technology. If this is ignored, educational technology will entrench the very approaches we were trying to change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60005/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Blewett runs the website <a href="http://www.activatedclassroom">www.activatedclassroom</a></span></em></p>Schools are focusing on the wrong objective when it comes to using technology in their classrooms. They should focus just as much on how they teach.Craig Blewett, Senior Lecturer in Education & Technology, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/529942016-01-15T04:36:57Z2016-01-15T04:36:57ZSchools must get the basics right before splashing out on technology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108003/original/image-20160113-10414-e1nawh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Technology can help kids learn – but the devices themselves aren't a silver bullet.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kobi Gideon/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For years, schools and education experts have debated whether technology belongs in the classroom. Now the discussion has shifted and even schools that had thus far resisted the educational tech revolution are being swept into what’s become a <a href="https://www.docebo.com/landing/contactform/elearning-market-trends-and-forecast-2014-2016-docebo-report.pdf">multi-billion-dollar market</a>. </p>
<p>The question now isn’t whether technology has a place in schools, but which devices would work best: laptops, tablets, smartphones or something else entirely? However, maybe it’s not the device that schools should be preoccupied with – but rather how students use them to learn.</p>
<h2>Leaning back or leaning forward</h2>
<p>The “lean back” vs “lean forward” model was originally developed by Danish academic <a href="http://www.nngroup.com/articles/media-velocity-tv-vs-the-web/">Jakob Nielsen</a> in 2008. It considers the position people use when engaging with technology and the impact this has on its use. </p>
<p>For example, when I grab a laptop I naturally want to sit at a desk. This is lean-forward device usage. When I use my iPhone or iPad I am more likely to do so while sitting on a chair – lean-back device usage. </p>
<p>Using a lean-forward device typically leads to greater brain activity. This is associated with skim reading, searching and content creation. But it also shortens users’ <a href="http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/">attention spans</a>. </p>
<p>Lean-back devices, <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/EMEAHQ/the-difference-between-lean-back-and-lean-forward">on the other hand</a>, encourage deeper reading and consumption of content, particularly during “dead time” when the user is commuting or waiting.</p>
<p>When it comes to learning, <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/entelequiafilosofiapratica/aconselhamento-filosofico-1/the-structure-and-function-of-a-socratic-dialogue-by-lou-marinoff">lean-forward</a> and <a href="http://courses.educ.ubc.ca/etec540/Sept04/arthurp/researchtopic/index.htm">lean-back</a> approaches have been around for centuries. The development of tablets and specifically the iPad has resulted in <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/EMEAHQ/the-difference-between-lean-back-and-lean-forward">a return</a> to lean-back engagement.</p>
<p>One of the problems that’s arisen from this shift is the phenomenon of “second screen” <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/EMEAHQ/the-difference-between-lean-back-and-lean-forward">syndrome</a>. This sees people simultaneously using their smartphones or tablets while watching TV. From a learning perspective, this practice is resulting in shorter attention spans and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/conquering-cyber-overload/201305/is-background-music-boost-or-bummer">increased cognitive load</a>.</p>
<p>While Nielsen’s model is useful, it predates the rise in the past five years of smartphones and tablets. As such it doesn’t consider other potentially important aspects, especially when it comes to education. A newer model may hold the answers for schools.</p>
<h2>A new way of thinking about learning</h2>
<p>Craig Will, a cognitive psychologist working for Cognitive Research & Design Corporation in California, has proposed what he <a href="http://johnnyholland.org/2012/03/engagement-styles-beyond-lean-forward-and-lean-back/">calls</a> the Mind:Engagement model.</p>
<p>Will maps activity and absorption. The middle area of this graphic is dominated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-binge-watching-is-to-blame-for-kids-not-learning-51056">consumption</a>. The upper right quadrant, which would be considered the goal of educators – high activity and high absorption – is where students are using their devices for search, curation and communication. In other words, activity. </p>
<p>Educators should be focusing on that upper right quadrant. It’s also where educational technology marketers ought to <a href="https://gigaom.com/2013/08/10/leaning-towards-a-better-way-to-gauge-consumer-media-interaction/">concentrate</a>, too.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108002/original/image-20160113-10447-1dg63g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108002/original/image-20160113-10447-1dg63g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108002/original/image-20160113-10447-1dg63g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108002/original/image-20160113-10447-1dg63g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108002/original/image-20160113-10447-1dg63g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108002/original/image-20160113-10447-1dg63g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108002/original/image-20160113-10447-1dg63g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108002/original/image-20160113-10447-1dg63g9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Craig Will’s Mind:Engagement model.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is because it’s not the device – the mode of consumption – that matters. Instead, it’s how that device is put to use in a classroom. As my <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-binge-watching-is-to-blame-for-kids-not-learning-51056">research</a> has found, schools tend to simply replicate old consumption based approaches with new technology devices.</p>
<p>And so blackboards have become smartboards, books have become ebooks, and teachers have become YouTube videos. Approaches grounded in consumption are simply receiving a new silicon coating. What is needed are methods that encourage active engagement in the classroom, not passive content consumption. So which device is doing this best?</p>
<h2>What’s the next big thing?</h2>
<p>The rapid rise in tablets has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/tablets-proliferate-in-nations-classrooms-and-take-a-swipe-at-the-status-quo/2014/05/17/faa27ba4-dbbd-11e3-8009-71de85b9c527_story.html">prompted predictions</a> that tablets will take over the classroom. But those analysts who favoured lean-back devices such as tablets over lean-forward devices have been surprised.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/03/googles-chromebooks-make-up-half-of-us-classroom-devices.html">recent</a> report revealed that Google’s Chromebook makes up half of US classroom devices. Chromebooks – also called Netbooks – are lightweight laptops that have little onboard storage. Most of their applications and data reside on the web.</p>
<p>Has this shift arisen from <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/sour-apple-los-angeles-schools-want-refund-failed-ipad-program-n342771">the highly publicised failure</a> of a massive school iPad program in the US? Or is it an organic move by schools from consumption-based approaches to more <a href="http://www.activatedclassroom.com">activated classrooms</a>? </p>
<p>Whatever the reasons, technology giant Apple has already taken note, as indicated by the recent entry of the iPad Pro into the market. This new device, which combines a larger screen size plus an optional keyboard and pen, is clearly targeted at both content consumption and content production. That’s everything from the middle to the top right quadrant of the Mind:Engagement model. </p>
<p>Early reports suggest that the iPad Pro is already <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2015/11/27/apple-ipad-pro-claims-its-first-victim-as-it-destroys-googles-flagship/">eroding</a> Chromebooks’ dominance in US classrooms.</p>
<h2>Don’t get distracted</h2>
<p>These developments suggest that blogger Jason Saltmarsh was right when he <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-saltmarsh/2015-educational-technolo_b_6413936.html">warned</a> Huffington Post readers to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Forget the device. Focus on web-based applications that best meet the needs of your students and teachers … more schools will officially embrace what has already been happening under the radar for years: BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Students will bring in all kinds of technology ranging from smartphones to laptops.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I would add that when it comes to education technology, it’s important to focus on the education – not on the technology. Train teachers rather than choosing devices. It’s when we consider how technology is used that schools will have the best chance at transforming their classrooms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Blewett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s a great deal of debate about what devices schools should be using. But educators should be focusing on how children learn, not what they learn on.Craig Blewett, Senior Lecturer in Education & Technology, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/502572016-01-12T04:31:14Z2016-01-12T04:31:14ZTechnology is no longer a luxury for universities – it’s a necessity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107155/original/image-20160104-29003-1021bb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Technology is evolving fast and can play a crucial role in educating university students.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the world’s new <a href="http://www.oecd.org/sti/sci-tech/1913021.pdf">knowledge economy</a>, innovation and technological change are recognised as the primary drivers of progress. Technological and digital literacy will be a <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/review/March-2011/knowledge-economy">crucial part</a> of helping many countries move beyond their reliance on material resources. </p>
<p>Such literacy, and an understanding of technology in general, will also be crucial for university students. They will have to develop the ability to collaborate across multiple contexts, filter and synthesise information from a variety of sources. These skills will be necessary if students are to contribute to the world in the 21st century.</p>
<p>We live in a world where the phone in your pocket has more processing power than the computers that were used to put men on the moon. But what is being done to make better use of the <a href="http://www.learning-theories.com/affordance-theory-gibson.html">affordances</a> of technology in higher education? Not much, unfortunately. In general, academics continue along traditional lines of thinking and practice that seem to ignore technological progress and its accelerating rate of change.</p>
<p>To address these challenges, higher education institutions must ask what steps they can take to ensure that their students are relevant in the future. The following suggestions may help the academy to think differently about how technology is used in the classroom.</p>
<h2>Access is increasing</h2>
<p>One common rationale for not bringing technology into the classroom is that access to technology is not uniformly distributed among students. This is especially true in a country like South Africa, where I teach, and on the African continent <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/8934/19%20Molawa.pdf?sequence=1">as a whole</a>. But access to textbooks is uneven, too, and no-one would use that as a reason to ban textbooks in class. </p>
<p>Things are changing faster than we think. When I started teaching in 2009, incorporating technology into the classroom was challenging. Few of my students had laptops or even computers at home. We didn’t have good access to wifi in lecture halls, so we had to use the computer labs. Now every student in my classroom is encouraged to use phones, tablets and laptops to search for new information that’s relevant to our topic, and to synthesise it for sharing in our discussions. They can do so because smartphones are ubiquitous. Students can also collaboratively author course notes for the module.</p>
<h2>The network is what matters</h2>
<p>But merely providing access to devices <a href="https://theconversation.com/outdated-teaching-methods-will-blunt-technologys-power-40503">does little</a> to help students learn. Many studies still centre on access to the device, as if handing a student a tablet will magically develop the skills needed to use it effectively. It is time to change academics’ thinking to prioritise the network over the device. The device is simply a window onto the network. The United Nations weighed in on this debate in 2011 when it declared that access to the internet should be recognised as a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/united-nations-declares-internet-access-a-basic-human-right/239911/">basic human right</a>.</p>
<p>There is also a shift from vertical communication channels that privilege hierarchies of control to horizontal structures – like networks – that embody coordination, cooperation and collaboration. The power of the internet is not that it provides us with new and innovative means of sharing cat videos. It is a new communication paradigm that is constructed through community engagement and participation. It allows new forms of interaction between people, information and devices.</p>
<h2>Preparing to adapt</h2>
<p>As technology progresses and its influence becomes clear in every aspect of society - apart from higher education - universities need to ask if the next 50 years are going to look anything like the last 50. It seems as if the most important skill people can learn is how to adapt to a constantly changing world. If this is true, then academics may need to radically change what is prioritised in the curriculum, as well as how they teach students to learn. How can academics prepare students to be successful in a world that we can’t predict?</p>
<p>Incorporating technology into the classroom allows academics to help students develop the skill set needed for engaging meaningfully in the 21st century. Academics cannot continue with the notion that higher education is about providing students with access to specialised knowledge. Universities and individual lecturers cannot plan curricula for the lowest common denominator in terms of digital literacy and then base teaching and learning practices on that. </p>
<p>The academic enterprise is about striving to upset established models and paradigms and to push for change in how we understand and work within the world around us. It is time that academics applied themselves to this task - and technology is a crucial way of doing so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Rowe receives funding from the National Research Foundation. He is affiliated with Physiopedia, a non-profit organisation that aims to develop and share physiotherapy-specific knowledge, and Snapplfy, a commercial company involved with the development of educational technology.</span></em></p>Technological and digital literacy are crucial for university students who hope to truly contribute to the world in the 21st century.Michael Rowe, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/446352015-07-15T15:15:16Z2015-07-15T15:15:16ZWhich digital books work best in the classroom?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88403/original/image-20150714-21696-1ol8yx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can we do this in every lesson?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Syda Productions/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The argument over whether children’s digital books count as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/us/is-e-reading-to-your-toddler-story-time-or-simply-screen-time.html?_r=0">educational storytime or just screentime</a> has been going on for a while. Given that digital interactive books (often called storyapps) are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/dec/15/shiny-appy-children">hybrids of books, short films and digital games</a>, their educational value largely depends on whether they are used to promote specific literacy skills or just to have fun with a story.</p>
<p>Many schools have begun to use <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-chalk-up-some-rules-before-ipads-enter-every-classroom-29074">ipads</a>, <a href="http://www.be.wednet.edu/Page/3526">Google Chromebooks</a> and other portable touchscreens in lessons, giving children more opportunities to access digital books and storyapps. Accessing an interactive digital book is a different experience from clicking through an e-book on the desktop PC and many teachers, especially those in primary schools, are legitimately questioning the value of using these resources in their literacy lessons. </p>
<p>Digital books with interactive features such as games and hotspots (areas in the digital text or image which act as hyperlinks, activated by tapping on the screen) have been found to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273229714000501">impede children’s story comprehension and vocabulary learning</a>. Yet, there is also evidence to suggest that <a href="http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0002/3898/Ebooks_lit_review_2014.pdf">children are attracted to and motivated</a> to read those digital books which are fun and <a href="https://theconversation.com/selfies-in-stories-motivate-but-dont-turn-children-into-digital-bookworms-26479">personalisable</a> and that children <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/children-teens-and-reading">do access</a> such books at home.</p>
<h2>Choosing the right digital book</h2>
<p>Teachers are best positioned to ascertain how particular books and e-books fit with their teaching objectives and how the resources can be best incorporated within existing reading activities such as <a href="https://global.oup.com/education/content/primary/key-issues/guided-reading/;jsessionid=A466F471C597594A2665F381A6CEE6B0?region=uk">guided reading</a> or perhaps offered as an extra resource during free play time. This is why the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/jul/10/ukla-book-awards-2015-winners-announced">UKLA Children’s Book Award</a>, which is judged entirely by teachers, is held in high esteem by teachers, who regard the shortlisted titles as a reliable indicator of the best books of the year for inclusion in their classroom or school library.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88402/original/image-20150714-21711-kjt1ei.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88402/original/image-20150714-21711-kjt1ei.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88402/original/image-20150714-21711-kjt1ei.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88402/original/image-20150714-21711-kjt1ei.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88402/original/image-20150714-21711-kjt1ei.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88402/original/image-20150714-21711-kjt1ei.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88402/original/image-20150714-21711-kjt1ei.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap Safari app.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://nosycrow.com/media-kit/axel-scheffler-s-flip-flap-safari-app">Nosy Crow</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the first time in their eight-year existence, the awards included a <a href="http://www.ukla.org/awards/ukla_digital_book_award/">Children’s Digital Book Award</a>. The scheme, run in partnership with Book Trust and sponsored by The Open University, was piloted with selected teachers who, from the shortlisted titles, chose Axel Scheffler’s <a href="http://nosycrow.com/books/axel-schefflers-flip-flap-books/axel-scheffler-s-flip-flap-safari">Flip Flap Safari</a> app by Nosy Crow, as the winner. The judging teachers liked the fact that the app included high-quality text, with rich vocabulary and good sentence structure which is often underestimated by digital producers and limits their chances for the app being used in the school context. Teachers also thought the app lent itself to various learning objectives, aligned with the requirements of parts of the reading curriculum or poetry lessons.</p>
<p>There was no direct children’s vote for the award this year but from teachers’ comments it was clear that children loved and found the second shortlisted app – <a href="http://www.kuatostudios.com/games/dinotales/">Dino Tales by Kuato Studios</a> – very engaging. Children could spend hours discovering and creating their own stories with customised dinosaurs. This app was highly commended in the awards.</p>
<p>Flip Flap Safari worked for teachers because it lent itself to the demands of current curriculum. On the other hand, Dino Tales, with its customisable story characters and game-like creative design, opened up worlds which the children loved exploring. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Ux0rDcNd_o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Dino Tales was launched in January 2015.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Teachers are keen to explore the dual purpose of digital books and literacy apps to entertain as well as educate. This means the best ones in an educational context have high-quality texts as well as a digitally enhanced narrative and open up the world of imagination, with possibilities for children to be creative and explore their own ways into a story or literacy activity. Digital books which can meet both objectives are therefore likely to be successful.</p>
<h2>Teachers: know your e-book</h2>
<p>Although using digital books is different from printed books, the basic principles of effective implementation of a new resource in the classroom still holds. Teachers need to get familiar with the technology before they can explore the different features embedded in the app. They need to get familiar with the particular digital book and the content of the story. This is fittingly summarised in a framework developed by American educational psychologist <a href="https://digitalmediaprojectforchildren.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/teaching-with-ebooks-emerging-practices/">Kathleen Roskos and researcher Jeremey Brueck</a> and presented at a recent conference about <a href="http://digitalliteracyforpreschoolers.conference.mcgill.ca/">digital literacy for pre-schoolers</a>: 1. know your device; 2. know your e-book; 3. establish routines; 4. link apps together; and 5. be persistent.</p>
<p>In the UK, a practical guide for teachers for implementing digital books in the classroom is currently being tested by teachers, as part of the <a href="http://www.meshguides.org/">MESH guide initiative</a> – these are mini-summaries, with sources of educational research made accessible to teachers across the globe.</p>
<p>The old mantra that high-quality professional development for teachers may be the most important thing schools can do to improve students’ learning still holds true with digital books. Leaving the choice of which digital book or app to use to the professionals – in this case the teachers – is the best indicator for knowing what works in practice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44635/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalia Kucirkova is member of the UK Literacy Association (UKLA) and was the chair of the UKLA Digital Book Award 2015.</span></em></p>For the first time, teachers have voted for the best ebooks to use in school.Natalia Kucirkova, Lecturer in Developmental Psychology, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/308422014-08-29T15:02:21Z2014-08-29T15:02:21ZWhy replacing teachers with automated education lacks imagination<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57741/original/294zjxh2-1409302389.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We can be more imaginative. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bostworld/2152048926/sizes/o/">dbostrom</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The belief that technology can automate education and replace teachers is pervasive. Framed in calls for greater efficiency, this belief is present in today’s educational innovations, reform endeavours, and technology products. We can do better than adopting this insipid perspective and aspire instead for a better future where innovations imagine creative new ways to organise education.</p>
<p>In the 1920s and 1930s, American psychologist Sidney Pressey worked <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL13530790M/Psychology_and_the_new_education">to create a future</a> in which machines would eliminate “the grossly inefficient and clumsy procedures of conventional education,” freeing teachers from routine tasks, to be “real teachers” instead of “clerical workers”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/57651/original/zn5kxv7z-1409240294.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Pressey testing machine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pressey_Testing_Machine_1.jpg#filelinks">Gomer Bolstrood</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pressey created the “Automatic Teacher” to realise this vision. This was a <a href="http://teachingmachin.es/">teaching machine</a> that presented information, accepted a response, and returned pre-recorded feedback. Since then, numerous educational technology initiatives have sought to automate the delivery of instruction and assessment. </p>
<p>For example, during World War II, <a href="http://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Evolution_of_American_Educational_Te.html?id=s1ThX561Z58C">filmstrips were used to train</a> large numbers of civilians and military personnel in the United States. The radio, television, computer, and internet have been used in a similar fashion.</p>
<p>These historical examples illustrate the belief that education can be standardised, neatly packaged, and efficiently delivered to large numbers of people, and replace teachers in the process.</p>
<h2>Upping the automation ante</h2>
<p>The same belief is embedded in today’s debates about education. In January 2014, writing for the Washington Post, futurist blogger Dominic Basulto <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/01/07/10-bold-predictions-for-2014">predicted</a> that an “artificially intelligent machine” could teach Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), “lecturing, grading and engaging with students … making the delightfully erudite college professor a quaint artifact of the non-digital past.”</p>
<p>Later, in an article published by the Association for Computing Machinery, academic Yoav Yair <a href="http://inroads.acm.org/article.cfm?aid=2614522">argued</a> that: “with the menial job of checking and grading assignments taken over by computers, we (human teachers) will be left with the responsibility to intervene and mentor our students.”</p>
<p>Numerous politicians promote the idea of automating aspects of education and replacing instructors with machines. In July, Rand Paul, a Kentucky senator, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/rand-paul-african-american-vote-national-urban-league-109328.html">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you have one person in the country who is, like, the best at explaining calculus, that person maybe should teach every calculus class in the country … You’d still have local teachers to reinforce and try to explain and help the kids, but you’d have some of these extraordinary teachers teaching millions of people. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A few days later, Newt Gingrich, a former US representative, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/01/opinion/gingrich-schools-blended-teaching-technology/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">wrote</a>: “The cost of educating each student declines in blended-learning environments, in part because schools require fewer teachers to manage the classrooms.” Blended learning is when a student learns part online, part face-to-face with a teacher. </p>
<p>While these ideas appear mainly in the US, they seem to have a global appeal. In the UK for instance, the academy chain <a href="http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6433255">Ark Schools anticipates</a> creating new roles for teachers using blended learning to achieve “staffing efficiencies” that reduce the number of current teachers but “increase the reach of great teachers.”</p>
<h2>The search for efficiency</h2>
<p>Educational technology products frequently highlight efficiency. One <a href="https://www.ankiapp.com">flashcard app</a> claims that its “proprietary spaced-repetition algorithm delivers high-efficiency learning.” And the automation of teaching is perhaps most evident in the context of some MOOCs which not only use recorded lectures and automated assessment to scale, but appear to run <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/why-do-professors-spend-t_b_4534762.html">“fully-automated” without a faculty members’ participation</a>.</p>
<p>While technologies have evolved dramatically between 1926 and 2014, the parallels are striking. These examples are not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, they illustrate an ongoing fascination with efficiency. The focus is on saving time and money via software, videos, and algorithms that lecture, grade, and manage. </p>
<p>Research suggests that automation tools can <a href="http://mitopencourseware.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/mechmooc_ponti.pdf">be designed to facilitate learning activities</a> and learners may have <a href="http://www.veletsianos.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/veletsianos_miller.pdf">socially engrossing experiences</a> with artificially intelligent instructors. But, do these innovations serve the learning needs of contemporary societies?</p>
<h2>Other ways of learning</h2>
<p>We can do better than this impoverished view of the role of technology in education. The innovations that we need are ones that imagine creative new ways to <a href="http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/docc2013/">organise education</a>. They are ones that use technology to provide learners with <a href="http://www.veletsianos.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/designing_opportunities_for_transformation.pdf">opportunities for personal transformation</a>. </p>
<p>Such innovations draw from <a href="http://connectedcourses.net/about/">the expertise of multiple instructors</a> and allow learners to create (and not just consume) knowledge, such as by writing <a href="http://pm4id.org/">textbooks</a>. They promote <a href="https://class.stanford.edu/courses/HumanitiesSciences/EP101/Environmental_Physiology/about">experiential learning</a> and encourage academics to share their scholarship, such as their <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ersb2162/bigdataeducation.html">teaching</a>, frequently and <a href="http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1313/2304">openly</a>.</p>
<p>Such innovations resist the reductionist agendas of the efficiency narrative and encourage content experts, learning designers, computer scientists, and education researchers to work together in the design of future learning environments. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://survey.royalroads.ca/index.php?sid=56569">research project</a> I conducted with colleagues from Stanford University, we interviewed a number of individuals to learn about their MOOC learning experiences. One student reported experiencing demeaning and abusive comments on a discussion board that was never visited by the professor and/or their assistants. </p>
<p>The student said that it was “like that course didn’t have an instructor … there was someone who built the class and created the reading but that was it.”</p>
<p>We should be aspiring of a better future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Veletsianos receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs program and the U.S. National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>The belief that technology can automate education and replace teachers is pervasive. Framed in calls for greater efficiency, this belief is present in today’s educational innovations, reform endeavours…George Veletsianos, Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor, Royal Roads UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/299222014-08-06T05:08:44Z2014-08-06T05:08:44ZUnlocking the habits of Britain’s smartphone generation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55788/original/zzs334m2-1407236275.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">I'm sure I use mine more that you do. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-181613087/stock-photo-boys-playing-on-smartphone.html?src=NGvxfugu8RKRLBus+GQSfw-5-61">Boys and smartphone via Twin Design/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The bond between a child and their smartphone is like an umbilical cord. Now, <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57598/1/__lse.ac.uk_storage_LIBRARY_Secondary_libfile_shared_repository_Content_EU%20Kids%20Online_EU_KIids_Online_Net_Children_go.pdf">a new survey</a> has uncovered just how dependent the “<a href="https://www.lookout.com/resources/reports/smartphone-family-guide">smartphone generation</a>” of British children are on the devices compared to their European counterparts.</p>
<p>The new survey used 2013 data from <a href="http://www.netchildrengomobile.eu/reports/">Net Children Go Mobile project</a> of 3,500 children across Europe, combined with in-depth interviews, to examine how British children’s use of technology had changed since a <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33730%20/">previous survey in 2010</a>. </p>
<p>Smartphones have now become the most common device through which British children go online: 56% of the 516 British 9-16-year-olds surveyed use them to do so every day. This is more than the European average of 45%. In Britain, the numbers increase with age, as the graph below shows. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55787/original/zm5yd3d6-1407235586.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55787/original/zm5yd3d6-1407235586.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55787/original/zm5yd3d6-1407235586.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55787/original/zm5yd3d6-1407235586.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55787/original/zm5yd3d6-1407235586.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55787/original/zm5yd3d6-1407235586.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55787/original/zm5yd3d6-1407235586.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55787/original/zm5yd3d6-1407235586.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>PCs still trump for games</h2>
<p>By comparison with British children surveyed in the 2010 <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33730/">EU Kids Online survey</a>, children’s use of PCs to go on the internet has halved, although laptop access has held up at 47%. </p>
<p>Interviews with children indicate that for some uses such as playing online games or looking up material for homework, the larger screens and greater processing power still have some advantages. As a result, young people use a variety of devices to go online: tablets, video consoles, even eBook readers. In fact, UK children use a broader range than the European average. </p>
<p>For instance, 16-year-old Alan told us he prefers to go on the PC for many tasks – the graphics quality for playing games is better, and he can type faster on a keyboard. But even he says it is more comfortable to lie in bed watching YouTube on his smartphone.</p>
<p>When 13-year-old Anuj wants to look up something that catches his attention, he pulls the smartphone out of his pocket because he can’t be bothered to go upstairs and boot up his computer. Meanwhile, ten-year-old Genna and her friends are using their smartphones to work their way through over 200 games on the site <a href="http://www.friv.co.uk/">Friv</a>. </p>
<p>These examples illustrate an intriguing finding that most smartphone use is actually at home. But perhaps it’s not so strange when you think that one of the major places where children have historically used more traditional mobile phones has been in the home. </p>
<p>For children, mobiles and smartphones are personal phones, which are with them, or at least at hand, even in the home. Whereas parents can impose spending limits on their children’s data consumption outside the home, using smartphones at home is free on the home wifi. Adults follow these same patterns – but are arguably less conscious about their own data usage outside a home wifi zone.</p>
<p>The smartphone is the most expensive item most children have ever carried around with them on a regular basis. No wonder that parents and teachers advise them to be wary, or at least discrete, about using smartphones in public for fear of theft – advice which many children, especially the younger ones, do heed.</p>
<p>Yet there has only been a muted public debate about the use of smartphones in schools. It seems to be very much a decision for individual schools. Overall, UK schools appear to limit their use quite a lot, as 63% of children in our survey reported that smartphone use is not allowed, and 33% say it is allowed with restrictions. </p>
<p>One can understand the potential for distraction in class time, but children we interviewed reported unsanctioned use in breaks. In fact, 25% of the 516 children we surveyed reported going online on their smartphones daily at school.</p>
<p>When so many appear to break the rules, maybe it is time to reassess the situation. Certainly schools in other countries make different decisions. In Denmark, 70% of children can use their smartphones in schools without any restrictions.</p>
<h2>Dependent, but aware of risks</h2>
<p>So what effects has the smartphone had? Children who use them do more of everything online (although this may be in part because children who are more enthusiastic about the internet are keener to get hold of a smartphone in the first place.) But in interviews, many children also said they felt they did more online because the portable device was so convenient. </p>
<p>On the downside, smartphone users were more likely to be overdependent: 78% acknowledged that their internet use meant they spend less time than they should with family, friends or doing schoolwork. This excessive use was greater than for the other European countries, where the average for excessive use was 61%. </p>
<p>That said, the young people were generally very positive about smartphones, with 59% saying they felt more connected to their friends as a result of using them. The 2010 survey had shown that those who use the internet more in general also encountered more risks – such as cyberbullying, meeting strangers or pornography – but they were no more likely to say it upset them. Basically the same is true of smartphones. Children who used smartphones experienced more risks, but not more harm. Arguably taking risks is part of learning about the online world, part of learning to cope – and part of growing up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29922/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leslie Haddon receives funding from the European Commission.</span></em></p>The bond between a child and their smartphone is like an umbilical cord. Now, a new survey has uncovered just how dependent the “smartphone generation” of British children are on the devices compared to…Leslie Haddon, Senior researcher and visiting lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications , London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/292572014-07-24T20:24:14Z2014-07-24T20:24:14ZThe value of MOOCs lies with employers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53965/original/tg7zw9hs-1405488966.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Massive Open Online Courses may be fun and cheap, but they don't really replicate the on-campus experience</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/locator/400512027">Flickr/Sharla Sava</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One often sees news stories about how changes in information technology are killing off different industries. Newspapers are read online rather than in print, and who bought a book in a physical shop lately? The bricks-and-mortar shops are fewer and fewer and the offerings online steadily increasing. One of the latest sectors said to be under threat from technological change is the higher education sector.</p>
<p>If one is to believe what one reads, (almost all) universities might as well start packing up and closing down. However, what we’re witnessing is exaggerated hype.</p>
<p>Fear makes good news stories. And technology fears are particularly “saleable” as people seem to have a great interest in technology and a long-standing fear of technology taking over the world - remember the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem">Y2K</a> hype? </p>
<p>In light of this, it is not surprising that technology fears spark all sorts of doomsday prophecies. But is there any substance to the claims of technology killing off the traditional university?</p>
<h2>The claims</h2>
<p>A recent article in <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21605906-cost-crisis-changing-labour-markets-and-new-technology-will-turn-old-institution-its">The Economist</a> contained a rather typical report on the likely effect technology will have on the university. Essentially the article, titled “Creative Destruction”, presented a number of standard claims. For example, it pointed to the following factors as fundamentally undermining the model universities have relied upon since Aristotle:</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53975/original/bx5544xw-1405490507.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53975/original/bx5544xw-1405490507.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53975/original/bx5544xw-1405490507.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53975/original/bx5544xw-1405490507.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53975/original/bx5544xw-1405490507.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53975/original/bx5544xw-1405490507.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53975/original/bx5544xw-1405490507.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53975/original/bx5544xw-1405490507.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/catspyjamasnz/8570831043">Flickr/catspyjamasnz</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ul>
<li><p>rising costs;</p></li>
<li><p>stagnant productivity;</p></li>
<li><p>changing demand;</p></li>
<li><p>changes in the employment market for graduates (in no small part due to technology advances);</p></li>
<li><p>declining public funding; and </p></li>
<li><p>disruptive technologies.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>More specifically, on the point of technology, the article concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The internet, which has turned businesses from newspapers through music to book retailing upside down, will upend higher education. Now the MOOC, or Massive Open Online Course, is offering students the chance to listen to star lecturers and get a degree for a fraction of the cost of attending a university.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The reality</h2>
<p>The offering of distance education is nothing new. For quite some time, distance education has been a competitor of the traditional university model. I suspect that, just as the forms of distance education we have grown accustomed to suit some people better than the traditional university model does, so will MOOCs be a better fit for some students. </p>
<p>For example, the flexibility offered may suit students on a Masters level, who often combine studies with work and who, in any case, often work quite independently. Another obvious market is students in developing countries whom it’s difficult to reach using older forms of distance education, and for whom university campuses in developed countries are inaccessible. </p>
<p>No doubt much good can be achieved through MOOCs, but when it comes to the typical undergraduate student coming to the university as a school leaver, I suspect MOOCs represent very much a second-best option. The reality is that they need guidance, preferably in small classes where they can get personal attention. </p>
<p>Universities that can offer this will always have a market. And after all, the university experience should include more than just classes and studies. I doubt many hormonal 19-year-olds would prefer studying MOOCs from their parents’ basement to being on a campus full of other 19-year-olds, about half of whom are of the opposite gender.</p>
<h2>The ignored, but crucially important, end-user</h2>
<p>Those who, out of fear or for other reasons, promote MOOCs often neglect the end-user, and I am not here referring to the students. Too little attention has been directed at how employers will view future graduates.</p>
<p>Would employers rather take a Harvard MOOCs graduate or a graduate trained in person on campus at a local university lacking a world-renowned brand? Perhaps we will see a trend similar to the current preference for carefully produced local food over imported mass-produced foods from the mega-brands? And if employers prefer graduates trained at traditional universities, will not then the students also prefer traditional universities? After all, getting a job would seem to be the main motivation for most undergraduate students.</p>
<p>This brings attention to a crucially important point – in the end, whether MOOCs will succeed over the traditional university model in the training of undergraduates will be determined by the choices employers make. So a great deal of responsibility rests on the shoulders of the employers. Maybe it is time they had their say.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Jerker B. Svantesson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One often sees news stories about how changes in information technology are killing off different industries. Newspapers are read online rather than in print, and who bought a book in a physical shop lately…Dan Jerker B. Svantesson, Co-Director Centre for Commercial Law, Bond UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/281702014-06-23T05:06:24Z2014-06-23T05:06:24ZHow to choose the best educational app for your child<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51684/original/fngcb658-1403192734.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Picking an app isn't as easy as ABC.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kathycassidy/8041410440/sizes/l">Kathy Cassidy</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Parents and teachers have long been given guidance on which books can help children learn but no such help is on offer when it comes to apps. The bad news is, definite recommendations may be a long time coming. The good news, though, is that we already know a few things about apps that can help you choose for yourself.</p>
<p>Prizes including the <a href="https://www.bestbookawards.org.uk/">Booktrust Best Book Awards</a> and the <a href="http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/home/index.php">CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal</a> produce shortlists, often drawn up by children’s literacy experts, which can help parents and educators navigate the crowded book market. There are also best book lists put together by <a href="http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/pages/childrens-book-prize/1185/">booksellers</a>, <a href="http://www.ukla.org/awards/shortlists_ukla_book_awards_2014/">teachers</a> or <a href="http://www.redhousechildrensbookaward.co.uk/">children</a>.</p>
<p>While there are international awards for apps, they don’t offer the same service. Parents and educators are therefore left to their own devices when searching through the <a href="http://gradelevelreading.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/GLR_TechnologyGuide_final.pdf">Digital Wild West</a> of apps. Which are best to help children learn to read? Which are good for numbers? Which just waste their time?</p>
<p>With thousands of apps available on a vast global market, teachers would also welcome some officially recognised app lists which would be aligned with school curriculum objectives.</p>
<p>Apps evolve much faster than books, which means it’s perfectly feasible that a feature with educational value could disappear from one update to the next. </p>
<p>It would help if we actually knew what these beneficial features were in the first place, of course. There is a lack of research-based, empirically validated criteria for what makes an app educationally valuable. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131513002881">Some research</a> is slowly emerging but it will be years before scholars can confidently identify the short or long-term benefits or pitfalls of specific app features.</p>
<p>While we wait, there are some things you can do yourself.</p>
<p>First, think about the specific activity, skill or experience you wish to enrich and how an app might fit into that activity. If you’ve found a drawing app, for example, think about how it encourages creativity. Does the app come with some open-ended drawing possibilities, enabling the child to mix and match colours and add more advanced patterns? Open-ended apps are likely to offer more creative opportunities than template-based ones.</p>
<p>If you’re choosing from a range of apps that support the same activity, follow some general rules of thumb such as apps facilitating interactive and shared engagement, creativity or personalisation. If you are unsure about your choices, discuss them with other parents, teachers and the children themselves. There are some good support networks online, with several <a href="http://www.apps4primaryschools.co.uk/about/">teachers</a> and <a href="http://www.netmums.com/activities/galleries/view/top-ten-educational-apps">parents</a> regularly posting app reviews online. </p>
<p>It is also good to think about whether the app enriches the offline version of an activity. If a reading app links to audio books, such as through a <a href="http://www.whatisaqrcode.co.uk/">QR code</a>, that might make it more useful, or if a numbers app encourages a child to count real objects as well as digital ones, its benefits could extend beyond the time spent actually using it. For physical activity, an app might teach a child about balance and then suggest they go and balance on something in their home or garden.</p>
<p>And last but not least, the best children’s apps are those which are not just about the user but about others too. They should encourage your child to <a href="https://theconversation.com/selfies-in-stories-motivate-but-dont-turn-children-into-digital-bookworms-26479">engage with others</a>. For example, good story-making apps are those which engage the child, not only in story-creation, but also in story-sharing and learning about others through their stories.</p>
<p>Apps can cause parents and teachers a lot of anxiety. For many, digital learning and playing is a new world. Developers make big promises about educational value and often design their products with the aim of getting users hooked. However, you will not miss out on the opportunities apps offer as long as you choose wisely, by using your life experiences and drawing on expertise of those around you.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalia Kucirkova receives funding as a KTP Associate. She is affiliated with The Open University and Booktrust.</span></em></p>Parents and teachers have long been given guidance on which books can help children learn but no such help is on offer when it comes to apps. The bad news is, definite recommendations may be a long time…Natalia Kucirkova, KTP Associate for Booktrust, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223452014-05-13T04:19:08Z2014-05-13T04:19:08ZVideogames should be a teacher’s best friend<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48047/original/kxxx7wjj-1399528718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Learning and having fun aren't mutually exclusive: videogames (such as Portal) bridge the two perfectly.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/a440/2065934413/in/photolist-i6aoTK-4xaLKr-6s1xE2-as1Jxa-bzv1HF-hwArzq-4wJWJ-6TDPVf-acwM5Z-49ysjR-iioD9J-4zo1Va-4K7rwK-926Fdz-ad8TP-dQZhL7-v2TSg-668oPm-KoSDD-ezSXU-4RmZkm-6s1vga-8VWam-4CGih-9GAH9x-8LngBS-3LdMiy-8MyMG3-6r9fen-f9uQFK-b3Pr9F-ytY7S-nbQgr4-87xBxj-yvzc-5T4MKU-aax4TZ-h65K8U-aELPXg-5EHUdv-uxz9a-bwoqAM-kL8mHD-4Cxwtt-jpyzG9-ktTLoN-9gg5BX-8mhG4w-2FSQYu-8tGGhW">Steve Elgersma/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Although videogames are seen by many as a waste of time, one thing they do undeniably well is <a href="http://www.jamespaulgee.com/node/37">teach</a>. The problem is that educational games are about as much a game as low-fat ice cream is delicious. Both leave a bad taste in your mouth and are generally unfulfilling. </p>
<p>That’s because there’s a fundamental difference between games made to <em>teach</em> and games where you <em>learn</em>. In the former, you know you’re being lectured to, while in the latter, you’re having fun and just happen to learn.</p>
<p>If you have children in school, you’ve likely come across <a href="http://www.mathletics.com.au/">Mathletics</a>, the educational “game” that schools use to teach maths.</p>
<p>Contrast a maths question from the Mathletics site where students are rewarded with points with a level in <a href="http://www.innertubegames.net/">Wuzzit Trouble</a> where students need to turn cogs that differ in the number of teeth to reach the right position of a dial to free a wuzzit.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46756/original/vh53jky6-1398121581.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46756/original/vh53jky6-1398121581.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46756/original/vh53jky6-1398121581.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46756/original/vh53jky6-1398121581.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46756/original/vh53jky6-1398121581.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46756/original/vh53jky6-1398121581.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46756/original/vh53jky6-1398121581.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The popular Mathletics program adopted by schools contrasted with Wuzzit Trouble. Both teach maths, but one does it intuitively.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both games teach maths, but one is a game rather than being a gamified version of a maths equations. By ignoring traditional symbolism, Wuzzit Trouble teaches through a fun intuitive mechanism where players can’t help but learn if they play long enough. The important lesson here is that students are learning through a familiar framework that minimises the costs of mistakes and allows the opportunity for discovery.</p>
<p>The problem is, however, that games such as Wuzzit Trouble and <a href="http://www.dragonboxapp.com/">Dragon Box</a> take a substantial amount of time to create and we can’t expect educators to invest such time. </p>
<p>But what if using games to teach wasn’t either difficult or time consuming? What if current games could be hijacked for education? What if there were easy ways to manipulate code? And what if the creation of games could be <em>part</em> of the lesson?</p>
<h2>Gaming in the classroom</h2>
<p>The value of <a href="http://www.learnwithportals.com/">Portal 2</a> and <a href="http://minecraftedu.com">Minecraft</a> as teaching tools is due to more than their popularity. It’s because they allow students to create worlds and manipulate the rules that govern them to explore scientific phenomena in fun and intuitive ways.</p>
<p>A quick search for lesson plans for either game provides numerous examples, often on blogs that provide insight into individual successes and failures. </p>
<p><a href="http://physicswithportals.com/">Physics With Portals</a> is one such blog, where high school teacher <a href="https://twitter.com/cwpittman">Cameron Pittman</a> explains how he teaches Netwon’s Laws.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gOrpHbuZmPU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A crash-course in Newton’s laws – with Portal 2.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a similar way, <a href="http://minecraftedu.com/wiki/index.php?title=Teaching_with_MinecraftEdu">Minecraft</a> can be used to teach simple mathematical concepts such as <a href="http://teachingmathliteracy.weebly.com/gr-45-minecraft-math-distinguishing-area-and-perimeter.html">perimeter and area</a>, to more complex ideas such as probabilities and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRnlrdFaLT8">reaction times</a>.</p>
<p>It’s not only sciences that benefit from a technological perspective. <a href="http://remixingcollegeenglish.wordpress.com">Remixing College English</a> is a website by English professor <a href="https://twitter.com/TanyaSasser">Tanya Sasser</a> that explores ways to use technology to teach writing, editing, and revision. One of my favourite posts is the idea of having students explore writing through creating <a href="http://remixingcollegeenglish.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/games-based-learning-through-text-adventures/">text adventures</a> reminiscent of the <a href="http://www.cyoa.com/">Choose Your Own Adventure</a> novels. </p>
<p>Imagine asking students to create games instead of handing in written reports. It’s clear the creators of <a href="http://theevolvedgamer.com/cuddlefish/">Cuddlefish</a> and <a href="http://theevolvedgamer.com/benthic-love/">Benthic love</a> researched and understood their topics. Instead of marking dozens of papers, students could play and help grade each other’s games.</p>
<p>Groups at Wisconsin and MIT have also been working on a new way to engage students by using augmented reality. Game editors such as <a href="http://arisgames.org/">Aris</a> and <a href="http://taleblazer.org/">TaleBlazer</a> allow you to create a virtual world where students use GPS enabled smart-phones to visit map locations to interact with virtual characters.</p>
<p>I’ve used Aris to create augmented reality games to teach evolutionary concepts such as sexual conflict and life-history trade-offs. In such games, I’ve created worlds where students take the role of <a href="http://theevolvedgamer.com/how-im-trying-to-make-learning-fun/">male spiders</a> searching for mates while avoiding predators. </p>
<p>By working in teams and competing against classmates, students learn how different mating strategies evolve, why others fail, and do so in a social setting familiar to them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47750/original/cgpx28ds-1399253062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47750/original/cgpx28ds-1399253062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47750/original/cgpx28ds-1399253062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47750/original/cgpx28ds-1399253062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47750/original/cgpx28ds-1399253062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47750/original/cgpx28ds-1399253062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47750/original/cgpx28ds-1399253062.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">My students playing an augmented reality game on UNSW campus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Erin Macartney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’ve also made these games and lesson plans <a href="http://theevolvedgamer.com/educational-gaming/">freely available</a>, and so have many others that teach French, game design and <a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/113424023747148346253">more</a>. </p>
<p>These few examples demonstrate that keeping up with technology doesn’t have to be exhausting. By entering a domain where students are comfortable, we can create a connection with students that traditional teaching plans cannot. </p>
<h2>Where do we go from here?</h2>
<p>One of the earliest advocates of game based learning, researcher <a href="http://www.jamespaulgee.com/">James Paul Gee</a>, recently stated that he’s <a href="http://www.gamesandlearning.org/2014/02/10/newsmaker-james-gee-on-why-the-power-of-games-to-teach-remains-unrealized/?utm_content=buffer4bb72&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">disappointed</a> with how far we’ve come with game based learning. </p>
<p>I disagree. Given how fast technology is changing, I’m impressed with how many teachers have adopted games in their lesson plans, how many developers have made educational games, and how many continue to develop resources that are free to use. </p>
<p>The best scientists learn through discovery, and technology now allows us to provide our children with this opportunity. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><em>If you’ve come across other great ideas and methods that you’ve used for your kids or your classrooms, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. I’ve placed other examples <a href="http://theevolvedgamer.com/educational-gaming/">here</a>. It would be amazing to have a resource for those who’d like to try and make classrooms a little bit more fun.</em></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Kasumovic receives funding from the Australian Research Council for his evolutionary research. He also has a fascination with video games and the potential they hold for education.</span></em></p>Although videogames are seen by many as a waste of time, one thing they do undeniably well is teach. The problem is that educational games are about as much a game as low-fat ice cream is delicious. Both…Michael Kasumovic, Lecturer, ARC DECRA Fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/253252014-04-15T20:38:41Z2014-04-15T20:38:41ZAs laptop scheme ends, what next for families and learning?<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Education_Revolution">The computers for schools program</a>, which involved federal funding for the supply of laptops to high school students, is set to end in June. The program was a central piece of the former government’s “digital revolution” but is being discontinued by the current government.</p>
<p>The end of the program is already having consequences for schools and for families. Without funding for computers, schools are being forced to find other ways to fund educational technology. Often this means shifting the cost onto families or requiring students to <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/special_reports/future_workplace/when_byo_means_bringing_your_own_1bWt72ug0rwG7975YacUhJ">“bring your own device”</a>.</p>
<p>The end of the program has two main implications. The first is related to the access all children have to the basic technologies needed for 21st-century learning. The second involves the pedagogy that underpins the use of these tools for learning.</p>
<h2>Can everyone afford the best gadgets?</h2>
<p>Inequalities may arise in schools if families are unable to get the newest and best devices due to the often high cost. The newest and best technology is often expensive and the daily journey to school and back can be devastating to some devices. Purchasing, repairing and upgrading devices can become a significant drain on the family budget.</p>
<p>As not every family is able to supply their children with the latest technology, there is a risk that placing the onus on families to obtain these devices for their children will lead to a “digital divide”. The children from well-off families will have access to the latest and supposed best tools for learning while everyone else will have either no access to technology or be lumped with using older and often outdated technology.</p>
<h2>Are the gadgets doing students any good anyway?</h2>
<p>The more critical issue is whether the newest and best devices are actually the best options for enhancing learning.</p>
<p>Professor John Hattie from the University of Melbourne conducted a large <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ZO8jmUjQbs0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22visible+learning%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lMtBU6LZMtG7iAeWy4HQCQ&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22visible%20learning%22&f=false">meta-analysis of meta-analyses</a>, which involves looking at the results of a very large pool of studies to determine what factors have the greatest impact on student learning. His findings suggest that technology or, as he put it, computer-assisted instruction, has only a marginal effect on student learning outcomes.</p>
<p>The issue is really then more about whether these devices are the best option for learning at all, than whether newer is better. Families shouldn’t be put in a position where they need to fork out a lot of money they may not have for technology that has a dubious effect on enhancing their child’s learning.</p>
<p>Underpinning the uncertainty surrounding the role of digital technologies in schools is that our understanding of these devices and how they can be best incorporated into teaching practice is far outpaced by the evolution of the devices themselves. No sooner do we come to understand how best to use a technology in classrooms than the technology has already become obsolete.</p>
<p>The research being conducted into the ways in which technology can be used to enhance learning is therefore unable to keep pace with the development and use of new devices and applications. While it is perhaps cliché for a researcher to call for further research, in this case the cost to families, and the potential to create further inequalities in our education system would seem to warrant it.</p>
<p>As I have argued <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-secret-formula-to-learning-extra-money-and-quick-fixes-wont-improve-education-13050">previously</a>, throwing money at quick fixes is not the answer to improving education. This applies to technology more than anything else in the sector.</p>
<p>A greater emphasis needs to be placed on professional development for teachers and on educational design so that the maximum benefit of these new tools can be realised. The tools themselves are useless if the learning activities designed to utilise the tools are not up to standard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Lodge works for the Science of Learning Research Centre (SLRC) at the University of Melbourne. The SLRC receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The computers for schools program, which involved federal funding for the supply of laptops to high school students, is set to end in June. The program was a central piece of the former government’s “digital…Jason M Lodge, Research Affiliate, Science of Learning Research Centre, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213282014-03-10T19:54:25Z2014-03-10T19:54:25ZTo lecture or not to lecture: is technology reinventing the campus?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42271/original/9qg99myc-1393200869.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=291%2C0%2C3596%2C2590&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is technology signalling the end to university lectures? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/downloading_tips.mhtml?code=&id=177025595&size=huge&image_format=jpg&method=download&super_url=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTM5MzIyOTM4NywiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfMTc3MDI1NTk1IiwicCI6InYxfDEwMTI3NTg4fDE3NzAyNTU5NSIsImsiOiJwaG90by8xNzcwMjU1OTUvaHVnZS5qcGciLCJtIjoiMSIsImQiOiJzaHV0dGVyc3RvY2stbWVkaWEifSwiUkxLMkJUOUhtSVJTY1lNKzdOTXdrRFBPZTFRIl0%2Fshutterstock_177025595.jpg&racksite_id=ny&chosen_subscription=1&license=standard&src=FHZswP86teB0ivV2mbsuAg-1-106">www.shutterstock.com.au</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>With technology changing the landscape of higher education, The Conversation is running a series “Re-imagining the Campus” on the future of campus learning. Here, Tom Cochrane outlines how technology is transforming the everyday lecture</strong></p>
<hr>
<p>In the plethora of debate about higher education in at least the last two decades, few issues have attracted the same level of attention as the effect and influence of digital technology. For good reason, of course, as there are no institutions, activities or businesses that are unaffected by such influence. In 2013 the global frenzy attending the mention of the word “MOOC” is the standout example.</p>
<p>But in the case of Higher Education the discussion is often superficial, repetitious and disappointing. It’s too often context free, and about being a university student and/or academic.</p>
<p>Technology prediction has an established pattern now, discernible in so many fields. It’s a three phase pattern: first, no sooner is a new capability or application described, than predictions about its utility start to propagate and flourish, driven partly by the trade literature and sales imperatives of the industry. Second, the imagined changes have a pattern of not arriving as forecast, and then attracting doubt and pessimism. And third, this in turn paves the way for a later serious misreading, or underestimation of the longer term impact of a particular innovation or group of innovations.</p>
<p>This syndrome is widespread, and has been represented in the technology literature by such well known models as the <a href="http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype-cycle.jsp">Gartner Hype cycle</a>. It has many applications in university settings.</p>
<p>The belief that online education will replace on-campus studies is a long standing and unrealised prediction. One of the more conspicuous predictions was <a href="http://www.ucs.mun.ca/%7Eemurphy/stemnet/school.html">Lewis Perelman’s <em>School’s Out: Hyperlearning, The New Technology, and the End of Education</em></a>, which is astonishingly now over 20 years old.</p>
<p>But in the last 24 months there has been a new wave of debate and speculation about the great disruptor, “Online”. And the serious question is – is this a third phase revival?</p>
<p>Past arguments have failed to define and observe a difference between higher education and other forms of education and training. This essentially stems from a mistaken perception the university experience can be replicated online.</p>
<p>That difference is marked by the expectation that being at university will be engaging, personally challenging, and transformative of careers and lives.</p>
<p>The things that people look for, and pay for, in higher education are not to be ignored or diminished, and we should bear this in mind when re-imaginging the lecture and its future. The lecture has a long history of criticism and poor regard. There’s not a graduate who doesn’t recall poor and unengaging experiences – but there are some who may recall engaging, if not transformative experiences.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42276/original/mk7fn3dk-1393203038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42276/original/mk7fn3dk-1393203038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42276/original/mk7fn3dk-1393203038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42276/original/mk7fn3dk-1393203038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42276/original/mk7fn3dk-1393203038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42276/original/mk7fn3dk-1393203038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42276/original/mk7fn3dk-1393203038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42276/original/mk7fn3dk-1393203038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Long live the lecture?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/teddy-rised/2814710002/in/photolist-5hJ8dN-5qZSJ3-5qZTg7-5GpHVk-6tR7ur-6tSFtp-6VnZeY-73h2Uz-7j5R2i-7myLUX-8DNHug-dxvTUS-8Afg55-8Afg27-abvfqM-9uEh5a-9y8ANY-aHWLfg-kd1Lx6-cTubcS-7FXpVQ-7FTgZ6-agtkr6-7VT99n-agtkqT-8DW4f7-8DT6Fg-8DT5Dp-8DSTqV-cKumqm-8RsyFw-aHmg2D-aHmgne-9V69Yy-9V69YA-dKiApU-dKd6V8-gxLsbB-8BXnZM-aqc4eP-dWpDFJ-dWj1Ez-9uHh99-aqeNsJ-8DSUAk-8Qb4QS/lightbox/">Teddy Rised/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The issue is the lecture form in itself is not the problem. More, it is assumptions about standard length, the way it has developed as the basic component of the teaching role, and its apparent efficiency. An interesting twist in recent years is the rise of the TED lecture, the short, sharp, often inspiring monologue which is freely accessible online.</p>
<p>Most universities are engaged in attempts to improve their learning and teaching practices and environments. The advent of online creates a greater urgency to improve these practices. Traditional practices come up for justified criticism and review. The lecture as a form is part of this, but so are issues of course structures, semester timetabling, assessment methods, hiring practices, new approaches to student engagement, and course integrity.</p>
<p>Will then, the lecture endure? In some forms, yes, including online dissemination of great talks. In an intense debate in my own institution in recent years, decisions on whether to build new modern theatres or more immersive and flexible physical environments have been subject to intense scrutiny. The evidence suggests that while we, (particularly our students) will gladly abandon unrewarding lecture time, we will never abandon community, both physical and virtual. We will see the relinquishing of the lecture form as the core activity of “teaching” in many fields, but we will also need to provide for a role for the star performer: online, in the flesh, and both.</p>
<hr>
<p>Read other articles in this series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/reimagining-the-campus">here.</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Cochrane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With technology changing the landscape of higher education, The Conversation is running a series “Re-imagining the Campus” on the future of campus learning. Here, Tom Cochrane outlines how technology is…Tom Cochrane, Adjunct Professor Faculty of Law, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.