Going Mobile:
Mobile Media Technologies and their Impact on Academic Collaboration Beyond the Walls of the Classroom
Douglas W. Conrad
Final Reflections
6.1 Ubiquity of mobile media technologies
Mobile media technologies are the powerful computing devices that we carry with us everyday. In our daily lives outside of work and school, these communication tools enable us to easily connect to a world of information and each other with very little regard for the limitations of time or space. In education and more specifically in the classroom, these devices have been seen as a distraction as the social nature of these tools regularly threatened to disrupt the traditional top down educational hierarchy. I began my action research project to discover the impact that these tools might have on the academic collaboration of college students outside of the classroom times and hours with the hope that these devices might enable students to blur the lines between their formal and informal education. The data from the action of this action research project shows the potential for schools to leverage mobile media technologies in this way.
This year I learned how to view these devices for the potential they enable for learning and knowledge building rather than the purely social uses they were designed for. Until recently, most apps developed for cell phones and tablets were either social or entertainment focused. But as education begins to look for different ways to integrate these personal communication devices into the learning platform, more and more apps are becoming available that address an educational need or capitalize on a learning concept. It has been shown in this action research project that strategic use of mobile media technologies have the potential to have a positive impact on students' academic work outside the classroom. This research also points to the possibility for these tools to enable students to bring their learning experiences from outside the classroom, into the formal learning environment of the classroom. From the experience of the five cycles of action in this project I found that these tools are not transformative in and of themselves but with proper planning and eye for innovation, schools may be able to leverage mobile media technologies to connect students' learning to their daily lives and their daily lives to the learning.
I worked with three different user groups in this action research, each with their own unique circumstances, needs and challenges. At first, even though I understood the definition of action research as a participatory study, I defaulted to beginning the action without the participants inclusion in the context or purpose of what we ware setting out to do. I learned in the first two cycles how to listen to the participants and work together so that the action and the knowledge we were building was something that we shared more as a community than a researcher and the researched. We often refer to this generation of students as "digital natives" and assume that they will easily adopt any new technology. While it is true that they are more comfortable with technology in general, they do not adapt or adopt new tools without some guidance and planning. I learned the importance of helping student participants in this research understand the context of the actions they were taking when working with Twitter or Glassboard. I felt that I knew that this was important but acted in the beginning of this research as if this was not really necessary. I believe I did this trying to save time and get the action started, but it ended up taking me much more time to get this group of students involved than if I had just took the time to discuss the context in the beginning. I learned that students are generally enthusiastic about trying something new, but like the rest of us at any age, we learn best when we understand how what we are learning applies to our lives and our personal knowledge. The action these students took to discover the impacts of using their cell phones and tablets to collaborate and learn whether in a class or at a bus stop opened their eyes and mine to a possible learning ecology that is less about where you are learning and more about how you are learning.
Last summer, when I began this program, my organization had just hired a Provost and the faculty were finishing a WASC assessment cycle. No one was really thinking about academic technology beyond what they used daily in their courses. Some professors were interested in innovations, but most were focused on traditional ways of utilizing technology. Over the course of this year, I have watched as folks at my college watched what I was doing. The professors involved in this research also talked to others and helped begin to create an atmosphere of trust in the leadership of my department. The model of working with faculty on a project to fit technology to their pedagogical goals seems to be the right idea for our small organization. I feel like the professor who has more of a stake and interest and perceived benefit to the learning outcomes of his or her students will be more willing to innovate. The action I have taken this year along with the students and professors in this project has provided an example to my organization of how new technologies and learning strategies can be integrated into an already full teaching and research load of professors. I have developed a greater empathy for and understanding of the work that teachers do every day. I feel that this process has changed me from being technology focused to being learning and community focused. I understand now that faculty and students need committed partners who are passionate about working together to support pedagogical goals. In this type of learning community, stakeholders are willing to take a chance and try something new.
The process of this project; planning, taking action and reflection helped me grow into a deeper understanding of my own strengths and weaknesses as a tech steward. I feel like I have a natural inclination to plan and organize. in application though, I found that where I was with this at the beginning of the project, was not really where I needed to be to be an effective technology steward for this digital habitat. Prior to this year, my planning was more one dimensional, taking into account the needs of students and professors but not including them in the planning process. In this action research project, I found that I needed to be more inclusive and open with my fellow participants. This felt awkward at first, like I was not being responsible with the professor's time but it really showed me the benefit of giving up some of the control to the community and letting the action unfold. There is a healthy balance that I am beginning to develop between directing change and empowering change in my digital habitat.
In this action research project, I focused on the work of preparing for and empowering a group of students to take the action of using mobile media technologies. My participation was not detached, but I was not involved in the day to day, tweet by tweet action. The process that I worked through this year was a valuable learning lesson for me and hopefully others who undertake action research projects where they are not directly involved in the action. I learned the importance of coming to a clear agreement of the scope of and specifics of the action that will be undertaken. In my first cycle, I did not have a way to connect regularly with the students and professor. They were involved in the action daily and I just let them do their work together without my direct involvement. This may have been fine, but when they ran into problems, and did not tell me in a timely manner, their work together with Twitter stopped. In the later cycles, I worked together ahead of time with the participants to have a mechanism in place to allow them to take the action without my direct daily involvement and still have a regular part in the progress. For this specific research with Twitter and Glassboard this included using the Tweet Archive analytic tool and following the students and teacher in both the apps. In this way, I was able to be aware when there were questions about the process and clarify any misunderstandings. This allowed the professors and the students to take the action in their natural collaborations and allowed me to monitor the progress. I feel like this is a good balance for action researchers not directly involved in the action of the participants.
The twists and turns this year of my action research project have challenged me to be a better technology steward in my digital habitat. What began as a simple idea to take action to discover how mobile phones could be used to connect learners has grown over the year along with the writing of my literature review. I now see the potential for educators to utilize mobile media technologies that we all use every day to enable learning in and out of the classroom. The multiplicity or hybridity of place that these mobile devices enable may allow schools to experiment with academic lessons that are not constrained by physical space or time. The process that was begun with this action research project will continue with me as I seek to partner with more educators in and out of my organization to discover more ways to encourage learning that connects with the student's lives. I am a different tech steward, IT director, education partner, husband and father because of my experiences in this action research project this year. Going Mobile: Mobile Media Technologies and their Impact on Academic Collaboration Beyond the Walls of the Classroom is the first step in a journey to uncover how to encourage the dreamer in 21st Century students and prepare them to be effective and productive digital citizens.
The twists and turns this year of my action research project have challenged me to be a better technology steward in my digital habitat. What began as a simple idea to take action to discover how mobile phones could be used to connect learners has grown over the year along with the writing of my literature review. I now see the potential for educators to utilize mobile media technologies that we all use every day to enable learning in and out of the classroom. The multiplicity or hybridity of place that these mobile devices enable may allow schools to experiment with academic lessons that are not constrained by physical space or time. The process that was begun with this action research project will continue with me as I seek to partner with more educators in and out of my organization to discover more ways to encourage learning that connects with the student's lives. I am a different tech steward, IT director, education partner, husband and father because of my experiences in this action research project this year. Going Mobile: Mobile Media Technologies and their Impact on Academic Collaboration Beyond the Walls of the Classroom is the first step in a journey to uncover how to encourage the dreamer in 21st Century students and prepare them to be effective and productive digital citizens.
6.4 Mobile media technologies are vehicles for communication that have the potential to blur the lines between the formal
and informal learning environments in our lives
and informal learning environments in our lives