Implications for Teachers and Lecturers

The following implications of ubiquitous mobile computing for teachers and lecturers were identified during the workshop.

• coping with students multi-tasking, acknowledging that workers multi-task – it is natural for students also to do it
• blurring of the boundaries between subjects, also home/school, learning/play
• opportunities to involve learning outside the school context
• the need to make time to enable students to reflect on information acquired/learning
• treating students’ work as iterative and editing as learning
• ownership implications, access and equity when resources are limited
• capture – manipulate – publish
• students communicating with external experts
• new networks of learning
• change of focus from content to practice (content can be provided – students need to operate on/engage with the content rather than just write it down)
• need to recognise handheld as part of a whole that includes wireless networking and a PC to sync to
• family learning opportunities
• tension between issues such as learner autonomy, learning in contexts outside school and curriculum driven pressures
• integrating and assessing levels/ranges of learning from informal to formal
• giving controlled independence to students
• activities that can be done independently of teacher and formal teaching space
• role of teacher/expert
• change of HEI environment needed – students need to take responsibility for their own learning rather than the “do I need to know that” culture reinforced by lecture attendance checks, lots of course assessments etc where the lecturer is seen as responsible and a student who fails may blame the lecturer