Designing an educator toolkit for the mobile learning age

Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Mobile technologies have been described as ‘boundary’ objects which enable teachers and learners to transcend many of the barriers such as rigid schedules and spaces which have hitherto characterised traditional forms of education. However, educators need to better understand how to design learning scenarios which genuinely exploit the unique pedagogical affordances of mobile technologies rather than replicating existing patterns and modes of behaviour. This article describes the design and development of a mobile learning toolkit for educators to realise this vision. It presents the theoretical underpinnings for the toolkit and describes the development of different tools, instruments and resources. The main aim of the toolkit is to help teacher educators and teachers build knowledge and understanding of more diverse mobile pedagogical approaches

Gauge covariance and the fermion-photon vertex in three- and four- dimensional, massless quantum electrodynamics

In the quenched approximation, the gauge covariance properties of three vertex Ans\"{a}tze in the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the fermion self energy are analysed in three- and four- dimensional quantum electrodynamics. Based on the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis effective action, it is inferred that the spectral representation used for the vertex in the gauge technique cannot support dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. A criterion for establishing whether a given Ansatz can confer gauge covariance upon the Schwinger-Dyson equation is presented and the Curtis and Pennington Ansatz is shown to satisfy this constraint. We obtain an analytic solution of the Schwinger-Dyson equation for quenched, massless three-dimensional quantum electrodynamics for arbitrary values of the gauge parameter in the absence of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking.Comment: 17 pages, PHY-7143-TH-93, REVTE

Mobile learning for teacher professional learning: benefits, obstacles and issues

This paper reflects on the role of mobile learning in teachers professional learning. It argues that effective professional learning requires reflection and collaboration and that mobile learning is ideally suited to allow reflection-in action and to capture the spontaneity of learning moments. The paper also argues for the value of collaborations between teachers and students in professional learning. It suggests that authentic artefacts and anecdotes, captured through mobile technologies, can enable the sharing, analysis and synthesis of classroom experiences by teachers and students. Such analysis and synthesis helps to encourage collaborative reflective practice and is likely to improve teacher and student learning as a result. Ethical issues that might arise through using mobile technologies in this way are also discussed. Teacher voice is presented to indicate the range of views about mobile learning and to indicate current practices. Practical, school systemic, attitudinal and ethical factors may inhibit mobile technology adoption; these factors need to be researched and addressed to realise the potential of teacher mobile professional learning

Heart Shakes and Growth Stresses

Heart shakes are often observed to accompany crosscutting of tree trunks and have been thought to be due to release of longitudinal strain energy in the trunk during cutting. Using a simple model of stresses in the trunk, the authors have attempted to link shake development quantitatively with release of axial strain. On the basis of the analysis, however, it appears unlikely that there is a direct relationship between the two. A more likely cause is the transverse stress concentration caused by the saw cut

Mobilising collaborative teacher professional learning

© 2009 IADIS. This paper reflects on the role of m-learning in teachers' professional learning. It argues that effective professional learning requires reflection and collaboration; and that m-learning is ideally suited to allow reflection-in-action and to capture the spontaneity of learning moments. The paper also argues for the value of collaborations between teachers and students in professional learning. It suggests that authentic artefacts and anecdotes, captured through mobile technologies, can enable the sharing, analysis and synthesis to improve classroom learning environments. Opportunities fro usercreated content are discussed as well as ethical issues that might arise through using mobile technologies in this way. Practical, school systemic, attitudinal and ethical factors may inhibit m-technology adoption; these factors need to be researched and addressed to realize the potential of teacher mobile professional learning

Designing personalised, authentic and collaborative learning with mobile devices: Confronting the challenges of remote teaching during a pandemic.

This article offers teachers a digital pedagogical framework, research-inspired and underpinned by socio-cultural theory, to guide the design of personalised, authentic and collaborative learning scenarios for students using mobile devices in remote learning settings during this pandemic. It provides a series of freely available online resources underpinned by our framework, including a mobile learning toolkit, a professional learning app, and robust, validated surveys for evaluating tasks. Finally, it presents a set of evidence-based principles for effective innovative teaching with mobile devices

Innovative mobile learning: A scan of the literature

© 2019 IADIS Press. All rights reserved. This paper summarises findings from an initial study completed as the first phase of the Erasmus+ KA2 research project: Designing and Evaluating Innovative Mobile Pedagogies (DEIMP). The purpose of the scoping study was to inform the design and development of a multi-purpose mobile app that will support educators and pre-service teachers in designing and evaluating creative and innovative mobile learning episodes for their students. This first component of the DEIMP study involved the conduct of a Systematic Literature Review to identify innovative and effective practices in m-Learning. A set of 57 articles were identified as reporting on innovative mobile practices and these were further assessed for their level of innovation. The study showed that innovation lies on a continuum from sustaining innovation to disruptive innovation and that disruptive innovation is infrequent

Mobagogy- mobile learning for a higher education community

This paper reports on a project in which a learning community of higher educators was formed to investigate how best to use mobile technologies in their own learning and teaching. Activities of this group included investigating best practice approaches by interviewing experts in the field, exploring the literature on mobile learning and then initiating and testing some mobile learning pedagogies in the context of their own higher education subjects. The community met regularly to discuss emerging issues and applications. The paper shares some of the findings gained both from the expert interviews and from the experiences of members of the community, and discusses the challenges and constraints that were experienced. We conclude with recommendations for promoting mobile learning communities in higher education. © 2010 IADIS

Mass singularity and confining property in QED3QED_3

We discuss the properties of the position space fermion propagator in three dimensional QED which has been found previouly based on Ward-Takahashi-identity for soft-photon emission vertex and spectral representation.There is a new type of mass singularity which governs the long distance behaviour.It leads the propagator vanish at large distance.This term corresponds to dynamical mass in position space.Our model shows confining property and dynamical mass generation for arbitrary coupling constant.Since we used dispersion retation in deriving spectral function there is a physical mass which sets a mass scale.For finite cut off we obtain the full propagator in the dispersion integral as a superposition of different massses.Low energy behaviour of the proagator is modified to decrease by position dependent mass.In the limit of zero infrared cut-off the propagator vanishes with a new kind of infrared behaviour.Comment: 22pages,4figures,revtex4,Notational sloppiness are crrected.Submitted to JHE

Developing Frameworks To Encourage Learners In Higher Education To Think More Critically When Using Digital Video Archives

Higher education institutions worldwide face a series of challenges related to the diversity and needs of the student body. Learners are increasingly expecting a wider repertoire of teaching styles and approaches from their lecturers and indicate their desire to process and present work in ways other than the traditional text based assessments. The development of digital video in recent years, along with the various tools and mechanisms which enable it to be shared and distributed easily (e.g. YouTube) promise to realize some of the aspirations learners in higher education express about alternative pedagogies and assessment opportunities. However the literature in this field suggests the use of video (as with television before it) is a largely passive medium when it is employed as an instructional device. This seminar will explore the development of a project within the higher education sector in the UK which has been commissioned by the Joint Information Services Committee (JISC) to design exemplar materials which stimulate and engage users in the use of digital video archives. This specific project investigates the use of a news film video archive (NewsfilmOnline: http://newsfilm.bufvc.ac.uk/) which is due to be launched to the community in spring 2008. The seminar will consider how the team at the University of Hull have conceptualized the use of digital video archives in higher education and will share the initial feedback from practitioners about a framework they have developed to engage learners in more analytical thinking when video is employed. Examples of clips and teaching strategies will be used to illustrate the presentation along with a few practical examples to engage participants and to share conversations and experiences around this theme. Although the project that forms the basis of this seminar is drawn from a higher education context the authors are confident that many of the principles (and indeed the framework) are equally applicable in the compulsory sectors of education. For further details about this project see: http://hullnewsfilm.wikispaces.com/Kevin Burden: is director of Cascade, a multimedia evaluation and development centre based in the University of Hull. He has worked on several national and international projects relating to the development of teaching and learning resources using digitally rich media. These include, New Directions in Digital Media (a project pioneering the use of DVD in classrooms, sponsored by Nesta) The Good Guide to Interactive Whiteboards (Nesta sponsored award) , The Evaluation of the Becta Digital Assets Project, 2002-2004 and the BBC LearnXpress project which promoted the use of BBC clips library in schools across the sub-region. More recently he has focused on projects in the higher education sector of the UK and is currently working on a project to develop exemplar materials for the use of digital video archives (see http://hullnewsfilm.wikispaces.com/) Kevin teaches on a number of undergraduate and postgraduate modules which develop the pedagogic use of new technologies to support learning. He supports a wide range of staff across campus in the use digital media and digital video in particular. Examples include the use of video in science teaching, business school and English literature. Kevin has presented on this theme at a number of national and international venues including Hong Kong University, the University of Technology, Sydney, JISC annual conference and Becta Research conference.published_or_final_versionCentre for Information Technology in Education, University of Hong Kon