Final - Persuasive design, Ludification and Mobile Technologies

Introduction

This instructional model, addresses how persuasive behavior design complements ludification within contemporary pedagogic trends of digitalization.  Mobile technology is pervasive in classroom settings and offers new opportunities for student learning.  Ludification consists of the introduction of playfulness in our daily lives and culture (Bouqa 2011).  Classcraft is a classroom role playing game (RPG) with intentional design elements to structure student learning in a fun and collaborative platform integrating student centered mobile devices.  

Ludification and Gamification

Ludification describes the spread and engagement of play in everyday life.  The prefix ludic is latin ‘to play’.  The suffix -iffication means ‘the process of becoming’. Uniting these two words, “ludification” communicates play as a routine activity and component in society and everyday life.  

The real life implications of play generate culture and is a necessary and inseparable component of real life. This natural playfulness in culture and individuals can often be structured into games.  Games are a system in which players participate in a constructed conflict with rules that result in a calculated quantifiable outcome.  Rules structure what a player can and cannot do, out of which play can emerge (Bouqa 2011).  

New contexts of the socializing behavior of gameplay are possible with mobile devices.  These new social trends enable new social structures and environments to include playfulness in our everyday life.  Education is an example of new environments that mobile device gameplay is transforming student and teacher dynamics and responsibilities.  Principles of gamification are informing new pedagogical models of mobile device integration in the field of education. Gamification implements game-based elements into non-game activities in order to engage participants in an authentic capacity with course content.  

Persuasive Design

In information technologies student learning can be influenced and enhanced by facilitating behavior modifications within a persuasive system.  Information technology is never neutral and influences people’s attitudes and behaviors in one way or another.  This influence may at times be an unintentional side effect of the design (Oinas 2009).  In this regard, persuasive technology describes how interactive computing systems have an impact on users’ thoughts and consequently lead to a change in their behavior (Fogg 2003, 2009).  In this learning context, “persuasion” refers to attempts to influence people’s behaviors, not attitudes.

Classcraft is a gamified instructional model that integrates the conventions of persuasive system design as a component of a pedagogical strategy.   It integrates mobile devices in the classroom to increase learning outcomes as well as enhancing student engagement.   This authentic learning experience also incorporates a structured and measurable interface to assess student achievement.  Through educator designed content, students earn virtual character points when they successfully engage academic content in Classcraft.  This structured online interface with variable rewards has a persuasive feature that makes content manipulation extrinsically motivating for students.  Learning activities with measurable outcomes on gamified platforms persuade students to apply and manipulate course content in a fun and playful ways often with other students.  Therefore, making learning a low stakes collaborative activity with extrinsic rewards, students can be persuaded to authentically engage course content and reach the desired learning objectives.  

Classcraft

Classcraft is an online role playing game (RPG) platform that facilitates formative assessment activities in addition to other design features that add a fun element in traditional classroom learning.  This program is ideally suited for most secondary classrooms  and disciplines.  Classcraft offers three primary features that most secondary educators naturally integrate into their classrooms.  Classcraft has a feature to distribute content, take quizzes and track student behavior.  These are universal components to most disciplines at the secondary level.  

Student can access teacher uploaded content and then participate in gamified discussion forums to earn experience points and action points to boost the stats of their Classcraft avatar.  Educators, referred to as the gamemaster, can use the platform to support classroom management by rewarding and penalizing students in a real time tangible point system that is measured on a students avatar stats.  Student participation in both digital and analog realms of the classroom can be documented in Classcraft as a classroom management tool.  Teachers can use the program as another tool to support classroom management.  Parents have access to their child’s avatar stats and can message the instructor.  Classcraft unites in class scholastic participation and behavior with gamified online course content using a mobile device interface.

In Classcraft, players engage in learning activities to earn experience points (XP), action points (AP), gold points (GP) and hit points (HP).  The gamemaster creates and facilitates the learning activities and manages the points in conjunction with automated features of the program.   Students take gamified quizzes by going on virtual adventures into the wild to battle Boss Monsters.  Get a question right on the quiz, that is a successful attack.  Miss a question, and the Boss Monster strikes back assessing virtual (HP) damage to the avatar and therefore lowering your score on the quiz. 

Low Risk Gamified Formative Assessment

Classcraft has limitation and is not designed as a comprehensive learning tool for the classroom. The program shines as a fun platform for formative assessments and disseminating course content to students.  The gamafied assessment feature lends itself to a relatively short quiz of multiple choice or short answer responses.  Students would benefit the best from this feature by taking short quizzes to review key concepts or for the educator to check for understanding.  Considering the nature of this RPG quiz, I could not imagine a comprehensive high stakes test on Classcraft to battle Boss Monster Mr. Tiger for calculus or literature class.  I feel the students would object and resent the classroom tool applied in this manner.  However, if it is used as a short 5-8 question review before a test and the students earned a low stakes quiz score for calculus or literature class, the program would achieve the goal of designing a learning experience that persuades students to authentically engage in course content.  

In this gamified learning platform low risk formative assessments will encourage students to authentically engage their notes, their peers or their understanding of the content.   This design element of low risk formative assessments is a persuasive feature to facilitate a fun learning experience for the students. In contrast, if the Classcraft activities were high stakes activities, students might not feeling comfortable in taking risks and playing with the content.  Therefore, gamified learning lends itself to activities that require playful and experimental manipulation of class content. 

In a more conceptual application, I could also see the quizzes playing a role in getting students to think critically about a lesson topic.  By carefully crafted questions and answers, the quiz could address rich discussion ideas for later class conversation.  The quiz could be designed that all the subjective answers are correct so all the students or teams taking the quiz win, thus encouraging confidence and validating a variety of available perspectives for further discussion or application in the classroom.  In this case, a rather subjective quiz would be ideal as a low stakes and low risk tool to kickstart an activity in class or initiate critical thinking at home before or after homework.

Mobile devices in a Collaborative Constructivist Learning Environment

Mobile devices participate in a variety of instructional activities.  Each of these activities need to be structured with specific learning outcomes to guide students and educators to have focused and measurable achievement outcomes. The proposition of computers as social actors and that an individual’s interactions with computers are primarily social illustrate that mobile devices in the classroom are social collaborative tools (Fogg 2009) (Nass et al.’s 1994). Classcraft addresses the inherent benefits of the collaborative nature that mobile devices poses and enable social constructivist pedagogy.  A constructivist pedagogy for mobile devices focus on student generated content and collaboration rather than the delivery of teacher generated content with mobile devices (Cochrane 2014).  This progressive online learning environment supplements traditional analog activities in the class by creating measurable tasks for students to participate in for assessment with mobile devices. 

 Caballe et al. (2010) argues that long-established instructional approaches such as constructivism, behaviorism, situated learning, project-based learning and collaborative learning lack pedagogic and didactic concepts on the usage of mobile devices for teaching and learning. As a mobile devices learning platform, Classcraft takes conventional classroom activities and gamifys them in a social constructivist online learning environment.  The program integrates a structured social networking aspect for the user to experience by adding collaborative features to the activities.  Students can take quizzes together by alternating who gets the next question.  Students also work in teams earning and losing points together.  Students can also post comments and respond to each other in the forum page.  Classcraft supports constructivists pedagogical models by clearly communicating and assessing student work for peer and teacher evaluation.  

Extrinsic Motivations

A persuasive system balances intrinsic motivations with extrinsic motivations to encourage authentic learner engagement.  Behavior design often starts with extrinsic rewards to habituate users to participate with a product in a certain way.  Intrinsic motivations can be cultivated when the users derive satisfaction from the designed behavior, therefore motivated to perform the task for its inherent satisfactions rather than for some material reward or separable consequence (Bouqa 2011). 

The gamification of classroom content could marginalize intrinsic motivation.  Extrinsic motivation fueled by external reward are known to reduce intrinsic motivation (Deci et al 2001).  Deterding (2011) argues that game playing is a voluntary activity that is free of consequences.  These two characteristics enhance intrinsic motivation and perceived autonomy.  Gamification in the classroom offers virtual reward or social comparison that is not necessarily voluntary or free of consequence.  Thus student autonomy in the gameplay can thwart intrinsic motivation.  Nicholson (2012) asserts that artificially constructed external gamified rewards attached to non-game activity can compromise motivation in the long run. 

 Classcraft addresses extrinsic motivations when students earn and loose points for classroom behavior in addition to virtual academic participation.  Students gain (XP) for helping others in class, participating in classroom discussion and being positive.  Students may loose (XP) for failing to accomplish certain tasks.  Each of the four types of points are managed by the gamemaster.  Students are held accountable for their actions both in the classroom and virtually.  

There are some criticisms of virtual rewards.  Zuckerman and Gal-Oz (2014) suggest that gamification features such as virtual rewards should be implemented with caution as they tend not to be effective because of their focus on external rewards and the system owner’s goals and not necessarily the users goals. For long-term behavior change, the focus should be more user-centric with an emphasis on fulfilling intrinsic goals.

Intrinsic Motivations

The affordances of intrinsic motivation in gamification seamlessly engage a genuinely motivated user to the task associated with the learning objective.  Self-determination theory (SDT) describes three innate psychological needs to determine human motivation: competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Deci and Ryan 1985).  Intrinsic motivation is enhanced when these needs are satisfied.  If these three needs are thwarted, intrinsic motivation can diminish (Zuckerman and Gal-Oz 2014).  

The conceptual design of Classcraft can satisfy the three components of self-determination theory.  Autonomy is addressed by the very nature of how mobile devices allows Classcraft users to participate independently on the learning platform.  The autonomous nature of the program allows sychonous and asynchronous classroom activities.  

Although students may understand and buy into the relatedness of Classcraft to their classroom culture, it is possible that student users may object to such a convention.  Users that find the gamified environment too abstract or lacking relevance to their learning experience may fail to see how the acquisition of points to leveling up an online avatar relates to prompting authentic scholastic behavior.  Integrating an avatar as an additional component of their grade can introduce complexities that may be too abstract for some students to grasp. 

The SDT need of competence could be compromised if the educator constructed content is not accessible to the student.  If students are unsure what they are doing in Classcraft or how they are being assessed student perceived competence can further be compromised.  If the content provided in Classcraft is confusing or the rules of the game are not properly explained the persuasive element of Classcraft will fail and therefore is intricately connected to student competence.  

Work Cited

Bouça, Maura (2011) Mobile Communication, Gamification and Ludification. IT University of  

    CopenhagenRued Langaards Vej 7DK - 2300 København S+45 7218 5000

Caballe, S., Xhafa, F. & Barolli, L. (2010). Using mobile devices to support online collaborative 

    learning. Mobile Information Systems, 6, 27–47.

Cochrane, Thomas Donald Cochrane (2014) Critical success factors for transforming pedagogy with 

     mobile Web 2.0. British Journal of Educational Technology doi:10.1111/j.1467-

     8535.2012.01384.x Vol 45 No 1 65–82

Deci EL, Ryan RM (1985) Intrinsic motivation and self-deter- mination in human development. 

     Plenum, New York

Deci E, Koestner R, Ryan R (2001) Extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation in education: 

     reconsidered once again. Rev Educ Res 71:1–27. doi:10.3102/00346543071001001

Deterding S (2011) Situated motivational affordances of game elements: a conceptual model. In: 

     Proceedings of CHI ‘11 workshop ‘‘Gamification: using game design elements in non- gaming 

     contexts’’

Fogg BJ (2003) Persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and do. Morgan 

     Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco.

Fogg B (2009) A behavior model for persuasive design. Proceedings of the 4th international 

     conference on persuasive technology, Claremont, California

Nass C, Steuer J, Tauber ER (1994) Computers are social actors. Proceedings of the SIGCHI 

     conference on human factors in computing systems, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, pp 72–78

Nicholson S (2012) A user-centered theoretical framework for meaningful gamification. In: 

     Proceedings of Games ? Learn- ing ? Society 8.0 (GLS 8.0)

Oinas-Kukkonen H, Harjumaaa M (2009) Persuasive systems design: key issues, process model, and 

     system features. Commun Assoc Infor Sys 24(28):485–500

Salen, K., Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of Play, Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT 

     Press.

Zuckerman O, Gal-Oz A (2014) Deconstructing gamification: evaluating the effectiveness of 

     continuous measurement, virtual rewards, and social comparison for promoting physical

Reconsidering assessment in online/hybrid courses: Knowing versus learning

I agree with the author that assessment of student achievement that focuses on learning and not knowing can support social aspects of learning.  I believe that this observation supports the notion that online learning has social components that can emphasis the application and manipulation of knowledge.  Cheng goes on to express that online discussion lends itself to conceptual understanding and not procedural knowledge.  I feel that in a social networking application online learning has a strength of conceptual discussions.  However, if the structure of a collaborative learning environment was designed differently that students could be guided into a structured learning environment that could address a variety of learning applications.  

Information technologies are a dynamic medium that can facilitate a spectrum of user  behaviors.  Collaborative learning software can be designed to address the learning needs specific to the content area and to the needs of the lesson.  I find that this kind of attention on user experience can transform how education integrates, and assesses student engagement on information technologies within a  classroom setting. 

Effects of feedback in a computer-based assessment for learning

This study examines effective summative computer based assessment that integrates different styles student generated responses followed by several feedback types.  This study is relevant to developing assessment strategies for online classes.  The author expresses that student willingness to use feedback is related to motivation.  With any kind of learning platform student motivation and engagement is a significant variable to the learning environment.  I feel that relevant design structure for learning platforms in online classrooms will integrate specific triggers, action and reward elements that will boost student intrinsic and extrinsic motivation that will boost engagement.  

The article identified that deeper knowledge of student generated responses followed by short concise feedback provided the optimal condition for student engagement and learning.  This kind of learning design may show positive results for only a specific type of assessment task.  Results may vary with other disciplines or student generated tasks.  Assessment activities will no doubt take a variety of forms in the classroom depending on the learning objective at hand.  Educational software and pedagogy design will gain insight into certain principles of good online learning design.  However, as the technology evolves the assessment design will continue to be revised in order to maximize student engagement an achievement. 

Dochy - The use of self-, peer and co-assessment in higher education: A review

 Peer assessment is an excellent way to engage students in course content and build interpersonal relationships in the classroom.  I am particularly interested in how we can play off the inherent social networking strengths of information technologies in the classroom.  All the components are there to make a compelling peer assessment activity for students using mobile technology.

I envision a collaborative learning environment where students can post and easily assess peer responses in a student centered informal assessment activity on mobile devices.  Just as a good analog lesson without technology, needs to be compelling, relevant and accessible to student learners in order to maximize student motivation, new pedagogical models need to reassess how to inspire and motivate learning on mobile devices.  

Some researchers are looking at how software design patterns can be used to support human behaviors when using information technologies.  Within the classroom setting student behavior needs to be supported and guided to increase confidence and motivation in manipulating course content for peer reviewed formative assessments.  In order to integrate peer assessment with mobile technologies in a classroom, the software interface needs to reflect the psychological underpinnings of what motivates and inspires users to participate in a peer assessment activity using mobile devices.  

miller 2015 ch9

The article offered a variety of good teaching advice to promote student engagement and accountability.  There were several ideas that I felt are significant for teaching with technology.  Future learning environments will benefit from collaborative learning and peer instruction.  Miller points out that through collaborative learning lessons can emphasize critical thinking and higher thought processes.  

This is an important shift in contemporary pedagogy because it implies some relinquishment of didactic learning models.  Online technology offers two primary contributions to learning.  The first is accessing information the second in the inherent social networking potential of the devices.  If we are going to use mobile technology in the classroom, both strengths of mobile devices need to be incorporated into structured activities in the classroom.  I believe that mobile devices at this point of classroom integration offer these two resources for classroom enrichment.  The most important part of technology integration is thoughtful application and meaningful integration into everyday lessons.  

The experience of three flipped classrooms in an urban university: an exploration of design principles

The flipped classroom promises a learning environment where students are applying course content and not just absorbing it.  This integration and utilization of technology allows for a project based learning environment that allows for student centered learning and peer instructed learning models that engage students and hold them accountable for alternative assessment opportunities.  

The author acknowledges some limitations of this learning models in that some students may not participate in the online tutorials.  Students critique this learning model by identifying that the tutorials need to connect to classroom activities.  The researchers acknowledged that there needs to be clear guidance with structured scaffolded activities and specific in class  goals and learning objectives.  Despite these limitations, a flipped classroom learning model allows for a progressive student centered learning environment in the classroom.  Nevertheless, proponents of the learning model indicate that higher levels of cognitive activities are utilized in the classroom.  The author brings to the attention of the reader that ultimately there is a need for specific design principles the flipped classroom to maximize student learning.  

Ultimately, I find that student efficacy and teacher organization to be the limiting factors of this learning model.  I find that this acknowledgment further highlights how organic and personal contemporary education is.  New teaching models may show promise in contemporary education, however, there needs to be relevant and organized implementation of such pedagogical models.

Studio based learning

      Studio based learning emphasizes collaborative critiquing as a central activity.  One study looked at pedagogical code reviews in undergraduate computer science classes that bring together 3-5 students to review each other’s code.  This model of peer instruction and critique is based on a constructivist learning theory where students must manipulate, examine and construct their understanding of course content.  Peer instruction has been most thoroughly documented in physics, biology, chemistry, computer science and math.  Research shows that when studio based critiques in beginning level computer science classrooms provide students with collaborative opportunities to review each others code; students coding improved.  

      There are two main components of mobile device integration.  First, designing a structured pedagogical model to guide students through a lesson with a mobile device.  Second, creating a corresponding software application to support student engagement in steps.  Within the software application there are stages to support independent student engagement with a lesson and also a collaborative feature to share and review student generated content.  The educator finally assesses the achievement of the students to further inform how to further direct student engagement to reach the lesson objectives.

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture

     The article calls attention to participatory culture for user created media and content.  This emerging and contemporary participatory culture is a degree of digital literacy. The author advocates that we prepare our students for skill sets they will need in the future.  However, one way to facilitate a skill set for participatory culture is to focus on, in classroom collaboration that utilizes the real time communication potential of mobile devices for the application of critical thinking communications between students.  Mobile devices are inherently social collaboration and communication devices that provide powerful tools for enabling social constructivist pedagogy. Thus, projects focused upon student- generated content and collaboration rather than the delivery of teacher-generated content supports student practice at participatory culture. For example, mobile devices can be used in a structured constructivist application for the specific task of facilitating student generated responses on a social platform for peer and instructor review.  Classroom settings can benefit from a variety of media integration in student generated content, such as audio, video, picture, text links or original content.  

Wikis and forums for collaborative problem-based activity:

    A considerable component of online collaborative spaces for students is user experience and utility of the forums.  The article identifies an increase of student group contributions in the wiki forum as compared to the threaded discussion.  Further, there were more expansion, deletion and content-editing and formation in the wiki.  This observation suggests that wikis support co-writing.  Yet, groups produced more discussion postings in the forum, compared to the wiki.  However, the content of the students' discourse in terms of collaboration, complexity, monitoring and planning were similar.  The forum writers were more verbose and the wiki entries were more condensed.  Wiki Collaborative articles proved to be easier for students, seeing that they started days earlier than the forum.  The article concluded that wiki collaborative discussions were better at facilitating problem based discussions.  

     An important consideration for future scholastic discussion venues is to consider the psychology of making online forum writing useful and fun.  Gamification has caught the attention of education apps designers.  Gamification involves the integration of addictive game like elements into an app to make the user interface more engaging.  I think we need to reexamine how learning can happen on collaborative online forums integrated with gamified engagement components.  

Behavior Design - App Developers Secret Weapon

Behavior Design - App Developers Secret Weapon

BJ Fogg conducts research into behavior models with user experience.  His work suggesting that in order someone to participate in an action there are several factors that must be considered to act.  

First, there must be a clear motivation for the participant to perform the target behavior.  Second, the participant must have the ability to perform the target behavior.  Third, there must be a sufficient trigger or stimuli to perform the behavior.  This model of behavior design suggests that certain motivations, opportunities and triggers must be met in order for a participant to engage in a desired task.  

Current research into user interface, behavior design and components of gamification in software application design are necessary components to support structured mobile device integration in learning environments.  Gamification is the use of game design elements and game mechanics in non-game contexts.  Software applications for structured mobile device integration into classrooms need to be designed to engage and motivate student participants to manipulate course content in meaningful ways.  These dynamic application platforms are needed to support the individual student, in addition to collaborative and whole class engagement of course content material.  This new pedagogical context enables the educator to evaluate and facilitate digital class discussions from student generated output.

Nir Eyal has identified four steps to support behavior design with mobile device interface.  Eyal first identifies that a software application needs to have a trigger to prompt the target behavior.  Second there must be an action on behalf of the participant.  Third there participant must perceive a variable reward.  This variable reward in an academic setting can take on a social, scholastic or other kind of perceived value from their action.  Fourth, the participant feels invested in the action and ready for the next trigger to participate in the cycle once again.  However, if the behavior design of the user experience does not meet these steps, the application is not compelling and the user has little motivation or ability to participate in the application.

Two Behavior Design Guys

http://www.bjfogg.com/

http://www.nirandfar.com/

Pedagogical Shift for Mobile Device Integration

Pedagogical Shift for Mobile Device Integration

Traditional pedagogical models are in the process of appropriating new methodologies for instruction with the integration of mobile devices.  Research shows that when studio based critiques in beginning level computer science classrooms provide students with collaborative opportunities to review each others code; students coding improved.  There are two main components of mobile device integration.  First, designing a structured pedagogical model to guide students through a lesson with a mobile device.  Second, creating a corresponding software application to support student engagement in steps.  Within the software application there are stages to support independent student engagement with a lesson and also a collaborative feature to share and review student generated content.  The educator finally assesses the achievement of the students to further inform how to further direct student engagement to reach the lesson objectives.   

Mobile devices are inherently collaborative communication devices that enable social constructivist pedagogy. A Constructivist pedagogy for mobile devices focus on student generated content and collaboration rather than the delivery of teacher generated content with mobile devices.  Mobile devices participate in a variety of instructional activities.  Each of these activities need to be structured with specific learning outcomes to guide students and educators to have focused and measurable achievement outcomes. 

Mobile device hardware is advancing faster than the pedagogical models or academic institution can effectively integrate them.  There is a growing deficit of knowledge about how educators and students can integrate mobile devices in the classroom to enhance constructivist learning in STEM education.  In a broader context, there are two aspects to mobile device design that this research informs.  Specific software applications that structure student centered, collaborative learning and user interface with the applications that draw from research around user motivations, behavior design and gamification which facilitate student engagement.

Implementing Web 2.0 technologies in higher education: A collective case study

Implementing Web 2.0 technologies in higher education: A collective case study

Bennet

Bennet did a great job experimenting with current 2011 technologies in the classroom.  I would even venture to state that his research ambitions though appropriate for the discipline were in some way precocious and ahead of his time.  I feel that the pedagogical models in education at the time of the study had not caught up with collaborative learning models for social technology integration. 

In another study, the author concludes that innovative pedagogical design of curricula using mobile devices and mobile applications are needed to increase learning outcomes as well as enhancing student engagement and experience.  Further, administrative policies for mobile device professional development and guidance for students will support educational technology adoption and integration.

Another author argues that it is not the technology that needs to change as much as it is the teaching styles, student teacher relations and what measurable student achievement looks like.  One argues that long-established instructional approaches such as constructivism, behaviourism, situated learning, project-based learning and collaborative learning lack pedagogic and didactic concepts on the usage of mobile devices for teaching and learning.   Mobile devices in the classroom are becoming increasingly sophisticated, enabling students to collect data via probe, visualize complex ideas and generate expressive representations to support STEM education.

Another article that advocates for new learning models reports that from the student perspective, the iPad was found to enhance the learning experience but not necessarily lead to better learning outcomes.  Educators found tablets supported electronic information dissemination and academic administration.  The study concluded that it is unclear how to align and integrate contemporary mobile devices within academic programs and workflows.  Higher education service providers are eager to adopt and try the new technologies, yet it is evident that a structured pedagogical approach is needed to align its use within academic STEM programs.

Theoretical perspectives influencing the use of information technology in teaching and learning -- Dede

Theoretical perspectives influencing the use of information technology in teaching and learning

C.  Dede

    Historically, educational technology and pedagogy are in a perpetual search for the "silver bullet" to solve education's problems.  The unshakable belief that each new interactive media is the solution, creates high hope in educators and students.  According to Dede the big hang up is that old content and pedagogy in new instructional technologies does not produce major gains in effectiveness.  Further, education is an organic person to person experience and the field of instructional design must recognize and integrate pedagogical models that apply technology with these considerations in mind.

     Constructivist learning styles utilize student centered activities that compel them to manipulate, process and actively create individual meaning from the content.  Mobile devices can be facilitated in such a way to support this kind of learning environment.  Teacher centered didactic learning models of direct instruction are not that compatible with fully utilizing the inherent potential of mobile device.  Mobile devices are very student centered devices.  Pedagogies can be crafted to make that student centered engagement with a device educationally beneficial, measurable and social to support group and whole class understanding.  I feel the initial stages of mobile device integration will supplement direct instruction and other traditional pedagogical models.

     Information and communication technologies (ICT) are best understand as a tool in the classroom to aid with student engagement, communicating content, exchanging ideas / information and assessing students.  ICT in classrooms today with the greatest benefit are mobile devices such as tablets, phones and laptops.  The inherent strength of these tools at this point are for information gathering and communication of ideas and content.  I believe that to effectively integrate mobile devices into the classroom a much more organic, student centered, investigative, open ended approach to classroom design must be made.  Educators can play off the strengths that contemporary mobil devices offer.  Which are collaborative, student centered yet socially engaged with course content.

Digital Literacy in Religious Studies

Digital Literacy in Religious Studies

Stefanie Sinclair

     The author identifies the role in which digital technology is influencing and informing Religious Studies.  The observation that digital technology is effectively used as part of a blended pedagogical practice illustrates that traditional learning still maintains a relevant place in higher education.  The author identifies the consideration that technology integration is more about how it can be used to enhance existing teaching and learning practices.  The paper considers the need for guiding students in developing a skill set that allows them to effectively access, evaluate, communicate information and collaborate to share the digital content.  I feel that one of the contemporary issues faced with technology integration into the classroom is how to use it beyond fact finding and social information exchange.

     The current technology is often seen as best serving the classroom to support traditional classroom pedagogies.  The article focuses on the scholarly challenges of students accessing and evaluating online information for scholarly applications.   For scholars in Religious studies the emphasis of the “ability to read and use texts both critically and empathetically, while addressing such questions as genre, content, context, perspective, purpose, [and] original and potential meaning” (Sinclair 2013) are analog skills that are being adapted and applied to digital literacy skills.  Digital literacy for scholars is one component to a larger pedagogical framework that involves technology.  The article neglects to fully develop how digital technology will inform pedagogical practices in religious studies classrooms.

Digital technology integration into the classroom, in particular mobile devices such as tablets, phones and laptops, can create new learning atmospheres that go beyond just scholarly digital literacy. Innovative and unconventional was to structure a lessons and learning environments are possible with mobile devices.  By integrating new pedagogical models for mobile device integration, student centered constructivist learning environments engage and encourage peer to peer collaboration.