Field trips and changing pedagogy

The field trip with the history students took place at the end of February and the use of the devices has developed since the trip last year in two key ways using a model developed as part of the changing pedagogy practice.

This model works on a temporal iterative framework using three elements:

A) Resources that are CURATED before an activity
B) Data COLLECTED as part of an activity
C) Learning artefacts CREATED after an activity

(Hopkins, Burden and Bennett, 2015)

This is both the über-model of the use of the devices across the whole of the field-trip but also the micro-model used as the field trip takes place.

1. The use of the device by the tutor

An eBook has been created by the history tutor for the students to use on the field trip - this is beginning to re-imaging the pedagogy and the practice of the field trip and is producing a model for both the university teacher education sector and also the pre-service teachers who are able to take (and adapt) this model into their practice schools.

This eBook is used by those on the field trip as a narrative and activity guide and has been developed partly from artefacts gathered on the previous year's field trip (this showing the interactive development nature of eBooks).

2. The development of this by the students

The students on the field trip reflected on the nature of the book and a number of improvements have been suggested in they ways that they would use the eBook including:

• the wider use of video for explanation of both personal and wider narrative
• the use of short quizzes / tests for the reinforcement of knowledge
• the opportunity for data input directly into the eBook for data collection
• the inclusion of key activities to be completed immediately after each activity

Things we have been doing ...

It has been too long since I last posted and we have been doing a wide range of things with the devices in the first term of the second year of the project.

Undergraduate

The UGs have had 60 devices for the first year of the B.Ed course and these have impacted significantly in the ways that teaching has been talking place in the programme. There has been a strong growth in the use of video and audio artefacts and a development in the flipped learning approach to the classroom. The course has also been experimenting with the use of Nearpod as a collaborative learning activity and in the ways that data can be collected as part of the learning experience.

Post-graduate

The new Doctorate in Education programme is using a private iTunesU course as the main vehicle for materials and resource diseemination and students are being encouraged to use this to share their own reflections and thoughts on the course. Students are also using Apps like GoodReader to annotate and develop reflective feedback on their articles and a blog and Twitter feed as part of developing a community of practice.

Teacher Education Secondary

The second year of the programme has led to three of the courses within the secondary teacher education suite (History, Science and English) becoming more involved in the development of eBooks and in the use of the devices to create e-Books. Students in these courses have been involved in the development of eBooks on coastal environmental biology and on poetry - as well as working within the programmes there has also been links with colleagues from Germany and Norway as part of the wider Erasmus+ project. Students have also been using the devices for the curation of resources as part of their teacher education portfolios.

Teacher Education Primary

The first year of the programme has seen wide spread use of the devices in the university teaching sessions with tutors and students using a range of apps (e.g. Nearpod, Socrative, Plickers) to change the ways in which teaching and learning is taking place in the classrooms and also using a range of apps (esp. in the science sessions) to re-imagine the ways that teaching and learning can take place in primary classrooms. Students have also been using the devices for the curation of resources as part of their science teacher education portfolios.

The changing nature of books

One major development is the growing thoughts on the development of eBooks as part of the course structure with the hope that we will get all courses to develop eBooks for the beginning of the course in September 2015 and that these will be used substantially as parts of the course from that time.

Affordances of the eBook.

We have been thinking in the linked Erasmus project (www.mttep.eu) of the affordance of eBooks and have now developed a model which places these into four key groups.

A. The artefacts that can be included

Alongside print and image the eBook can include video, audio, moving graphic, slideshows, animations etc… this gives the creator of the book much more scope for transmitting information, exploring ideas, demonstrating and offering learning in a variety of ways. 

Once simple example might be in Maths where an animation can show the deconstruction method of subtraction as a small animated movie so the words of the teacher alongside the actions that would be demonstrated can be included into the book. This can then be replayed as often as needed by the learner.

B Way in which the artefacts can be organised

The layout of pBooks is determined by a number of factors including print layout, text option, cost, colour, size - none of these apply to the eBook and so text can be enlarged, changed, designed and moved in a complex manner.

And all of these can be updated and corrected very quickly and simply. Alongside side this is the interactivity of user feedback and co-development for improvement.

C Interactivity

A number of companies are developing interactive widgets for eBooks (Bookry, Bookwidgits and Learningapp are three that we are working with) this include timelines, quizzes, overlays, drag and drop, annotate, feedback, maps, reveal etc…

D Capturing Data

The eBook can capture data and then send this to the teacher - this has potential benefits around marking, assessment and feedback and as books develop the use of data analytics could be used to direct learning - in the way that the Khan Academy has been using and the work of Eric Mazur and others.

We are developing eBooks at this time for the teaching of the primary science course (see above) and the Secondary History course. 

Second Year ... Starts and Stops

So begins the second year of the iPad project and we are expanding the project and getting to grips with some of the aspects that this entails.

1. Extending the project

As well as the Secondary PGCE students we have purchased another 185 iPads, this time we have gone for the iPadMini. There were a couple of reasons for this choice. Firstly the cost, we were able to look at the higher capacity (32GB) iPad mini for about the same cost as the 16GB iPad2 or the newer iPadAirs; secondly we thought that the size would be more compatible with their use in the teaching rooms and in the other areas and with portability. So, we have now allocated devices to:

• the PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education) Primary trainees (about 90)
• a cohort of Education Studies Undergraduates (about 60)
• a cohort of doctoral students (about 20)
• some staff who are supporting these students

2. Technical joys and woes

If you are thinking of issuing devices be aware of the time that it takes to sort the technical issues - just setting up and handing out 170 devices takes hours and hours of work. We do not have dedicated technical support so the two academic researchers on the project are the main technical support - and this eats away at time.

3. Mobile Device Management

We are getting better at using Meraki® as a MDM solution and are starting to learn how to use it to both monitor usage and also distribute apps using the VPP solution from apple (which is much better now a year or so into its use) however tagging students and getting them into the correct groups for management as well as ensuring that they are using the correct Apple ID accounts is again time consuming. Not least that setting up an Apple ID account without a credit card is not as straight forward as it should be. However once you get it going Meraki is a very useful MDM tool.

4. Initial reactions from the students

The initial reactions from the students over the use of the devices has been very positive. There was much delight as the students were getting their devices and they have been using this quite extensively ever since. There is a slow but observable change in both the student and the lecturer practice as the device allows them to:

• Ensure that students have access to pre-reading and lecture tasks allowing for sessions in the university to be more focussed on "talking, discussing and doing" and not reading and note-taking.
• Capturing of data - using the devices to capture video and image evidence of learning and then using this for reflection in the process
• Use of particular apps such as Nearpod and Socrative to change the way that lecturing is taking place

We intend to carry out the first set of student interviews on the use of the device in the next few weeks so we should be able to determine more accurately how the devices are being used.

The end of the first year

It is hard to believe that it is the end of the first year - and we are starting to take stock of some of the things that we have learnt over the course of the year. The data from the students and from the tutors is fascinating and we are staring to analyse this and develop this.

There are a number of "headline" things that we have learnt in this first year and that we shall look to apply as the programme both carries on and develops - we have managed to secure funding for both the primary (PGCE) and an undergraduate course as well.

1. Limit the apps.

Start off with very few apps - somethings for writing, presenting and capture and then develop the apps as and when they are needed. We will have a very small set this coming year (Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Safari and probably only Evernote, iMovie, Explain Everything and Creative Book Builder for creation.

2. Focus on the affordances

It is important to remember (and to reinforce) that the tablet is NOT a replacement for the desktop or the laptop - it will fail in this respect. So focus on the read affordances of the tablet which are battery life, mobility, lightness, "always on", applications (as they are needed), data capture.

3. Keep a clear focus

As well as the limited apps we will look to get each group (lead by their tutor) to focus on a project on which they will use the device. This could be changing assessment, class interactivity, data capture, making eBooks or other things - but this will allow for focussed PD for both staff and students.

4. Professional Development

Focus on the development as and when it is needed - for both the staff and the students - and make it little but often or as needed. Drop in sessions are OK but sometimes you need to go to the student and ask, "what do you need now!".

So, if you are starting off - then have fun and please do get in touch - we are really keen to talk to other who are using iPads (or other tablets) in teacher education or other HEI areas.

Having the device

So, we are about half way through the year and this post has been prompted by a mail I received from   Maggie at Goodwin Community Centre (www.goodwincc.org). Maggie reported that one of students, Aaron, has found a useful page on why have a tablet or smart device at college (http://community.directliquidation.com/college-students-guide-to-tablets-and-mobile-devices/)

This page talks about having a device in college and stresses that the modern campus should be wired for the students to be able to use mobiles. This starts with the campus being wireless enabled and then continues with the campus thinking about how they can engage with the mobile enabled students.

This is at the core of the iPads project - if all out students have the devices - and we will be thinking about whether that is a provide, lease or BYOT model then we need to seriously consider what needs to change in our systems to maximise the use of these devices - and running a college Twitter is not enough.

We hope that the iPad project will put some empirical "meat" on the bones of optimise and hyperbole that is currently circulating about the use of tables in school. So, thanks Aaron and let's think about how this project can inform contented growth.

iPads and field trips

Students at the Lochnagar crater ©P.Hopkins MMXIV

The History PGCE students have also be looking at the use of iPads in the field. As we all know this year is the centenary of the beginning of the first world war and as part of their programme the PGCE secondary History students visit some of the mementi mori of the war in a battlefields tour of Belgium and Northern France.

The trip is centred around two of the great campaigns of the British Expeditionary Force (the BEF) those of the Ypres ("Wipers") salient and the Somme campaigns. We were looking at how having an iPad changes the ways in which the students can access and experience the field trip. The field trip is an important part of secondary (high school) history and "when children are asked to recall their school field trips they recall lots of things, including who they visited and what they did ... even after many years" (Falk and Dierkin, 1997).

We were thinking of the affordances of the iPads to enhance this field work experience and were thinkings of the nature of the learning that would take place, would it be as Kearney, Schuck and Burden (2012) suggest more authentic and promote a higher level of social interactivity than more "traditional" methods of pen, paper and clipboard? Would it offer a range of more transformative experiences rather than just allowing for existing methods to be more efficient or effective (McCormack and Scrimshaw, 2001).

The tutor made an iBook as an artefact (Bennet, 2014) which was shared with the students via dropbox before the field trip - the students downloaded this onto their iPads and this was the core information artefact as the students accessed the tasks at the various sites. This iBook included maps, images and text as well as tasks for the students to undertake during the time in the field.

Whilst on the visit the students collected a variety of data using the devices, this included notes, images, video, screencasts, narration to camera as well as tracking data on an individual they had identified before going on the visit. Finally they will use the devices (and the data they have collected) to create "artefacts of achievement" (Hopkins and Burden, 2014) once they have returned from the visit- though some were able to start this on the bus between trips and travelling too and from the site.

The use of the iPad changed both the nature of the student's experiences and many of their own thoughts on how such visits should take place and they were much more comfortable with the notion of them (and ultimately their own students) being "digital citizens".

The use of devices can thus be divided into these three main areas:

1. The device as a curator of materials to use on the visit, created before the visit
2. The device as a collector of data whilst on the visit
3. the device as a creator of artefacts after the visit, though this may also be during

We will be presenting on this theme later on the year at the ISL conference looking at the use of iPads in the creation on eBooks and also in their use as an enhancer of field work across disciplines.

References

Bennett, S (2014) Hull University Battlefields vists - an eBook, Hull, Hull University
Falk, J and Dierking L (1997) School Field Trips Assessing their long term impact, Curator 40/3
Hopkins, P and Burden, K (2014) Work in progress
McCormick, R and Scrimshaw, P (2001) Technology, Pedagogy and Knowledge, Education, Communication and Information Volume 1:1