Research Reviews

An insightful research paper has examined the issue of transformational change that can be encouraged from a longitudinal perspective by the use of mobile Web 2.0 devices. The research methodology made use of four participatory frameworks – communities of practice (CoPs), conversational, learner-generated contexts and authentic learning - especially sustained CoPs for long term engagement and it identified six critical success factors for pedagogical change.

A group of universities in Australia collaborated in research to understand the ‘student voice’ with regard to the deployment of digital technologies. Over 10,000 responses to a multiple choice online survey were processed followed by analysis of over 13,000 responses to four qualitative open ended questions. The research is seminal and two excellent reports have now been provided on an important ‘student voice’ factor in planning university digital technology deployment.

The need for teachers to have a balance of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge would appear to be necessary in today’s digital world, as research (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) and investigative projects such as Teaching Teachers for the Future have demonstrated. Many countries eg Canada, UK, some USA states eg Maine and California, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Uruguay and Portugal have made substantial investments in education infrastructure, in order to upgrade their education systems and improve student learning and educational performance.

A report released in 2013 is interesting because it documents the thoughts of teachers who have been teaching with iPads. The research report is based on classroom observations at three strategic periods throughout the school year, interviews with the teachers involved and a focus group of ten peer colleagues in order to corroborate the context of the teaching practices which will be so familiar to many practitioners.

As a result of extensive consultations and research, an exemplary model policy document, which was strongly informed by research, was recently published. The discerning educational reader can almost feel the hard work, the extensive research, the deep dialogue and the constant redrafting that emerge from between the lines of this research informed policy document that provides a strong learning and technology brief for school leaders.

A recently published, relevant and timely report about the use of touch-screen devices by children between the ages of three and five years contains some surprises. The report states that reading books, especially with parents, remains dominant for three (3) to five (5) year olds, although the use of touch-screens at home with children’s parents is also becoming increasingly relevant. Teacher’s perspectives on teaching and learning with tablets are positive and teachers of young children are confident of using tablets in the classroom.

In a recent research review of the benefits for young people of playing video games, researchers came to some very interesting conclusions. Their conclusions were not entirely consistent with the view, often reported in the media, that video games have harmful effects for children, leading to addiction, aggression and depression. On the contrary, among players some types of video games encourage healthy collaboration that extends outside of the games context.

In a well-researched and documented draft chapter, a simple historical perspective of e-learning from the 1980s is presented. A very useful timeline of major educational technological developments is included early in the chapter and then each development is discussed in detail. Although the chapter has been written from experience in the UK, it has a strong global outlook and includes major recent disruptions such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

In an excellent report about innovating pedagogies with digital technologies for teaching, learning and assessment, a team of experienced researchers and educational innovators have summarised ten current issues about planning learning programs. The report recognises the seamless nature of teaching and learning with digital technologies and discusses how pedagogies can extend learning through crowd learning, gaming, making, citizenship and geo-learning. This is a practical, easy to read and timely guide for educators.

Recent research into the essential elements for designing online courses based its findings on the triangulated detailed evidence of a small number of students who were competent online users. The researcher found that four elements were essential for online teaching and student success. From these findings, that included the views of competent online successful students, the researcher emphasised design elements such as substantial pre-planning including ‘chunking’ of content and pre-contact with prospective course participants, timely and developmental feedback during the course, and teacher confidence in an online environment and also with the content.