Meeting 27/02/2020: m-learning

Hello PEGasus team! We had our first meeting of 2019/2020 Semester 2, and despite the confusion with the dates we managed to have a few people turn up to talk about m-learning.

We discussed the paper Gikas, J., & Grant, M. M. (2013). Mobile computing devices in higher education: Student perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones & social media. The Internet and Higher Education, 19, 18–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2013.06.002.

We talked about the author’s definition of social media and m-learning, how to define them in academic research, and how different they would be if the paper was published in 2020. There was a lot of discussion about the methodology used in this study and what could have been done differently, for instance, how interactive can a Skype focus group really be? And can you even call it a focus group?

As many of us were educators, technology as a distractor was a hot topic. Can we minimise distraction and increase engagement by using mobile technologies? We also discussed how instructors in the same institution can have very different views on the use of technology in the classroom, in this study’s case, the use of mobile technology.

With mobile phones now being a constant presence in our lives, and even more in younger people’s lives, should ‘digital discipline’ (a term we coined in this meeting) be taught in schools or HE, i.e. when and how to use mobile technology for educational, work, creative or leisure purposes? What do you think?