Abstract:

This article describes the complete process of access and exploration of a technology in the MediaLab of the University of Salamanca, its transfer to the Faculty of Education and its final application to the classrooms of secondary education. The process is illustrated with a project of development teaching mobile apps with App Inventor. The underlying idea is that the emergence of new digital technologies with potential application in improving education is a continuum, not an isolated one-off event, and therefore innovation should be considered as an essential part of the educational activity. As a consequence, stable facilities and procedures should be established to experiment with technology innovations and to allow its transfer.

The MediaLab of the University of Salamanca is conceived as a new interdisciplinary and collaborative learning space. A meeting point of Art, Technology, Science and Society to experiment with emerging technologies and their possible artistic, social and educational applications. It is, therefore, a permanent place of the university dedicated to the exploration of technological innovations with a methodology designed in four phases: access, exploration, transfer and application. App Inventor is a technology, originally developed by Google and currently hosted and managed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for creating mobile applications with no need for advanced programming skills.

The paper describes the four phases for the App Inventor project as an illustration of the general process. Once identified and obtained the technology the second phase consists of exploring and experimenting. Typically this step is performed by conducting unstructured exploratory workshops (labyrinths) where MediaLab specialists and stakeholders from any discipline are involved. In the case of App Inventor clear opportunities for application to teaching innovation were found. The mode of application that was articulated was the proposal to teachers and students of the MSc in Mathematics Education with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) to include App Inventor as a substantial part of the Master's final dissertation. A short course was programmed to transfer the knowledge acquired. As a result, three students, tutored by a professor of Mathematics Education, devoted their final dissertation to design teaching units for secondary students that included the use of mobile applications created with App Inventor. The teaching units and Apps developed were used by the three post-graduate students in their Master’s teaching practices at secondary schools. To measure the impact and relevance of technological innovation in learning mathematical concepts a research questionnaire was designed and applied to the secondary school students. The research results were published in a journal of Mathematics Education.

This case exemplifies the complete cycle of technological innovation carried out in the MediaLab of the University of Salamanca, which has been kept in motion with other technologies like 3D-Printers, Arduino or capture motion devices.

Keywords:

Technology-based Innovation, Technology-enhanced Learning, MediaLab, App Inventor.