Abstract:

Mobile technologies such as tablets are proliferating in schools and there is a growing concern that these technologies are being used to replicate rather than challenge existing pedagogical practices, despite some pockets of excellence which have been identified in recent studies (see Burden et al., 2012; Heinrich, 2012). To investigate this, academics and teacher educators working in the University of Hull (UK) and the University of Technology, Sydney (Australia) conducted an exploratory world-wide online survey to identify how educators use mobile technologies in their teaching and learning.

Analysis revealed that staff in Higher Education are aware of the potential value of using mobile technologies with students but do not yet recognise how some of the specific affordances of these devices can be used to give students more control over their own learning in ways outside of formal learning contexts, thus equipping them with essential 21st century learning and employability skills and attitudes (Kearney, et al., 2015). These findings suggest there is a pressing need to provide much greater guidance for teacher educators on how they might use mobile technologies to leverage pedagogical change and also the need to underpin this with a sound framework for practice.

As a result of this study a model was developed called for iPAC framework. The iPAC framework identifies the specific pedagogical features or affordances of mobile devices that makes learning distinctive. These are referred to as the 'signature pedagogies' of mobile learning and they consist of three principal constructs: Personalisation; Authenticity and Collaboration. This paper will demonstrate the iPAC framework and how these principal constructs are broken down into seven operational sub-constructs. 

This presentation demonstrates the iPAC framework and a subsequent Erasmus+ KA2 funded project which culminated in August 2017 with a series of related outputs which include:
1) A mobile learning (m-learning) toolkit for teacher educators in Higher Education and schools to support them in assessing their current state of readiness to use mobile technologies using an evaluation tool and pedagogical framework which will then help them to plan for the strategic implementation of these technologies based on sound pedagogical affordances of the devices, resulting in changed pedagogical practices.
2) A set of bespoke digital resources (e-Books) and training materials (an online course) which demonstrate more student-centred approaches to learning using mobile technologies.
3) A mobile learning network which supports universities and schools as they develop effective pedagogies for mobile technologies. An invitation will be extended to participants during this paper to join the network.

Keywords:

Mobile learning, teacher education, new pedagogies, tablets.