An Instructional Model That Exploits Pervasive Computing

Chapter 9.1

An Instructional Model that Exploits Pervasive Computing

Cathleen Norris

University of North Texas

Denton, USA

Elliot Soloway

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, USA

Abstract: For computing to have a significant impact on teaching and learning, it is clear that each and every child needs to have a computing device for their own personal use 24/7. In our chapter we predict that a disruption will occur in the near term and that cellular phone technology will be used in primary and secondary education as the primary personal computing device, in addition to its use as a voice communication tool. In preparation for this disruption, we describe how a virtual learning environment (VLE), running on a mobile computer, can be used to effectively support a project-based learning (PBL) pedagogy. While this disruption is more likely to take place in developed nations first, given the already considerable penetration of cellular technology amongst youth, there are indications that dramatic change is also occurring already in developing nations.

Keywords: Pervasive computing, Mobile learning, 1:1 computing, project-based learning, virtual learning environment

Introduction

At least in the developed nations of the world, there will come a point – in the not too distant future – when each and every child has his or her own personal computer for use as an educational tool 24/7.Just as pencil-and-paper is ubiquitous today computers will no longer be a scarce resource and they too will be as ubiquitous as pencil-and-paper.At that point, then, like pencil-and-paper are used today, computers will be used throughout the school day for essentially every learning activity. All the notes from the school day will be taken on the computer; all the elements of an assignment will be done on the computer. Essentially no paper will be generated by the children. We refer to the situation where computers are ubiquitous and no longer a scarce resource as “pervasive computing.”

What is an instructional model, then, for how teachers will use a pervasive computing infrastructure? Inasmuch as the affordances of a pervasive computing infrastructure are radically different than the affordances of a limited-access infrastructure, it should not be surprising that the instructional models that work in the latter situation are not appropriate for the former situation. In this chapter we explore the opportunities for teaching and learning that pervasive computing affords and the instructional model that is needed to take advantage of those opportunities.

The organization of this chapter is as follows:

-First, we explore the current situation where computing use is severely constrained by limited access.

-Next, we look into the future and discuss the challenges involved in making a prediction about future technological change.

-Third, we identify the elements of the pervasive computing infrastructure.

-Fourth, we then discuss how Project-Based Learning (PBL) resonates with pervasive computing, and how pervasive computing supports the enactment of PBL.

The Current Situation: Limited Access Computing

In 2002, approximately 60% of the teachers in the U.S. had 1 or less computers in their classrooms (Norris, Sullivan, Poirot, & Soloway, 2003). In 2002, 65% of teachers surveyed said they had access to a computer lab 1 or fewer times per week. While more computers are surely available to teachers and students than were available 5 years ago, it is safe to say that to a first order approximation, half the teachers in the U.S. still only have 1 computer (or less) in their classroom and half the teachers in the U.S. still have very limited access to a computer lab. For all intents and purposes, computer access is a scarce resource in today’s classrooms.

Inasmuch as computers are scarce resources, teachers use them as part of their curricular activities. For example, in a unit on the “water cycle” a teacher may schedule a computer lab for students to engage in a web quest to find information about the water cycle. Or, the teacher may ask the students to use a concept mapping program such as Inspiration to lay out the elements of the water cycle, or define the key terms in the water cycle. Since time on the computers is limited, teachers will typically have the children do only a part of the unit on the computer and the rest of the unit in pencil-and-paper. Teachers and students, then, use individual applications on the computer to carry out specific, isolated learning activities as specified by the curricular unit.

In sum, the use of computing in school today is ad-hoc, opportunistic, and inconsistent. Indeed, for many teachers, using computers with their students is a burden since teachers themselves must oftentimes figure out how to use computers with their curriculum.

The Transition to Pervasive Computing: Predicting a Disruption

In general, the past is a predictor of the future. However, this guideline is not accurate when it comes to making predictions in the world of technological development. Indeed, in technology, you can bet that the past is not a predictor of the future! Continuous change – linear growth – is not an adequate model for predicting the future in technology. Rather, disruptions – discontinuities, nonlinearities – are the norm in technology growth (Moore, 1999; Christensen, 2000). For example:

-Few pundits – let alone the person on the street – foresaw the enormous impact of the Internet on society, on the world in such a short time space. In five short years, the world changed, forever, because of the Internet.

-In 1975 Bill Gates, a college dropout – from Harvard University, no less – predicted that everyone would have a computer in their homes. If there had been a consensus around that notion, if everyone thought that personal computers would play a dominant force in our everyday lives, then Gates would not have been able to build an empire – in less than 20 years – that touches the lives of literally billions of people every day, and has catapulted him ahead of all the energy titans, the transportation barons, etc. to a position where he is the richest man in the world.

In this chapter, we are making a prediction that in the not too distant future there will be a transition to pervasive computing. However, for that prediction to be true, then the past is not a predictor of the future, and a disruption must occur since a linear extrapolation of cell phone ownership, for example, will not support the prediction of ubiquitous prevalence of cell phone ownership.

We believe that there are indicators that support the prediction that a disruption will indeed occur. For example, studies are pointing out the already high ownership of cell phones amongst youth in the US and in Europe. And, the America’s Digital School Survey (The Greaves group & The Hayes connection, 2006) found that 85% of the school administrators polled planned to provide each student in their districts with a “computing appliance,” where computing appliance was purposely left vague in the survey. Thus, we feel there is justification to predict that a disruption will occur and cell phone penetration will be exceedingly high – approaching 100% – and thus education needs to prepare itself for this transformation.

To be more concrete, within the next five years – the not too distant future – a fundamental shift will occur:

Each primary and secondary aged child in the developed nations of Europe, Asia, and North America will have his or her own cell phone where that cell phonewill have substantial computing power (e.g., the cell phone will be capable off accessing the web through a web browser and supporting the authoring of multimedia documents.)

That shift does require a disruption – and only time will tell if that disruption does occur.

Should educators bother to explore the opportunities that would arise should such a disruption occur? One might argue: the likelihood is so low for such a disruption to occur, it simply is not worth anyone’s time to even think through how we might leverage the disruption for educational benefit. Such a narrow view seems imprudent.

It does seem prudent that at least some educators spend time considering the implications of such a disruption and prepare accordingly. Indeed, in this article, we are not arguing that everyone drop what they are doing and focus on making pervasive computing the core of their pedagogical framework. However, we are challenging the educational community to open up their minds to a possibility that has a non-trivial chance of actually coming to pass.

The Elements of a Pervasive Computing Infrastructure

The personal mobile device is just one piece of the computing infrastructure that must be in place in order for schools to take advantage of pervasive computing. Here we list other elements of that infrastructure – and who will provide them.

-The Mobile Learning Environment: In the past, schools have sought to keep their computing environment homogenous. For example, schools are typically “Windows” schools or “Apple schools.” Moreover, schools do not like to mingle different versions of hardware and/or software, within those two camps. However, over the past 5 years, schools have seen an influx of equipment and many of the schools are less homogenous than before – and less than they might want. As we move forward, there will be an increase in heterogeneity; computers are changing much more rapidly than in the past and there simply is no way for a school to stay homogeneous.

Such experience is valuable; it will help schools cope with the tremendous heterogeneity of devices when schools permit children to bring in their own personal mobile devices for curricular use. It is not inconceivable that in one class of 30 students there will literally be 30 different cell phones in use.

To address the situation where a classroom may well have such extreme heterogeneity of hardware devices, schools will need to provide a layer of software that will, in effect, homogenize the devices and make them ready for use in an educational setting. That layer of homogenizing software has been termed the “virtual learning environment” (VLE).

The cost of the VLE software may be borne by the school, at least initially. Schools will initially purchase site licenses for the VLE and distribute them to the students. However, over time, the VLE may well be included in the list of supplies that a child needs to purchase at the start of the school year.

-Network Connectivity: Who will provide network connectivity within the school? Schools might well split off their administrative network from their curricular network. The curricular network provider could be the telecom operator, e.g., T-Mobile, Sprint, etc. Keeping a wireless network up and running with high reliability and high availability currently requires a serious staff – a staff that few schools, at least in the U.S. can afford to maintain. Again, for the purposes of this chapter, we will just assert that there will be a provider of the network, be it a telecom operator or be it the local school or district networking team.

-Special Purpose Computing: Schools will need to provide special purpose computer gear for student use. For example, schools may purchase several “video editing stations” that are expensive, high end computing environments in which students can manipulate video productions. Also, there will be a myriad of issues such as backup support, etc. that schools will need to work through in order to provide reliable computing for the mobile devices.

A pervasive computing infrastructure is multi-faceted, with the mobile device – the cell phone – being but one component. Schools will need to be imaginative in how all the components are developed and integrated.

Pervasive Computing Enables Project-Based Learning

The availability of pervasive computing infrastructure in a classroom does not insure that mobile devices will be used productively. A model of instruction that is compatible with pervasive computing is needed and it must be adoptable by teachers.

Project-based learning (PBL) is one such model. In PBLa teacher puts forth a theme or driving question and identifies a set of learning activities that help the students explore the theme. A well-designed PBL assignment provides a coherent, cohesive framework for the various learning activities. The learning activities build off each other; the learning activities compliment one another.

PBL is not a rigorous pedagogy. Educators are developing design guidelines (Blumenfeld, Fishman, Krajcik, Marx, & Soloway, 2000) to help teachers and curriculum specialists in constructing productive PBL assignments. Indeed, PBL is not without its critics, its challenges, and its variations. However, PBL has reached a level of acceptance in K-12, at least in the U.S. and in the U.K. such that using it as a model for classroom instruction is quite appropriate.

There is a clear mapping between the learning activities in a PBL assignment and the learning activities that can be carried out on a VLE-supported mobile computer. With an appropriately designed VLE, the functionalities that are exposed to the student should correspond to the learning activities in the PBL assignment. For example, if the PBL lesson calls for the construction of a concept map, then there needs to be a concept-mapping tool in the VLE-supported mobile computer.

There is significant value in the marriage of PBL and pervasive computing for teaching and learning. While in the limited access case, students use the computer for isolated, independent activities, with the lion’s share of the work being done with pencil-and-paper; in a PBL assignment, enacted in a pervasive computing environment, students do the entire unit on the VLE-supported mobile computer. The VLE scaffolds the students in enacting the PBL unit. An appropriately designed VLE scaffolds students so they can

-see the entire PBL assignment at one glance so as to better understand the interactions amongst the components;

-keep track of their work since the files on the mobile computer will be backed up to a school server; losing pieces of paper was inevitable, in contrast;

-work at their own pace since the assignments are all displayed in a coherent representation.

As well, an appropriately designed VLE provides scaffolds for the teachers. For example, the scaffolds in a VLE make it easy for teachers to design PBL assignments to support differentiated instruction by simply adding/subtracting learning activities from the assignment specification.

PBL is but one instructional model that may be compatible with a pervasive computing infrastructure. Indeed, as the educational community has more experience with pervasive computing environments, there will surely be new instructional models that arise that will leverage the affordances of the mobile computing device.

In the next section, then, we provide a concrete example of how a Virtual Learning Environment implemented on a mobile computing device can support Project-Based Learning.

An Example Virtual Learning Environment to Support Project-Based Learning

While it is still early in the development cycle for VLE’s for mobile computing devices, there is one such VLE that we can use to illustrate the potential that pervasive computing can having in supporting a PBL instructional model. In particular, GoKnow! has developed the Mobile Learning Environment (MLE) that runs on Windows Mobile, Windows CE, and PalmOS operating systems. These operating systems provide support for the vast majority of mobile computing devices on the market today.

In what follows, we use GoKnow’s( MLE with a Water Cycle Project to illustrate how a VLE-supported mobile learning device can enable a student to complete a PBL-style assignment.

The Water Cycle Project: A Middle School Science and Language Arts Project

Figure 1

Lucinda’s Teacher’s Water Cycle Project Template in MLE

In Figure 1, we see a screen from GoKnow Learning’s MLE that depicts a project template for a Water Cycle Project. (In this chapter to lend concreteness to the discussion, we have invented a child, Lucinda, to represent students engaged in learning.) All the learning activities in the project are available at a glance. From a learner’s perspective, he or she sees the entire project and can decide which components to work on and in what order.

Sometimes a teacher may well want his or her students to work on the learning activities in a specific order. The MLE enables the teacher to specify such an order using the links amongst the activities.

Perhaps a metaphor will help the reader to better understand the role that MLE plays in supporting learners:

-View MLE as a “container” that holds two types of resource nodes: content and learning activities. Teacher-supplied content resources contain information that the teacher provides to the student, e.g., the rubric, the instructions, valuable web pages, eBooks, etc. Learning activities are carried out by students and typically result in artifacts produced by the students.

-Students move between the resources and the learning activities in the project template. For example, tap on the Water Cycle Rubric resource node and Pocket Word opens (Figure 2); close Pocket Word by tapping the ok and the student is returned to the “container” in Figure 1.

Figure 2

Lucinda’s Teacher’s Water Cycle Rubric in MLE Project

Tap on the “Web Resource 3” and Internet Explorer opens. In Figure 3 we see a web page containing information about the water cycle. This resource node was provided by Lucinda’s teacher to her students to start them off. This “web research” resource node, like the Project Rubric resource node, was provided by the teacher to the students. The teacher found the website about water quality (The Water Cycle, n.d.) on the Internet and saved the key pages from the website onto her device. MLE enabled the teacher to import the saved web pages into the Water Cycle Project.)