Chalmers Conferences, NU 2012

Renewing Teaching & Learning: Leveraging Mobility for Student Engagement
William Rankin

Last modified: 2014-09-11

Abstract


For almost five centuries, our classrooms and teaching have been shaped by a particular relationship between people and information that emerged from the technologies of printing and print culture. Yet as that culture is transformed by emerging digital technologies including mobility, pervasive connectivity, and digital texts, our relationship with information is changing radically, and our approaches to teaching and learning will have to change as well. Five years ago, faculty and technologists at Abilene Christian University began an experimental program based around the new generation of touch-enabled smartphones designed to explore how pervasive use of the new sorts of social, informational, and creative options that these new technologies drive. What they've discovered about breaking free from the classroom walls for in situ learning, for driving new levels of student engagement, and for creating a new kind of student-led learning is encouraging them to push the boundaries even further. In this presentation, you'll discover some of their reasons for exploring mobility and other emerging technologies, some principles they've discovered for redesigning learning and learning spaces, and some of the results they've discovered along the way.