[elearning] Query on iPad research

Wed Sep 5 18:43:05 EST 2012

Hi Tim,

 A great discussion indeed, and thanks to all the contributors.

 Yes, the ancient Tablets did lead to the scrolls, that eventually led to
the iPad :)

 I absolutely agree about mobile digital interactive devices including
BYODs. They are here. The hard part is how can we make the best use them.

 I actually spoke to my Yr 12 SofDev class who have had Macbooks since Yr
9, and additionally iPads since Term 2 this year . I asked which device
allowed them to learn, study, interact better. The unanimous response was
iPads.
 I also asked which device they would use if they were forced to choose
one. You can guess the answer. There were no iPad fans because they can't
do much with it relative to the laptops. Perhaps they are getting old
....

  The question does come back to are any schools using iPads at Yr 7 - 12
and if so how are they delivering the curriculum with iPads at the
higher levels ?

 Kindest Regards

Kevork

> This has been a fascinating discussion, thank you Kevork for initiating
> it.
>
> I tend to agree with Brett's thoughts on the inevitability of small mobile
> devices dominating the learning environment.
>
> When discussing the possibility of a BYOD approach for our senior
> students, one of our Science staff wanted to see quantitative data from a
> control group study with one class doing BYOD & another not. The
> practicalities of such a study and the potential flack from students &
> parents gave me some new grey hairs just thinking about it.
>
> The quantitative & qualitative data we have gathered from student & staff
> who have been part of our Year 9 iPad program this year has been
> interesting. The general trend is that the distraction factor (access to
> games & messages) is initially huge but, with good class management
> guidelines and the developing maturity of students at this age, the
> education benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
>
> BTW, I still appreciate the ancient technology of scrolls - data from
> scrolls has remained unchanged for thousands of years, how long does a
> hard disk last?
>
> Also
>
> Wasn't the original ancient Torah based on a couple of Tablets???
>
> Ta
>
> Tim Kitchen
> Strathcona BGGS
>
>
> On 05/09/2012, at 3:31 PM, Groves, Brett G wrote:
>
> That was a great response Ken, very thought provoking! I’m off to research
> the Hawthorne effect now! (As opposed to the Collingwood effect where one
> suffers from unrealistic optimism :))
>
> Perhaps something that has been overlooked in this discussion, rather than
> relatively narrow measures of academic progress, is the affect on
> engagement and retention. I picked up one of my old Biology text books
> recently in a bookshelf clear out and was stunned by the lack of graphics
> and colour and the predominance of huge chunks of text. My immediate
> thought was how did I ever learn from this? I suspect this may well be
> analogous to what students from a digital generation feel when we ask them
> to use books as the primary  learning resource.
>
> My greatest concern, and believe me there are days when I’m not a fan of
> 1:1, is that without reflecting what is occurring in the wider world
> school will simply lose its relevance to  adolescents completely at home
> with digital devices irrespective of whether we can demonstrate specific
> and measurable learning improvement. In some ways that broader imperative
> over arches the initial question. So rather than asking ‘can we show a
> learning improvement by investing in those devices’ it perhaps should be
> ‘what can we do with the inevitable reality of these devices to maximise
> learning improvement.’
>
> A little like arguing the relative utility of scrolls compared to a codex,
> it’s irrelevant since the world has moved on from scrolls no matter what
> advantages over a book they may have been perceived to have enjoyed.
>
> My 2 cents anyhow
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Brett Groves
> ICT Manager
> Croydon Maroondah College
> Croydon Campus
>
> From:
> elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au>
> [mailto:elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au]On Behalf Of ken price
> Sent: Wednesday, 5 September 2012 10:22 AM
> To: elearning Teachers' Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [elearning] Query on iPad research ....
>
> Hi Kevork - a very interesting topic.
>
> For a range of reasons it is not common for a pure experimental model
> (treatment and control group etc) to be used in educational settings.
> Plus, for almost anything involving new technology and students there is a
> massive Hawthorne effect - in broad terms students (and teachers) feel
> appreciated because they have been given some new toy and some other
> students haven't, and this affects their responses. Much of the derived
> effects have to be obtained from data obtained in real classrooms (with
> all the extraneous variables that involves) by removing other variables
> statistically. It's messy.
>
> On top of this there is another question that needs to be considered (in
> my view anyway). As well as investigating "does this approach work?" we
> also need to consider "does this approach produce better outcomes than
> spending the equivalent amount in some other way?" ie an opportunity cost
> approach.
>
> The question is not as simple as it looks. For example, a school could
> invest $1 000 000 a year in ICT or instead hire about 17 MORE teachers.
> Which would produce the best outcome? Could you convince your school of
> this?
>
> The really interesting part is when you look at one of the approaches used
> in some Chicago and Washington(DC) public schools, where a different way
> to use the money was tried. It was, simply, to pay money directly to
> students based on their educational performance, the so-called "pay for
> grades" scheme. Improve your results, get extra money - waste your time,
> get nothing.  In some (but not all) settings this has worked remarkably
> well. Seehttp://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/story?id=6371073&page=1
> andhttp://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5635010&page=1
> andhttp://www.cps.edu/News/Press_releases/2008/Pages/09_11_2008_PR1.aspx
>
> Despite our personal views on the ethics of paying students to achieve, if
> we are talking about a significant investment in something like ICT and
> claiming it is an efficient way to improve learning, we need to be able to
> argue why it is better than (say) a "pay for grades" scheme. At some stage
> decisions like this fall into the hands of beancounters and (to be fair to
> them) they want to invest money in the best way.
>
> Your other questions re what actual learning takes place is also very
> worthwhile, and is the sort of thing that invites personal experiences
> from teachers to build an overall picture (rather than a traditional
> research model)
>
>
> Thanks for raising these important areas of discussion,
>
> Ken
> On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 8:13 AM, Kevork Krozian
> <kevork at edulists.com.au<mailto:kevork at edulists.com.au>> wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> Really interesting discussion. You make a great point Ziad.
>
> The barometer I guess for many years has been John Hattie with his
> extensive work on “effect size” with 2 groups holding everything else as
> constant as possible except the one difference.
> Quoting : The most prominent meta-meta-analyst in education is
> probablyJohn
> Hattie<http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/about/staff/j.hattie>,
> whose work draws on "a total of about 800 meta-analyses, which encompassed
> 52,637 studies, and provided 146,142 effect sizes [...] these studies are
> based on many millions of students" (Hattie, 2009; 15)
> -http://www.learningandteaching.info/teaching/what_works.htm
>
> Actually I recently compiled a long list of resources trying to separate
> digitization from eLearning – see http://delicious.com/kkrozian
>
> I would be interested to hear further about what learning actually takes
> place rather than what application is used. The paper mentioned by Trudy
> is really worthwhile and I recommend people have a look at it as it does
> try to balance all the views.
>
> I would also be very interested to hear from schools who have gone iPad 7
> – 12 and how they have managed delivery of those studies that require more
> than what iPads have delivered to date such as VCE IT, media and existing
> web based flash based resources such as in LOTE, Maths, that have not been
> upgraded to date.
> Are any schools using remote desktop from the student iPads to teach any
> of these classes ?
>
>
> Kind Regards
>
> Kevork Krozian
> Edulists Creator Administrator
> www.edulists.com.au<http://www.edulists.com.au>
> tel: 0419 356 034
>
> From:
> elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au>
> [mailto:elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au>]On
> Behalf Of Ziad Baroudi
> Sent: Tuesday, 4 September 2012 10:51 PM
>
> To: elearning Teachers' Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [elearning] Query on iPad research ....
>
> Many argue that validity in the sense used by scientists cannot exist in
> most areas of educational research. I once read something written by
> Seymour Papert in which he says that something such as  "using a computer"
> is not a single variable we can study while keeping all else constant. The
> whole point of using a computer is that it changes everything.
>
> Even when iPads have been around for a long time and meta-research is
> available on their "effect", we will be looking at an average "effective
> size" that brings together all kinds of different uses of the device. Two
> studies, one hugely successful and one hugely unsuccessful, may result in
> an average effect size that is close to zero. It would be more useful to
> look into the details of the successful study to see what practices we can
> adopt.
>
> Sincerely,
> Ziad.
> On 4 September 2012 21:33, Hutchison, Geoffrey G
> <hutchison.geoffrey.g at edumail.vic.gov.au<mailto:hutchison.geoffrey.g at edumail.vic.gov.au>>
> wrote:
> Good luck Kevork on finding valid education research. Very little is valid
> in the sense that double blind trials are almost non-existent and the use
> of
> control groups rare.
>
> Virtually all education research is anecdotal in terms of evidence, and
> thus
> invalid in terms of true research.
>
> Geoff Hutchison,
> McGuire College
>
>
> On 4/09/12 6:24 PM, "Kevork Krozian"
> <kevork at edulists.com.au<mailto:kevork at edulists.com.au>> wrote:
>> Hi Folks,
>>
>>    If I may ask a very broad question, is anyone across recent research
>> covering the impact of iPads and apps in learning
>> achievement/improvement at any level ( primary, secondary, tertiary ) ?
>>
>> Specifically, I am wondering if there is a control group of any type
>> such
>> as alternate tablets, mobile devices,  netbooks, MacBook Air, MacBook
>> Pro
>> etc etc.
>>
>> Additionally I am wondering if a baseline is used in the study such as "
>> Both groups, control and iPad users entered the study at VELS level x.
>> At
>> the end of the study the control group was at y and the iPad users were
>> at
>> z on the VELS or any other measurement used".
>>
>> Generalized findings such as students showed improvement in confidence
>> with the use of technology or could read better ( than what ? not having
>> any technology or having a laptop or working in labs ? ) will not be as
>> useful IMHO.
>>
>> It is a topic that has come up in discussion and I am looking for both
>> research as well as anecdotal evidence from schools on the iPad journey
>> if
>> I may please.
>>
>> Kind Regards
>> Kevork
>>
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> Dr Tim Kitchen
> Director of Learning Technologies
> Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar School
> http://timkitchen.net
>
> [cid:8858C4A3-1AA9-4428-B50F-6382C096E720 at strathcona.vic.edu.au]
>
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