[elearning] Query on iPad research

Thu Sep 6 17:23:16 EST 2012

I recall Richard Olson during an Edtech Crew podcast noted that we
need to be keenly aware that student needs will eventually shift
towards more powerful devices. My thinking was that by VCE some would
eventually decide to use more powerful laptops. Each could pick what
would best suits their study, needs or budget .. or perhaps to not
pick one. I can imagine that many could still rely on their old junior
school iPad (or smart phone) for mLearning, personal organisation and
reading etc. I like how this NZ school is handling it. There are
others I can dig up and share if you like.
     http://www.kristin.school.nz/web/portal/ict-services/digital-learning-programmes

If we accept that different streams of students at the senior levels
will have different needs, we should not try to resolve this with a
single package to fix and accept that in the following year, we should
have prepared them for the digital citizenship and independence of
learning and working whilst away from a single corporate network.
Maybe the iPads presents us with the right timing and opportunity to
finally allow students to manage their devices and develop their
skills as independent and responsible learners if they eventually step
up to their own powerful device.
     http://ipadeducators.ning.com/profiles/blogs/device-control

Regards Roland

On 5 September 2012 22:47, Kevork Krozian <kevork at edulists.com.au> wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
>  A typo below. Unanimous choice for learning, studying and interacting by
> the Yr 12s was the laptop/MacBook. None favoured the iPad.
>
>
> Kevork Krozian
> Edulists Creator Administrator
> www.edulists.com.au
> tel: 0419 356 034
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au
> [mailto:elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Kevork Krozian
> Sent: Wednesday, 5 September 2012 6:43 PM
> To: elearning Teachers' Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [elearning] Query on iPad research
>
> 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.co
>> m.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.as
>> px
>>
>> 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.hatt
>> ie>, 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.co
>> m.au>
>> [mailto:elearning-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:elearning-bounces at edu
>> lists.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 e
>> dumail.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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>>> eLearning Mailing List kindly supported by http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au
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>>> Teachers Association Inc
>> I
>>
>>
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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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>> Association Inc
>
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> eLearning Mailing List kindly supported by
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> Association Inc
>
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