How technology has changed the way we learn:

Technology, like education, is in a constant state of flux and always has, does and will continue to change the way we learn. Equally the way we learn and what we learn will also continue to inform technology.  On a personal level technology has transformed the way I learn and engage with education. For example when I was 25 I made the decision to go to university, at this point I didn’t know I was really dyslexic I just generally avoided writing anything with a pen and thought I was bad at spelling. The letter that I wrote by hand to apply to the university took me around three weeks to complete. This included showing it to people and editing it numerous times to make it sound as less mental as possible. It wasn’t a long letter and a normal person probably could have knocked it out in about an hour. After being assessed and getting statemented the following year, which allowed me to discover the particular flavour of dyslexia I have and how it impacts my ability to write and consequently how I can overcome this (use a keyboard to type not a pen). The result was that a year after writing that letter I was able to write, using a laptop, a 3000 word synopsis of the history of stained glass off the top of my head in two hours as some additional notes for a module. This probably doesn’t seem a lot by other people’s standards but for me it was totally life changing. I discovered I actually enjoyed writing as apposed to the experience it had always previously been using a pen where my prose always broke down to “the cat sat on the mat” it was liberating suddenly being able being able to see my thoughts and ideas written down as they were and not bastardised.  In addition to this I learnt to record lectures, more often than not using my phone. I used MindView (mind mapping software) to organise myself and read and write text reading software.  Another significant way technology has changed the way we/I learn is of course the Internet. Nearly everything I’ve learnt in the past 5 years has been through this medium. I can’t underestimate how much I’ve learnt this way I find it highly successful. I "would rather  learn over the internet and get more individual attention from instructors in online courses" (Pallof and Pratt, 1999). I find them   much more effective for me than traditional classroom learning. it includes among other things; using Photoshop, Illustrator, SketchUp, Rhino, Word, rejigging my mac, taking it apart, servicing it, replacing components, similarly completely taking apart and repairing at least 10 different types of mobile including iPhone 3G/3GS/4/4S. Completely taking apart my MTB's and rebuilding them, Taking apart a motorbike engine and parts of my truck, various vacuum cleaners, cooking, propagating plants, learning guitar and saxophone. It’s endless really and definitely represents the most amazing change to the landscape. All around the world it enables people to learn things they could never have dreamed of only a short time ago.  I do slightly live in fear that this may not always be an option and that a time may come when I look back at this sweet spot where so much was available to so many people but in the end everyone just wanted to watch films and buy stuff and we blew it. It definitely makes me think I need to make an effort to contribute to it and not just rely on the efforts of others. I digress.

Palloff, R. and Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

The Value of mobile technology in teaching and learning:

When I was at school the concept of mobile technology and learning consisted of a very heavy computer on a trolley. Much has changed since then, "Mobile learning has left the status of a new born child" (Frohburg, 2006) and though we haven't yet all been composted buy our biomechanical overlords we have achieved a level of communications technology that would have impressed Captain Kirk. My own experience, that of having a laptop, has been largely transformative in allowing me to capitalize on my inspirations, as and when they take hold, and greatly increase my productivity.  With regard to current developing practices I have little to no experience having only today engaged with a QR codes. It seems to me that the hardware has now got to a point where, however briefly, the limiting factor is currently the human, be it the software designer, end user or more likely the facilitator. We're less limited by storage capacity, processing power, accessibility etc. All of which, on the whole, continue to increase at a pace that is greater than the users demands of them. That’s not to say that everyone has access to the best of what is available but on the whole with regard to technology within education and more importantly the software, which is in its infancy, we're almost at a point where educational tools can start to be rolled out and incorporated in to education on a wide scale. The mobile phone is now the single piece of pervasive technology that people from all socio economical backgrounds have and with that access to an increasing plethora of applications. I understand that one barrier currently is that most schools and collages, where you would image there is maybe the greatest potential for mobile technology being successfully incorporated in to teaching and learning have no phone policies in classes or at best inconsistent policies. All which make harnessing the potential of the technology more challenging. It would seem to me that this is largely due to the fact that the proximity of the student, the educator, the technology and the learning environment, though potentially a recipe for accelerated learning didn’t come together as part of any kind of plan and therefore the potential for time wasting and inefficient experiments is reasonable as the different parts of the equation find themselves in this situation. I have a feeling that the best practice is going to occur with the youngest students and educators and it will be them that set the president for best practice. I think its possible that when the 5 year olds of today are 16 the way they will interact with technology in the educational environment will be as different as a 16 year old today compared to when I was 16. The technology will possibly have moved on by the time the current educators have worked out how to work with today’s set of circumstances. Maybe you wont have a desktop computer or a phone or a laptop. Screens might just be incorporated in to most of the things around us and as you move around your “desktop” or “homepage”, as it were, would just follow you around.

This is a pretty interesting paper on Mobile learning

http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/umuas/reading-group/MLearn_Framework.pdf

 Frohburg, D. (2006). Mobile Learning is coming of Age-What we have and what we still miss. 1st ed. [ebook] Zurich: Zurich University, p.1. Available at: http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/umuas/reading-group/MLearn_Framework.pdf [Accessed 19 Dec. 2014].