Mobile learning:what works well and why

Francesc PedróTeacher Development and Education Policies

1980s 1990s

1900s

1920

1890

1928 1930s

1940s 1950s (miitjans)

1960s (mitjans)

1931

2012

1945¿?

Freq

üènc

ia d

’ùs

1978

1900 1950 20001925 1975

Why mobile learning?

Ubiquitous and powerful

mobile devices

Expanding applicability for teaching and learning

Potential to benefit learners

everywhere

How the demand for skills has changedEconomy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (US)

1960 1970 1980 1990 200240

45

50

55

60

65 Routine manual

Nonroutine manual

Routine cognitive

Nonroutine analytic

Nonroutine interactive

(Levy and Murnane)

Mean t

ask

inp

ut

as

perc

en

tile

s of

the 1

960

task

dis

trib

uti

on

The dilemma of schools:The skills that are easiest to teach and test are also the ones that are easiest to digitise, automate and outsource

Where are we?

Where are we? Improved

access BYOT vs.

public investments

Where are we?Limited intensity and variety of uses in the classroom

Science(weekly usage)

Foreign language(weekly usage)

OECD average Sweden Denmark Korea0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

No time 0-30 mins 30-60 mins 60 mins or more

OECD average Sweden Denmark Korea0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

No time 0-30 mins 30-60 mins 60 mins or more

Where are we?Limited intensity and variety of uses in the classroom

Browse the In-ternet for

schoolwork

Use school com-puters for group work and com-

munication with other students

Use e-mail at school

Doing individual homework on a school computer

Chat on line at school

Download, up-load or browse material from the school's

website

Practice and drilling, such as for foreign lan-guage learning or mathematics

Play simulations at school

Post work on the school's website

OCDE average 39 22 19 18 15 15 14 10 9

5

15

25

35

45

55

65

75

85

95

Perc

enta

ge o

f stu

dent

s

Percentage of students declaring at least a weekly usage, PISA 2009

Where are we?But not at home!

Doing homework on the computer

Browse the Internet for schoolwork

Use e-mail for communi-cation with other students

about schoolwork

Download, upload or browse material from the

school's website

Check the school's web-site for announcements

Use e-mail for communi-cation with teachers and submission of homework

or other schoolwork

OCDE average 50 46 34 23 21 14

5

15

25

35

45

55

65

75

85

95

Perc

enta

ge o

f stu

dent

s

Percentage of students declaring at least a weekly usage, PISA 2009

How to explain it? Perception of usability:

Can I use it? Perception of usefulness:

is it worth the effort?

What works?

1. Engagement

2. Convenience

3. Productivity

3. Productividad

It’s not the technology!

Educational needsPedagogic solution

Affordable and sustainable

It’s the pedagogy!

Making change happen

How to move forward? Realism: “a teacher like me” approach More than even, we need an efficiency-

driven approach: Are students going to learn more, better,

differently?– From data transparency to data-driven instruction

Am I going to become more efficient?– Teacher and student perspectives

Policy focus has to shift to assess, suport and reward teaching

Teachers still need support

Teaching special learn-

ing needs students

ICT teaching skills

Student dis-cipline and behaviour problems

Instructional practices

Subject field Student counselling

Content and performance

standards

Student assess-

ment prac-tices

Teaching in a multicultural

setting

Classroom management

School man-agement and

administration

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70TALIS Average

Areas are ranked in descending order of the international average where teachers report a high level of need for development. Source: OECD. 2009

%

But they hardly get any feedbackIta

ly

Spai

n

Port

ugal

Irela

nd

Braz

il

Icel

and

Nor

way

Aust

ria

Aust

ralia

Belg

ium

(Fl.)

Mal

ta

Turk

ey

Mex

ico

Den

mar

k

Pola

nd

Kore

a

Slov

enia

Hun

gary

Esto

nia

Slov

ak R

epub

lic

Lith

uani

a

Mal

aysi

a

Bulg

aria

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

No appraisal or feedback No school evaluation%

Countries are ranked in descending order of the percentage of teachers who have received no appraisal or feedback.Source: OECD. Table 5.1 and 5.3

Making change happen

Weak support & no incentives

Strong support + incentives

Low pressure:no assessment

High pressure:

assessment

Good results

Systemic innovation

Poor results

Idiosyncratic innovations

Conflict & demoralisation

Fake use

Poor results

No use

Summing up We need more and better uses of technology

in school education… But only efficient solutions have a chance to

scale up! What happens with technology is just an

indication of how badly school systems manage educational change

No new kid in the block, but a more balanced learning ecosystem

Many thanks

F.Pedro@UNESCO.org

Available at: /francescpedro

More at: @FrancescPedroED /francesc.pedroED