iPad Research Project

Working in collaboration with Brighton Grammar School, Swinburne University and Apptitude, the Crowther Centre has commenced an action research project that will examine the impact the use of gestural technologies in the classroom will have on teaching pedagogy and learning styles.

It is anticipated that the initial phase of the project will run over 4 to 6 months with the focus of the research on numeracy and literacy skills in junior classes.

Question

Does the use of gesture-based mobile devices such as the iPad have the potential to change the way students will interact with, perceive and manipulate digital content and will the changes in learning style facilitate improved outcomes in literacy and numeracy?

Gestural interfaces could allow students to access data more intuitively and achieve a greater level of independence in their learning.

Areas of Research

The research will test a number of hypotheses in three key strands of investigation:

• Pedagogy
• Learning
• Usability

Pedagogy

What changes in pedagogy will be required to accommodate the use of a tool such as the iPad in the classroom?

Hypothesis: The presence of technology such as the iPad will change the dynamics of the classroom and there should be changes to student engagement, independence of learning and style and frequency of teacher direction. There may also be changes to teamwork patterns, amount of teacher and student talk as well as movement around the room.

Learning

Numeracy

It is widely thought that the use of iPads in education will improve the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. In particular, through exposure to specifically harvested numeracy apps, boys will become more motivated, engaged and independent in their learning. 

Will the use of the iPads in the classroom improve numeracy outcomes for boys and if so, how?

Hypothesis: The use of iPads in the classroom will improve boys’ numeracy outcomes.

Literacy

The Horizon Report 2010 identifies electronic books as a technology predicted to have a much broader use across academia over the next two to three years. An eBook can be anything from the digital version of a paper book, to more interactive content that includes hyperlinks and multimedia.  Electronic books are already gaining popularity within mainstream culture, which will impact the way our students see and use text.

How will the interactive features of an electronic book make a difference in the level of student engagement and will this improve their understanding of a text?

Hypothesis: Text in an eBook is more than just text; the ability to resource word definitions, highlight and notate using bookmarks and the ease of revision for personal annotations make an eBook a more adaptive tool than a traditional book.

Is there a significant change in the way students process content when reading an electronic book on a traditional computer compared to a gesture-based device such as the iPad?

Hypothesis: Reading electronic books on an iPad will change students’ reading styles.

Usability

Usability, that applications actually achieve their intended purposes in term of ease of use is increasingly recognized as an important quality factor for interactivity. The iPad and similar technologies support a range of gesture –based user interactions that look and feel very different to the traditional mouse and keyboard. With touch sensitive screens and the ability to detect attributes such as movement and the orientation of the device itself in space they are changing the way we interact with computers.

How effective are the gesture based user interfaces of devices such as the iPad for accessing and interacting with digital resources in the classroom?

Hypothesis: Students will interact differently with technologies supporting  a gesture based multi-touch user interface enhancing  their ability to access and interact with digital content compared to more traditional mouse and keyboard controlled devices.

How will the gesture based interface improve student independence of learning be and what level of direction is required for them to become competent users?

Hypothesis: The use of gestural interfaces should improve usability by providing more age specific navigation and content manipulation allowing students to achieve a greater level of independence in their learning.

Will the gesture-based interface model change the student’s mental modal of how and where data is stored?

Hypothesis: The use of gestural actions such as swiping may result in a change in the learners’ mental model of how data is organized and accessed and improve problem solving skills.