In April 2012, the federal higher education system of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) embarked on the path to national adoption of the Apple iPad as the educational computing platform. The core objective of the adoption was improved learning and degree completion among students in academic programs in support of national development goals. From the National Higher Education development document, the goals are to- "Achieve individualized student learning consistent with “Post PC Era” trends;- Introduce of challenge-based learning or other progressive classroom pedagogy;- Increased student participation and motivation;- Enhance opportunities for cross-institutional collaboration between faculty members;- Increase faculty collaboration through cross-institutional repositories of learning objects; and- Facilitate the migration to e-books." The UAE has three institutions encompassing 20 campuses serving 50,000 students in its federal higher education: UAE University provides a research-intensive experience; Zayed University, a liberal arts, comprehensive environment; and HCT, professional programs. The HCT iPad program was envisioned by HCT’s Chancellor, His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister for Higher Education and Scientific Research, and was led by the Vice Chancellor Dr Tayeb Kamali. This program builds on his history of entrepreneurship and e-learning initiatives, such as integrated wireless campus infrastructures, online learning and knowledge-management programmes, Dr Kamali has successfully built a cutting-edge institution that provides UAE youth with technological skills and the ability to innovate, while driving job creation in the region.
Purpose -This article aims to present an examination of the first six months of a national college-level iPad implementation project involving 14,000 new students based on faculty shift from substituting their teaching methods with mobile technology to augmentation of teaching methods with new affordances of mobile technology. Design/methodology/approach -A x 2 analysis of descriptions of teaching practices at a baseline sharing event among teachers (called iCelebrate) and a second similar event (iCelebrate2) was used to compare the abstracts for the events using an alpha of 0.05. The parameters examined were five indicators from the technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) model including the substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition (SAMR) levels of technology integration. Findings -No significant difference ( p ¼ 0.069) was found in the technology focus of abstracts, although there was a significant ( p ¼ 0.0015) difference in the content focus. There was no significant difference ( p ¼ 0.129) for the pedagogical focus. For technology integration into content teaching, there was no significant difference ( p ¼ 0.379) in level of substitution versus other levels (augmentation, modification or redefinition), although substitution increased to higher levels; with a corresponding decrease in abstracts that focused merely on substitution. For the level of technology adoption, there was a significant difference ( p ¼ 0.0083) in levels, with a shift to higher levels of integration.Research limitations/implications -A limitation of the study is that it relies on volunteer faculty who were motivated to adopt the mobile learning tools and to share their approaches with colleagues. Thus, the findings show the development and potential of this self-selected group and may not generalize to non-volunteers. Indeed, the findings may generalize in very specific ways at different campuses. In seeking to understand why these faculty volunteered and why specific campuses were represented differently from others, the paper refers to the varying influences of the school context proposed by Clarke and Hollingsworth. The campus context may support or impede professional growth by influencing a faculty member's access to professional development opportunities, by offering incentives to participation, by creating a culture that values experimentation, and by providing supports for applying learning in the classroom. More data are needed in order to document linkages among campus factors and faculty TPACK. Originality/value -This study is entirely original and has not been published elsewhere in whole or in part. Its intent is to guide education organizations in planning faculty development for mobile education programs.
This study applies a comprehensive set of measures to document teaching practice and instructor responses when integrating new mobile technology devices in the classroom. The triangulated measures include a rubric for observing teaching with mobile learning devices in higher education, an interview protocol for capturing faculty levels of mobile learning knowledge, and a survey of faculty understanding and implementation of the adopted four pillars of mobile learning. The pillars were chosen as foundations to guide why, what, where, and how mobile learning technology supports student learning. The authors offer suggestions for collecting data regarding large-scale mobile learning implementation over time with input from a range of stakeholders to capture how they characterize and disseminate pedagogies that are developed in the new learning environment.
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