Mobile Devices to Enhance Teaching and Learning in the Classroom: Some More Second Thoughts, Using Activity Theory

Abstract

The focus of this interdisciplinary research is to comprehend the impacts of computing lecturers' deployment of mobile devices in the classroom for teaching and learning. Along this line of thought, the use of activity theory was paramount towards understanding the activity system which three lecturers work within. Their stances were investigated with emphasis on their lengthy years of experiences relating to teaching and learning especially using technology in addition to additional constituents of the activity system of teaching computing to higher education students within a further education college.A qualitative approach was used and the results delineate the existential nature of different ambiguities that posits at the continuum of between and within various components of the activity system. These inconsistencies include the deficiency in reflecting, teamwork, peer communication, the pressure to reduce the existing gap between theory and practice, issues with classroom sizes and the habitus of the classrooms in relation to technology enhanced learning (TEL). Numerous recommendations are put forward to alter the current state of interplay in teaching computing to higher education learners in addition to strategic deployment of mobile devices in the classroom towards fostering the growth of a technology-enhanced classroom.

Keywords: Computing lecturers, mobile devices, mobile learning, m-learning, technology-enhanced classroom, activity system, activity theory, higher education, further education

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-9-15

Publication date:March 31^st 2019