College of Education News

One guiding principle for 21st century learning is to empower students with the skills necessary for working and living in a society where information, media and technology permeate all facets of life.

In accordance with this principle, the College of Education is developing a vision for a Mobile Learning Initiative that would provide faculty and students with access to mobile computing devices and further integrate technology and digital media into the curriculum. "If we're going to continue our excellence in training future teachers, we have to be ahead of the curve when it comes to technology and digital media and how it is impacting the classroom," said Evangeline S. Pianfetti, Assistant Dean of Learning Technologies. In an effort to garner support for the initiative, the College hosted a Mobile Learning Initiative Showcase to demonstrate how technology can be a powerful tool in the classroom.

Apple representative Jason Beckham explained the cutting-edge features of the MacBook Pro while faculty explored clickers, digital microscopes, temperature and force probes, motion detectors, smart pens and others.

"'Clickers' are another name for student response systems," said Lynn Burdick, Learning Technologies Specialist in the College of Education. "They are designed to provide instructors with student feedback during instruction. Students each have a clicker. The instructor asks a question, students enter and send their response, and the software generates a summary of the student responses. Examples of ways to use clickers are to gauge understanding, begin discussions or assess."

Another one of the resources, the "smart pen," features a built-in microphone and camera. Using the pen and special paper, it allows a student to record a lecture while taking notes.

"When the lecture is done," said Burdick, "the student can click back any place in his/her notes to replay what was being said by the instructor at that time in the student's note-taking process. " 

These tech tools tempted all facets of the College community to explore them hands-on. "We had a mixture of tenured faculty, department heads, clinical and adjunct faculty," Pianfetti said. "We also had student advisers come by, so we had a broad range of individuals who impact our teaching and learning here."

While the immediate aim of the initiative is to give faculty access to these technologies, its far-reaching goal is to implant awareness in students about how they can implement technology in their own classrooms after they graduate. Students sometimes have the upper hand when it comes to being tech-savvy, some faculty members say. "It's embarrassing to me when I think about my students having better technology and being better able to use the technology than I am," Associate Professor Rochelle Gutierrez said, adding, "It's an incentive to go and learn about some of the latest technologies so I can build on some of the things that I'm currently doing." Clinical Associate Professor Mary-Alayne Hughes also emphasized the importance of using technology for learning purposes, even if it is something as simple as using clickers to gain feedback from students.

"If we can use technology in our courses with the students, then essentially we're modeling how technology can be used in education," Hughes said. One especially useful niche for technology is with special needs students, said Bernie Laumann, Lecturer in Special Education, adding that teachers are always looking for creative ways to communicate to non-traditional learners.

"We're always trying to expose our students to what's current in the field, and I think the more opportunities they have to use those technologies while they are students, the more likely they are to try them in their own classrooms later," Laumann said. As the initiative moves forward, and faculty showcase these new technologies to future educators, one idea needs to be kept in mind, Pianfetti said.

"Mobile learning is the ability to teach and learn wherever you are," Pianfetti said. "It's knowing that learning is not limited to four walls of the classroom, it happens as an ongoing process."

For more information about the College of Education, contact our Communications Office at 217-244-8335 or email communications@education.illinois.edu