Wireless Environments for Teaching and Learning
Research Framework
Arnold Pears, Mats Daniels, Per Gunningberg
and Christian Tschudin
Uppsala University
Background
The research is to be carried out in the context of the Swedish Learning
Laboratory programme (Swe-LL) for Distributed Learning Spaces (DILS),
tracks 1 and 2.
The overall framework for Swe-LL defines tracks which address
"Local learning" (Track 1) and "Distributed Teams and Groups"
(Track 2). The overarching objective being to encompass projects that
investigate aspects of learning and the provision of and implications
of new environments for learning.
Within this framework this investigation develops a pilot project
to investigate the impact of a wireless network environment on
teaching and learning. The study will attempt to identify and quantify
important teaching and learning issues that arise from
access to, and training with, a wireless network technology.
In the pilot stage (Summer 2000) the project identifies
key issues for further studies to enhance and complement
existing programmes in learning spaces, and wireless learning
at KTH (Stockholm), and Stanford University(USA) providing a solid foundation
for collaboration and research exchanges in the future.
Stages 2 and 3 are projected for course offerings in Summer 2001 and 2002,
with the objective of focussing on a range of issues, and hypotheses
proposed and refined in the pilot study.
The stage 2 and 3 investigations focus on the areas identified
in the pilot, and also attempt to identify context independent features
related to the use of wireless learning spaces. This is achieved by
coordinating research over several similar courses at the collaborating
institutes.
The remainder of this document outlines the experimental hypotheses
and provides an overview of the projected programme of research.
Hypothesis
The provision of a wireless learning and teaching environment enhances
opportunities for both formal and informal communication and group activity.
This enhancement in connectivity will result in changes to learning
and collaboration patterns for students. Changes in
teaching practice can also be observed and quantified.
Key Features
- Expectations of Teachers and Students.
- Learning Behaviours, such as
- ad hoc grouping behaviour
- mind swarming (online collaborative brainstorming)
- productivity/efficiency
- spontaneous communication in a wide range of settings
- spontaneous group formation
- peer/vicarious learning.
- customization of spaces.
- Psychological Issues
- cognitive overhead of adapting to wireless communication
- user friendliness of new tools
- perceptions of cost effectiveness.
- Technical Issues, such as
- connectivity/availability
- traffic loads
- administration overhead (cf standard infrastructure)
- reliability/fault tolerance?
The process of extending learning modes through wireless communication
allows students to engage in new modes of activity, for example
- Wide scale, location independent, peer learning
- Dynamic tailoring of learning spaces to communication/learning
requirements.
- Online work outside the traditional programming laboratory
environment.
- Location independent use of network
services, such as email, WWW, games, etc.
- Online note taking in lectures
- Exchange of electronic notes with peers
Specific Research Context
The project is a collaborative effort
between KTH(Stockholm) and Uppsala University(Uppsala).
The teaching context is Senior Level classes in Computer Networking
at both institutes.
Students in both courses have a good background in computer
science topics, and are familiar with existing Internet technologies.
They have all received a course in computer networking, and
have a basic understanding of networking principles and
protocols.
Course content at Uppsala covers education in
wireless networking protocols and techniques, and
the configuration and use of wireless network technology,
since each student is issued with a wireless LAN card, and
base
stations have been installed throughout the building.
Two research ares are envisaged.
- Technical education and hands-on experience with
installation and configuration of wireless technology
and ad hoc networking techniques.
[Per Gunningberg, Christian Tschudin, Arnold Pears]
- Evaluation of the provision of wireless technology
on teaching and learning practices. This research
will address both teaching and student participants
in the course.
[Arnold Pears, Mats Daniels, Per Gunningberg, Anders Berglund]
Collaboration with a programme in wireless communication
for computer networking at KTH provides the ability to conduct
parallel investigations and validate research outcomes by cross correlation.
We propose to use this collaboration and the resulting preliminary
observations to prioritize and set research objectives for
follow up projects in 2001 and 2002. Since the current course
is in the 3rd year of a 4 year programme, this project has the
potential to follow a single group of students over an extended
period in order to observe how their use of wireless technology
evolves.
Provisional Project Overview
Local Study (Track 1)
The local study section of the project investigates the
effects of providing wireless networking on student study
and learning activities.
Experiment 1:
This experiment measures the activity of two student
groups working on a similar research and collaboration
based class exercise.
Group 1 (control) are not provided with access to wireless
networking and are asked to solve the team problem using
existing technological infrastructure and group study techniques.
Group 2 (experimental) are provided with wireless networking
and access to class peers with information about new tools for
collaboration in a wireless setting. This team are asked to
solve a problem of the same complexity as Group 1 using
any communication tools, including those provided by wireless
networking.
Experiment 2:
Measuring peer level interactions using spontaneous communication
over wireless networks. The frequency and types of use of
wireless network interaction will be collected for groups of students
working on two different projects.
The project topics are irrelevant to this investigation.
Distributed teams/groups (Track 2)
The distributed group work investigation
addresses collaborations and peer learning
between teams of students in the
network courses at Uppsala and KTH.
Students will be told that they have peers who
are taking a similar course at the other institute, and
encouraged to collaborate.
By establishing a link between these course instances
we intend to observe observe development of peer learning
activity between students on both an inter and intra institutional level.
This will provide a framework for reasoning about the
generalization of pedagogic research conclusions
about the effects of wireless networking on teaching
and learning modes and environments.
Timescale, and Outcomes
Pilot project 8 weeks in Spring/Summer 2000.
- establish infrastructure,
- establish collaborative didactic relationship with KTH and Stanford,
- collect qualitative data (expectations of staff and students),
- establish qualitative measures and intention of those measures,
- establish the methods for collecting quantitative data,
- establish collaborative framework with KTH,
- validate and extend experimental framework and hypotheses.
- The pilot study aims to deliver two reports
- Impact of Wireless Learning Environments
- Peer Learning in Wireless Environments
Full Scale Project(s) Autumn/Winter 2000 to Summer 2001.
- large scale collaborative project work,
- collection of production data designed to validate
the detailed hypotheses produced as an outcome of the
pilot project in Spring/Summer 2000,
- analysis of qualitative and quantitative data,
- correllation of data between KTH and UU,
- preliminary conclusions on hypotheses.
Followup Studies and Retrospective Autumn/Winter 2001 to Summer 2002
- investigate open issues,
- design additional data collection experiments if required,
- finalize analysis of data,
- final report.