A Practical Guide to the Benefits & Barriers to Mobile Technology Integration In Social Studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-61
Author(s):  
Stewart Waters ◽  
Matt Hensley

Mobile technology continues to change and evolve the way people and society function in their everyday lives. Much like the phenomenon that was the Internet 20 years ago, educators now find themselves facing increasing pressure to adapt classroom instruction to accommodate for new and emerging technologies. This article offers practical considerations from our own classroom experiences surrounding the benefits and barriers of incorporating mobile technology in social studies instruction. We provide readers with a rationale for the use of mobile technology in social studies classrooms, as well as general lists of benefits and barriers to using this technology in the classroom to hopefully assist educators in overcoming common fears associated with the use of mobile technology in the classroom.

Author(s):  
Jimmy Barnes

Today’s educators must deal with a tremendous gap between how students live and how they learn. While technology is a vital part of most students’ lives, their schools frequently fall critically behind in utilizing these emerging technologies for educational purposes. As new technologies become available, educators have tried with varying degrees of success to incorporate these technologies into the curriculum. Individual computers in classrooms were tried first and while they have shown themselves to be beneficial in the classroom, their applications are limited. Computer labs have also proved to be problematic in terms of cost and their availability is limited by scheduling issues. Laptop computers have addressed a number of the problems associated with desktop computers, but there are still many issues which limit their effectiveness. Mobile handheld technology is the latest evolution of personal computing and it has demonstrated that these new devices have the power to transition occasional, supplemental use of computers for instruction to more frequent use allowing educators to make them an integral part of the curriculum.


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-167
Author(s):  
Jim McDonnell

This paper is a first attempt to explore how a theology of communication might best integrate and develop reflection on the Internet and the problematic area of the so-called “information society.” It examines the way in which official Church documents on communications have attempted to deal with these issues and proposes elements for a broader framework including “media ecology,” information ethics and more active engagement with the broader social and policy debates.


Economies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milos Maryska ◽  
Petr Doucek ◽  
Lea Nedomova ◽  
Pavel Sladek

2009 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 817-833 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIAM KENNEDY

AbstractThis article focuses on the production and dissemination of photographic images by serving US soldiers in Iraq who are photographing their experiences and posting them on the Internet. This form of visual communication – in real time and communal – is new in the representation of warfare; in earlier wars soldiers took photographs, but these were not immediately shared in the way websites can disseminate images globally. This digital generation of soldiers exist in a new relationship to their experience of war; they are now potential witnesses and sources within the documentation of events, not just the imaged actors – a blurring of roles that reflects the correlations of revolutions in military and media affairs. This photography documents the everyday experiences of the soldiers and its historical significance may reside less in the controversial or revelatory images but in more mundane documentation of the environments, activities and feelings of American soldiery at war.


Author(s):  
Alberto Cardoso ◽  
Maria Teresa Restivo ◽  
Hélia Guerra ◽  
Luís Brito Palma

The Internet of Everything is an interdisciplinary concept that involves technology, applications and people in a framework where emerging technologies can give a relevant contribute in education and in different application areas, namely in the scope of the interactive mobile technologies. This Special Issue collects a set of contributions to this topic resulting from the works presented in the Experiment@ International Workshop 2016 “The Emerging Technologies on the Internet of Everything” – ETIoE’16, held at University of the Azores (Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal). These articles comprise different perspectives in this field from research work and application development to case studies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh DeSantis ◽  
Ryan Boyd ◽  
Kyle Marks ◽  
Jake Putsch ◽  
Terrance Shepler

Purpose Successful technology integration into the teaching of social studies is imperative in the twenty-first century classroom. This study sought to answer the following questions: do synchronous and asynchronous technology integration increase a student’s understanding of social studies content? Are synchronous technology-integrated social studies lessons more effective than asynchronous technology-integrated social studies lessons? How do students perceive the effectiveness of a synchronous technology-integrated lesson vs the effectiveness of an asynchronous technology-integrated lesson? The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents the results of a quasi-experimental research project comparing the learning outcomes of students who participated in synchronous and asynchronous technology-augmented lessons. Findings The results of this study found that synchronous and asynchronous technology-enhanced lessons are both viable pedagogies for increasing a student’s understanding of social studies content. The results also yielded no statistical significance between the effectiveness of the synchronous instruction vs asynchronous instruction. However, a statistical significance exists when analyzing a student’s perception of their own learning. Students participating in synchronous technology-integrated instruction reported a higher confidence in the lesson’s ability to teach them, when compared to that of the asynchronous population. Originality/value By continuing to seek new ways to integrate technology effectively into classrooms, social studies teachers can design lessons more effectively to meet the needs of today’s social studies students. The need to understand the learning outcomes of various technology-integrated approaches will continue to grow as more technologies become available to social studies teachers.


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