Apps and learning: A sociocultural perspective
Publication details
| Year: | 2017 |
| Issued: | 2017 |
| Language: | English |
| Start Page: | 3 |
| End Page: | 13 |
| Editors: | Kucirkova N; Falloon G |
| Authors: | Säljö R. |
| Type: | Book chapter |
| Book title: | Apps, technology and younger learners: International evidence for teaching |
| Publisher: | Routledge |
| Place: | London, UK |
| Topics: | Learning; Internet usage, practices and engagement; Literacy and skills |
| Sample: | The book is an historical account backgrounding the uniqueness of humankind’s ability to develop symbolic technological tools and systems designed to enhance and extend thinking and learning processes. It uses scholarly sources (research literature). |
| Implications For Educators About: | Other |
| Implications For Policy Makers About: | Other |
| Other PolicyMaker Implication: | Mobile devices and apps in education systems |
| Implications For Stakeholders About: | Researchers |
Abstract
In a short period, apps have become part of our lives in activities such as shopping, banking, gaming and social networking. Apps are essential elements of contemporary lifestyles relying on increasingly portable devices, screen) serve as sites where children at an early age learn to engage in symbol manipulation, and they provide entry points to digital literacy practices. In the chapter, the uses of apps in educational settings are discussed. The develop ment of apps for instructional purposes is intense. many areas, and they are also significant in the sense that children come to school with media habits contingent on extensive use of such tools. But to play a productive role for teaching and learning, apps (and other digital tools) have to be integrated into well designed instructional activities relevant to curricular goals.
Outcome
"Roger outlines how these devices, which have become so seamlessly integrated into virtually every aspect of our lives, offer unrivalled potential to support learning across ages, cultures and places. However, as history has signalled in the past, Roger warns that mobile devices and apps face an uphill battle to make any real impact on education systems, which are increasingly being subjected to ideological whims that push them backwards towards compliant, standardised models of learning and assessment." (Editors' introduction to the book, Part 1: Understanding the learning
potential of children’s apps, 1)