Background: The use or non-use of mobile technologies and social media in residential outdoor adventurous education (OAE) remains contested and generates an often-cited for-and-against argument in both theory and practice. Purpose: This qualitative study explored instructor perceptions of mobile technologies and social media in their practice as…

Many technological applications (apps) purport to help children learn academic material. Building on research in developmental and educational psychology, we developed and tested an app to teach biological and physical science content to preschool children. There were 21 children in the control condition (M[subscript age] = 50.30 months, SD =…

Purpose: Oral language skills provide a critical foundation for formal education and especially for the development of children's literacy (reading and spelling) skills. It is therefore important for teachers to be able to assess children's language skills, especially if they are concerned about their learning. We report the development and…

Early language is important because it provides the foundations for reading, for writing, for social development-- for learning in every subject. Increasingly, research makes the link between early oral language skills and future education progress. Therefore, the growing challenge of children starting school unable to speak in sentences could not…

This paper reports on UK primary school teachers' and children's app developers' views about the potential of using personalized digital resources to promote young children's reading and play with 'smart toys'. Many existing digital resources are 'personalised', that is, the content of a story or game is tailored to an individual child, and the…

Objective: The aim of this study was to establish the utility of a bespoke mobile app for mental health service users and clinicians. Design: Qualitative design using four focus groups. Methods: Work was conducted in three stages. The first stage involved a focus group with mental health service users and eight clinicians from a mental health…

This case study considers a students-as-partners' research project that aimed to develop technologically-driven tools to enhance teaching and learning in higher education. It focuses on how the project enabled student participants to gain real world research skills and experience. We present reflections from both a student and a staff perspective…

Busuu (https://www.busuu.com) is one of several existing Social Networking Sites for Language Learning (SNSLLs). According to Álvarez (2016), it has all the features an SNSLL should have. However, once Busuu migrated to a mobile compatible platform in 2016, it lost some of the social aspects of a Social Networking Site (SNS) determined by Boyd and…

This article reviews the use of mobile technologies within teacher education at the University of Northampton. In order to develop a strong commitment to digital literacy, the School of Education is using sets of teaching iPads with trainee teachers and has allocated an iPad to every member of the academic staff. Experiences from mobile technology…

This study explores children's narratives of their curiosity and imagination through innovative use of an information technology app--Our Story. Novel use of the app allowed children to express and record their opinions they considered significant to them. The research captured children's approaches to everyday situations through their play.…

It has been suggested that few students graduate with the skills required for many ecological careers, as field-based learning is said to be in decline in academic institutions. Here, we asked if mobile technology could improve field-based learning, using ability to identify birds as the study metric. We divided a class of ninety-one undergraduate…

This study investigates the influence of sensory and cognitive affordances on the usability of mobile devices for multimedia language learning applications. An audio-based learning application--the "Vowel Trainer" (audio-based speech app), developed by University College London was chosen, against a comparison, text and picture-based…

A few years ago, the sight of the letters APP would have made teachers in England think of the Assessing Pupils' Progress assessment approach introduced by the government. Now, when they see those same letters they mostly think about smartphone and tablet applications, shortened to "apps." With the thousands of apps available in the…

Mobile Web 2.0 technologies such as: mobile apps, social networking sites and video sharing sites have become essential drivers for shaping daily activities and meeting learning needs in various settings. However, very few studies link mobile Web 2.0 to supporting collaborative learning in real-life problem solving activities in semi-formal…

In 1981, the British government allocated 1.1 million pounds to introduce a trial computer-based learning (CBL) program to the nation's education system. Following a 2-year pilot project, a CBL Unit was formed to build on the success of the initial experiment. The unit coordinator describes this on-going project. (JN)