Implications of the study

For teachers this study suggests that the Tablet PC with its digital inking and associated software can assist the teacher’s insight into student construction of meaning. In doing so the teacher is likely to have a greater insight into student errors in their construction of meaning. With this knowledge teachers can be more accurate and focussed in the corrective feedback that they offer to their students and as such their feedback should be timely, targeted and effective. The outcome should

then be that learning intentions are realised. A clear limitation, however, is the extent to which such feedback can be given. It is likely that time constraints will prevent the teacher from being able to review all students’ recorded work and give feedback, at least in the conventional mode of marking. Were teachers to be more targeted in their feedback to students, such as seeking evidence of

extension and refinement of declarative and procedural knowledge or meaningful application of such knowledge, the marking of student work would be associated more closely to the

understanding of concepts and meaning. If, as Wiliams (2009) asserts, assessment for learning is an effective strategy for improving student learning outcomes, the Tablet PC may be a useful resource to this end.

As such the diagrammatic representation of the original perception of the opportunities offered by the utilisation of the Tablet PC in the classroom has been extended, (and identified), once more from the original:

Figure 11: Growing learning opportunities with computer technology 3

For researchers the study suggests that the opportunities offered by the utilisation of the technology of the Tablet PC and associated software go beyond the usually hoped for opportunity of more efficiently being able to do what has always been done before, without computer technology. Student learning based on pen and paper operates within a context of accessing content that is printed and whose accessibility is restricted in some ways. With computer technology the access to content is far broader and the student product can take an equitable printed format. With Tablet PC

technology the attributes of writing and drawing with pen and paper and the attributes of computer technology are now combined. The options for students are far greater than they were before because the differences between them are incorporated in the Tablet PC technology. The digitisation of writing and drawing is a differential which then gives rise to the question, at one level, of whether writing is an advantage to typing, or at another level whether writing and drawing and typing is an advantage over the former option. That writing enables the student to utilise such options in a more individualised and freeform way than typing, was illustrated by one response that made reference to increasing or shrinking the size of writing and drawings/tables and to be able to create room or emphasise something, as being easier with the pen.

This general idea is illustrated below:

Figure 12: The relative opportunities for learning offered by Pen and Paper, Notebook and Tablet PC technologies

Another element that has interesting implications for research is the opportunity provided by the software component of the Tablet PC and its digital inking capacity, is the ability to record and replay student typed and written and drawn work. This enables the teacher to watch how the students constructed meaning in the context of the work product. As the record of work created has a time dimension to it, the speed at which work is created is observable and this allows for

observations of hesitation; alteration; erasure and replacement, all of which add additional insights into the student’s creation of work. These insights are in addition to a record of how the work was constructed. Whether such insights give indications of confidence, hesitancy, certainty and uncertainty, are points that could be explored through further research into the use of this technology.

In the discussion it is suggested that the Tablet PC could well be a useful resource in the context of assessment for learning and that its utilisation might provide more insightful data for this purpose. Knowing that students are constructing knowledge as a consequence of the planned learning intentions is the aim of assessment for learning. Knowing with greater insight how students are constructing their knowledge and the errors which lead to an erroneous construction of this meaning is taking this insight to a higher level.

The following questions emerge from this study:

1. Does Tablet PC technology offer a means, a how, to identify, or be made aware of, such obstructions to a successful construction of meaning which, once discovered/identified in this way, can then be acted upon?

2. Does the ability to track student thinking processes as expressed in the context of capturing their own written record of their formulation of a construction of meaning, inform teachers better on the errors of thinking that students are making in their construction of meaning? Does such insight accessed in this way provide teachers with more insightful evidence upon which to correct errors in the construction of meaning?

3. Does the Tablet PC provide teachers with evidence of student learning in a format which was not available previously to them, and if so, does such evidence enable teachers to give feedback more effectively, efficiently and expediently to students?

4. Might such interventions by teachers with students have previously been limited by the lack of evidence of this nature and the means to communicate and consequently feedback to students more expediently?

Further research in the area of comparing data that the Tablet PC can capture with the data captured by assessment for learning strategies based on the criteria of providing new insights into student acquisition of learning intentions would provide most of the answers to these questions.