Situated learning

The situated learning approach (Brown et al., 1989; Lave and Wenger, 1991) has been the umbrella term under which the importance of meaningful learning in authentic environments has been emphasised over the past 20 years or so. It is easy to see why this approach has seemed so relevant to mobile learning: portable technologies and networks can take learning out of the classroom and into the situated environments in ways that only ten years ago would have seemed infeasible or even impossible.

Theorists such as Bereiter (2002) and Dede et al. (2005) have called for classroom activities to better reflect the complexities of contemporary, 21st century work and living. Students require new sets of skills for the modern day Ôinformation economyÕ, and traditional classrooms are poor at teaching these new skills (Rosenbaum et al., 2007). Lave and WengerÕs original conceptualisation of situated learning was of communities of practice centred on real problems (Lave and Wenger, 1991), but this perspective has been picked up and transformed into providing students with exploratory spaces where they can participate in safer versions of reality that allow investigations of the core learning concepts (Barab and Duffy, 2000).

Situated learning can be viewed very much as complementary to the experiential learning perspective described above, emphasising as it does the role of exploratory spaces and practical activities to enhance the learning process. As such, situated learning is similarly cited as the basis for mobile learning research, albeit for projects that focus more on the implementation of authentic activities rather than innovative learning practice (as tends to be the case for those citing experiential learning as their theoretical basis).

Recent examples of the use of mobile technologies to enable learning activities based on the situated paradigm include Pfeiffer et al. (2009) who describe an activity supported by portable technology to enhance biology learning in the field. Their

paper notes the perceived gap between formal, school-based learning and real-life problem solving, as described by Resnick (1987). The school setting emphasises individual, subject-bound activities, decontextualised from the topic being taught, whereas in real life collaboration with others and direct, contextual interaction with the environment is often required to solve problems. This has led some to note that knowledge acquired in a school setting may be ÔinertÕ and may not be transferred to real-world problems (Bransford et al., 1987). Mobile devices are seen as a highly effective way of enabling real-world learning activities that can lead to highly efficient learning, by providing the means for learners to carry knowledge from the classroom into the real-world (Falk and Dierking, 2000) and thus bridging the gap between the classroom and the real-life learning situation (Naismith et al., 2004; Vavoula et al., 2009) and more generally reducing the disconnect between informal learning and classroom education (Sharples, 2007).

Other significant projects, such as the HandLer prototype developed at the University of Birmingham (Sharples et al., 2002) and the MyArtSpace project (Vavoula et al., 2009) have also drawn on situated learning theories to inform system design, and this perspective on learning remains important (as noted in Roschelle, 2003; Naismith et

al., 2004; Frohberg et al., 2009) as researchers and educators explore new ways of

taking learning out of the classroom and into the field using mobile technologies.

2.4.3.4 Reflection

As well as over-arching learning approaches, it is important to explore particular aspects of learning that are relevant to developing situated, experiential learning activities. As has been noted by several researchers, reflection is a key component to learning from experience. For example, Ackerman (1996) asserts that reflection Ð stepping back from an experience and inspecting it Ð is essential in order to learn from that experience. Thus, enabling reflection should be a key part of designing a learning activity that is experiential in nature. Reflection can be considered to be an essential

component in developing skills that help the learner in regulating their own learning processes (Bransford et al., 2000) Ð skills which are known as meta-cognitive skills.

Dewey (1910) defined reflection as "Active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support, and further conclusions to which it tends" (p6). Dewey used this term to describe a model of deductive reasoning, i.e. reflecting on new and existing knowledge to apply it to the current situation. A more contemporary view comes from Schšn (1983) who uses the term in a different way, describing thought processes ongoing in the present. Schšn (1983) uses the term Òreflection on actionÓ to refer to what we more commonly think of as reflection today: introspective thought such as reflecting on our behaviour. Reflection, which is commonly discussed within the context of teaching, can be viewed as a form of debriefing, a discussion of recent events and activities so that they may be learned from and enable further learning.

The challenge of supporting reflection is related to supporting engagement Ð the two processes need to occur in order to give rise to a flow state (Czikszentmihalyi, 1990) that allows learners to remain motivated but also to be able to Ôstep backÕ from their activities and reflect on them (Ackermann, 1996). By managing this process, we can help students learn through a process of knowledge building (cf. Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2003), rather than just knowledge acquisition.

Prensky refers to an implicit assumption that games do not naturally provide opportunities for reflective learning, and this has to be designed in (Prensky, 2001). There are examples of designers going to great lengths to include structured reflective activities to get the most out of off-the-shelf games (for example Squire, 2004).

However, learning Ð if not specifically reflection Ð is increasingly considered to be an inherent component of gameplay and hence commercial game design (for example Gee, 2003). This does not mean that commercial games designers have recently

decided to start including learning as part of their designs, rather that learning has always been an inherent quality of digital game play, and the very process of discovering how to play a game requires and engenders learning (Crawford, 1982). For a game to be fun, it must have just the right amount of challenge (Malone, 1980; McFarlane et al., 2002) and hence game designers must pay attention to the Ôlearning curvesÕ within their games, ensuring that they are neither too hard nor too easy to learn to play (Habgood and Overmars, 2006). To make effective use of games to promote reflection, we also need to consider the nature of the reflection that occurs. Players may reflect simply on their actions in order to learn to play the game, or they may be prompted to reflect on associated aspects so that they learn through the game.

So the issue of whether games inherently foster reflection (and of what type) by virtue of requiring learning in order to play them remains an open one. However, there remains a burgeoning interest in the use of games for learning, and open acknowledgement of the motivation, engagement, and structure that they can bring to childrenÕs activities.