Interacting Through New Computing Devices Anytime, Anywhere
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
We use the acronym WILD to refer to Wireless Interactive Learning Devices. WILD are powerful and small hand-held networked computing devices. The smallest hand-held computers fit in one hand easily. The user interacts with the device either by touching the screen with a pen-shaped stylus, or by typing with both thumbs on a small keyboard known as a thumb-pad keyboard. The largest are the size of a paperback book and have a keyboard that is large enough to type on with all ten fingers. Their low price point and high usability have captured the imaginations of educators and learning scientists. The promise of harnessing computing where every student has his or her own computer, and where they are available everyday, anytime, anywhere – for equitable, personal, effective, and engaging learning – give WILD a greater transformative potential than desktop computers.
This chapter provides an account of the learning, education, social, policy, and technical contexts for these developments. We begin by establishing these contexts, and then survey available research on and commercial applications of WILD computing. We focus on efforts where the “technology in the WILD” is being used to bring learners into activities previously unreachable – whether because of administrative, time, financial, demographic, previous knowledge, accessibility, or academic constraints. We emphasize the unique features that WILD add to classroom dynamics and to learning in the world, both in formal and informal contexts. In closing, we review the technical convergences and societal trends in WILD computing that will shape this field.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.