ital practices may provide uniquely powerful resources around which to organize innova- tive and engaging instructional approaches. Many of the ways students are already


using smartphones and other contemporary mobile computing devices – to take photos, capture video and audio records of events, interact and communicate with peers, con- sume media content, and create artifacts and personal forms of expression such as docu- ments and photo slideshows – correspond to core aspects of disciplinary practice in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. We believe that leveraging these existing


ways learners use digital devices as resources for organizing learning activities represents a particularly powerful approach to sup- porting student learning in STEM content areas.


Study reveals potential A recent study conducted in four Cali-


fornia school districts revealed some inter- esting results about the potential for sup- porting student mathematics learning with tablet computers. In randomized control trials with eighth-grade Algebra classes, stu- dents who used iPads loaded with the HMH Fuse digital textbook app performed about the same as those who used a conventional paper text. One of the four districts, Riverside, did


see significantly higher achievement among students in the experimental group. How- ever, the success of the iPad program at that site may be explained by the fact that both students and teachers reported greater fre- quency of use of their devices than in the other districts. Indeed, in an Op-Ed about the study,


Educated Guess blogger John Fensterwald writes that Riverside’s superintendent at- tributes the success of the program in his district as stemming in part from a greater willingness in their schools to freely permit learners’ personal use of the iPads outside class: “Allow students to download their own applications, including music, and they’ll be more prone to access math videos and use the technology for learning” (TOP- Ed, April 18, 2012). Beneath the surface of these results lurk


deeper questions about the kinds of instruc- tional activity – technology-mediated or not – that engage learners in substantive math- ematical meaning-making. The Khan Acad- emy phenomenon of thousands of freely available online videos illustrating a wide range of topics in the K-12 math curriculum


Modern mobile devices like smart-


phones, tablets and media players include tools to support several distinct forms of activity: 1. capturing and collecting infor- mation and experiences across a variety of settings, through photos, audio and video recordings, numerical and text entry, and


has recently invited a corresponding critique of these resources because the lecture style and the emphasis on mathematical proce- dures rather than concepts simply reinforces the same flawed elements of traditional in- struction that turn so many students off to mathematics in offline environments.


Capitalizing on emerging media Our own aim is not so much to challenge


the use of new technology for old purposes (namely, delivering content to students in print and spoken forms) as to call attention to opportunities, often missed, to capitalize on emerging media for innovative and even transformative educational use. Contemporary handheld and tablet com-


puters are powerful platforms for recreating conventional instructional materials and ac- tivities in digital and mobile form, promis- ing to replace textbooks, desktop computers, and even paper and pen with a single device. But students who have access to them are already using these devices in a much wider range of ways outside instructional settings, which we believe offer additional learning opportunities.


other inputs; 2. communicating and col- laborating with others via phone, text, email and social networks; 3. consuming and critiquing various forms of media includ- ing music, photos, videos, games and text documents; and 4. constructing and creat- ing personal forms of representation and expression such as digital films, photo slide- shows or archives, and blogs or other written reflections. Each of these sets of digital practices


with mobile devices has close analogs with key forms of STEM activity: collecting em- pirical data in a variety of forms, viewing and critically examining arguments and evidence across multiple and diverse media and representational modes, communi- cating STEM ideas or sharing empirical results, and producing representations to model phenomena and to examine relation- ships and patterns (White, Booker, Martin & Ching, 2012). Indeed, we see in these distinct forms of


digital practice the seeds of several central elements of mathematics, science and en- gineering practice highlighted in the Com- mon Core Standards for Mathematical Prac-


November/December 2012 23


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