Case 2. James: Technology-Enhanced Learning and Physical Education

• In Event: Digital Technologies and Learning in Physical Education: Pedagogical Cases

Abstract

Objectives or purposes

This case study uses a fusion of three disciplinary lenses [neuroscience, physical activity promotion and digital humanities] to better understand why ‘ICT is an essential tool in the modern teacher’s repertoire’ and why particular e-pedagogies may enhance pupils’ learning in physical education, such that they are motivated and equipped to be physically active for life.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework

According to Howard-Jones et al (2010, p.21), knowledge of the learning brain must be combined with educational research and expertise ‘if we are to develop technology enhanced learning (TEL) that draws on authentic science […] and is educationally valuable’. While neuroscience focuses on the role of memory in learning, in education, learning is considered be more than just memory and is considered to be a complex social process; i.e. happening between people, rather than just inside their brains (ibid). Future development in TEL may include the following: (a) education will focus more on cognitive processes similar to those studied by neuroscience, (b) cognitive neuroscience using technology-based tasks to study learning and (c) the aims of neuroscientists and TEL researchers may converge in terms of learning ‘tool’ development (ibid, pp. 25-26).

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

Discourse analysis was employed to analyse a teachers’ (James) narrative about TEL. As Bakhtin, 1981, p. 293) argued: ‘All words have the ‘taste’ of a profession, a genre, a tendency, a party, a particular work, a particular person, an age group, the day and hour. Each word tastes of the context and contexts in which it has lived its socially charged life’.

Data sources, evidence, objects or materials

James is a physical education teacher in a rural town in Ireland. He has been teaching PE for fourteen years at Secondary School level in three countries, the UK, Australia and Ireland. He embeds technology in all of his PE classes and uses it to promote learning in PE and extra curricular sport in his school. Given his expertise in the area, he has been delivering PE-CPD in the area of digital technology for the past number of years.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view

Key findings from this case study point the imperative to bridge the divide between digital immigrants and digital natives (Prensky, 2001). The paper highlights four key areas which must be considered when designing effective technology learning communities, namely (a) beliefs (b) experiences (c) resources and (d) community (Johnson, Lucas & Lucas, 2014, p.1905)


Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work

This case study presents a novel approach to understanding the role of TEL in the modern PE class through the eyes of three other disciplines. It affords opportunities to explore how digital immigrants and digital natives become members of unified technology learning community to advance effective teaching and meaningful learning experiences for pupils in physical education.

Author

• Fiona Catherine Chambers, University College Cork