Amplifications of learning

Smart mobile devices like the iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire, and iPad have energized educators’ interest in using mobile media for education. Applications from clickers to games to augmented reality game creation software are thriving in research settings, and in some cases schools, but relatively little is known about how youth use such devices for learning outside of school. This research study seeks to add to the research literature detailing the technological affordances of such devices by using a Social Construction of Technology (or SCOT) approach, to see how one user group – adolescents – construct the technology particularly in regards to learning. It employs a design intervention approach in which we gave fully operational iPhones with unlimited data plans to three cohorts of youth to use throughout the day. Participants included homeschooled students, students enrolled in alternative schools, and students at a conventional American high school. Participants strongly valued these devices for learning, and constructed them as personalized devices for amplifying learning, specifically through amplifying access to information, social networks, and ability to participate in the world. Access to mobile devices was deeply tied to personal power for these youth, as they were able to function more effectively to meet their goals with employers, teachers, and peers. Although they destabilized relationships, they caused almost no friction, and instead, parents, teachers, and peers reported valuing how youth could participate more fully in the world. The article concludes with implications for how educators and software designers might best capitalize on these social affordances when designing for mobile-enabled classrooms.