Ways of experiencing technology in a smart learning environment

Abstract

This paper discusses ways of experiencing digital technology and digital interactions in ‘smart learning journey’ activities. Smart learning journeys can be considered as ad-hoc smart learning environments outside in the real world, offering a wide range of opportunity for empowering local populace engagement in issues relevant to a neighbourhood area. Activities may often be associated with urban citizen communities, enhancing quality of life and lifelong learning in urban digitally connected ‘hyperlocal’ spaces. Activities discussed in this paper used freely available smartphone apps and consisted of a series of digitally augmented real-world local features that together formed a journey of points of interest related by topic. Research discussed in this paper investigated how people experienced ‘Technology’ as one of four conceptualised system elements of a smart learning journey activity, the others being Place, Knowledge and Collaboration. Utilising the methodology of phenomenography and analysing participant semi-structured responsive interviews with a structure of awareness analytical framework approach, four categories of Technology experience variation emerged. These were Easy, Helper, Novel and Problematic. These categories were formed by noting the commonality and variation across all interviews at collective level, while retaining the individual participant context. This paper reflects on these categories of experience variation, positioning discussion in further context of the socio-cultural technological, ‘post digital’ world that smart learners may find themselves in future urban smart learning environments.