As an assistant professor at a large public university, I stupidly never questioned the technological capacity of my students. I made the mistake of assuming they were always digitally connected and thriving online. I certaintly desired ways to harness the capability of technology to create ubiquitous learning: learning anywhere at anytime. I personally love the way that I can use my devices as cognitive prosthesis to make "just in time" connections, I enjoyed the closeness I developed with peers in my own distance learning cohorts for my doctoral degree, and loved the freedom of being in collaborative workspaces (although 20 year of independent practice as an occupational therapist have made me a bit of a lone wolf in the creativity department, but that's a story for another time). 

When the coronavirus health emergency hit, I was proud of the fact that I already was using the Blackboard Learn environment to augment the in classroom teaching component, and my teaching partner and I were able to quickly scale the class to be completely online for asynchronous and asynchronous learning. What I discovered was sobering: many of the students did not have internet at home, did not have devices capable of video interactivity, and students did not have a "space" at home to be engaged in school work. 

This situation was replicated across the university. Students were parking in front of hotels and Starbucks and university buildings to get a wireless signal. The students in our class grew mentally fatiqued, stress, and resistent to "learning". 

This situation is what drove me toward the class of e-learning ecologies. But I also see an emergency need for students to have ready access to capable technology to take part in the promise of ubiquitous learning. This digital divide could grow even larger over the course of the crisis. Students are having to work at jobs, raise families, and practice social distancing. In a study by Moore, Vitale, and Stawinoga (2018), secondary education student lag in access to devices, internet and internet connection stability, and the availability of devices for performing assignments. 

But another aspect of the issue of ubiquitous learning is the readiness of institutions and students to partake in the affordances even if the access to reliable internet and devices were solved problems, including the limited ability of some devices like mobile phones to create input (i.e. creating long passages of text). Alhassan (2016) details such attitudinal and technological barriers. Alhassan's study demonstrates that although students have an enthusiasm for ubiqitous learning (using mobile devices for class work), the support for using the devices tails off as use of technology becomes mandated as part of class. So it seems, students certainly want options of how they want to participate, but desire multiple degrees of freedom in what ways they choose to participate in the pedagogy, rather than it be the choice of the institution or professor. And sadly, even with evidenced technological competence and confidence in using devices, students could not make the cognitive link to how it could be used in their learning institution (conceptualize the use).

Certainly, as Kalantzis and Cope (2020) have noted, the technology is not pedagogy in and of itself, and also true is the way technology provides affordances for how pedagogy is delivered...but technology is not an affordance if those who need it to access the pedagogical content cannot get to it and take advantage of ubiquitous learning affordances. 

While the promises of ubiquitous learning are tremendous, and I am excited by them. The excitement is tempered by knowing my enactment of e-learning strategies, for example, being able to have collaborative learning where students can co-create artifacts of learning; of ePortfolios where students can curate products and creations of learning- can create additional tensions within the learning community. Yet, the same old, same old lecture passive learner paradigm is worse in my estimation. 

So, a limiting parameter of implementing e-learning depends on the extent to which we can "wire" our students, peers, and colleagues with the necessary technologies. It is difficult to talk some peers and colleagues into making upgrades to our classroom technology: mediasite, on demand video, microphones, smart boards much less to upgrade their technological competence. I'm looking forward to feedback...and encouragement. 

References: 

Alhassan, R. (2016). Mobile Learning as a Method of Ubiquitous Learning: Students’ Attitudes, Readiness, and Possible Barriers to Implementation in Higher Education, Journal of Education and Learning,5(1). Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1097795.pdf

Moore, Vitale, & Stawinoga (August 2018). The digital divide and edicational equity. Insights in Education and Wrok. Retrieved from https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/R1698-digital-divide-2018-08.pdf

Kalantzis & Cope (2020). Technology in learning. Works and Days website.  Retrieved from: https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-11-technology-in-learning

illustration of digital devices