Reflective narration: Impact of Observing Young children’s use of iPad on Lecturers’ Teaching Approaches in Higher education

Abstract

People engage in learning to produce knowledge, and learning can be undertaken outside learning institutions, involving interaction between different people among social communities. Learning can happen both publically and privately through reflection time. Likewise, education cannot always be conducted within certain hours or certain places. It can happen anytime, with anyone within any culture. This paper highlights the perceptions and experience of two higher education lecturers in teacher education, following observations of pedagogical practices and philosophies of two young children playing with an iPad. Acknowledging the importance of reflective practice in teaching, we use reflective narration to illustrate the influence of our observations of young children's playing with this technology (an iPad) upon our own teaching approaches in higher education settings. Following this we outline several future research interests into use of gestural interface technology in teaching strategies. Lecturers in higher education, particularly educators in information technologies and early childhood education, may find this paper interesting as a stimulus to their own reflection that might improve their own teaching outcomes.