Held-by-hand learners: A survey of technologies to support positive behaviours of Higher Education students today

Computing and information technology in general have been traditionally used in higher education in a somewhat limited way, using fairly static configurations (e.g. fixed equipment, fixed location, fixed access times). However, at present there is a widespread adoption of sensor-loaded, powerful, mobile devices, which have the potential to overcome technological limitations in traditional education. Furthermore, for the majority of current university students there is a high degree of digital literacy, therefore the adoption of mobile technology to facilitate their learning is an interesting proposition. Such a technology can enable greater access to learning resources as well as a greater understanding of student behaviour. Achieving such an understanding could be used to help students, by prompting them into adopting behaviours identified as likely to increase their chances of academic success. This paper explores the state of the art in context-aware technologies and their existing use in education, and discusses directions of study for behavioural interventions to higher education students using learning analytics on data gathered by these technologies.