Contents: In Switzerland’s schools, the education USB drive is widely used in classrooms. With a view to its as yet inadequate technical, digital, general and subject-specific educational standing, this empirical study (2010-2012, financed by the Hasler Foundation, Berne) is to examine the effects of working with the education USB drive (expertise, subject-specific competence, digital competence, social and emotional competence and personal skills). This study is about empirically verifying the effect of the education USB device in teaching. The focus is on a critical examination of the concepts of the 'digital divide', of 'digital gaps', issues that fit the context of inequality of education and equity. The education USB drive functions as a 'live USB' containing a full operating system that can be booted. Its pedagogical and didactical development have rendered it an exemplary learning tool with 'live systems' (live system learning; LSL) within the context of theoretical approaches to electronically supported learning (e-learning) or to mobile learning (m-learning).

Research focus: a) To what extent does implementation of the education USB drive in the classroom enhance the expertise, subject-specific, digital, social and emotional competence and personal skills of students? b) Which educational, didactical, digital and organizational conditions must be met so that students will benefit in the best possible manner from their work with the education USB drive in or outside of the classroom?

Main thesis: The new, straightforward, fast and technically unproblematic application of the education USB drive as a learning tool has a positive effect on the acquisition of competences and opens up innovative didactic and methodological approaches when m-learning is integrated in classroom teaching.

The theoretical framework of this project includes subject-scientific based learning theory, which is centered around a pedagogically underscored learning and achievement concept as well as a moderate constructivist approach influenced by Piaget. The model is also based on 'instructional education' founded on a many-faceted perspective change centered on a wisely chosen external reference. Furthermore, the use of the live USB device is to take place in a classroom atmosphere conducive to furthering a psychologically efficient learning process, in a locality enabling digital acquirement, a locality resembling a life-world. A further theoretical underpinning of this research project (which cross-references school effectiveness research, homework research and parental involvement research) is competency theory, which currently dominates empirical research in teaching.

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