Mobile Learning

Thanks to my colleague Marg, who pointed me in the direction of this peer-reviewed paper, “The new mobile scholar and effective use of ICT” (Bills, Holliman et al. 2006):

ABSTRACT: Our goal in this article is to understand how scholars — who need to collect, organize, analyze, and present large amounts of information in a short period of time — can use mobile information and communication technology (ICT) to work more efficiently and effectively. We argue that wireless fidelity (wi–fi) and universal serial bus (USB) technologies have made it possible for social scientists to work more productively outside of their own offices, but that many lack the kinds of practical knowledge needed to do so. We discuss ways in which understanding and using some basic and generally inexpensive ICT devices can help the “new mobile scholar” take full advantage of emerging ICTs.

A number of mobile learning activities can be extrapolated from this detailed and interesting article on scholarly mobility.

technorati tags:research, mobile, mobilelearning, mobile-learning, m-learning, mlearning, scholarly, ict, scholar

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From 1010Wins:

CUNY’s Baruch College has started a service that allows students to easily access class information such as homework assignments and campus computer lab availability over the phone. The service also lets students participate in surveys, start telephonic class discussions, arrange study groups or receive alerts from the college.

This sounds very similar to the kinds of tools that campus e-learning systems initially employed when got off the ground in the mid 90’s. Given the rapid deployment of e-learning systems over the past decade, and the other parallels between e- and m- learning, I’d anticipate fully integrated, commercial online and mobile learning environments within the next few years…

technorati tags:m-learning, mobilelearning, mobile-learning, mlearning, baruch, cellphone

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From the fantastic Mobile Life blog, a couple of reports on mobile phone use.  In particular, Nicky Shaw’s presentation on “Mobile Phone Use – a Social Network Perspective” may be of interest to educators:

“This presentation describes an investigation of student networks in
first year management and medical students for peer-learning and
socialisation. The use of different communication media (from face to
face, to internet live web-chats) is contrasted.”

Social interactions are examined via cumulative statistics as well as directed graphs to model interactions in various learning modes (providing useful visual comparisons between face-to-face and mobile learning, for example).

technorati tags:pedagogy, cellphone, mobilephone, mobile, m-learning, research, mlearning, mobile-learning, mobilelearning, nickyshaw, socialnetwork

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The Mobile Musings blog reflects on how to share your PDA interface with a larger audience, using software that “mirrors” your PDA on your PC screen so it can be projected on a big screen.

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In this case, their preferred option is to use Handshare for Palm, or Pocket Controller for Windows Mobile.  For the latter, I personally use Remote Display Control, a Microsoft freebie from their Powertoys collection… although it’s not as flash as those skinnable commercial ones.

technorati tags:pda, emulation, mirroring, display, projecting, palm, pocketpc, ppc, windowsmobile, handshare, pocketcontroller, cerdisp, m-learning, mlearning, mobilelearning, mobile-learning

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From jnxyz’s blog, a nicely edited YouTube vidcast of Palm Z22’s – relatively simple Palm-based PDAs – being used as a learning tool with primary-age children, with examples of actual use, input methods, and more.

I like the idea of games being used to practice using the stylus, and the polls and quizzes are quite cool. Thanks for the insight into your m-learning, jnxyz…

technorati tags:pda, palm, z22, palmz22, m-learning, mlearning, mobile-learning, mobilelearning

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