Mobile Learning

If you didn’t believe that mobile phones could be useful tools for students to access information, just look at the amount of press that the use of mobile phones to cheat in exams gets.

But I think the behaviour warrants closer analysis. I wonder if the same mobile, digital techniques that students use to cheat in the exam room could easily be converted into constructive formal and informal methods of learning delivery outside of it. Techniques such as SMS-ing a peer, storing cheat notes in phone memory – and other ingenious methods that educators have surely not yet discovered – are surely a form of just-in-time, just enough, where and when it’s needed ways to store and recover information.

Which might be exactly what we, as educators, would like our students to be able to do – though usually, well before they get to the doors of the exam room…

Part of the reason I mention the possibility of links between ways that students record information for themselves, and methods for teaching and learning, is that some ten years ago, when I was studying Law and Computer Science at ANU, I learned HTML, and applied its use to the creation of hyperlinked notes for my legal subjects. While this was well before I had any understanding of educational design or pedagogy, it was still, at the time, a groundbreaking way to bring notes into the (open book) law exams – almost without exception, every one of my peers in law school still used the old reams-of-paper-with-coloured-sticky-tabs method, or at best, a Microsoft Word document on their laptop. Today, the idea of hyperlinked notes is probably much more commonplace, even in very traditional subjects like Law.

So: how are students, savvy with mobile technology, using mobile devices to help themselves with their learning in the present day?

technorati tags:m-learning, mlearning, mobile-learning, mobilelearning, mobile learning, exams, examinations, cheating, cheats, exam, examination

A mobile service for accessing portable, mobile study notes on demand with a cellphone can provide students with learning content on demand.

Called SparkMobile, it’s a free service available from all MMS-capable mobile phones, doesn’t require users to sign up, and works using search terms to locate and access the most appropriate study guides:

What kinds of search terms can I send to SparkMobile?

Character descriptions (example: send Jay Gatsby)

Key facts about literary works, including…

Author GenreTime/place written Date of publication Publisher Narrator

Characters Point of viewTone Tense Setting (time) Setting (place)

Falling action ThemesProtagonist Major conflict Rising action Climax

Motifs SymbolsForeshadowing

(example: send Gatsby symbols)

I’ll be keeping an eye on this service – it’s an interesting model for on-demand, just-in time learning.

technorati tags:m-learning, sparkmobile, sparknotes, mlearning, mobilelearning, mobile-learning, mobile learning, cellphone, study, education, notes

The 56th Edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists is being hosted this week at Mopocket, and includes my article on the use of product QR Codes in Japan as a model for informal mobile learning.

In addition, there are a number of interesting articles on digital mobility for educators and developers interested in the use of portable digital devices for teaching and learning.

For educators interested in the social and connected aspects of learning theory, a brief article from the SmallDoses blog on “Mobile devices as an extension of social software,” lamenting the reticence of most major web services and mobile operators outside of Japan to embrace the inherent socialness of mobile technologies. From my previous efforts to engage with Australian mobile service operators, I can certainly relate.

If you’re considering delivering mobile learning to young people, consider some of the information presented by the Xellular Identity blog, with its series of posts on youth trends in digital mobility. In particular, there’s couple of interviews with Nick Wright, a Research Associate at Wireless World, and co-author of the mobileYouth report 2006:

• Mobile Youth Trends
• Mobile Services and Youth

Finally, for anyone currently engaged with developing mobile applications for education, take note of this post from the Mobbu blog, written by an active mobile application developer from their experience with developing mobile applications for public sector and enterprise clients, on design principles for mobile software for those users. As a professionally qualified software developer myself, I endorse many of the principles set out in that post as insightful and powerful recommendations.

My fellow edubloggers may also be interested in my preparation for launching a Carnival of the Edublogs early next year (so that the lull of the holidays doesn’t slow the momentum of the event getting going). I’ve already set up a blog for tracking each week’s installment at http://carnival.edublogs.org, and for collaboratively maintaining information on Carnival participation as contributor or a host.

technorati tags:carnival of the mobilists, carnivalofthemobilists, carnival of the edublogs, carnivaloftheedublogs, mobile, mobile-learning, mobilelearning, m-learning, mlearning, education