Mobile Learning

I’ll presenting a series of posts over the next week when I look at specific issues explored at mLearn 2007. However, to begin with, here are my overall impressions of the conference!

The range and quality of contributions was superb. Not that they were entirely consistent – in a conference such as this one, there are bound to be varying, and, indeed, conflicting points of view as to the “big issues” as well as the “grand solutions”. But what a gathering such as this achieves, in this respect, is the opportunity to see these varying perspectives presented side by side, to ask questions and engage in conversations, and to distill one’s own opinions.

In this respect, a couple of presentations stood out for me. One was Angela McFarlane’s keynote, the first presentation of the conference, which provided wonderful, in-depth perspectives on m-learning practice, with memorable and entertaining examples such as Erin, who was able to create a process – by herself – for finding out the meaning of the word “immature,” or the two high-school boys asked to “sketch a graph” and attempting to do it on a PDA… using Excel!!!!! (And, of course, failing dismally after 20 minutes, when they could probably have done it on paper in about 2 seconds).

The next was Professor Mike Sharples’ presentation on MyArtSpace, a project utilising mobile devices in informal learning museum or gallery settings. This was the first of several presentations on how mobile devices can significantly improve engagement and outcomes in such visits, and having followed Sharples’ work closely for a number of years, it was terrific to hear him speak about this work in person. This presentation made me much more attuned during subsequent presentations on the use of mobile devices in gallery and museum settings, and I’d very much like to work with some of Canberra’s (excellent) public exhibitions to try out some of the approaches shared during the conference.

There was, however, so much more than the presentations which afforded opportunities to learn. The informal conversations during breaks, social gatherings, and “downtimes” were equally valuable. Sue Waters and I managed to get a personal tour of the iPhone from Gavin Cooney, CEO of Learnosity – finally, from an m-learning perspective! – which we’ll both be presenting as videos in our respective blogs over the coming week. And I was privileged to meet several terrific practitioners, such as Megan Iemma (an Apple Distinguished Educator), who was passionate about the use of iPods to support music teaching, and also shared some terrific cooking tips!

I finally got to meet both Good and Evil Sue, both of whom I’ve only previously known online, and it was reassuring – or should that be, um, disconcerting – to learn that they are every bit as larger-than-life in person as they are online. Good Sue (Waters) and I were often engaged in heated debate over the issues and themes that came up during the conference – everything from instructionist vs constructivist pedagogies in m-learning, to Twittering vs blogging, to the use of bullet points in PowerPoint presentations, and everything in between. Thank you Sue!

Finally, the conference itself was wonderfully organised. Everything ran on time, the one and only technical glitch happened in the dying *minutes* of the conference (with a video), and the conference dinner at the Aquarium will be remembered as the *best* conference dinner I have ever attended. I can’t imagine a more picturesque setting than beside the aquarium’s massive foyer tank, with a view over the Yarra to the fire art installation that flares up from time to time, and the food was delicious (and without any sushi in sight to make us feel guilty in the presence of so many fish). I will also never forget the sight of my colleagues – most of whom I have only ever known in rather more austere settings – getting down and boogying on the dance floor to the sounds of the live jazz band!

I feel privileged to have attended such a brilliant event. Thank you to everyone who made it such a success, and to the wonderful people I met during the conference.

Thoughts from mLearn2007
(A Haiku of Haikus – Autumn, Winter, and Spring).

Make learners owners:
What they use, exchange or make.
Prepare: sow, to reap.

Cost, misuse, and tech:
Beneath the cold barriers
Break wise approaches!

Empowered, engaged;
Reflecting and connecting,
Such richness blossoms!

—

Make learners owners;
Beneath the cold barriers
Such richness blossoms!

—

Written in response to alexanderhayes on Twitter to summarise mLearn2007 in 160 characters or less.

In the wake of last week’s mLearn conference in Melbourne, Australia, and the previous week’s Handheld Learning conference in London, Bob Harrison at Futurelab has posted a timely article with some history of the mLearn conference (first organised in 2002), a review of Handheld 2007, and a reflection of the journey towards Handheld Learning 2008, which, next year, will be held back-to-back with mLearn 2008 (seperated only by a single weekend) to create the world’s the largest and longest focus on mobile learning, ever. Fantastic!

Bob’s reflections have also been posted on the same day as the UK’s MoLeNet grant recipients have been announced, with fifteen large projects, each with a value in excess of £130,000 (A$300,000), and sixteen smaller projects. When mLearn and Handheld Learning 2008 are held net year in the UK, over 30 million Euro will have been spent on developing mobile learning across Europe, with the lion’s share of that spent in the UK.

Here in Australia, we are fortunate indeed to have access to much of the research and many of the case studies of m-learning practice from the UK; but we’ll also need to develop our local expertise in the implementation of m-learning approaches if we are to continue to demonstrate leadership in the use of mobile learning on a global stage.

Let’s hope that the re-framed 2008 Australian Flexible Learning Framework will appropriately recognise the importance of mobile learning as a key strategy in flexible learning delivery as it is put into action next year!

A short and engaging video on the students of today, and their activities, hopes, dreams and fears now and in the future. Compiled from a document contributed to and created by 200 students at Kansas State University, it provides some terrific insights… [link to original video]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/dGCJ46vyR9o" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

(via HeyJude)

School of Educational Studies,
La Trobe University

Ubiquitous Computing: technology should ‘disappear’ – be an enabler, a medium, rather than an issue (or a problem). But this is not the same us ‘ubiquitous learning’… rather, it’s a necessary pre-condition for ubiquitous learning.
-Permanent
-Accessible
-Immediate
-Interactive
-Situated

Trying to get people to use technology to develop their thinking: re-arrange ideas, debate with others, engage with new information and perspectives.
-Multiple perspectives
-Multiple Authors
-Rapidly changing thinking
-Multi-modal Representations
-Move easily from one program to another
-Ability to communicate easily with others

3 primary schools, children aged 5-12 years of age; 2 secondary schools; children aged 13-18
- Biggest impact on students who had done little or no work previously due to literacy skills.
- From a student pserspective, you can make a mistake on a PDA and it’s impermanent: can be erased

==Example Learning Activities==
Collaborating using Bluetooth (Inspiration Concept Mapping software)
-Working collaboratively on multimedia materials
-Taking notes, making audio recordings
-Researching using mobile web/wireless
-Reading documents, writing articles
-Doing interactive quizzes or exercises
-Watching animations and simulations in media player
-Reflective logs
-Creating media
-Listening to downloaded materials,
-Software packages (e.g. dictionary)
-PowerPoint
-Important to guide the activities.

Science Centre contexts:

Anne Kahr-Hojland, akh@dream.dk

‘Ego-Trap’:
- Stimulate young peoples’ interest in science
-improve learning setting at the Experimentarium by prompting reflective processes

-BYO Mobile Phone
-Connect via WAP/GPRS
-Experimentatium calls user’s phone with a quiz
-’Augmented Reality’ – the user takes the main part in a game which is determined by the physical setting they are in.
-Get a series of ‘character’ phone calls; user needs to make decisions: they can follow one character over another, There are cues to take physical action – e.g. go to different rooms, do different tasks or activities (exhibits).

Denise Bressler

Call a number to get more info on various animals; SMS to get a wallpaper of various animals; interactive exhibits using mobile phone/texted information.
-Extending the experience – getting people to think about what they’ve seen, even after they leave, e.g. people create an image, which gets sent to your phone.
-Camera Phone challenge: take pictures throughout the museum to satisfy the challenge. Once you’re in the database, there can also be a ‘weekly challenge’ to participate in.
-Informal science education is a natural fit for m-learning
-But very little m-learning research is happening at science centres
-Problems with telecommunications companies: data, cost, etc.
-Problems with varying handsets, more than telcos?

Manager, Nokia Multimedia, Finland (but speaking from personal opinion today, not Nokia’s)
charlie.schick@edubba.com

=Topics=
- Mobile Lifestyle vs Mobile Computer
- Emerging Markets
- Fusion of Mobile and Internet

=Mobile Essentials=
Most personal technology is the phone: wallet, keys, phone always carried by people. Collects memories, messages, photos… part of our life, part of our lifestyle.

People use: Camera, alarm, calendar, media gallery, messaging.

Nokia research: 80% of calls made to just five people.

Not just about mobility, but about convenience – many people use their mobile even when a landline is available.

Mobiles penetrate where computers and internet do not. e.g. Brazil.

=Mobile Computing=
Two hands, two eyes, lean forward, flat surface, stationary, broadband, big screen…

=Mobile Lifestyle=
One handed, background, interruptive, individual, essential, ubiquitous, untethered, freedom, focussed

=Emerging Market=
-3 billion worldwide
-1 billion have no PC
-Global awareness
-iPods haven’t sold 100 million across their whole product line; just one model of Nokia, the (basic) 1100, has sold more than 100 million items… just that one model.
-smartphones are a tiny minority of all mobile phones owned/sold.

=Ingenuity=
-Fishermen
-Phone Ladies (human phone booths!) http://seeingisbelieving.ca/cell/dacca
-Micro Loans
-Remittances

=Mobile and internet fuse=
-THE social networking device
-Web on phone?
-Phone on web!

=Trends=
-Me and mine
-Aggregation
-Mobile?

=Learning=
-Every moment
-Every place
-Physical and digital
-’Tribal hubbub’/flow: Can connect to REAL people to get information, rather than repositories of information, e.g. asking a question on Twitter or Facebook.

Advisory: more conceptual and theoretical than most other presentations.

=Contemporary environments of learning=
In new social model of learning, learners become consumers? [I would have thought learners are becoming creators?]

=Affordances, characeristics and potential=
-Technologies as ideological tools which embody social values? NOT neutral?
-Growth in social networking capability, shift from broadcast to content generation, a decentralisation of resource provision.

=Socio-cultural impact=
-Digital devices are becoming a prosthesis for some users… What’s the impact on learning if the devices are taken away?
- Seeming fracturing of identities, membership of multiple user groups and attendant lack of shared cultural experiences. Subcultures and indovidualised social and cultural experiences.

What is learning?
- Proliferation of prefixes! Do they denote different kinds of learning? No – denote different a difference in condition and environment.
- Semiotic approach: a cloase connection between ‘meaning-making’ and ‘learning’. Learning is change – transformation of what is encountered as well as of the learner.
- Onus on the learner to make sense of information and transform it into (their) knowledge.
- Mobility in this sense: The individual is always ready to be a ‘learner’ and to turn the environment into a site for learning. Continually in a state of incompletion and moving towards completion; mobile not physically but conceptually/semiotically.

M-learning application:
- Should guide students towards development and contrasting of their own ideas
- Should connect with the classroom

MyArtSpace – students acted as curators of their own museum visit which they then explored in the classroom. Convergence of physical, virtual and online spaces.

Teacher sets an ‘enquiry topic’ – e.g. ‘What was the role of women during the D-Day landings,’ or ‘Was the D-Day landing a success or a failure?’

At the museum, students were lent high-end Nokia phones (N80). Students could use phones to ‘collect’ an object… phones automatically collated the collected materials – automatically sent to a website. Could see who else collected the same object, make notes etc.

(Shown video of students at D-Day Museum).

Students thinking about ‘evidence’ collected at the museum. Students edit some of the photos.

==Lifecycle Evaluation==
Micro-level: Usability Issues
–Technology usability
–individual and group activities

Meso Level: Educational Issues
–e.g. learning experience as a whole
Macro Level: Organisational Issues
–e.g. what happemed after?

Organizational Level
What was suppsed to happen? What did happen? What’s the difference? A summary:

The technology worked surprisingly well. Automatic sending to websites, took about 5 minutes to get acquainted, with some minor usability problems, students liked the technology, and students enjoyed the experience more than their previous musem visit. Students indicated that the phones made the visit more interactive, and engaged better with the learning task.

==Usability Factors==
+ Appropriate form factor – mobiles worked well
+ Collecting and creating items was an easy and natural process
- Mobile phone connection didn’t always work: some ‘black spots’.
- Text annotations weren’t always connected logically (with photos, for example)
- Integration of media with presentation tools not quite perfect.

==Educational Issues==
+ Supports curriculum topics in literacy and media studies
+ Encourages meaningful and enjoyable pre- and post- visit lessons
+ Encourages children to make active choices in what is notmally a passive experiences
- teacher preparation: teachers didn’t always understand the experience and run appropriate pre-visit lesson
- Where to impose constraints: straucture and restrict the collecting activity, or learn from organising the material back in the classroom
- Support for collaborative learning didn’t really work

==Organisational Issues==
+ Museum Appeal
+ Student engagement – students spent longer on a MAS visit 90 mins vs 20 mins
- Problems of museum staff engagement
- Business model? Maintaining phones, messaging, data charges…

==Future==
The developers, SEA, has developed a commercial service, OOKL.

Issues around taking photos in a museum… glass reflection… curatorship? Protecting materials? Copyright?

Cost of transfer of data? Unlimited wireless transfer plans being taken up by museums.

Sharing depended on the teacher: could look at each others’ presentations, post-visit.

Installing the java applet to different phones proved too difficult: too many different models.

It was interesting to get a corporate view of m-learning, but I did find myself questioning many of Marc’s points (some of which are not included here as a result)… Nevertheless, an engaging and fun presentation!

—–
‘mlearning Ru Rdy 4 IT’
Marc Niemes
President, e-Learning Industry Association of Victoria

http://elearning.org.au

Is this anything new?
Should you care?

Devices, Content and Context – get those 3 right, and your learning solutions will work.

Interactive activity: keypads: Ezicomms Clikapad: Top 3 things you’d like to address – from the crowd

(Info on elearning.org.au and himself)

Demonstration of ‘wisdom of the crowd’ – comparing weight of cow to weight of car.

Conference Demographics
55% TAFE/VET
15% other teachers
13% directors ceos of ‘learning companies’
7% other content creators
5% ‘consultants’

Marc’s Analysis
- Common interest in mlearning
- Education heritage, technology is the enabler
- Formal Education is important
- Classroom environment (looking at e/mlearning)
- Do-ers, leaders and thinkers, not followers
- Creators of subject matter, analysis of others

3000 mobile devices in the world at present… a lot of devices to develop for. But the m- or the e- is a distraction.

Key considerations:
- device
- content
- context
– motivation

Keys, wallet, phone. More people (152) brought their wallet than their keys. Mobile phones are a personal technology.

SMS and voice are the only two ubiquitous feature on mobile phones.
- WAP
- Online or offline
- Smart phones
– Walled Gardens: in cheaper phones, normally browsers go to providers’ web page first.
– Browsers: if you can’t keep them in the walled garden, charge them through the nose?

What is the ideal m-learning device?

E-learning video clip demo. Computer-based examples of learning games and content, some from Toolboxes. Corporate learning tends to be formulaic, strategic, not ‘play”.

Testing motivation – if the motivation is strong, the medium is irrelevant? Books vs ebooks? Which do you prefer? Mobiles as a way to access infomation? Don’t need to memorise, when you can look it up.

Corporate learning: 80% of learning in workplace is ‘informal’? Challenges with corporate learning… ?

[Ed: Corporate training seems a different creature to VET. Lots of stuff on tracking, strategy, consistency, reporting... rather than just great learning]

‘Static images may prove better than animated images’ – less distration?

Marc’s Top 3
- Devices
- Content
- Context