EDUCAUSE Report on Undergraduate Student use of Technology

29 10 2009

The latest edition of “The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009” has just been released by the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. This report provides insights into the ways in which students use, and would like to use, various technologies in their own lives and in their learning.

Some of the “m-learning” findings across 39 institutions include:

  • students are switching from desktop PCs (71% in 2006, down to 44% in 2009) to laptops (65.4% in 2006 to 88.3% in 2009).
  • one-third of students own and use Internet services from a handheld device, with another third of students owning or planning to acquire a handheld, internet-capable device in the next 12 months.
  • “Asked to select the three institutional IT services they are most likely to use, if available, from an Internet-capable handheld device, responents who currently own a handheld device and use the INternet from it selected as their top three e-mail system (63.4%), student administrative services (official grades, registration, etc.) (46.8%), and course or learning management system (45.7%).” (pg 11).

via Tony Bates’ e-learning & distance education resources




On-Campus Wireless Internet

15 06 2009

The topic of easy-to-use, reliable wireless access to the internet came to the fore today, so I thought I should write about it.  I heard from a number of people on our Yammer social network that they believed that our institution’s wireless service was difficult to connect to and only available in scattered areas around the campus.  That this appeared to be the opinion of the majority (with some exceptions) caused me considerable concern, as in my opinion, student wireless access should be considered priority infrastructure for any self-respecting further/higher education organisation.

From a teaching and learning point of view, campus-wide internet access – or even access that targets social and learning spaces such as refectories, libraries, lecture rooms and labs – is what truly blends together online and face-to-face learning.  It means that while they’re on campus, a student can access their online learning just by turning on their netbook or iPhone.  They can contribute to class online discussions while eating lunch or access their readings before class, using the technology they already have with them: their laptop, netbook, or other wi-fi capable mobile device.

Some of you may be thinking “can’t students just go use a computer lab?”  To some extent, they can.  However, most students don’t choose a library or computer lab as their preferred environment for group projects or study groups unless they’re forced to.  In most of those locations, there are restrictions on noise levels, food, drink, physical access, and software installation/configuration.  If students can get together at a campus cafe or in a refectory to work together, they will.  By way of example: every day the refectory at my university is full of students working together, because that is their preferred space to do so.

But they can’t get internet access there – not without an apparent struggle.  I work in an office just above the refectory, and one of my colleagues (in the same office) reports that there’s no signal.  Even if they can get a signal, the process of actually logging in and getting network access is difficult or impossible for the apparent majority.

Then, of course, there are all the affordances of the internet that could be brought into learning situations.  Students can look up definitions or supporting materials in lectures, using a wiki to collaboratively create lecture notes, or blogging an experiment or other learning experience, live from a student lab.

For mobile learning – and even for flexible learning – at any educational institution, equipping formal and informal learning spaces (such as social spaces) with fundamental enabling technologies like wireless internet access has to be at the top of the priority list.  It even makes sense from a budget point of view, as every laptop a student brings in and uses takes pressure off the student labs.  This, in turn, reduces the amount that has to be spent on standard-image, admin-locked, physical lab computers… and frees students to use their own computers which can be configured to best support their particular program of study.  That’s what I call win-win!




Create Mobile Websites with Wirenode

26 05 2008

I’ve previously written about Winksite, a service that allows users to create free mobile websites using a CMS-like interface (simply switching on or off various tools and editing options).  Now there’s a new free mobile web site hosting and authoring service called Wirenode, which (instead of a CMS-like, “Web 1.0″ interface) uses a Web 2.0/AJAX interface to create mobile websites and integrate Web 2.0 services including Twitter, LinkedIn, RSS, image galleries, or other “widgets”.  The integration also works back into Web 2.0, with a Wirenode widget available for Facebook and Mobile Facebook.  Awesome!

Mobile Pages - iPhone
Unlike Winksite, which is almost completely textual in both content and presentation, Wirenode incorporates media and interactivity, which may even be uploaded by the user, and there’s even an analytics tool for users who like to see how many visitors/students are checking out their mobile site.

It’s a terrific tool to help teachers or students create and present information in a mobile format, and a must-see for other educators interested in utilising mobile devices for enhancing and supporting teaching and learning.

(via Learning Elearning)

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Students share their experiences of m-learning

19 05 2008

I’ve been following Dean Shareski’s blog posts on mobile learning this year. Dean’s ongoing experiences with learners using mobile phones as learning tools continue to demonstrate what’s possible when it comes to using the advanced capabilities of cellphones in learning contexts.

In Dean’s latest installment, he suggested that classroom teacher Carla Dolman be invited to do a session on her use of cellphones at the recent TLT conference. She brought along some of her students to help her, and between them they fielded the Big Questions so often asked by educators at any session on mobile learning:

“Did it change your learning? Were you tempted to use it to text or call in off task ways? Was it just a novelty? How did students who didn’t have a cellphone feel? Are you still using it for learning?”

Dean relates that not only did the students handle these tough questions, but they were even able to facilitate a hands-on learning experience, demonstrating to these educators how they shared files via Bluetooth. A favourite quote from the New Zealand film “Whale Rider” comes to mind, the scene where the tribal chieftain, Koro, addresses his granddaughter Paikea: “Wise leader, forgive me. I am only a fledgling new to flight”.

Dean’s hoping to create an online version of the students’ presentation, to share their insights with a wider, online audience. I’m anticipating it keenly. For the meantime, you can view this video of Carla and some of her students talking about their experiences with mobile learning in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhAH6nncCKw

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Andy Ramsden: Are QR Codes the Future of Mobile Learning?

27 03 2008

I posted the following response to Andy Ramsden’s blog post on this topic:

I’ve been researching the use of 2D barcodes (and particularly QR Codes) in education for over two years now.  I’ve been very interested in their use in education as I immediately recognised their power for linking situated learning opportunities with instructional and interactive learning opportunities when I first read about them. I’ve since investigated alternatives such as RFID, and I still think that 2D barcodes have some big advantages, especially when it comes to things like cost and ease of (re)production – 2D barcodes can be printed for free, whereas RFID tags cost around $1 each in small quantities.

Where I see QR Codes becoming obsolete is through the rapidly improving processing capabilities of mobile devices, which are on the cusp of becoming capable of reading and interpreting printed text. Once phones become able to recognise a printed URL, for example, the use of a QR Code to “represent” a URL becomes superfluous… an unnecessary (and non-human-readable) duplication of information. Text-recognition will also be far more flexible than QR Codes; potentially, semantic constructs could be used to allow the recognition of an infinite variety of different types of data, the same way that OCR currently works on desktop computers.

In brief, I’m still very interested in QR Codes as being the current best and most cost effective technology for mobile data capture; but I’m already looking towards a future where QR Codes will be obsolete. :) I can think of some examples where QR Codes might still be preferable to unencoded text recognition; but in most cases, I believe the impending ability of cellphones to read printed (and hand-written) text will replace QR Codes for situated mobile learning approaches, even before such use becomes popular in education!

I guess my answer to Andy’s question must be “no” – I think QR Codes are a *current* strategy for mobile learning, for those educators interested enough to use them; but I definitely can’t imagine them being the *future*. :)

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Exploring Cellphones as Learning Tools

6 02 2008

Dean Shareski blogged a case study for the use of mobile phones in school teaching, with some good insights into the proportion of grade 8/9 children with cellphones at school, how they used their cellphones, and how learners without cellphones were considered.

Dean documented engagement, responsibility, and innovation/problem solving amongst the students; and also comments about the class teacher as a learner in this situation, and how it challenges educators and institutions to reflect on their own policy and practice when it comes to mobile devices in educational settings.

Group work

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Principals Trying out Cell Phones

22 01 2008

Dean Shareski passes on an email from a local principal:

I’m sure we are not going insane, but some would probably disagree. Carla and I tried something new and, well a little bit rebellious today. We invited the grade 8/9 ELA class/students to bring their cell phones into class (if they didn’t have one we used mysask for text). Our goal, using cell phones for learning. Our objectives, appropriate use of cell phones (manners and ethics), using the calendar/scheduling, using text to discuss literature (lit circles), tracking progress and assignments/projects, and engaging the new learner. Guess what, it worked like a charm and the kids are peeing themselves with enthusiasm. Welcome to Web 2.0!!!! I needed to share.

Awesome stuff. Damien’s remarks in the comments are also worth reading:

I like that this principal is looking into educational applications, but I think the most important takeaway here is that s/he’s having a discussion about mobile phone manners and ethics. Although I think it’s very rude when students text during class, I honestly don’t think many of them think much of it, and probably think we teachers blow the issue out of proportion (to be fair, some do). I applaud this principal for having this dialogue outside of a punitive context and for at least considering the educational and organizational possibilities.

Wow. Educators having a dialogue with students and discussing mobile phone manners and ethics? Might those students might get insights into the acceptable use of mobile technologies (useful for the rest of their lives, no less) that they wouldn’t otherwise get from a blanket ban on mobiles at school? Great work… :)

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Why Does Technology-Based Teaching Fail?

6 12 2007

Recently, I’ve been sharing some of my research into the pioneering educational technology work of Alan Kay, who was able to effectively translate his understanding of cognitive psychology and learning theory into new ideas for making computers easy to learn – and learn on. His insights into educational technology continue to be highly relevant today – here he is in 1987, answering the question “Computers have not been a big success in … computer-aided instruction. Why is this so, and what can be done to improve it?”

Alternate link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=bC7x_qntM0g

No matter how powerful – or mobile – computers get, pedagogy must be considered before technology when developing learning experiences and activities.

Source: Alan Kay: “Doing with Images makes Symbols,” (1987) – Part 2
Extracted from video at The Internet Archive (Open Source Video) [Part 1] [Part 2]

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The Undiscovered Country

30 11 2007

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” — Alan Kay

When Alan Kay conceived the Dynabook, more than 30 years ago, it inspired a wealth of innovations, and is still a worthy “holy grail” for developers of mobile learning platforms today. Uniquely, Kay coupled immense technical vision and skill with equally brilliant pedagogical and philosophical considerations – his vision for the Dynabook was as much art as it was science.

In the early 1970’s, Kay had no mobile computers to work with. The smallest computers he had ever seen – the very first generation of “microcomputers” invented – were low-powered, bulky desktop machines with textual, monochrome displays, like this Datapoint 2200. Yet he had the ability to invent – technically and pedagogically – a mobile learning concept we are still pursuing, more than a generation later.

I wonder: if Alan Kay started fresh again today, would he take a new look at emerging learning models, such as George Siemens‘ theory of Connectivism… and through it, imagine compelling ways of learning that would drive the next 40 years of technological research and invention? If so, then what will be this generation’s legacy to the future of learning?

This could be Alan Kay’s greatest implicit challenge to the educational technologists and researchers of today. The vast majority of educational technologists are preoccupied with the use of today’s tools: internet-based Learning Management Systems, social web services, virtual worlds, and even mobile devices. In the struggle to master the tools of today – are we losing the vision to invent the future? Is there anyone out there proposing a fundamentally new model for enabling learning, with the power to spark our collective imaginations, the pedagogical imperative to be desirable decades before it can be achieved, and the ability to drive independant technological advancement towards the eventual fulfillment of that goal?

Somehow, Alan Kay glimpsed such an undiscovered realm, and ensuing years have slowly unfurled the petals of technical advancement that have allowed his incredible, completely fictional Dynabook to edge ever closer to reality. What revolutions for education, for technology, and for humanity, lie beyond the bounds of the mental and technological shackles we wear today – if we only dare to dream?

As surely for us as for Alan Kay, today’s most compelling dreams will determine tomorrow’s most engaging realities. The future will be just as we invent it.

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A Brief History of Learning With Mobile Computers

30 11 2007

The idea of using computerised mobile devices to support learning was formally conceptualised a surprisingly long time ago. In his 2002 paper “Disruptive Devices: Mobile Technology for Conversational Learning,” Sharples identifies Alan Kay’s Dynabook, conceived in the early 1970s, as the first serious attempt to design a computer-mediated mobile learning platform. And what an attempt it was. Although the Dynabook was a concept, the ripples of the project – and Alan Kay’s (non-portable, “interim”) Dynabook prototypes – can still be felt today, and will probably be felt for decades to come. The incredible modern-day legacy of Kay’s work at Xerox Paolo-Alto Research Labs (PARC) includes:

  • the development of personal computers,
  • object-oriented languages and programming generally,
  • the development of graphical user interfaces
  • the object-oriented Smalltalk programming language (today the underlying programming language of countless applications, including current ground-breaking educational platforms such as Edusim, a virtual world application in Croquet [which was also co-founded by Kay]), and
  • the One Laptop Per Child initiative (with which Alan Kay was actively involved, and which utilises the Smalltalk language and many of Kay’s original ideas for computer-based learning).

Just as groundbreaking as the technology itself was Alan Kay’s vision for how the technology would be used to support learning. His vision for the Dynabook was based in the then-nascent philosophies of (Social) Constructivism: the theories and models of learning being developed by his contemporaries Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner and Seymour Papert, (who had studied with developmental psychologist Jean Piaget ). Sharples (2002 p.3) distills the features of effective learning in constructivist terms via the essential elements of construction, conversation and control:

“Effective learning involves constructing an understanding, relating new experiences to existing knowledge . Central to this is conversation, with teachers, with other learners, with ourselves as we question our concepts, and with the world as we carry out experiments and explorations and interpret the results. And we become empowered as learners when we are in control of the process, actively pursuing knowledge rather than passively consuming it.” [Emphasis added]

Sharples’ mLearn 2007 presentation on the history of mobile learning summarises how the Dynabook concept would have accomplished these requirements, technically and pedagogically. It was to be an interactive machine that would be small and light enough to be carried everywhere by learners. It would have “book-like” qualities in terms of display, yet its interface would be dynamic, with the ability to create, edit and store visual, textual, and audio content. It would have high-bandwidth communication, both locally and globally, and it would cost under $500. It would be personal, interactive, and would support learning through play, collaborative learning, informal learning, dynamic simulations, and “anytime, anywhere” learning.

Amazing thinking for 1972. Many of Kay’s original ideas for the Dynabook simply weren’t possible at the time he conceived them, but have recently come to fruition – such as the Squeak Smalltalk environment which enables children to create and learn using computers (implemented on the OLPC, but boasting cross-platform capabilities). Here’s a real example of Squeak being used as a learning tool.

Both technically and pedagogically, Kay’s Dynabook was decades ahead of its time, as evidenced by Sharples’ early attempts at developing a mobile learning platform in 2002. Sharples’ “HandLeR” device was, at least, genuinely portable: a compact 800×600 tablet computer with a 233MHz processor, a physically attached camera, a wireless networking card, and a mobile phone card boasting a data connection rate of 9.6kbps(!) – rather expensive components at the time! Bob Harrison’s recollection of the 2002 inaugural mLearn conference (where his presentation entitled “Learn to Go” was accompanied by 12 Toshiba laptops on a trolley!) reflects Sharples’ initial struggles with making technology-assisted learning truly mobile. It’s interesting to consider that an average mobile phone today could exceed most of the specifications of Sharples’ prototype, which was put together just 5 years ago – at a fraction of the cost, and in a vastly more compact physical form.

Although small, pocket-sized “electronic organisers” were available in the 1990s, these had, at best, a three line text-only display. Palm Pilot PDAs, introduced in 1996, were the first multi-purpose, customisable handhelds suitable for a range of creative learning activities; and in 2001, SRI International awarded over 100 “Palm Education Pioneer” grants to US teachers who had a vision of how Palm handhelds could be used to improve teaching and learning. Many of the findings of the PEP grants have been confirmed by later “handheld learning” studies. Examples of pertinent findings include the strengths and weaknesses of various models for allocating handheld computers to students, to the degree of success with which various learning activities (e.g. inquiry-based learning or extended writing) can be accomplished using handheld devices.

In the last two years, however, worldwide sales of PDAs have declined, partly as a result of the introduction of smartphones (which converge advanced application, information and media capabilities with mobile phone functionality) and mobile phones (which increasingly generally incorporate the most basic functions of a PDA, even in entry-level models). For educators, the booming popularity of mobile phones has introduced a new paradigm to consider. Due to the expense of mobile computing equipment, past models of mobile learning have almost always meant providing students with the hardware and/or software to accomplish learning activities. But the vast majority of students already own their own mobile phone. Many recent mobile learning approaches have attempted to embrace the use of students’ own devices, despite the inherent issues of attempting to design learning activities that are equally accessible on a multitude of different, non-standardised, makes and models of handset.

Today’s handheld mobile devices have specifications and capabilities that resemble those of desktop personal computers built just ten years ago . The current crop of PDAs and smartphones have high resolution displays, processor speeds in excess of 600MHz, and memory capabilities exceeding those of premium hard drives from the mid-1990s. Instead of requiring an add-on webcam, current mobile devices often have built-in cameras, as well as the ability to create and edit documents and media: they have become powerful tools for enabling learners to create, collect, and share content.

The other new market that has reduced the demand for PDAs is in ultra-mobile and ultra-portable computers: UMPCs, tablet PCs, and small form-factor laptops. Of particular note in terms of education are the One Laptop Per Child project and similar commercial models (such as the Intel Classmate and the Asus EEE) generated by the initial ovation that greeted Nicholas Negroponte’s vision for cheap, rugged laptops for learning.

The current generation of mobile devices have brought us closer to realising Alan Kay’s vision of cheap, integrated, connected, computers supporting constructivist learning activities. As I’ve previously blogged, they can provide a digital, connected learning environment, offering compactness and convenience of information, remote and instant access to a range of people and resources, and data capabilities that were never previously possible.

Despite these advances, I don’t believe we’ve yet created Alan Kay’s visionary Dynabook. I am certain, however, that we are getting closer every day…

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