Mobile Learning

“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.

Tags: alankay, kay, dynabook, pedagogy, technology, education, mlearning, m-learning, mobilelearning, mobile-learning, mobile learning, edutech, edtech, educational, connectivism, georgesiemens, siemens

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…

Tags: history, brief, learning, computers, mobile, m-learning, mlearning, mobile-learning, mobile learning, mobile learning, dynabook, sharples, mikesharples, kay, alankay, constructivism, smalltalk, squeak, pda, laptop, notebook, palm, olpc, educational, education, technology, edtech, edutech

Some of the best research into defining the meaning and purpose of mobile learning has come from Prof. Mike Sharples (University of Nottingham), who has collaborated with a number of other distinguished academics and organisations to research the definition, pedagogy, and practice of mobile learning. Sharples’ numerous publications and collaborations, the majority of which deal with the use of mobile technologies in education, span more than half a decade of experience and research (detailed in full here). Recommended background reading includes the following:

• Sharples, M., Taylor, J., & Vavoula, G. (2005a) Towards a Theory of Mobile Learning. In H. van der Merwe & T. Brown, Mobile Technology: The Future of Learning in Your Hands, mLearn 2005 Book of Abstracts, 4th World Conference on mLearning, Cape Town, 25-28 October 2005. Cape Town: mLearn 2005, p. 58. Available from Mlearn 2005 as a PDF file.
  
• Naismith, L., Lonsdale, P., Vavoula, G. & Sharples, M. (2005b) Literature Review in Mobile Technologies and Learning. A Report for NESTA Futurelab. Available from NESTA FutureLab.
• Sharples, M. (Ed.) (2006) Big Issues in Mobile Learning: Report of a workshop by the Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence Mobile Learning Initiative . LSRI, University of Nottingham. Available as 725K pdf file.
• Sharples, M., Taylor, J., Vavoula, G. (2007) A Theory of Learning for the Mobile Age. In R. Andrews & C. Haythornthwaite (eds.) The Sage Handbook of E-learning Research. London: Sage, pp. 221-47. Preprint available as 256Kb pdf file.

The work of Sharples and others has seen a gradual refinement of the way we think about mobile learning. Something of a watershed occurred in January 2005, when core members of the multi-million-euro, 30-month-long MOBIlearn project reflected (at the project’s conclusion) on how mobile learning is differentiated from other forms of learning mediation and support (Sharples 2005a p.4). Among the outcomes was a learner-centric view of mobile learning:

“it is the learner that is mobile, rather than the technology … with learners opportunistically appropriating whatever technology is ready to hand as they move between settings, including mobile and fixed phones, their own and other people’s computers, as well as books and notepads.”

Liberating the definition of mobile learning from a device-oriented one revolving around mobile phones or PDAs allows mobile technology to be viewed as a means of supporting learning mobility, rather than defining it. An extreme interpretation of this principle would mean that many kinds of learning, pre-dating handheld computerised devices, could be considered as mobile learning. For example, learners have listened to audio books on cassettes and portable CD players anytime and anywhere since the 1980′s – well before the iPod was even imagined. Getting away from devices altogether, a book or a pad of paper could easily be used as mobile, learning tools, while school “field trips,” to museums, galleries or places of interest have been an effective learning strategy for decades.

In reality, completely disassociating the term “mobile learning” from the use of digital devices in education in that way feels artificial. There are the obvious semantic and developmental links with computer-based e-learning, but apart from that, digital devices are (variously) very good at helping us to create, store and use information, and at connecting us with peers, mentors, and remote information tools and resources – to the extent that (in the case of mobile phones in particular), we take them everywhere. It’s been well documented that these inherent properties of mobile, digital devices make them capable companions for supporting and enhancing all kinds of learning activities, both in and out of the classroom.

For me, the great utility of the learner-centric paradigm derived by MOBIlearn is that it helps to maintain a pedagogical focus in the field, and provides a constant reminder of the underlying need for mobile learning approaches to be underscored by effective learning design and support.

Tags: definition, mobile learning, mobilelearning, mobile-learning, defining, m-learning, mlearning, sharples, mobilearn, learner, centric, learner-centric, education, e-learning, elearning, flexiblelearning, flexible-learning, technology, educational, mikesharples, mike sharples

Advocating educational innovation is usually not an easy task. While some aspects of educational technology – such as online learning and teaching – have gained a foothold in many institutions, newer ideas like mobile learning or the use of virtual worlds are being explored and practiced by a much smaller number of educators.

There are many barriers to teachers trying out and using new and innovative approaches in teaching and learning. It can be hard to find the time to explore and develop new ideas; online “social learning” sites such as YouTube may be blocked; or teachers may not be able to access equipment or funds needed to try out new ideas (such as for mobile learning activities). And that’s if a given teacher even has the inclination to pursue innovative teaching and learning practices; while most teachers are at least interested in new ideas for teaching, there are many more who are just fine with doing it the way they’ve always done it, and see no reason to change.

As part of my work at CIT’s Flexible Learning Solutions (shortly to be re-organised as a unit within the Institute’s Centre for Excellence in Education), I’m currently working on a few ideas for getting more teachers interested in using innovative methods and activities for learning. I’d be keen to hear what other people think about these ideas…

The first of these is the concept of “Teaching Commons”. Our organisation has several distinct campuses – none of which provide space for teachers from various disciplines or campuses to mingle and share their ideas for learning and teaching, let alone exposure to new practices.

A Teaching Commons area would be a space on each campus where all staff could spend some time getting a cup of coffee and talking with their colleagues. As such, it would have a “social” atmosphere and would feel like a welcoming place to visit. Staff visiting other campuses would find it particularly appealing since there currently isn’t anywhere to log into the staff network if you happen to be visiting another campus away from your own department’s offices.

However, this would be so much more than an ordinary “common room”. The idea here is to dedicate part of the space to be a functional and flexible workshop area, with computers and a Smartboard, as well as the ability to connect additional laptops if required. Various staff who support best-practice teaching and learning at our Institute would use this as a regular base of operations for consulting with and assisting teachers; and we’d also run workshops in this area. Adorning the walls would be posters on different innovative learning approaches and new practices, and all-in-all, the space would be a regular hotpot of professional development, peer discussion, and teaching and learning support. By converging social and learning spaces for teachers, it would provide an ongoing opportunity for engaging, developing and supporting teachers in flexible learning practice.

This physical “teaching commons” space could be complemented by an online “teaching commons” space reflecting many of the same ideas and themes as the physical one. Allowing teachers to put up their own interest groups in a “groupware” environment such as ELGG would lead to the development of a healthy online community discussing both teaching and learning issues as well as what people did on the weekend.

Another project I’m working on is an activity for CIT’s “Developing Us” all-staff professional development day, scheduled for the 29th of January 2008. There is a choice of some 50 workshops to be held across three time slots, including a large number of sessions around professional development. To make the day more engaging, I’m developing a learning activity to play across the whole day… but this activity could equally be played out by a class over the course of a week or a semester.

[slideshare id=171496&doc=where-in-the-web-is-crimson-sanfierro-119544095753786-1&w=425]

“Where in the Web is Crimson Sanfierro? (CC)” is a Creative Commons game styled after the popular childrens’ educational game, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (TM)” Instead of being a computer game about geographical locations, however, “Crimson Sanfierro” flips the paradigm on its head – it’s a game played across physical locations, about the web. Participants pick up “clues” from various sessions they attend during the day, and locations they visit… and use these clues to solve “cases”. They can get some additional information from the MySpace profiles of various fictitious suspects to help solve the cases, which are also all themed to fit in with the learning issues being explored on the day.

As we’ve yet to play out the game here, I can’t say too much more, except to say that I’ll say more after we’ve run the game. It promises to be a lot of fun.

Tags: teaching, commons, online, mlearning, m-learning, flexible, learning, flexiblelearning, mobile learning, mobilelearning, mobile-learning, education, innovation, teaching, learning, carmen, sandiego, crimson, sanfierro, professional development teachers, learners

Now I *really* like *this* presentation from Handheld Learning 2007.  Although it’s advocating a proprietary product, nevertheless, the paradigm of using a mobile phone as a creativity tool – and rewarding students for appropriate use of mobile phones as a means of capturing and sharing creative content – is brilliant, and clearly explained in this visual presentation (unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any accompanying audio).

Original video source here.

(via HHL07 Podcast)

Tags: creativity, mobile devices, mobile, learning, m-learning, mlearning, hhl07, handheld learning, handheldlearning, mobilelearning, mobile-learning, education, innovation, technology, apple, davidbaugh, chrismorley, conference, cellphone, mobile phone

I’m slowly reviewing the videos of Handheld Learning 2007, which have been generously recorded and shared in audio and video podcasts.

In this keynote, Marc Prensky presents his thoughts on the speed of change, the need for educators to embrace change and look to the future of learning, and rethink what and how students of the future will learn.

Marc’s a terrific and passionate presenter, with a distinguished career. His presentation touches on his ideas of the past which have gained him his reputation as a thought leader: digital immigrants and digital natives, and the importance of technology as the “future” for our students.

Having watched this video, however, I could not help but wonder if Marc is becoming increasingly obsolete himself. His role in the past has been a crucial one – to “prophesy” and evangelise the speed of change and the generational gaps between teachers and students. But Marc does not seem to have grasped that the world has already changed (again). You see, my feeling is that evangelising the need for change at a mobile learning conference is preaching to the converted. Educators and technologists engaged in the exploration of mobile learning area are already innovating at a coal seam of educational technology. While slower, less progressive educators may still be comfortably exploring e-learning on learning management systems or off CD-ROMs (or, indeed, still doing chalk-and-talk), educators investigating mobile learning are very much at the cutting edge of educational innovation, along with other educators investigating other areas such as the use of social web tools for education, and the use of virtual worlds as learning environments.

My experience at mLearn 2007 was that conversation centred around solutions – how educators are successfully deploying and using new technologies to support and enhance learning. There was *no* debate about whether or not technology was important to learners of the future, or whether m-learning could work, or whether young learners can, or want to use technology. Those issues have been settled comfortably (in Marc’s favour) at least a year ago (if not before).

We already know this stuff is important Marc! What educators need now are frameworks and paradigms for deploying mobile technologies to engage learners and enhance learning; open, scalable mobile learning products and systems that educators everywhere can use, deploy and develop to allow learners to create, share, and reflect; and content that works across mobile platforms.

Realising that “the world is changing” is for keynotes of the past. Now, keeping up with change means proposing and developing solutions and sharing best practices.

Tags: handheldlearning, handheld, learning, hhl07, hhl2007, m-learning, mlearning, mobilelearning, mobile-learning, mobile learning, handheld learning, marcprensky, marc prensky, education, technology, change, digital, immigrants, natives

Like James Clay at e-Learning Stuff, I couldn’t go to Handheld Learning 2007. Its location half a globe away made it rather more sensible to concentrate my efforts on mLearn 2007, which was held here in Australia, in my favourite Australian city, Melbourne, a fortnight ago.

But thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I’m now able to explore and participate in Handheld Learning 2007, thanks to the wealth of materials generated by the conference. It’s wonderful that the conference has embraced the Web 2.0 philosophy of sharing the knowledge, and I’m enormously grateful that I have an opportunity to sift through the following troves, looking for m-learning treasures!

You’ll now find a lot of media from the conference now online with much more to follow:

Handheld Learning TV is at:
http://handheldlearning.blip.tv

Podcasts are at:
http://tinyurl.com/39fzx4

Presentation slides at:
http://www.slideshare.net/HandheldLearning/slideshows

Pictures at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/handheldlearning/sets/

Tony Vincent provides a review at:
http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/content/view/41/2/

And Bob Harrison at:
http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/content/view/40/2/

A large list of other people’s reviews can be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/32u5xy

Terrific stuff! I’ll be poring over these and avidly comparing them with mLearn’s outcomes (which should also be documented online in as much detail within the next week or so)…

Tags: mlearn2007, mlearn07, mlearn, handheldlearning, handheldlearning07, handheldlearning2007, hh07, hh2007, handheld, m-learning, mlearning, mobile learning, mobile-learning, mobilelearning, handheld learning, education, conference, 2007, teaching, learning, technology, educational

This is an accidental topic – one which I hadn’t planned to blog on at all – but could possibly be one of the most interesting areas for the application of mobile learning approaches.

My colleague Helen Lynch posted a YouTube video on our team blog today, featuring an accomplished Australian jazz pianist and teacher (Doug McKenzie) performing an improvisation of “Some Day My Prince Will Come” – with video of his hands and a captioned explanation of his technique. Here it is for your viewing pleasure;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmcTByrO_ow

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

This comes just a week after meeting Megan Iemma at mLearn. Megan is a music teacher who has terrific ideas on how to use iPods to support teaching and learning (and, in particular, music education), with many of her ideas and resources available on her blog. At the conference, she had asked me if it was possible to display the musical notation on an iPod while a song was being played. I had no idea at the time, but delving further into Doug’s videos, I found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAoQjoJl8mI

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/KAoQjoJl8mI" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Yes – a musical performance, together with video of the performer’s hands, a digital version of the keyboard (making the fingering a little clearer), the musical notation, chords, and explanation of the performance, all in one. Wow.

This made me think about how I started learning violin (though it’s been over a decade since I last had lessons, and sadly, things are now rather rusty). I started learning with the Suzuki Method, which is basically a method of teaching a musical instrument by teaching technique, but learning songs by just listening to them. I started at the age of four years old, and didn’t even see musical notation for the first three years of my violin classes – everything was done by ear.

What does this mean? Well, for one thing, it means that it’s possible to learn music just by listening to it – as easily for a child as picking up a language. The Suzuki Method has been around for decades now, and has been proven with scores of virtuosos (myself definitely not among them!). Anyway, this would effectively make an iPod a powerful learning tool for picking up musical pieces, even if you *only* had audio. The addition of video – which can allow the annotation of a musical performance with live demonstration, musical notation and commentary makes an iPod even more interesting as a tool for learning music.

I’ve certainly tried out the use of mobile devices for learning performing arts before – for example, as described in this previous post. Learning new dance moves requires me to constantly practice them until my body develops a subconscious “muscle memory” for them; until then, however, it’s easy to completely forget how to replicate any given move, or to introduce errors of timing, movement or technique. This is why I started videoing instructors performing dance moves – so I would have a reference for revising dance moves correctly; and it’s been the most effective method for learning dance (certainly better than my initial attempt to keep a textual database of the moves!)

I also have a teaching qualification in Speech and Drama, and it got me thinking about how my Speech teacher used to do taped recordings on audio cassettes for me to listen to her delivery – for example, changes of pitch, pace, pause, power and timing – that would help me as I memorised each piece of prose or poetry. I would also have to tape myself and listen to my own recordings to pick up ways I could improve my own performances. How easy and effective this would be on today’s mobile, digital devices, compared with the low-quality, clumsy tape deck I had to use as a child! Using Gavin’s voice-based system, which I explored in a previous post, it would even be possible to exchange performances between teacher and learner for guidance and feedback easily and remotely.

There are some really terrific opportunities for the use of mobile devices in teaching and learning performing arts – it will be fantastic to explore this area of application for mobile learning in more depth in the future!

Tags: suzuki, method, music, drama, speech, arts, performing, dance, mlearn2007, mlearn 2007, mlearn07, video, ipod, education, ipods, performance

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)

Opened by Professor Glyn Davis AC,
Vice Chancellor University of Melbourne

Video from 2006 – already dated? (Vision of how learning will happen in the future).

Can’t assume that everyone has mobile technology – that everyone has an mp3 player, broadband internet, etc. But these are challenges to getting it right.

Angela McFarlane, University of Bristol: Keynote address – ‘Devices and Desires: researching the pedagogy of mobile learning’

=Project Background=
Funded by Becta; Three primary schools, two secondary schools; looking at 24/7 ownership of mobile devices. Realistically, every device is different – a `mixed economy` of devices and this needs to be recognised. ‘Digital Native’ not a great label – very small and privileged minority.

Territory of technololgy-supported learning is variable and uneven – an aerial perspective can lose the detail?

==The Research==
What happened to teachers and learners when hendheld devices entered their lives? Are we finding a ‘pedagogic shift’? Correlation between mobile and web 2.0 learning in terms of this transformation?

Ref: Hilda Kruger’s flowchart of technology-supported activities (in her personal learning). (Creative Commons)

Case Study: Minibeasts – primary school kids on a field course. Key on PDA to ID minibeasts – instead of paper guides, or collecting critters and taking them back to the classroom for identification, they can identify the creatures in their natural habitat. The technology is responsive. ‘Erin’ and use of the word ‘immature’ – dictionary on PDA showed that it’s not just ‘silly and giggly’ but also means ‘not grown up’. Access to language resource while on a science trip. Contextualised learning more powerful, students more autonomous. While Erin didn’t emorise the meaning of the word, she had retained the PROCESS of going to the dictionary and looking up the word to retrieve the meaning.

Needs to be a record of the work, and then an impetus to revisit and reflect on the learning again. Without those opportunities for iteration, there won’t be sufficient impetus for the learning. Needs to be built into the learning cycle / pedagogy. The device adds an ‘extension’ of memory?

Be wary of a ‘new’ pedagogy of mobile learning, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater – a lot of what teachers already know is still relevant.

Lesson on ‘narrative’ – how to tell a story. The Martyrdom of St Stephen, Given a choice, all of the kids opt to use their PDAs to recount the story, Some use animations, some draw pictures and turn them into a mini-slideshow, some use text… 10 year old children using EDAs which they’d owned for a year. Some really great work, including an understanding of cel-based animations.!

- Differentiation of task
- Sustained engagement. Many students use and learn on their PDAs far longer than they would with paper-based activities. e.g. math drilling software referred to as a ‘game’ by students – they do this at home, in their own time..
- Multimodal: 
- Stylus on screen: kids all develop good abilities with devices. Some kids prefer to hold a pen or pencil rather than a mini-stylus.
- Size: some children prefer a small screen – easier to fill it

==Example from Secondary Class==
Sketching Graphs.
Supposed to be designing an experiment (on viscosity). Should be very familiar with the concept of designing experiments and sketching graphs.

A lot of the kids aren’t even bothering to bring their devices with them. Couple of die-hards trying to use their PDAs to SKETCH A GRAPH… and they try to do so using EXCEL!!!! They don’t understand the medium… ‘it’s a graph, therefore it’s a spreadsheet’… that’s an interesting concept! Rest of the class has moved on, and they’re still struggling for 15 minutes when they could have sketched the graph in a drawing package in 20 seconds. They’re bright and they’re using their PDA, clearly they know what they’re doing. ‘It’s effective teachers who use technology effectively’. The technology won’t help if the teaching isn’t working.

Note: You look just as productive on any PDA. An advantage for some learners – building confidence and skills – but disadvantage if teacher just scans the room and assumes everything’s going OK. Technology to view everyone’s screens can help to better supervise PDA learning.

If you use an informal learning approach in the classroom, learners need to be equipped with the skills to make good choices (outside of the lesson)}

Teacher writes writing task on whiteboard as well as beaming the question to those who want to use PDAs. Students use the onscreen keyboard or graphical input rather than predective text. Interestingly, nobody using a PDA saved the work they had done – teacher didn’t pull together the students’ ideas, despite the potential fo sharing, discussing and summarising ideas. What a shame…

Students using PDAs to video each other. This one worked well.

==Emerging Themes==
- Question of mobility.
- Question of choice (which relates to autonomy and ownership)
- Range of applications in one place
- Ready store of previous work as an aid to reflection – but this needs to be built into opportunities for iterative reflection.
- Contextual constaints. Teacher priorities/perceptions/attitudes.
- Being able to CREATE stuff is absolutely vital to m-learning. Avoid devices that are just for consuming content.