Mobile Learning

Moblogging is the practice of being able to update an online journal (or “web log” – or “blog” for short) using a mobile device. Since early 2006, a number of services have sprung up, presenting moblogging as a new, viable option for learning activities.

One that is already in use by teachers here at CIT is moblog.co.uk, which allows users to create free accounts. After a simple sign-up process, a user needs to define the email address they wish to send to to update their blog, and provide the service with the information on the email addresses that will be used to send updates (for authentication purposes). Once this is done, the moblogger can easily email updates to their moblog, using a phone or PDA (or even a normal desktop computer). The user can even attach picture or movie files which then display in their moblog as graphical content.

How can educators use moblogs? One immediate and practical use that a teacher at my Institute suggested, is as an ongoing online journal, recording examples a learner may encounter of applications of their area of learning. In marketing, for example, the teacher could ask the students to record examples of advertising using various advertising strategies: using fear, humour, or expertise, for example. Students could attempt to hunt down advertisements with a different strategy each week, and students would be able to view each others’ moblogs and comment on the various examples presented by their peers.

An activity like this would enable students to become active learners in their own environments. Whether they were at home and noticed a promotion on a food item, or at a library and spotted a great newspaper ad, the learner would be able to record and communicate their influences using their moblog.

While strict moblogging requires the use of a relatively recent mobile handset (capable of recording pictures and sending emails), issues of equity are somewhat addressed by this particular service, as learners could use a desktop PC to participate fully in moblogging activities using standard email (combined with, say, a standard digital camera); alternatively, the teacher could ensure that all assessment requirements could be equally met by the use of a normal, non-mobile blogging service. Moblogging would then simply provide a convenient, mobile alternative for those students who chose it as their journalling approach.

My example mobile learning moblog can be accessed at http://moblog.co.uk/blog/mobilelearning. I’ll continue to add content to this moblog to make it an example of what’s possible with moblogging!

Mobile devices may be seen by some educators as an interference with learning, rather than a positive aid. Tales of mobile phones being used as tools for school bullying are rife; mobile phones ringing in classes are seen as a distraction; students with iPods in classrooms present an image of being disengaged from learning.

Some people might suggest that these connotations detract from the presentation of mobile devices as learning tools. However, I perceive that they demonstrate, in fact, the strength of mobile devices as potential tools for delivering learning.

All of the scenarios presented above demonstrate the pervasive nature of mobile technology. When it pervades a learning environment, it is seen as a detraction from learning. But isn’t is possible for this pervasiveness to be used to the advantage of educators? That it infers, conversely, that educational delivery can be achieved in other facets of learners’ lives, so as to pervade their lifestyles with flexible and convenient learning opportunities?

To achieve pervasive mobile learning would require tact to ensure that learners did not view mobile learning as “intruding” into their private domain. Rather, mobile learning needs to be framed in a way that provides it as a tool or opportunity to increase the flexibility of learning and make it more personal and enjoyable for learners. This would be the start of truly creating “Classrooms Without Walls”…

An example of how this might be achieved is a simple “show and tell” activity. Each week, students could be tasked with finding, recording, and showing to their peers, some piece of evidence that ties in with their learning that they encounter in their everyday lives. It’s a fun activity, and allows learners to relate to each other something of how the material they are learning has touched them personally (demonstrating relevance) while using a mobile learning approach for its strengths (convenience of having a mobile recording device integrated with lifestyle).

The use of mobile devices for mobile learning may be classified into three new “R’s” (replacing the old Reading, wRiting and ‘Rithmetic).

Our team finds it useful to classify mobile learning opportunities into Record, Recall, and Relate tasks.  This helps us think about ways that learners can use mobile devices to engage in learning: by gathering information; by having information at their fingertips; and by communicating with other people. 

Record

Many mobile devices have a capacity for capturing information that can be recalled at a later stage.  Recording formats include: text entry using a PDA (into, for example, a document or a database), image capture such as with a mobile phone, video capture using miniature cameras, or audio capture, such as using an iPod or audio recorder.  Many mobile devices (such as modern mobile phones and PDAs) can do all of these things.

Some mobile devices can even record remotely, as in the case of moblogging.  Moblogging refers to the ability to send a MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service – a message containing media content such as images, video or sound) to an email or web address or telephone number, and have the content automatically and instantly displayed on a web page.  Moblogging could be uses as a means of publishing to an online visual journal without needing to use a computer.  Potentially, it removes restrictions of storage memory sizes, although it does so at a cost (the cost of transmitting lots of data over a mobile phone data connection).

Recall

Recall is the ability to access information using a mobile device.  This includes things like references, databases, e-books, and documents or media stored on either the mobile device itself, or a remote service such as on the Internet. 

Essentially, a mobile device can be used as a means of accessing information when it’s needed, where it’s needed. A database on a PDA could enable a learner to quickly identify a plant or the first-aid response for a particular poison; or to find a passage in a Shakespearean play while on a field trip to the theatre.  Some people refer to this as “Just-In-Time” learning.  Having information at a learner’s fingertips helps them to access knowledge in its most appropriate and immediate context.

Alternatively, mobile ‘recall” may simply provide a learner with a convenient way to carry around a lot of information in a more portable, electronic form, as in the case of e-books: rather than lug around volumes of printed text, electronic texts can be comfortably stored on an e-book reader, PDA, or even an iPod.

Relate

“Relate” is a word that infers connectedness between people.  It is in this sense that we apply this word to a mobile learning context; mobile devices can be used as communications tools, over small distances (e.g. ad hoc Bluetooth networking within a classroom) or much larger distances (e.g. mobile phones, MSN messenger in PDAs, or mobile email and internet).

Some unlikely mobile devices can in fact be used as mobile communications tools.  For example, MSN Messenger on PDAs supports “Push-To-Talk” functionality (over a wireless 802.11b/g Internet connection), effectively enabling a PDA (with no mobile phone included) to be used as a voice communication device.  We can expect similar software tools to emerge in platforms like the Sony PSP – a portable games device that supports audio input and output. 

Some technologies will also change the way we think of mobile communications. One relatively new technology is “Push-To-Talk” (over GPRS), which converts a mobile phone into a virtually unlimited range walkie-talkie for around $1 for a day of use (about as costly as replacing AA batteries in a hand-held CB radio with only a 5km range).  Learner groups with access to inexpensive mobile communications technologies will be able to operate in very different ways to those we are accustomed to.

As technology provides us with ever more options to Record, Recall, and Relate, we’ll need to be on the lookout for ways that these can enhance the learning experience for students, or make the task of supporting learners easier for teachers and education professionals.