Maximising Learning by Getting Mobile

Learning has been debated throughout the decades; beginning in the times when students sat absorbing information to today, where students learn through interaction, multimedia, distance education, and so on. This blog discusses the next step in developing tools for education called mLearning and what this new style has to offer students and teachers across all sectors. Although this can be stated as the next tool for education, Mellow (2005) was discussing this topic back in 2005, however, even today in 2011 mobile learning is still not widely known or understood.

MLEARNING DEFINED

MLearning has been described as mobile, miniaturised, and media based learning. This description denotes the fact that this type of learning explicitly relates to mobile phones/devices which are miniaturised enough to fit in your pocket along with housing a variety of media based applications (Mellow, 2005; E-Learning Council, n.d.). Mellow (2005), states that the iPhone is a great example of mLearning as it incorporates the aspects of a phone with texting capabilities, alongside the musical applications of the iPod, together with the attributes of a PDA. Mellow was looking into the future of iPhones back in 2005, since then we have all been witness to the incomprehensible abilities a simple phone can do. There have also been further developments in creating the iPhone 4 along with the Sansung Galaxy and the Blackberry Storm. Other mobile endeavours that can be used within education also include the iPad and iPad 2. The iPad2 incorporates augmented reality software which Horizon has stated to be one of the educational tools to be looking for in the next 2-3 years. Technology is moving faster than anticipated back when it was first rearing its head with radio and colour television. Teachers of today can no longer sit back and expect students to take in what they are saying, the social networks that today’s students spend their lives entrenched in are now the places where teachers need to be using as educational tools to reach their students.

FLEXIBLE EDUCATION

In today’s world of fast passed living, education needs to be flexible; not simply to keep up with the times, but to empower students in their own lives (Forrest, Pope & Gatfield, n.d., para. 4). Teachers need to educate within a new realm of social media, wireless internet, and easily accessible data. The idea that students need to come and sit in a room for 8 hours a day listening to a person up the front lecture them about e=mc2 is no longer suitable. Educators have tried to leave technology out of schools and universities for years but slowly, they are realising that this technological trend isn’t going away and each generation will have a new and wonderful ‘gizmo’ to occupy their time. However, all is not lost for the educational world. Some have embraced the technological boom and discovered the educational positives that technology brings with it.

So how does mobile technology increase flexibility in education? There are several aspects to focus on. Mobl21 is an organisation which was developed in order to help educators use mobile technologies. They have outlined 7 ways in which to use mobile technology within education. Sometimes it’s as simple as swapping paper for mobile in sending out assessment tasks and hand outs, ‘providing visual guides’ for remedial students, multiple choice tests for study, quick reference links, communicating information through diagrams and formulae in a simple and easily accessible tool, and even supplementary material can be accessed from a phone (Mobl21, 2010). The list is endless on how mobile phones can help education become flexible. This is especially beneficial for those students who might be struggling, or who excel in general classroom topics, for those who need to work, active students and those who find writing difficult. Students of today still want to learn like students of the past, their lives however, are altering and the education they receive needs to cater for the changes students are facing.

 A TOOL FOR EDUCATING

So where does all this technology, compacted into one device leave educators? Looking at a device which can be used as a tool to engage students, interact with them, develop deeper understandings of topics through media based examples, and broaden communication through texting and email along with much more. Geddes (2004) states that there are 4 key advantages to mobile learning and 3 ways of using mobile learning to communicate with students:

Now that teachers know the advantages and some of the positives and negatives of the above systems, they also need to know how mobile learning is being used. There are several website that have been created to help educators use mobile media; we will look at what some of them have to offer below.

·         StudyTXT

This type of learning is where students are sent text messages to help them study, whether it be through multimedia messages, web links, multiple choice questions and so on. This type of texting is part of the push system where the institution would pay for the text messages and students would receive as many as are sent.

·         Mobile Phones in Education

The University of Wollongong has put together a website which discusses the pedagogies of mobile media and how educators can use mobile phones, iPods and PDAs. Some of the ways they have stated include texting; image and video capture; record interviews, historical songs, guides, learn new languages; as well as deconstruct or construct texts.

As seen from these above two sites, there is a range of ways to use mobile media in education. It is vital that educators learn the different advantages to using mobile media in order to broaden the learning dynamics. There is not better way of becoming more aware of your students than using the tools that they use every day for socialising and fun as part of your learning journey together. Watch the following slideshare clip regarding mobile learning and feel free to go to the links provided below as they are all helpful tools for you as you start your mobile learning journey.

 

Mobile Learning Sites:

-          http://mlearning.uow.edu.au/

-          http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/coffs00/papers/jarmo_viteli.pdf

-          mLearnopedia

-          http://www.m-learning.org/

Compiled by Katrina Gordon (October 2011)

Many thanks to my fellow bloggers.

Karen and Catherine,
Many thanks for your comments on my blogs, Catherine I like the term 'nomophobia'! I wish I could work out how to have my comments accepted, I've tried many times and continually get the same message - 'your account (learningonthego...) does not have access to this page. So here are my comments:

What a thought provoking article Karen, I would agree with Rob Ridley that young people have no idea of the repercussions involved in taking photos of themselves and/or friends in compromising poses.  I recently joined Facebook and added my daughters as friends, which has proved to be an informative and educative experience!  Most of the photos posted are downloaded from their mobiles and some of the photos could definitely be labeled ‘sexting’.  I don’t think they are aware that some of these photos are bordering on an illegal activity and so our family will be having a discussion on the legal ramifications of posting/smsing photos that show themselves or friends in unsavoury dress/poses.  As a teacher, it’s also important to discuss this issue with our classes, emphasizing the legal consequences of sexting.

Janye

I’ve seen QR codes in many places and wondered what they meant and what they were used for and now I know thanks to you, Catherine.  The YouTube video on what one school is doing with QR codes was inspirational.  The fact that you can load so much information on them including audio, videos, pictures and websites makes it an exciting learning tool.  The way the language teacher has used the QR code in the corners of worksheets, enabling her students to practice vocabulary and pronunciation anywhere, anytime means that in the classrooms where mobiles are banned, students can use there mobiles at home, on the bus or anywhere to access revision of lessons or homework.  My prediction would be that students would not be able to help themselves when they see a QR code.  Curiousity can assist learning but not all students are curious and this is one way to grab their attention, in what could otherwise be termed a boring lesson, ‘Not vocab again.’

Janye

Out of My Hands – Exploring New Pedagogical Approaches to Mobile Learning

Catherine examines new approaches to her teaching practice...

 http://www.slideshare.net/ASLAonline/mo 1

This assignment on Mobile Technology has highlighted several areas that I need to address in my own teaching practice. So, it is with Doctor Joyce Valenza’s words (above) in mind that I embark on changes in my collaboration with students and teachers alike. Paradoxically, the future is both in my hands and out of my hands. The change is occurring whether we like it or not. Therefore, it is incumbent for schools to engage with mobile technology and address this shift in pedagogy. This must take place on two distinct but related levels: on the one hand, it is important that students leave school equipped with new literacies in their increasingly digital environments. On the other hand, and in order to develop such literacies, it is necessary that schools themselves explore ways to authentically model technology use in their learning and teaching environments.

Mobile devices do present a challenge to the traditional paradigm. However, students need to be collaborative, communicative, creative and critical to be life-long learners in the 21^st century. Educators such as Prensky (2001a, b) and Oblinger & Oblinger (2005) have raised significant challenges for those responsible for facilitating learning for the emerging ‘digital’ generations. They emphasise that the use of digital technologies affords high motivational advantages in the classroom. However, the challenges are significant – high learning curves for teachers, the “fear” factor among staff, the new technology may be a new package for the same old dull and boring content – just to name a few. Yet if appropriately facilitated, mobile technology can benefit students by providing learning anywhere and anytime. Teachers and students  should be “participants in the conversation of learning” ( The JISC infoNet Mobile Technology Information Kit ) so that new learning pathways become more personal, collaborative and life-long.

With these ideas in mind, I have decided to focus on these aspects of my teaching practice:

Adapting Pedagogy

“The teacher is no longer merely the one-who-knows, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.” (Freire, 1996, p. 61 as cited in The JISC infoNet Mobile Technology Information Kit, )

http://www.k12mobilelearning.com 

Freire’s words continue to resonate with me as I strategize in my role as Co-ordinator of Library and Information Services and Chair of our school’s Technology Committee. Teaching about and with mobile technology is indeed a joint responsibility.  It is clear that we systemically need to make mobile technology relevant to our curricula. Therefore, it has become part of our curriculum mapping process (which is, of course, mandatory for current curricula as well as the new Australian curricula.) At our Heads of Department meetings, we continue to engage in a collaborative approach to mobile technology and endeavour to embed our 1:1 approach in all subjects. I concur with Karen D’s comments on the Mobile Me that “the pedagogical implications of mobile learning will be that teachers will have to look at changing from “being transmitters of knowledge to facilitators of learning “(Corbeil and Valders, 2007)

Digital Citizenship

amdigitalcitizenship.wikispaces.com 

With Digital Citizenship being recognised as an essential new literacy in mobile technology use, I have made a concerted effort to map our approach to this across all KLAs and Year Groups. The Lismore Catholic Education Office has supported us very strongly in this area. Just recently, we surveyed Years 7 and 8 on their use of mobile technology and social networking. This led us to incorporate more explicit teaching in terms of “netiquette” and ethical and responsible use of mobile phones and social networking sites. There is further scope to survey Years 9-12 so that we can explicitly addressed the issues of cybersafety and digital citizenship in all age groups. It is essential that we address these issues especially if school leaders such as me espouse the use of devices such as mobile phones in the classroom as constructive rather than destructive.

Cloud Computing

sybase.com 

In keeping with the SAMR model by Ruben Puentedura, I am working towards “redefinition” in terms of how I use mobile technology in my collaboration with teachers and students. Just yesterday, I worked with the Modern History teacher and her extension class setting them up for their HSC research task. I introduced them to Evernote, signed them up to Gmail and them set up Google Alerts for their chosen topics. I also explained Google Advance search and Google Scholar. All of these tools would not have been used prior to mobile technolgy.

QR Codes

These intriguing little squares are going to be the basis of my “redefinition” of Year Sevens’ introduction to the library next year. I have already started gathering the mobile devices – sixteen iPods – to use to access the codes. My next task is to devise ways these codes can guide students through the library. I am even excited that some new novels arrived yesterday with their very own QR Codes! My Student Librarians have begun helping me create the codes as well as the scavenger hunt activities.

Augmented Reality

This wonderful app enables students to create customized 3D pop-up books. I will use webcams with Year 7 English and they can simply click on the 'Augmented Reality' button at the top of the screen and watch as the book appears in the palm of their hand!

So, from into our hands to out of our hands, the future of education is mobile! I am so thrilled to be teaching in this digital age.

References

http://www.slideshare.net/ASLAonline

Prensky, M. (2001b, Dec.) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II. On the Horizon, Vol. 9,

No. 5. NCB University Press. 

Oblinger, D.G., and J.L. Oblinger. (2005) Is it age or IT: First steps towards understanding the

Net Generation. In. D.G. Oblinger and J.L. Oblinger, Educating the Net Generation.

The JISC infoNet Mobile Technology Information Kit

.

Learning on the Move

Catherine explores the move towards different pedagogies when using mobile devices in education...

Learning on the Move is an apt title of our blog given its implied double meaning. Not only does it refer to ubiquitous mobile devices such as iPods, iPads and Smart Phones, it highlights the requisite for change in education with regard to these tools. What is required is a paradigm shift, a move towards the practice that technology is both part of the learning system and an object of it. With this in mind, it is incumbent that pedagogy be changed.

Image from Learning2go.com

The JISC infoNet Mobile Technology Information Kit provides an excellent guide to implementing mobile technology in education. I was particularly drawn to its analysis of different pedagogical frameworks for teaching with mobile devices. The kit presents re-conceptions of learning in terms of:  

• Learning as knowledge transmission and construction
• Supported by ICT
• How to design and manage an effective learning environment

The contributors see mobile learning as:

• Learning as exploration and conversation across contexts
• Enabled by continual interaction with personal technologies
• How people creatively engage with their continually changing surroundings to create transiently stable and effective sites of learning

 The discussion begins with a quotation from John Dewey (1916) that is still highly relevant today:

“A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability.

Otherwise, they will be overwhelmed by the changes in which they are caught and whose significance or connections they do not perceive.”

John Dewey wrote this at a time when he could not have envisaged the plethora of mobile devices and apps that we have access to in the 21^st century. Ipods, ipads, kindles, MP3s, Smart Phones – all these devices enable students to move from a synchronous and immediate experience of a collective place (i.e., the classroom) towards asynchronous, individualised learning platforms. These new tools allow students to participate in countless projects of hyper-connected communication, collective knowledge and shared creativity. Yet, what remains the same is that educators must have the initiative to change and adapt.

What is Mobile Learning?

Image from www.moblearn.com

On a basic level, it is learning that occurs when students use devices such as iPads, MP3 players and Smart Phones. While these devices are important to learning, the actual process involves more than accessing and creating information and the hyper-connectivity with the collective. It is the mobility of learners that allows for the multiple contexts in which they find themselves. “Looking at mobile learning in

                                                                                                                     a wider context,we have to recognize that mobile, personal,and wireless devices are now radically transforming societal notions of discourse and knowledge, and are responsible for new forms of art, employment, language, commerce,deprivation, and crime, as well as learning.”(Traxler, 2007 cited in The JISC infoNet Mobile Technology Information Kit)

The contributors refer to Sharples,et. al. (2010), who argue that mobile learning initiatives provide an opportunity for staff to reflect upon their practices and re-ask the question:

How can technology best enable this particular learning outcome?

Further, they refer to Colley, et. al.’s four groups of attributes to consider when exploring learning:

 • Learning process

• Location and setting

• Learning purposes

• Learning content

The contributors advocate that it is more productive to conceptualise mobile learning as the comprising of the interrelationship of these four elements. However, it can be a challenge “to discover how to use mobile technologies to transform learning into a seamless part of daily life to the point where it is not recognised as learning at all.” (Futurelab, 2004, p.5)

The Futurelab overview from 2004 which outlines six broad theory-based categories of activity is worth re-examining if we are to change our pedagogy to incorporate mobile technology:

• Behaviourist - activities that promote learning as a change in learners' observable actions

• Constructivist - activities in which learners actively construct new ideas or concepts based on both their previous and current knowledge

• Situated - activities that promote learning within an authentic context and culture

• Collaborative - activities that promote learning through social interaction

• Informal and lifelong - activities that support learning outside a dedicated learning environment and formal curriculum

• Learning and teaching support - activities that assist in the coordination of learners and resources for learning activities

With these categories in mind, the writers scrutinize different pedagogoical frameworks for learning using mobile technology such as Laurillard (2002):

and Park (2011):

However, they favour the more holistic model by Koole (2009):

Mobile learning is therefore a combination of the interactions between learners, their devices, and other people. Koole also provides a helpful checklist for institutions looking to adopt mobile learning, including the following questions:

In a mobile learning system, have you considered: 1. how use of mobile devices might change the process of interaction between learners, communities, and systems? 2. how learners may most effectively use mobile access to other learners, systems, and devices to recognize and evaluate information and processes to achieve their goals? 3. how learners can become more independent in navigating through and filtering information? 4. how the roles of teachers and learners will change and how to prepare them for that ?

These questions enable the mobility of the learner rather than the device to be at the forefront of the mobile learning initiative.

Just as different disciplines lend themselves to different styles of teaching, so different mobile learning approaches will be necessary. I particularly liked the inclusion of the SAMR model by Ruben Puentedura which is like a taxonomy of types of learning activity:

The contributors to the kit believe that conceptualising  technology-enhanced learning activities with the helpof the SAMR model helps avoid shallow uses of mobile devices for learning. For example, using a word document on an iPad may count as mobile learning but,on Puentedura’s model, it constitutes ‘Substitution’, the lowest form of technology-enhanced learning. The SAMR model will be worth incorporating into my own teaching practice as I work towards the “Redefinition” stage.

The contributors to the kit contend that “mobile learning allowed the learning conversation to be focused on learners rather than teachers as the technologies were more personal and personalised.” It is the potential for mobile learning to "bridge pedagogically designed learning contexts, facilitate learner generated contexts, and content... while providing personalisation and ubiquitous social connectedness" that makes it different and "sets it apart" from more traditional learning environments.( The JISC infoNet Mobile Technology Information Kit , p.29) This context of having a device available for personal use at any time changes things significantly for learning and teaching.

In summary, the contributors suggest that a theory of mobile learning must be tested against the following criteria: 

• Is it significantly different from current theories of classroom, workplace or lifelong learning?

• Does it account for the mobility of learners? 

• Does it cover both formal and informal learning? 

• Does it theorise learning as a constructive and social process?

• Does it analyse learning as a personal and situated activity mediated by technology?

With these ideas in mind, it is paramount that we, as educators, re-examine our pedagogy when adopting mobile technology. There is a clear requisite for a move in both philosophy and practice. The contributors advise that “a teacher has no ontologically privileged position, but is simply another participant in the conversation of learning.”(p.31) Furthermore, they refer to Freire (1996) who coins the phrase “co-intentional learning”, where teacher and learner jointly develop understanding through dialogue.  “The teacher is no longer merely the one-who-knows, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.” (Freire, 1996, p. 61 as cited in The JISC infoNet Mobile Technology Information Kit, )

So, let us all join in the conversation of learning and move towards to new paradigm in teaching in the digital age.

References

The main resource used was The JISC infoNet Mobile Technology Information Kit . All diagrams above were taken from this site. However, I thought it worth noting the following sources cited in this kit for further reading:

• ·        Futurelab (2004) Mobile Technologies and Learning report
• ·  Koole, M.L. (2009) 'A Model for Framing Mobile Learning', in Ally, M. (ed.), Mobile Learning:Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training, Edmonton, 2009, p.38)
• Park, Y. (2011) 'A Pedagogical Framework for Mobile Learning: Categorizing EducationalApplications of Mobile Technologies into Four Types' (The International Review of Research
• in Open and Distance Learning, 12(2), February 2011)
• ·   Sharples, M., et al. (2007) ‘Mobile Learning: Small devices, Big issues’ (in Sharples, M., etal. (eds.) Technology-Enhanced Learning, 2009, Part IV)
• ·     Traxler, J. (2007) 'Current State of Mobile Learning' (in Ally, M. (2010) Mobile Learning:Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training, Edmonton: AU Press)