ICTlogy

Requirements and opportunities for the development of a mobile learning strategy in emergent countries
Claudia Aparicio, Fundación Telefónica, Colombia

The situation in Colombia: 85% internet access in public education, mobile market penetration of 90%, 1 computer per 21 students, techer’s e-learning uses are still low, teachers haven’t broadband access at home, the monthly income for a teacher is US$ 600 in average. So, what could be the impact of using mobile technologies in this context? How can m-learning help in overcoming these challenges?

The other part of the context is that people already use SMS to get news and WAP to access remote tools. This has boosted a positive attitude towards Information and Communication Technologies. SMS have reduced the costs of communications and advanced services have brought communities closer.

Notwithstanding, there still is the challenge on how to apply these tools and the positive attitude into the educational arena.

A strong point is converting the teachers from consumers into producers. A combination of a web authoring platform + tutorials can enable the teacher to produce their own leaning materials, make them more personal, reduce costs. The project (the platform) will work either through SMS, WAP and a web portal.

Discussion

Ismael Peña-López: What has been the involvement of the education community in the project? A: Telefónica Foundation has been in constant contact with the community. Indeed, the Educared Colombia community is already very active and has been eager to participate in the design and testing of the project.

Iolanda García: Is it SMS/WAP an alternative to broadband? It may not, but it actually is in many places (e.g. rural areas) where broadband is not accessible. In these places, teachers download online materials on their phones to use them in their classrooms, where no-one (but the teacher) has access to the Internet.

Analysis of the m-learning practices in Telefónica regarding its different stakeholders: Employees and Families, Customers and Society
Carolina Jeux, Telefónica Learning Services, Spain

Nowadays, almost everything can be mobile learning, as there are multiple devices that allow mobile connectivity, not only cellphones. Mobile learning can provide efficient, scalable and consistent training throughout all the organization.

Some corporate training applications of m-learning are: mobile content in products and services, languages, simulators, motivations process through SMS, MP4 content for pre and post sessions, authoring tools (teachme) that implements content for mobile phones, etc. Indeed, there are circa 1.5 million hours of learning every year at Telefonica, which increasingly implies that learning is part of one’s job.

When the trend is to move from a common Learning Management System towards a Personal Learning Environment, m-learning makes even more sense because it allows for higher degrees of personalization, even if this means losing some control on the whole process.

Carolina Jeux here presents several initiatives that her company has run on m-learning, some of them gorgeous as the training of 60,000 postmen of the Spanish Mail through their PDAs, the creation of ESTELA, the Escuela Ténica de Telefónica Latinoamérica, etc.

Discussion

Q: What are the profiles of the people that localize or create local content? A: They are normally natives of a specific country/culture, because it is not about translating content but really about localizing.

[Here follows a debate on net neutrality, openness of corporations, open educational resources and the relationship of Telefónica with these concepts which I’m neither able nor willing to reproduce because I have strong feelings on the topic].

Promoting Interaction and Engagement in Education and Training by use of iPod/iPhone
John B. Stav & Gabrielle Hansen-Nygård, Sør-Trøndelag University College, Norway

A student response system (SRS) is a group of technological products designed to support response, communication and interaction. The teacher can e.g. create a quiz and the students can answer it on their mobile phones.

One of the reasons to use such systems is that if asked orally, the students might end up not raising their hands at all to provide an answer to the question (including endorsing the proposed answer by just raising their hands). This way, anonymity allows more participation.

The system also fosters collective work, as questions can also be proposed to be answered in groups. In this case, students gather and debate about the correct answer. Involvement is also a good part of it. Indeed, involvement does not end in the most active part of the participation system, but also in its closure: the teacher is pressed, after the question or problem has been answered by the students, to provide a correct answer and a thorough explanation for that answer.

The SRS is not intended to substitute the teacher but to complement and enrich their classes. In fact, many times the system is used to “wake up” the students, to force a change in the pace of the class, to collect (tacit, indirect) feedback on how the class is going.

Discussion

Several people point at the fact that using the SRS implies the possibility of being really flexible in the way you teach, adapting your teaching in real time depending on the feedback. This may sometimes not be possible, sometimes may have a negative effect on tight schedules and, in any case, it demands more preparation for the classes, which is not bad (on the contrary), but it’s definitely time demanding.

[NOTE1: This session was a demo of the Sør-Trøndelag University College student response system].

[NOTE2: I can here think of the Berkman Center Question Tool].

Mobile Phones and Language Literacy in Rural Developing Regions
Matthew Kam, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

When analysing what the user is doing with technology, it is very important to have a multidisciplinary approach.

Needs and problem statement: fluency in “power language” (e.g. English), public schools in developing regions (e.g. India) are not succeeding, 101 million primary school-age children do not attend school (36M in South-Asia, 39M in Sub-Saharan Africa).

How can cellphones make education more accessible through out-of-school environments? Can game-like exercises provide an enjoyable learning experience? Can one learn anytime, anywhere without disrupting work?

The project began in India in 2004 with 10 rounds of fieldwork (adding up to more than 12 months of fieldwork). Since 2004 and during that time, there has been several rounds of pilots that included needs assessments, exploratory studies in slums and villages, feasibility studies again in slums and villages, testing, classroom and out-of-school studies and controlled studies.

A classroom study deployed throughout 2008, three times per week, after-school program at a private village school, demonstrated significant post-test improvements on spelling skills, with learning gains correlated with grade levels.

MILLEE project

Another out-of-school pilot study focused on the use of cellphones in children’s daily lives over an extended time. The participation in the study was voluntary. m-Learning consisted in cellphone-based game when “working” in the fields to improve English literacy. It was a task-based language teaching, with an instructional sequence around tasks. Much of the methodology was already out in the market (do not reinvent the wheel), so best practices in 2nd language teaching were analysed and more than 50 design patterns where distilled to be applied in the own project.

On the other hand, it was also analysed what were traditional Indian villages games like, how were they different from existing Western videogames. Thus, 296 game design patterns where documented, identifying 37 non-tribial differences. At last, educational games were designed on purpose and based on traditional village games.

Access to electricity was a major issue, and the average user could use the mobile phone for learning during 2:23h per week. Social environment was also an issue, as some kids had to hide the phones away from their parents or brothers, had maintenance issues, etc.

The average participant covered 46 new words over 16 weeks of unsupervised usage of cellphones. At this rate, each participant is expected to learn 150 words in a calendar year. Benchmark is 500 words, given good learning conditions. The problem is that during the first 8 weeks, the rate of number of new words completed is very high (up to 40-65 words per week), while the rate falls to under 10 words per week for the rest of the weeks. So, the novelty effect has a very hight attraction power, but it ends up fading out.

This project has been now on a scaling-up phase with a Nokia grant that enabled the extension of the pilot to 800 low-income children in 40 locations.

A major challenge for this project is not scaling in quantity, but also in quality, making it advance towards the acquisition of advanced literacy skills. The project is now being designed based on Chall’s stages of reading development. On the other hand, one size fits all approach does not scale, which implies quite a complex deployment strategy.

Discussion

Ismael Peña-López: Has there any research been made to analyse the fading out of the novelty effect? Any ideas on how to extend it? A: There are two strategies to extend the novelty effect. The most evident one is, of course, to include more and more novelties along time. This is, usually, not economically sustainable, as content production is very expensive. On the other hand, introduction of more and more novelties might be misleading. A second way, which is not actually extending the novelty effect, is to make the games more engaging. This is the strategy the project is taking and that is why a game designer has joined the team to specifically focus in this aspect.

Eva de Lera: Why not using bigger devices/displays that allow for more users at the same time that the tiny cellphone screen? A: There is not really a single approach. There are many experiences on several users converging on a single device, like the multi-mice PC. On the other hand, engagement in language learning often depends on oneself being in charge of his own learning, and being in control of the game. But, yes, definitely, there is not a single path.

Carlos Fernández: Why not using less multimedia-intensive learning games (e.g. quizzes) with lower requirements of adoption and, especially, with lower power/battery requirements? A: This is already done, but it also has a trade-off with engagement, so it is difficult to tell where the balance is.

Q: How far can we go on in m-learning for language literacy? A: It depends. It certainly can go really far, but we should definitely consider (i.e. do not forget) the role of the teacher. Thus, maybe the upper end of m-learning should more be about teacher training rather than direct student education. Talking about individual vs. group activities, the shortcomings are not obvious; sometimes individual use is better.

More Information

• Cell Phone, The Ring Heard Around the World.
• MILLEE: English Literacy through Games on the Third Screen.

The “Mobile Game Based Learning” Project
Thomas Putz, Project manager at Evolaris Next Level, Austria

The project project aims at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of learning in the target group of people in the age of 16-24. To do so, games were put into the equation by means of a free software platform called mGBL – mobile Game-Based Learning.

The main idea was not to port some PC-style gaming platform into mobile phones (neither PDAs, nor gaming devices). Games should be geared around real life communication, intertwined in daily lives. The learning concept had to be mapped to the game style, embedded naturally in the game.

Game 1: Fastest First!

The game had two different parts: a first one where knowledge was checked, a second one where the game took the approach of a simulation where that knowledge had to be practically applied.

Game 2: MOGABAL

This game has a multiuser version where several players can play the same game. The game has also quizzes, but is much more visual and the various choices have no immediate reward but a link to a subsequent level.

Game 3: Get Real!

This was a server side game where collaboration was a key issue. Indeed, a planning part was also included in the game, so it was not only about “doing” but also about “wanting to do”. Communication was really enhanced and was enabled by texting, with MMS, etc. The game had also a very interesting online-offline combination of activities, including QR codes that could be transmitted via the mobile phone to the game, and there enrich the information about e.g. a building by means of other sources.

Game 4: Digital Economy

The game consisted in finding and mapping e-business initiatives in the city.

Conclusions

The students actually learnt the contents related to the syllabus/curriculum, with a stress on cross-curricular competences; they got new digital skills; teamwork and cooperation skills were also improved, including social skills, self-confidence, etc.

Discussion

Q: Is it true that first the game was developed and then the it was decided what its applications would be? A: Absolutely. The reason was that the game applied different pedagogical theories or methodologies, and these actually came before the games themselves. The practical application, though, of such methodologies did come later.

Q: How many people participated in this project? What is the best way to reach everyone? A: It is definitely not a way to reach everyone to focus on the state-of-the-art devices that are the latest to come to the market. It is preferable to target less powerful but more popular devices that everybody has access to and, more important, whose usage has become widespread in terms of mastering their technical possibilities.

A Blended Mobile Learning Model-Context Oriented (BML-CO)
Fernando Moreira, Associated Professor at the Universidade Portucalense, Portugal

There is a difference between “traditional” mobile learning and “real” mobile learning: the real thing requires not only migrating content from one platform to the other one, but a change of attitudes, methodologies, goals, etc.

In-class use of mobile technologies: Students:

• Focus their learning on areas of weakness.
• Diminish misunderstanding.
• Enhanced learning.

In-class use of mobile technologies: Teachers:

• Identify sudents’ misconceptions, challenges.
• Adapt teaching practices.
• Enhanced assessment and feedback.
• Enhanced teaching.

The problem, though, is that we have theorized about traditional learning, e-learning, blended learning, but not m-learning. Thus, we need a pedagogical theory for mobile learning, and one that takes into account the different types of content that a mobile device can display and how this content should be made available to students.

To do so, context is very important. Bahaskar defines context as any information taht can be used to characterize the situation of learning entitites that are considered relevant to the interactions between a learner and an application. In other words: when, where and why.

A recent investigation by Bahaskar himself shows that audio is mostly used when walking, video when being stationary and photo while in group. Related to the place, video is more used at the classroom or hotel, etc.

The context will also define the technological constraints and/or the associated costs of a specific m-learning model.

m-Learning contents will be based in short texts that will indicate the theoretical concepts that will be studied, practical examples and statements of problems to solve. Image/video will be mostly tutorials and audio be used in small podcasts.

The m-learner is not stationary, so the content has to be adapted to their changing situations.

The model uses Moodle with the Mobile Learning Engine extension.

Discussion

Ismael Peña-López: Is the blended mobile learning model compulsory? If yes, how do students feel about having their teachers constantly “invading” their own lives/cellphones? A: The model is compulsory, but we’ll have to wait until the end of the implementation to know about the level of acceptance of the learning model by students [it is made clear later that this is (a) but an aditional layer which actually makes mobile access non-compulsory and that (b) students decide whether to join the model or not].

Julià Minguillón: What if people do not have hi-tech cellphones? A: Everything in the course/model can be followed either on an m-learning basis or an e-learning basis.

Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol: What happens when mobile devices are not used on the move, but from fixed places? Evidence shows that mobile devices are actually “portable” devices that are carried on from one place to another one and then used there, not in itinere.

Q: What kind of content is it used? A: The idea is to produce new content for the students taking the m-courses.

Julià Minguillón: Why using an LMS and not a social networking site on top of the system? Why using a centralized system that hinders the advantages of decentralized learning that m-learning provides? A: This is definitely a possibility. In its first phase, the LMS will be chosen because it is a more familiar and controlled environment, but the future is totally open.