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K is for Kindle

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  • Kindle

  • David Kolb (Kolb’s learning cycle)

  • Daphne Koller

  • Agnes Kukulska-Hulme

  • Knowledge (exchange, acquisition, workers … )

  • Khan Academy

  • Kerewella

If you have an interest in e-learning you will certainly have heard about the Khan Academy. The narrative is simple, though somehow predictable in the US that an Investment Banker makes a video explain 'math' to his nephew that is so successful that it goes viral, he quits his job and with $1m from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation goes on to create thousands of video clips that now occupy many classrooms across North America. This supposedly heralds the 'flipped classroom' where pupils do their video and interactive learning (now) as homework and spend one to one time with teachers in class. The reality is a significant 'blend' of the technology-enhanced learning and the classroom with teacher as expert. Not revolution, just evolution. Less significant than is made out - in any case, we've had BBC Bitesize for at least 14 years: I wrote a review of the online education market in 2001 - in Great Britain there is no market as the BBC fills it.

I go for Kindle with my K. It was the first 'gadget' I bought to support my online learning with the OU some three years ago. I didn't have a smart phone, or even a laptop at the time, and certainly no iPad. I depend so much on my Kindle that I know have two - traditional and the new paperwhite that arrived yesterday. I love knowing how many minutes it will take me to finish a chapter; this timing adjusts as my reading speed and habits are logged. I race through books in this way. I like to be carried by the content and not frankly know that as a hardback such a 385+ publication may look daunting. I just read. Reading will in all likelihood be my 'R' too - it remains, to my mind, the fastest and most efficient way to transfer knowledge from an expert to a student. Faster and more effective than a video, than a podcast or some sluggish, quickly dated interactive, gamified version of the text. Just find someone who knows their subject well and can write.

I attend the inaugral lecture of Prof. Agnes KH. If you wonder if e-learning is a transient term (it is), then I believe 'm-learning' has already come and gone. My desktop is my ipad, is my iPhone, is my laptop ... is someone else's device. All are my 'university in my pocket'. Mobility and portability my transcend into wearability, but in the learning context it is just that - learning. I wrote as much in a review of a KH book on Amazon and got flamed. I gave up and removed my review; someone took it personally.

Daphne Koller gives an impressive TED lecture of MOOCs. Catch the MOOC thing while there's a buzz - it will be gone before you've noticed otherwise. Once again, a complex term that can only change into something better and will in any case rapidly dissolve into the way we learn online in a multitude of ways.

 

 

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Mobile Learning Challenge

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 1 Nov 2012, 16:27

Mobile Learning Challenge

If you are interested in mobile learning here's a challenge from IET colleague Prof Agnes Kukulska-Hulme - co-author of some of the material in mobile learning (Week 19 of H800 of the Masters in Open and Distance Education).

Search 'mobile', 'm-learning' or 'agnes' here for my notes from the last 18 months if you are interested in having a go?

Perhaps some of us could work together and give the winnings to an educational charity or towards producing an idea? 

The International Association for Mobile Learning (IAMLearn, www.iamlearn.org), in collaboration with Epic (www.epic.co.uk), is proud to announce the Mobile Learning Challenge. 

The Mobile Learning Challenge is searching for innovative and visionary solutions for learning using mobile technologies. 

Practitioners, students, and young researchers are particularly encouraged to contribute their inspiring and visionary concepts. Specific technical skills are not required for participating!

Full details here: http://www.iamlearn.org/competition.php   

The first prize

The winner of the Challenge will receive £1000 (one thousand GBP). The winning solution will be presented to the mLearn 2011 conference audience either by the winner (if present at the conference) or by the President of IAmLearn. 

This prize is co-sponsored by IAmLearn and Epic. 

The second prize

The runner-up will receive a prize of 5 years’ free membership of IAmLearn.

Deadline for Submissions is Wednesday, 14 September 2011 24:00 GMT. 

Please circulate this news through your networks and forward to anyone you think might be interested. We hope there will be many exciting submissions.

Best wishes. Agnes 

Agnes Kukulska-Hulme,  President, International Association for Mobile Learning.

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E-learning is like a take-away

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 4 Nov 2011, 19:41

The idea of thinking of e-learning as a chicken tikka is sound, though I'd perhaps prefer pizza or a Chinese takeaway.

Whether it's e - learning or m- learning, it must be ME learning.

Chapter 12

Rosemary Luckin, Diane Brewster, Pearce, du Boulay, Siddons - Corbay.

From Mobile Learning:a hand book for educators and trainers. John  Traxler and Agnes Kukulksha-Hulme (2005)

I read this on vacation in a couple of days in between learning to surf on the north Cornwall beach of Mawgan Porth. I have barely managed a day without dwelling on either e-learning or social media, dreaming of them even when a signal is difficult to come by (on the knoll above the farmhouse where we are staying).

Written in 2005 and so based on research of the previous five years I have to wonder at my haste to download it (e-book). It takes me back to my own first forays into online learning in 2001 when amongst others FT Knowledge was my account.

The problem with the content is that is is woefully out of date. All the research being done at the time was on the useless PDAs of the time; I stuck with a PSION that served me well as  a pocket word-processor.

Chicken%252520Tikka%252520SNIP.JPG

'Whichever mode of delivery I choose, the meal I eat will still be Chicken Tikka'. Luckin et al (2005:122)

The only idea of lasting significance that I have taken from the entire book is this one, that and fig.1 which I'm a mind map indicates the many devices that provide mobility, ALL of which now reside in an iPad or iPhone with all problems long ago resolved by commercial organisations rather than any institution who without fail take far too long to commit to anything and invariably design by committee trying to please everyone so put everything in, and rarely consider the commercial feasibility of their actions.

On reflection, 'take-away' says it all for e-learning as convenience is everything.

REFERENCE

Luckin,R., Brewster,D., du Boulay, P., Corbay, S.  (2005) in Mobile Learning. A handbook for educators and trainers. Edited by Agnes Kukulska-Hulme and John Traxler.

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Time, Place, Activity

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 1 Sep 2011, 13:42
The intersection is the next generation of designs.
(context mobile learning, author AKH)
My interest is to free up fingers and legs so that I can tongue- type or contol/ influence actions directly from my mind, indeed to have not something of my mind reading and writing up my every thought, but as a distinct 'other' entity. Churchill had his secretaries. Didn't Barbara Cartland have three? Though they weren't independent or contributing thinkers.
Or perhaps the personal assistant is the personal device of the future.
What it requires is no technology and closer living, in my case not three men in a boat, but three like minds in a Yurt.
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Woman of the Developing World favour learning by mobile phone

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 10:32
As a professional swimming coach when working with disabled swimmers I was taught to play to a person's strengths.
When AKH talks about the inequalities of access, on the one hand she mentions the affordances of such devices on the other ... we find a way to play to their strengths - is it not these developments that drive advances?
Woman needing and wanting to study favour learning via a mobile device (smart-phone or more likely a standard mobile) as it can just look as if they are on the phone. There are cultures where learning is liberation and where liberation is not something the men want 'their' women to have.
I wonder how many others can now take their mobile device into a 'space of their own' (to paraphrase Virginia Woolf), so that they can Rita-like (as in 'Educating Rita) 'improve' themselves.
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The inaugural lecture of Agnes Kukulska-Hulme (Part 4)

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 31 Aug 2011, 15:21
In 2001 AKH undertook the first interviews on the Masters.

I was in this cohort, working full-time, on H802 but not using a PDA. I lacked the wherewithal to get content a palm M105. I had a Psion in my pocket and side by side on my desk were a MAC and a PC.

More on the academic stuff from Way-out & Kukulska-Hulme ( 2001-3)

This Palm using MAer had created their 'university in their pocket'.

Coming from the agency side working across platforms in TV and the Web I had been asked to provide ideas to a UK company that had the UK licence to create content for handheld devices; I should have been speaking to AKH.  

http://blogs.ft.com/mba-blog/2011/06/22/distance-learning-or-nearness-learning/#axzz1WbbnlExG LINKS http://www3.open.ac.uk/media/fullstory.aspx?id=21782
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The inaugural lecture of Agnes Kukulska-Hulme (part 2)

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 27 Aug 2011, 10:08
Prof. Agnes Kukulska-Hulme joined the OU's Institute of Educational Technology in 1996
Her research interests were Digital assets and eBooks, mobile devices, hand held devices and smart technologies for personal learning.
It intrigues me that her first interest was languages, and French, which she studied at Warsaw. She then went on to computing, which is another language, indeed I wonder if programming has achieved what Esperanto dreamed of.
These first personal choices on what to study runs with us for our loves does it not.
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The inaugural lecture of Agnes Kukulska-Hulme

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 10 Aug 2011, 10:16

photo%252520%2525285%252529.JPG

Making polite conversation before the event I found myself speaking to her son and daughter, one at university the other recently graduated. I asked what it was like to have a parent as an academic.  

I also find myself talking to John Traxler and the Director of the IET.

I'm getting used to the idea that I neither get out an autograph book or talk shop (even if this lecture will feed into my ECA).  

In the introduction we learn that Agnes was born in Poland then 'dropped' into Scotland  

She has even more then in common with my Polish academic father-in-law.

Clearly her early interests in languages and computing have brought her where she is today. For opinion and insight we were spoilt; I'll offer it in due course. Are we not all the product of our earlier interests? Where we put down deeper, longer lasting routes?

I used to be nicknamed 'Video Vernon' which perhaps explains how I spent my university days.

You can or will be able to view it all for yourselves.

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H800 WK25 Sage on the stage or guide on the side

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 1 Nov 2012, 12:42

Sage%2520on%2520the%2520Stage%2520SNIP%25201.JPG

Sage on the Stage or Guide on the side?

I don't like the idea that somehow technology is diminishing the value of the educator by implying that they have gone from, and may be demoted to a 'sage on the stage'.

The best teacher never did pontificate, their position on the stage may have been as a result of their expertise, surely in Higher Education, if not early.

But for the transference of knowledge to the 'unknowing' student to occur they'd have to be all kinds of things to all kinds of people; sometimes a sage on the stage, often a guide on the side. Bill Furniss who coaches Rebecca Adlington and other swimmers is literally the 'guide on the side;' this doesn' t means he doesn't know hus subject.

Is a conductor a guide or sage?

What ICT allows is for individuals in the learning process to identify themselves by their role, so that the sage this morning csn be your guide in the evening.

In any case, who says the role of guide is any less sacrosanct?

I find increasingly, the more that I use them, that Stumbleupon and Zite are my guide on the side.

What I crave therefore is a conversation with the sages on the stages.

Come forth Martin Weller, Grainne Conole snd Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, ket's be hearing from you Chris Pegler and Mary Thorpe, you too Denise Kirkpatrick.

(see comments in Linkedin forum)

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H800 80 Week 19: Mobile devices, mobile learners & Web 2.0

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 5 Oct 2012, 06:28

From materials and commentary prepared by John Pettit (2008)

Of courses it is learning if it is on a mobile phone or any other device. Do we mean informal or formal learning? Vicarious learning or didactic? Stumbling across knowledge, or reading formerly to pass an exam? Does it matter? These devices blur the distinction between a means of educating that may eventually look dated and specific to an era.

Do we need campus based universities?

Kids can have their kicks in Ibiza then study online while holding down their first job.

Give the campus over to the retired and unemployed.

Do we need schools?

And if so, instead of being at the centre of a child's education, perhaps they become as tangential as a visit to the leisure centre of supermarket because you are better linkedin to the educators and the content when you're away from the place and all its distractions.

When do you ever not learn even if you don’t know it?

It depends entirely on what the device is being used for. Apps have shown how versatile we are at throwing activities and qualities at these devices. People want this stuff.

Is a laptop mobile? What about the old Apple Classic? I used to take it out into the garden on an extension cable and view it inside a cardboard box while sunbathing. Was that mobile? I can read in the bath on a Kindle and click through RSS feeds on the iPad while the Kettle boils. Might it simply feel as if all these people are following me around?

There are degress of mobility. Working in TV we carried around with us monitors to watch content back during a shoot. The thing was no more portable than a hod stacked with bricks.

When I read formal and informal learning I wonder if this equates to whether the learning is hard or easy. I have acquired knowledge in a formal setting and had a laugh, equally in an informal context without the self-motivation and will I have found informal learning very hard to do.

It is sometimes claimed that handheld digital devices allow students to learn at anytime, anywhere. A more nuanced position argues that the devices have the potential for ‘any time anywhere’ learning but that many other factors come into play.

For example, some devices may be easy to handle but have small screens that don’t allow easy reading.

Far from being hard to read the small screen is better suited to the narrow field of close vision that we have. So what if it is like looking through a letter box. If you want to concentrate why look at more?

A device can become too small. Too portable. As a video producer I have seen kit shrink so much that a device the size of a child’s shoe will generate a HD image and for $75 a day you could hire a camera that delivers 35mm quality. Making a film though with a device so small creates instability, you need some weight on your shoulder if you want to keep the image steady.

The portability and size of screen is less relevant than the affordances of the device, the fact that an iPad doesn’t support Flash, or Android is having problems with Google Apps, that is, if you are using learning materials that require specific functionality that isn’t working.

As for screen size, people may watch a blockbuster movie on a giant screen at the Odeon Leicester Square or on a Smartphone or palm-sized gaming device that is no bigger than a spectacle case; here what matters as with any movie, is the quality of the narrative, not the size of the screen.

Where a device’s portability comes into its own, as the person who recently made a phone call from the top of Everest, is the portability. Another extreme might be a cave diver with a device the plots the route for a cave system, or a glaciologists relaying pictures of a feature in a Greenland ice-sheet to colleagues thousands of miles away that informs the research.

‘Patterns of usage differ widely, and the fit between people’s lives and the devices they use can be very close.’ (Pettit and Kukulska-Hulme, 2007, p.28)

Is an apt way to express a new term being used in the Open University Business School to describe applied or practice-based learning that gets away from the ‘distance’ tag, that is to call it ‘nearness’ learning. (Fleck, 2011). I also like the idea of ‘intense but provisional,’ people’s attitudes are brand specific, with the Mac vs. PC split of computing now a split between Windows, Mac and Android (and others).

People chose brands to simplify the choices that have to be made between a plethora of devices, between Sony, Nokia, Goole and Windows, as well as between network suppliers, be that O2, Vodafone or others.

There is another way of looking at it though, if you come to see that all these devices offer the same sets of services and tools, from QWERTY keyboards, to a camera, from messaging to phone calls, to the hundreds of thousands of Apps, and in the case of the latest Windows phone … Windows software from Outlook to Docs, PPT to Excel.

Is size such an issue?

People have managed needlepoint for centuries and once painted miniatures. There is an appeal for the tiny sometimes, just as there is for the massive. In this respect the device becomes a reflection of the person’s personality, as well as the depth of their pockets, the availability of others services, from a signal to 3G (or not), even to the power to charge batteries.

Personal choice, celebration of variety, offering a smorgasbord rather than the continental breakfast.

‘That well-known random-access device consisting of ink on bound sheets of paper may still have plenty of life in it yet!’ (Pettit and Kukulska-Hulme, 2007, p.28) expressed in 2007 is how in 2011 writers in the e-magazine Reconstruction 6.4 describe the ‘long-tail’ of the blog, that definitions have become meaningless, suggesting that the varieties of ways to do or have what we have continued to call a ‘blog’ is as varied as the ways we have over many centuries come to use paper.

Drawing on a paper written in 2007 on research presumably undertaken a couple of years previously, it strikes me that ‘the world has moved on’, to say the least – though not enough. This exercise is looking at the extraordinary capabilities and uses for a device that in 2011 can offer somewhat more than was possible four years ago. This doesn’t mean to say we have the things.

From my own perspective I came into the MAODE (this time round) with an eight year old iBook that had trouble with some software, things as simple as PDFs and the latest versions of Flash as I was unable to upgrade the operating system. Working from a smallish screen I found myself printing off too. For the second module I had access to a better laptop and plugged it into a good-sized screen that allowed me to see a page of A4 at a time or to swivel the screen and have two windows open side by side. During the course of my third module (this one) I found myself without a particular device, but with access to a desktop, a laptop, even an iPad (and have used a Kindle to read some 16 books). Here I found myself putting everything online, into a blog and e-portfolio so I could access whatever I wanted wherever I was (or whichever device was available), as well as having the cataloguing, aggregating, sharing affordances that this has given. Any device, however mobile, and whatever size, can tap into this content.

The problem now, isn’t simply, for me at least, is the overwhelming volume of content I have put online, which despite adopting various approaches to keep track of it, has split into a number of blogs (OU, Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr), a number of cloud galleries/warehouses in the sky (Flick, Dropbox, Kodak and Picasa Galleries, My Stuff, Pebblepad).

It is apt that I blog under the name ‘my mind bursts’, because it has, and is.

Like having a thought, or recalling some event or fact seemingly on a whim, I find I stumble across these ‘mind bursts’ quite by accident, forgetting the number of blogs, for example, that I for a period started only to abandon so that ‘serendipity’ has a role to play through the myriad of links I’ve also made. None of this has helped by finding myself with three Facebook accounts and unsure how to delete the ‘right’ one.

The attitude can only be to ride this like the web surfer of a decade ago – to run with it, rather than try and control it. You meet friends coming off a training a Liverpool Station, you do not need to know who else is on the concourse, the timetables for every train that day, week or year. To cope with the overwhelming quantity of stuff tools to filter out what matters to you at that moment is coming to matter most.

Currently I find myself repeatedly drawn to the activities of Hugo Dixon, a former Economist and FT journalist, who set up a business he called ‘Breaking Views’ to counter what he already by then perceived as a deluge of online information and the old print-based expression ‘Breaking News’; we would come to need as some pundits predicted fifteen years ago, ‘information managers’ or ‘information management systems’.

I wish I could reference the expression properly but ‘Freedom is lack of choice’ is one of my favourites; sometimes filters and parameters have their place. I enjoy using a Kindle as much for its limitations; it is something I can take to bed knowing that it’ll send me to sleep, while an iPad keeps me up all night.

REFERENCES

Fleck, J (2011) Association of MBAs Conference Video 2011

Pettit, John and Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes (2007). Going with the grain: mobile devices in practice. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 23(1), pp. 17–33.

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H800 80 Use of mobile devices in e-learning TMA02

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 21 Dec 2020, 10:36

There must be industry reports that can give a more current 'state of play' for use of mobile devices (smart phones and tablets in particular) ... though not necessarily confined to use in education.

The Kukulska-Hulme et al 2011 report 'Mature Students using mobile devices in life and learning' may be a recent publication (International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning Jan-march 2001) but draws its conclusions on research undertaken in between May 2008 and April 2009.

Technologically and in relation to the potential for e-learning a great deal has happened since then.

In industry would we not expect a report, say from Nielsen or Monitor, to have been done in the last six months?

In the technology sector old news is redundant.

By 2009 PDAs were virtually extinct and we were about to experience the launch of the iPad. Since 2009 smart phones have graduated - they're bright in many ways.

Like their users?

Bright people with the means quickly find ways to put these tools to work, extending their reach to their online course, for materials, forums and assessment alerts, to organise their study time around their diary.

FROM THE ABSTRACT

'In today’s global marketplace, educators must know the technology habits and expectations of their students, including those from other countries.' (Kukulska-Hulme et al, 200x1:18)

FROM THE INTRODUCTION

"Learners can be active makers and shapers of their own learning. They should be supported in using technologies of their own choice where appropriate". (JISC, 2009, p.51)

Mobile (as they were) will not necessarily be readily adapted for learning.

Ergonomic, pedagogical, psychological and environmental facts and the issue of cost (Stockwell, 2008)

More widespread adoption by students and teachers is likely to follow. (ibid 2011:19)

A convenient and powerful tool for learning.

In an age when "communities are jumping across technologies" as needs and trends evolve (Wenger, 2010), educators and researchers also have to stay informed about how learners use personal technologies as members of communities that may be social, work-related or educational'.

Decreasing institutional control

Jones, Ramanau, Cross and Healing (2010) have critiqued the 'new generation' arguments, concluding that "overall there is growing theoretical and empirical evidence that casts doubt on the idea that there is a defined new generation of young people with common characteristics related to their exposure to digital technologies through-out their life (p.6)

Notable minorities

- Internet to download or upload materials (major minority)

- Contribute to blogs and wiki and engage with virtual worlds (ibid p.21) (minor minority)

'We consider that learners who use handheld mobile devices (e.g., their phones and mp3-players) to support their learning constitute a minority at the present time. We agree that their age seems less important than their position as early adopters and instigators of change through their influence among their peers and through their networks'. (2011:19)

Students registered on such programmes would be particularly strong. (Distance learning).

The sample was purposive.

For key areas:

- Learning

- Social Interaction

- Entertainment

- Work

- Interplay between them (Kukulska-Hulme & Pettit, 2009)

'Learning' is not an unambiguous term ... instead of the double negative why not 'learning is an ambiguous term'.

Does the rhetorical device of the double negative make the statement less assailable?

'We were interested in gathering data that might challenge the still widespread opinion amongst educators that mobile devices are of little use for academic study. Activities such as web browsing, reading e-news, article reading, book reading, and note taking are valued in the academic world but often considered implausible on handheld devices.' (2011:20)

Until more recently that his study which was carried it 2009.

Since the survey was developed, other devices including notebook computers and e-book readers have become popular, making it even more difficult to draw boundaries between 'handheld learning', laptop learning' and 'desktop learning'. (2011:21)

As if such a distinction was ever necessary? They are all computers, just different sizes, affordances and capabilities.

I liken this loss of boundaries, or the blurring, to drops of ink in a tank of water that gradually swirl about each other and merge.

We are able to highlight some differences that became apparent

Conversations with their students

Students do not always realise the potential of new tools and this is an aspect where educators can help (Trinder, Guiller, Margaryan, Littlejohn & Nicol, 2008)

Questions covered:

- About yourself

- Use of mobile devices

- Being part of groups and communities

- Specific uses for mobile devices

- Mobile devices for learning

- Open questions enabled participants to write a response in their own terms.

A total of 270 students complete the questionnaire.

Over all the report notes that:

- There are receptive, productive and communicative uses

- Respondents are using mobile devices to capture ideas and experiences

- Mobile devices have a useful function as tools that remind he user about what she/he has to do.

- Respondents make use of a range of applications for informal learning.

- One function of games is to fill gaps in the day.

- Some respondents appear to be drawing boundaries around disparate uses

- The mobile phone features as an alternative means of communications and to sport physical mobility, e.g. as an alternative to having a land line or when work involves travelling.

RE: LEARNING

- Contact with others

- Access to information and answers

- Reading e-Books

- Listening to Podcasts

- Scheduling

RE: MORE UNUSUAL USES:

- Recording one's voice

- Replay on iPod

- Taking photos

- Contacting experts in other fields

- Uploading notes to blog

- Facebook

- Windows Live Messenger

- MSN

- Skype

- Language learning

- Finding information

- Headphones to shut out distractions

- Productive activities

'Reported benefits of using mobile devices to be part of groups or communities include spontaneous communications, flexibility, speed, stimulation and use of technology to cope with changing arrangement'. (2011:27)

27 Distinct uses of mobile devices (ibid, 2011:28)

The three most intensive uses are very clearly sending text messages, browsing websites and listening to music ... and reading e-news. (2011:28)

Responses included well established advantages such as convenient access to information or to the Internet and the ability to contact people whenever needed. Specific new/innovative aspects notes by respondents included (2011:29):

- Permanency of taking notes: paper is easily lost

- Multipurpose; you can take your work/entertainment with you

- Can combine work with a run with listening to a podcast

- Podcasts give access to unique historical/scientific content

- Suits auditory learners

- Closer relationship between students and teacher

- Multimedia in one small device is a timesaver for teachers

- Instant documentation of whiteboard notes

- Taking photos of overhead slides

- Help with learning disabilities

- Alternative news source/breaking news/immediate first hand reports

- Helps maintain a public diary with a community dimension

- Quick way to learn

- Gets you outdoors

- Field trips become more fruitful and challenging

DISCUSSION AND REFLECTIONS

Mobile devices are shown to support informal; and community learning

While the predominant se for mobile devices is communication, it seems that other aspects of social interaction can benefit, such as the ability to share media between mobile devices directly or blended across other social networking technologies like Facebook.

The research confirms the global popularity of SMS, browsing websites, listening to music, taking photographs and making notes. It also highlights that reading e-news and listening to podcasts are relatively frequent activities among some students, and that article- and book-reading, once considered implausible on handheld devices, are popular among a minority. (2011:30)

What is interesting is that there appear to be many ways in which users are employing technologies to generate products. Bruns (2005) coined the term 'produsers' to denote both of these approaches. One survey shows that mobile devices are enabling users to create resources for teaching purposes, write blogs to keep their friends up to date with events, take and distribute photos and videos, and make and take notes and recordings'. (2011.31)

New practices compared to old studies (2007/2009) include:

- Using apps on the phone including Facebook and MSN

- Using GPS to find places

- Watching movies, TV, shows, vodcasts

- Listening to audio books, podcasts

- Being part of microblogging communities e.g. Twitter

- Browsing websites

- Using location-based services, e.g. to find nearby taxis, banks, restaurants, etc.

- No longer having a land line.

- Mobile device use is a fast-changing field that reflects rapid social changes as well as the increasing availability and smarter marketing of new devices. (ibid, 2011:32)

Micro-blog - are becoming more widespread, and we would expect these uses to figure more prominently in the future. (2011:32)

Slate devices Apple iPad.

Several universities now offer 'apps' for smartphones using platforms such as Campus M.

‘Our findings indicate that institutions planning to offer mobile apps should build on the existing preferences of students for social communication. Listening to audio, watching video and reading short texts if the apps are successfully to enhance the learning experience’. (2011:32)

When students are offered appropriate mobile resources then they will use them. (2011:32)

We agree with Kennedy et al (2008) that 'an evidence-based understanding of students' technological experiences is vital in informing higher education policy and practice.' (p. 109)

Pressures of study and assignment deadlines lead them to seek effective solutions to immediate needs on the go. (2011:33)

Avoid a 'proadoption bias'

‘Furthermore, since the use of a mobile device represents a new technological means of reading books, articles and news, this might have an impact on how, and how much, students read, however further research would be needed’. (2011:33)

The landscape of mobile devices has changed since our survey with some devices (standalone PDAs) becoming almost extinct and others (handheld GPS) endangered. (2011:33)

In favour of smart mobile phones and tablet devices.

REFERENCE

Bruns, A. (2005) 'Anyone can edit': understanding the produser. Retrieved from http;//snurb.info/index. php?q=node/s86

Conole, G (2007) Describing learning activities: Tools and resources to guide practice. In Beetham, H, & Sharpe, R (eds.), Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and delivering e-learning (pp.81-91) London, UK: Routledge

Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes, John Pettit, Linda Bradley, Ana A. Carvalho, Anthony Herrington, David M. Kennedy, and Aisha Walker. "Mature Students Using Mobile Devices in Life and Learning." IJMBL 3.1 (2011): 18-52. Accessed (May 22, 2011)

JISC. (2009). Effective Practice in a Digital Age: A guide to technology-enhanced learning and teaching. Retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/programmerelated/2009/effectivedigital-age.aspx

Rogers, E.M. (2005) Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.) New York, NY: Free Press

Jones, C.R., Ramanau, R., Cross, S., & Healing, G. (2010) Net generation or Digital Natives: Is there a distinct new generation entering university? Computers & Education, 54(3), 722-732. doi. 10.1016/j.compendu.2009.09.022

Stockwell, G (2008) Investigation learner preparedness for and usage patterns of mobile learning. ReCALL, 20(3), 253-270. doi.10.1017/S058344008000232.

Trinder, K., Guiller, J., Margaryan, A., Littlejohn, A., & Nicol, D. (2008). Learning from digital natives: bridging formal and informal learning. Retrieved from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents?LDN%20FINAL%eport.pdf

Wenger, E (2010). SIKM community presentation online. Theme: Rethinking Ourselves (KM People) as Technology Stewards. Retrieved from http://technologyforcommunities.com

 

 

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Design Museum

H800 80 Wk 12 Use of Technology

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 10:38

I've decided to look at mobile learning ... or simply learning on handheld and portable devices. The same thing, or different.

I've been informed by the OU's 'Learning at Work Day' on the 19th May and a presentation by Rhodri Thomas at a stand that showcases the research and work being done in relation to mobile learning.

More from Mobisite

The shift towards mobile learning, using these devices to complement course work, or to carry out or engage in learning styles made uniquely possibly by highly portable, networked devices, is evidence by the figures and perhaps inevitable now that mobile phones at almost universal (93% UK penetration by 2008, presumably more in 2011).

More in Cloudworks

2% of OU students (4,000 or so) use tablets (not just iPads). 11% use SmartPhones (not just iPhones).

All coursework development/availability is 'device agnostic'

I'm impressed how it is driven by student use - this drives the response from the OU, rather than clever folk buried in the OU thinking 'this'll work, developing something, adding bells and whistles andexpeting students to leap to attention when it is presented.

The OU has been tracking use of mobile devices for learning by 35,000 students.

Are they calling it cellular learning in North America?

Kind of misses the point about mobility. This is the key, not a device to take slightly reversioned module content, but to permit content, communication and development exploiting the affordances of a handheld or pocket-sized device that you might have with you up a cliff face, on an oil-rig, or in a crowd of protesters - were the learning, and writing and researching can all take place in situ.

The key points (largely from an IET Agnes Kukulska-Hulme Report Kukulska-Hulme, 2010:10)

Mobile learning is:

  • Very flexible
  • Appropriate/supportive
  • New
  • Convenient
  • Contemporary
  • Practical
  • Beneficial
  • Has its own unique affordances/advantages
  • Personal/personalised
  • Spontaneous
  • Immediate
  • Extends access to materials not replacement technology)
  • Locational
  • Universal (ish)
  • Leap-frog technology in Africa
  • Engaging
  • Expected

I liken it to having a tour guide with you, rather than the book. So learning in the field, human or physical geography, history of art, archaeology and history, for example, can all be brought to life with this 'expert in your poket' to refer to.

A distance learner's mobile device (at the Open University) can be used as a way to:

  • carry around study materials
  • aces new or additional content
  • build up a series of personal notes
  • help make or maintain communications between different contexts

Supported by VLE 2.0 and Moodle 2.0

  • organised personal learning schedules
  • give feedback, opinions or answers
  • get quick information or support
  • communicate with other learners or tutors

Coming from advertising where 'testing to destruciton' is a favourite way to promote some products, I wonder if a new module can be 'tested to destruction' by making it mobile? The stresses or rather the robust nature of the course, and the support provided, my be tested to extreme, for example by someone studying for an OU MBA on an oilrig, or a BA in History while cycling through Europe?

Designing for mobile learning

Designing for mobile learning should follow established principles of good pedagogical design, or 'learning design', in terms of first specifying objectives, outcomes, resources and interactions; then engaging in piloting or developmental testing where possible; followed finally by evaluation and fine-tuning. (Kukulska-Hulme, 2010:10)

Mobile devices are often used in the midst of, and in support of, some kind of 'action'.

How will you evaluate it?

A synthesis of usability issues across a range of mobile learning projects (Kukulska-Hulme, 2007) found that issues reported in the research literature, in relation to what is required in the activity of learning, could be summarised under four main headings:

  • the physical attributes of mobile devices
  • content and software applications
  • network speed and reliability
  • the physical environments of use

The key issues relate to six aspects of mobile learning: (2008:11)

  • The learners
  • Other people
  • Tasks engage in
  • Device being used
  • Connectivity/networks used
  • Locations of use

In addition, there is a cluster of questions to be asked about the longer term requirements and outcomes of mobile learning

CONCLUSION

In general, materials designed for print or online delivery are not likely to be ideal for viewing or interacting with on mobile devices.

A key desire for students is to be alerted when assessment results come through.

They can track their progress also using reversioned VLE content directly on their device of choice.

CASE STUDY

Biodiversity Observatory Project

Enabling Remote Activity

REFERENCE

LEARNING AND TEACHING GUIDES FROM IET. MOBILE LEARNING. Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, with case studies by Anna Page.

Date ? I've calling it 2010 for now.

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Practice-based learning

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 25 Nov 2011, 14:16

Learners’ experiences of blended learning environments in a practice-based context (PB-LXP)

see http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/workspace.cfm?wpid=7174 ,

and

Student attitudes towards and use of ICT in course study, work and social activity: a technology acceptance model approach

http://oro.open.ac.uk/26467/

For anyone this you can ask subject specific question to your OU community on 'OU Platform'

For MAODERs sign up through the 'Your Subject' link and then Education - OU Community Online

Picking up on the 2007 presentation by Grainne Conole of research carried out by the Institute of Educational Technology (OU) I was keen to learn of outcomes from the follow up research they promised on practice-based learning.

Like anyone with an insatiable curiosity the desire to chase several references or to pursue a topic to the Nth degree doing so online can be overwhelming; it is too easy to find references, even more so when they have a URL.

Time was as an undergraduate such searches meant a walk or bike road across town, the nature of Geography (in the first year at least) touching on both human and physical topics, ranging from zoology, politics and history on the one hand to geology and climatology on the other keep me on my feet and toes.

Studying online the only part of your body that is exercised are your fingers and you’re always a click away from a maelstrom of information.

Increasingly I find I want to stick to a brand I know and a name I know.

The brand might be an institution or publisher (often the same thing): Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Open University presses … and the authors whose writing I can trust, both for the quality of the content and how it is expressed:

Gráinne Conole – uber e-learning

Martin Weller - e-learning professor

Gilly Salmon - all things 'e'

Denise Kirkpatrick - OU Pro-Vice Chancellor

Chris Pegler - In open resources

Agnes Kukulska-Hulme - Master of the M-Learning Universe

For example …

Do add MAODE names I ought to add here (this is just a starting list from the top of my head).

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