As an avid blogger (27th September 1999).
I monitor basic stuff like page views.
Why therefore am I popping up here to query why my page views on this platform have started to go backwards?
Rest assured to the very few who take blogging here seriously that I will find out what is going on.
Screwball
Blogging works – you too should keep a diary.
Don't think its anything new, this one dates to the 16th century. Lady Anne Clifford would know how to build a website and keep a blog. She did.
You can always go private.
Edit, then publish later. Or password protect so only a few get to read.
To give you confidence.
To become emboldened.
Start small. 50 years before Twitter there was the Five Year Diary. This is mine. I think the entries here are around 140 character.
‘Maketh up a quote at ye beginning of thy book; it will make people think thou art clever.’
Christopher Marlowe ‘The Obscure Tragedie’ Act II, Scene ii.
The following comes from a seminal book on diary keeping by Tristine Rainer.
Here are some key thoughts:
Some of this thinking can be brought up to date in the context of keeping a diary online; the essential principals remain the same.
A dairy is many things:
‘Everything and anything goes. You cannot do it wrong. There are no mistakes. At any time you can change your point of view, your style, your book, the pen you write with, the direction you write on the pages, the language in which you write, the subjects you include, or the audience you write to. You can misspell, write ungrammatically, enter incorrect dates, exaggerate, curse, pray, write poetically, eloquently, angrily, lovingly. You can past in photographs, newspaper clippings, cancelled checks, letters, quotes, drawings, doodles, dried flowers, business cards, or labels. You can write on lined paper or blank paper, violet paper or yellow, expensive bond or newsprint.’
Tristine Rainer, ‘The New Diary’ 1976.
Is this so different to blogging 25 years on?
Not at all. I go with the view of Reconstruction 6.4 that a blog is like paper, as versatile, but online.
Think about. I have and academic 'papers' have been written on the theme.
‘Flow, spontaneity and intuition are the key words. You don’t have to plan what you are going to do. You discover what you have done once you have set it down.’Tristine Rainer.
Keep it all in one place
‘When the dreams like next to the fantasies, and political thoughts next to personal complaints, they all seem to learn from each other.’
Be open about what you really feel.
Few diaries actually lie to themselves in a dairy, but many out of shyness with themselves avoid writing about the most intimate aspects of a situation.
Write Deeply
Anais Nin, disappointed with her childhood diaries, developed the practice of sitting quietly for a few minutes before beginning to write. She would close her eyes and allow the most important incident or feeling of the day or of the period of time since she last wrote to surface in her mind.
That incident or feeling became her first sentence.
Write Correctly
Blogging for Dummies claims this thinking for itself, treating the ideas of others like a tumble-dryer of ideas from which you can pick willy-nilly.
Choose your audience Your best audience is your future self.
In ten years time you won’t remember the situation unless you capture all its sensual vitality now.
My frustration is with the new comers jumping on the blogging bandwagon professing to know all about social media (including blogging). They don't unless they have done it; I have. I do.
Value contradictions
In time they will develop towards a larger truth; leave them in.
‘Some diarists find when they go several weeks without writing they begin to feel off balance and take it as a signal that they are avoiding the inner self.’
Those of us who keep a diary regularly are stuck with it; whether it appears online, and which bits of appear online is another matter.
‘We taught the diary as an exercise in creative will; as an exercise in synthesis; as a means to create a world according to our wishes, not those of others; as a means of creating the self, of giving birth to ourselves.’
Anais Nin, December 1976.
There’s more to follow from Tristine Rainer on basic diary devices and special techniques.
The Marlowe quote is John O’Farrel’s invention and appears in ‘I blame the scapegoats.’ A diary cannot be ghost written, I’m sure some blogs.
A corporate blog isn'nt a blog it's a online brochure.
Guidelines for Multichoice Questions
Tech Weekly from the Guardian
‘When people ask me how to keep a Diary, I refer them to Ira Progoff's Intensive Journal [method]....One cannot help being amazed by what emerges from this skilled inner journey. All the elements we attribute to the poet, the artist, become available to everyone, to all levels of society.’
Anais Nin
Each time I come back to a blog after an absence of weeks, months or years I approach it in one of these ways: I assess who I am, go over the previous period when I’ve been away from the diary, and count these musings as my first entry.
From Ira Progoff’s A Journal Workshop seven useful techniques for diary writing are offered:
Then read a few inspiring blogs from fellow OU students such as Rosie Rushton-Stone.
It takes time ... a few lines every day. If building readers is what motivates you is: read many other blogs to get a feel for what you like and loathe; comment in other people's blogs and then start to write your own blog splitting your time equally between reading, commenting and blogging.
There are millions of blogs out there, getting noticed and then having something remarkable to say every day (no one can achieve that) is the goal.
I can offer tips galore, but mostly it is self-discovery and patience. It has taken over a year for my www.mindbursts.com blog to get from 2 visits a day to the heady heights of 25! And I am working hard at it.
For someone who gets 1,000,000 views a day look at Andrew Sullivan's 'The Daily Dish.'
You should read this while watching the Monty Python Spam sketch set to Lego animation.
Is there a difference between nuasance spam and illegal spam?
Rather like between fly-tipping and dropping litter?
Is it simply a matter of scale ... And being caught in an ocean of digital activity?
Prensky claimed in 2001 that computer use had changed children's brains. So quick? I thought evolution took longer than a week. They sliced Einstein's brain up and found that despite a lifetime of brilliance it was no different to any other lump of grey matter. Prensky could have learnt this from a primer on neuroscience.
This scarmonger had only one goal, to have yet another generation of tired and receptive teachers nod in agreement and blame kit they didn't understand or couldn't use and then the kids themselves. Nonsense. Is it really likely that 'our students' brains have physically changed - and are different from ours?'
Selwyn's 2008 research concludes that Prensky's Generation is no more homogenous than any other, with ample variation in attitudes and exposure to technologies and that in some instances, as in Belgium 'internet use often clashes with rather than complements students progress.'
Don't you find that face-to-face conversations with like minds or planning out an essay on sheets of paper in a quiet room is more effective than having all this yammering and incesant twittering going on around you?
I' m interested in all blogs, especially those kept by MBA students. Here's one from Harvard Business School. She seems to spend her life globetrotting; nothing like te flexible approach to work!
Started in 2011. No longer available. Go figure?
Give him a Tutor Marked Assignment.
The struggle is to get what I'd like to say in a book down to 4,000 words.
Some days I mostly read, giving me something to write about and forever providing a perspective on how blogging works (it does).
OU Academic: Specialist in Educational Technology
MBA MSC and soon to become MAODEr too
H800 with a tentative voice
Harvard Business School report
Vlad prospective MBA student blog
MBA Promotional Blog (India Online)
Another MBA from India Blog
MBA Blog Roll and overview ***
The digital recorder from Roland I use to went interviewing people. Good enough for broadcast and for TV if you synch with a clapper-board.
A few hours ago I thought I'd delve into the Open University Business School Linkedin community to find some interesting stories and was offered this.
The reward, given that this is a Sunday Bank Holiday, is to find these stories.
I suppose were this online 'village' an actual community I'd say come down to the beach for this afternoons BBQ.
I should add that my own personal 'lift' through the OU only makes me wish I'd done an OU course two decades ago. I find that my life-style balance requires: family, work and curiosity indulged with an applied skew'.
Sure it can be put better, but I'm certain you get my meaning. I'm signed up to another MAODE module in 2012 despite having enough for the Masters ... this isn't the point (and has never been my raison d'etre behind CPD).
I wonder if an anthropologist would conclude that there are many of us who hanker after constant learning, as if from parents, uncles, relations, community members and the 'village elders'.
Personally, when my curiosity dries up and can no longer be fed, then I'll have one foot in the grave.
I've got a doppelganger: he's sitting opposite me.
We're on a see-saw.
At the moment I'm trying to get on with a Tutor Marked Assignment (H800, Masters in Open and Distance Education).
I'll be writing on the tutor and learner choices in relation to:
while weaving in
My doppelganger is at work and eager for me to dip repeatedly into Linkedin.
There is some urgency here for me to identify and research a number of Open University Business School stories, always extraordinary narratives, in this case outside the UK. I'm using Linkedin to get in touch with the many associate lecturers who support our learning programme around the world.
So a bit of both.
By Tuesday I need to have the TMA written and would hope even to have a couple of stories coming through. (It may be Sunday morning but I've had one Associate Lecturer already reply).
What is the compulsion for some of us to use Social Media?
I wonder if it is the easy reward? I like listening to people's stories and we as humans love to tell tails. Personally is is low levels of dopamine in my mind that favours the novelty of the new relationship as it forms?
An extraordinary end to an extraordinary week capped by what might have been lunch alone, but at The Hub the chances of a meeting with like minds is always high. (The Hub is the Open University Campus refectory; it sits, as the name suggests between various faculties behind Walton Hall).
I joined OU eCommerce Director Mark Everest and Project Manager Alex Cabon; our enthusiasm tumbled over each other like dogs playing in fresh snow.
Alex was the Student President of AIESEC a remarkable organisation that puts young minds to work, mixing their education with applied thinking (a heady combination, we call it 'practice-based learning' at the OU Business School.
It made me think partially of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, but also of a consultancy service that Oxford students give to local businesses through the Careers Office there, mixed in with The School of Leaders in Poland (a Soros Foundation that Dr Zbigniew Pelzynski established soon after the collapse of Soviet communism).
Mark enthused about video over text - this should be me to camera for 90 seconds rather than 270 words.
I shared my idea for 'WikiTVia' in which every highfalutin wikipeadia entry becomes a video clip while Mark hankered for thousands, or was that hundreds of thousands or even a million testimonials from the OU Community i.e. everyone, 'stakeholders' we would all them, students, staff, alumni ... he mentioned the value of the footage of the plane that landed on the Hudson River, even though it was caught on a mobile phone. Footage of rough quality with an important story or event captured is sometimes referred to as 'Zapruder' after the footage of the JFK Shooting ... production stands count for nothing where the story is powerful.
During the Tsunami in Japan while I watched footage first on BBC News 24, then CNN and finally on NHK English my 12 year old son was watching authentic content without the commentary directly from mobile phones on YouTube. We've got 'citizen journalism,' now for 'citizen TV.' No longer should we be asking people to pick up their pens, rather we should be saying click record on your phone.
I've armed myself with a Sony Flip, yet I've been a broadcast cameraman in my time.
What a Sony 35mm digital camera (movie quality, can be hired for £75 a day!) cannot deliver is the content, that extraordinary story, the narratives of each person's experience with the OU. Often I feel overwhelmed by these personal stories. Anyone can tell their story - I'll interview you over Skype if that helps. Perhaps interviewing requires skills and patient, there are craft skills to shooting, editing and lighting a 'film' (which we still call them).
My role in bringing these stories to the screens of smartphones, iPads, laptops, TVs and the like occurs every time I reach for a digital recorder (sound or sound and pictures), but in the coming months will be me and a BAFTA nominated cameraman.
Have you got a story to tell?
(63137)
E-learning projects/initiatives of 2000/2001 that cost £120,000 + and went nowhere. Dot.com start-ups that went bust.
Not quite first-hand experience as it wasn't my money or job on the line, but I was involved'sharing an office with the creators of 'Doki' an idea for an immersive language learning experience.
Pioneers of innovation are just that - brave people who go out in the cold with no clothes on.
It is this that I admire so much form the Open University ... 42 years of distance learning (pioneers at the time) and as Professor Jonathan Silvertown says in a video clip on the OU website 'It's as if the Open University was waiting for the Internet to happen - distance no longer matters'.
In terms of initiatives I'm familiar with away from the OU I like what corporate e-learning company Epic have done with the BBC Guidelines.
From my TV days I got a copy of these hefty manual every time a new edition came out - think of a Filofax so densely packed with printed pages that it is has the density (and about as much appeal) as a breeze-block. It was indigestible, however much you had to chew on it. Epic used narrative to create what I can only describe as an engaging tale that for its own sake draws you into the content.
The job is profiled on their website with a quote from someone in BBC Training saying that something that was costing X per head to train in was now a fraction of this for the 16,000 people expected to follow the guidelines.
Can it be costed if it is free?
Open Learn is free.
Or is it?
As a tool to attract learners, as a duty or desire to support and share with the community (which is glogal now). To use Open Learn you still need a computer, broadband access ... and electricity.
It must work.
It must be worth it. (cash cost, time spent, time given up) It is pointless if a no or low cost none e-learning solution is better. i.e. can you teach someone to ride a bike online?
There's no science behind any expression of how we learn or how we communicate - how this occurs online can be hijacked by a myriad of metaphors from leaves to digital oceans.
All I'm trying to do here is share with others my take on social media and a simplistic impression of how it is different from 'old media' in that the communications comes from within an organisation lopping off the middle men and the hierarchies that can get in the way.
Here's another one I tried
Do please say what you think or other a sketch of your own.
Fleshing out a visual strategy for social media for the OU Faculty of Business and Law in part from reading 'Inbound Marketing' (2011) David Merman Scott.
Putting Drupal into practice, laying the foundation for three wordpress blogs, hurting my head by watching Twitter feeds on TweetDeck, enjoying getting Linkedin.
Impressed (I'm very impressionable) by paper on the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) and how it has been developed since.
I like the idea of Patrick Jordan's (2001) four pleasures related to technology adoption: physio-pleasure, socio-pleasure, psycho-pleasure and ide0pleasure; though I do NOT like the pseudo-science of the terminology.
From this I set:
I wish the OU student e-portfolio was a pleasure; I'm yet to find an e-portfolio that is so instead use a locked wordpress blog for the same functions.
(62777)
I bought this in 2000 when I was thinking about an OU course.
In February 2001 I signed up for the Masters in Open and Distance Learning. We used First Class, it was loaded from a disk I think. Using a Mac might have been a problem, I was rarely online to follow the independent, spasmodic asynchronous threads.
Anyway, a decade later I am heading towards the finish line.
2001 wasn't a good year for many of us ... I did the first TMAs but was made redundant a couple of months before the EMA would have been due and had by then decided that doing less for a couple of years rather than more would be a good idea.
Anyway ... despite having successfully negotiated two modules and six-eight TMAs and a couple of ECAs I find myself turning to Chapter 10 of the above.
'Writing essays and assignments'
I love the way the book is laid out. I reads like is was designed to be web friendly with short sentences and paragraphs and bullet points galore.
We may be floating around in cyberspace 12 years on from the last edition of this book (first edition 1970), but is remains relevant, not just for preparing for an ECA, but for writing at all.
I like lines like this,' After we've read, heard and talked about a topic, our minds are awash with ideas, impressions and chunks of information. But we never really get to grips with this experience until we try to write down our own version of it. Making notes is of some help, of course. But there is nothing like the writing of an essay to make us question our ideas, weigh up our impressions, sort out what information is relevant adn what is not - and, above all, come up with a reasoned viewpoint on the topic that we can feel it our own'. (Rowntree. 1999:170)
(62435)
Where do we strand with the use of mobile devices in learning?
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, in relation to the potential for e-learning, has move on a great deal. In industry would we not expect a report, say from Nielsen or Monitor, to have been done in the last six months?
As Kukulskha-Hulme and her colleagues point out 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.
'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, 2001:18)
A growing body of students expect a component of their course to be managed using mobile devices.
I like this point from JISC. It supports the constructive view of learning
"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)
It is interesting that the report notes that ‘mobile will not necessarily be readily adapted for learning’ (a 2008/2009 perspective) with reasons given as: ‘Ergonomic, pedagogical, psychological and environmental facts and the issue of cost’. (Stockwell, 2008)
Much more is possible today, and expected.
They do suggest that, ‘more widespread adoption by students and teachers is likely to follow’. (ibid 2011:19)
The report notes ‘notable minorities’
A notable major minority who ‘use the internet to download or upload materials.’ (major minority)
And a lesser minority, minority who ‘contribute to blogs and wiki and engage with virtual worlds.’ (ibid p.21) (minor minority)
‘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)
Which debunks Prensky and favour diffusion of innovations as a mode of study.
'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)
Which has indeed happened with smarter phones and the proliferation of the tablet (or slate) or iPad … whatever the term might be that we settle on.
‘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.
MOBILE DEVICES ARE USED IN LEARNING FOR:
- Contact with others
- Access to information and answers
- Reading e-Books
- Listening to Podcasts
- Scheduling
Producers and consumers become 'produsers'
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)
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.
‘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’. (Kukulska-HUlme 2011:32)
When students are offered appropriate mobile resources then they will use them. (2011:32)
‘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)
More research is always needed ... in deed, with a longitidunal study this research would and should undertake to look at a cohort or students EVERY year.
REFERENCE
Bruns, A. (2005) 'Anyone can edit': understanding the produser. Retrieved from http;//snurb.info/index. php?q=node/s86
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)
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
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
- 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
This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.
