Tag Archives: mobile learning

by | November 19, 2012 · 22:53

The story about MOOCs

“I feel like there’s a red pill and a blue pill, and you can take the blue pill and go back to the classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I’ve taken the red pill. And I’ve seen wonderland.”–Sebastian Thrun, Founder of Udacity

The red pill refers here to launching massive open online courses (MOOCs) for which an email address is the only requirement for admission. Thrun actually gave up his tenure at Stanford to start Udacity, a provider of MOOCs in computer science, physics and mathematics so far. Other folks from Stanford teamed up to create Coursera, which offers courses in a larger variety of disciplines, including medicine, song writing and poetry.

These MOOCs have been immensely popular with millions of students from all over the world signing up just this year. In fact, last week the New York Times called 2012 the “Year of the MOOC“! Participants do not get credit quite yet from completing courses though, but because MOOCs have been such a tsunami in higher education, some form of recognition will eventually need to be given to those who pass courses. Giving out certificates will be challenging when identity cannot be easily controlled online (watch Sebastian Thrun as he discusses that point and more in a Charlie Rose interview from last April). In any case, it should be interesting to watch what will happen when all of a sudden 100,000 of people get credit from Stanford, Harvard or MIT every year!

Click the picture to go to Sebastian Thrun’s interview by Charlie Rose

One might think that online courses will not replace the more intimate and personalized experience at your favorite campus. It’s definitely a challenge for MOOCs, as any learning experience typically benefits from being personalized. That’s why for example MOOCs have not been taking off so much at Oxford or Cambridge in the UK. It’s quite difficult to transpose a 1,000 year old culture of teaching small groups in colleges onto an online free-for-all platform!

The vice-chancellor of one of the top British universities even said “You can download lot’s or Rolling Stones online. But there’s nothing quite like going to the concert”. For sure. But how often do you actually get to go to a Rolling Stones concert and what do you do the rest of the time? “I’m a research nurse”, posted a woman from Oklahoma, “I wanted to go to Stanford when I graduated high school, but stuff happened and that didn’t work out. Forty years later, here I am.”

Free opportunities for a top-class higher education for all, worldwide, 24/7. That’s what MOOCs are about. It’s the combination between the ‘M’ and the first ‘O’ that is the trick. And it’s just the beginning.

Understandably, most universities feel challenged by unfair competition — not everyone can afford professors of Stanford caliber. But after the buzz of MOOCs, comes the time to assess their effectiveness at improving quality teaching while reducing costs. Several public universities in Maryland have received $1.4 million from the Gates foundation to study just that. “Over the next 18 months, the University System of Maryland will serve as a test bed for various online or hybrid courses, including Coursera, edX, and possibly other MOOCs, in a variety of subject areas on different campuses,” wrote Debbie Robinson, a spokeswoman for the Gates Foundation, as quoted in a news post by Inside Higher Ed a few days ago.

Can’t wait 18 months to see what will come out of this! Meanwhile, think about doing your own experiment and trying out one of these MOOCs – always good to see for ourselves!

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by | September 13, 2012 · 20:19

Will ‘tabletcasts’ revolutionise education?

As most educational researchers would probably agree: active learning is more effective than passive and letting learners synthesise and create a presentation of curriculum will probably yield high-level cognitive processing and thus good learning results (cf. Bloom’s Taxonomy in Krathwohl, 2002). Yet how can this be facilitated in the classroom without changing everything and still build on existing (good) practice and learning materials? First-hand experience tells me that overnight technological revolutions of teaching practice are seldom successful. Therefore, in order to let the revolution quietly begin, at least three technological requirements have to be met:

  1. It must be possible – to some extend – to reuse existing learning materials and practices
  2. It must be possible for learners to create something (with these existing and/or additional materials)
  3. The learners’ process of creating something with the technology should happen in-class (i.e. the technology should be mobile)

‘Tabletcasting’ (almost) anything with Explain Everything

Two very common learning technologies in today’s practice are PowerPoint and the blackboard. Much teaching can be (or is) carried out using these technologies and learners are familiar with their use for learning and teaching. By enabling teachers to develop digital materials based on existing PowerPoint presentations and learners to easily create and share new presentations in-class using these materials, the basis for an ‘inverted classroom’ is emerging (cf. Lage, Platt & Treglia, 2000; and some of Eric Mazur’s work).

Currently several educational institutions are experimenting with iPads in the classroom. Some are using them for note taking, simulations, data analysis, textbooks, and mind mapping – i.e. remembering, understanding, and analysing according to Bloom’s revised taxonomy – while others are using them for letting the learners create something – i.e. ‘putting elements together to form … a coherent whole or make an original product’ (cf. Krathwohl, 2002). First results indicate that it is possible to use iPads for creating and sharing material in class and that the Explain Everything app might be a good tool for bridging the gap between the traditional setting with PowerPoint presentations and blackboard and the active, inverted classroom where the learners are synthesising and creating. Explain Everything imports PowerPoint presentations, lets the user narrate the slides, make doodles, and import images, and exports the finished product to Dropbox, YouTube, or as a regular flat MP4 file for further sharing (see demonstration in this promo video).

So while we are waiting for a high penetration of tablets, we can think about the design of the learning setting and the materials.

What is a ‘tabletcast’?

The word ‘tabletcast’ is a contraction of tablet (i.e. the mobile device) and broadcast and covers all kinds of materials that are both made on and designed for use on a tablet-PC (e.g. an iPad or similar) and making good use of the device’s technological features. By ‘good use’ it is meant that the tabletcast contains elements which have been developed directly on the tablet and/or contains interactive or multimedia elements.

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by | July 20, 2012 · 14:56

Mobile Learning is In – but, honestly, what is it? Take-away learning or gadget addiction?

One of the major topics of this year’s EdMedia conference was mobile learning (also referred to as mlearning). The topic was addressed through several presentations and in the keynote speech ‘Mobile Learning Revolution: Implications for Pedagogy’ by Agnes Kukulska-Hulme from Open University, UK. Undoubtedly, this is a hot topic; a lot of interesting research is being carried out on different kinds of mobile technologies and tools such as tablets, smartphones, ebooks, and apps for learning, but, honestly, what is mobile learning? Is it defined by its affordances about space-independent learning and mobility or by the specific technology in use? Examining the MOBIlearn definition of the concept (also referred to on Wikipedia) doesn’t provide much clarification:

Any sort of learning that happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies (MOBIlearn, 2003).

This definition seem to include all kinds of learning situations where the learners are potentially studying elsewhere than at the institution or simply use any kind of mobile technology. Does this also mean that using a calculator at home is mobile learning? And, by the way, what is ‘mobile technology’? Aren’t all technologies ‘mobile’ if you have the right means of transportation ;-)?

Though no concise definition was presented at EdMedia, some interesting understandings, characteristics, and classifications were presented.

The Purpose of Mobile Learning: Extending Access or Facilitating New Learning

Kukulska-Hulme distinguished in her keynote between two purposes for implementing mobile learning: Either mobile learning can be used to extend the access to learning or it can facilitate new kinds of learning and learning activities. Extending access could, for instance, be facilitated by supporting access to existing systems such as the institutional VLE and library services from mobile devices. This way students can access their learning materials and study independently of place. New kinds of learning are where the technological features of the mobile devices are used for learning activities; for instance, when the students use smartphones with apps for collecting data for their field work, read the text books and make notes on their ebook reader, or practice their pronunciation of foreign language words using the voice recorder and an app on their iPad.

Again, mobile learning is defined by its affordances about place independence and/or the technology and as Kukulska-Hulme pointed out: mobile learning is when ‘the learning is taking advantages of [mobile] opportunities’.

The Affordances of Mobile Learning

If the affordances define what mobile learning is and what it isn’t, we should have a more precise list of criteria. Klopfer, Squire, Holland, and Jenkins (2002) and Klopfer and Squire (2004) suggest five educational affordances that may help clarifying the concept:

  1. portability – can take the computer to different sites and move around within a site
  2. social interactivity – can exchange data and collaborate with other people face to face
  3. context sensitivity – can gather data unique to the current location, environment, and time, including both real and simulated data
  4. connectivity – can connect handhelds to data collection devices, other handhelds, and to a common network that creates a true shared environment
  5. individuality – can provide unique scaffolding that is customized to the individual’s path of investigation.

Though some of these affordances apply to most technology-enhanced learning settings, the points about portability, context/location sensitivity, and connectivity with handheld devices narrows down the understanding of the concept.

Classifying Mobile Technologies

If, instead/also, mobile learning is defined by the technology, it is relevant to have a closer look at mobile technologies and tools and their various kinds of usages. At EdMedia, Martin Ebner from Graz University of Technology introduced his suggestion to a technical-oriented classification of mobile learning distinguishing between six different usages:

  • mobile information
  • podcasting, lecture capturing etc.
  • geolocation
  • social networking
  • ebooks
  • mobile apps

Though the classification is primarily based on his first-hand experiences with implementing mobile technology, it seems to provide a useful way of differentiating between various kinds of mobile learning tools and classifying the ‘new kinds of learning’ (cf. Kukulska-Hulme’s distinction)

Take-away, Gadget, or Twist?

To the opening question, I still don’t have a good answer. Maybe someone else has? Mobile learning is a hot topic though no one seems to know exactly what it is. Some defines it by its affordances of mobility – as a sort of ‘take-away learning’ – while others are more interested in which technologies, tools, and gadgets that are used. And this may make you wonder: Is ‘mobile learning’ truly a special way of learning or is it ‘just’ e-learning with a minor and ill-defined twist?

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