Mobile learning

[Younus Mohammed Hamdan Ali Al Siyabi]

 

What is mobile learning?

Background

As a result of the dedicated work of the mobile learning community, in recent years we have

witnessed an explosion in the growth of mobile learning across all sectors of education. While

this is to be welcomed, a re-conceptualisation of the precise nature of mobile learning needs to

occur. Why? Primarily because mobile learning has been a victim of its own success. Many

communities have defined it based on their own particular experiences, uses and backgrounds.

This has led to a fertile proliferation of views and perspectives. However, the downside is that

the unique nature of mobile learning is becoming very difficult to characterise. Worst still, mobile

learning, as a concept, is currently ill-defined; it seems to be all things to all people. Formal

definitions from European and Government agencies espouse its relationship to e-learning.

Technologists place a high emphasis on novelty and the functionality of the devices (phones,

PDAs, iPods, PSPs) themselves. Some researchers focus on the mobility of the learner. Yet

others focus on learning in informal settings, leading to a juxtaposition between mobile learning

and formal education. Furthermore, mobile learning applications are underpinned by many

different theories of learning. While this breath of perspectives is to be welcomed because it

leads to many possibilities for development, it poses problems when trying to develop a theory

of mobile learning. Therefore, this workshop proposed that, as a community, we pragmatically

delineate the unique dimensions of mobile learning.

Current perspectives

Current perspectives on mobile learning generally fall into the following four broad categories:

Technocentric.

This perspective dominates the literature. Here mobile learning is viewed as

learning using a mobile device, such as a PDA, mobile phone, iPod, PlayStation Portable etc.

Relationship to e-learning.

This perspective characterises mobile learning as an extension of elearning.

These definitions are often are all-inclusive and do not help in characterising the unique

nature of mobile learning. What is needed is clarity: in agreement with Traxler (2005), the

technocentric/e-learning based definitions only seek to place “mobile learning somewhere on elearning’s

spectrum of portability”.

Augmenting formal education.

In the mobile learning literature, formal education is often

characterised as face-to-face teaching, or more specifically, as a stereotypical lecture. However,

it is not at all clear that this perspective is wholly correct. Forms of distance education (for

example, distance correspondence) have existed for over 100 years (Peters, 1998), leading to

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the questions regarding the place of mobile learning in relation to all forms of “traditional”

learning, not only the classroom.

Learner-centred.

A strong linage of research into conceptualising mobile learning is traceable by

reviewing the combined works of Sharples, Taylor, O’Malley and their colleagues. In their early

research, the concept of mobile learning was strongly linked to the device (Sharples

et al., 2002)

and the potential for enabling lifelong learning (Sharples, 2000). However, it soon became clear

that rather than the device, the focus should be on the mobility of the learner. This led to

considering mobile learning from the learner’s perspective, and to the definition that: “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 learning opportunities offered by mobile

technologies” (O’Malley

et al., 2003). Current work (Sharples, 2005; Taylor et al., 2006) is

exploring the notion of learning in the mobile age, to develop a theory of mobile learning that

builds on Engeström’s conceptualization of Activity Theory and Laurillard’s (2002) Conversational

Framework. The focus of their work is on mobile learning as communication in context

(Sharples, 2005).

Exploring the issue

The workshop began by exploring the issue of what is

unique about mobile learning. The aim

was to focus on the various dimensions of mobile learning in order to help clarify what is meant

by the term.

The day began with a short 20-minute presentation of current perspectives, as outlined above.

This formed the basis for 50 minutes of brainstorming around the issue. There was general

agreement that a precise definition of mobile learning is unattainable. Instead, key

characteristics of mobile learning that emerged were as follows:

–

Enables knowledge building by learners in different contexts

–

Enables learners to construct understandings

–

Mobile technology often changes the pattern of learning/work activity

–

The context of mobile learning is about more than time and space

There was a strong view that for mobile learning applications to be innovative they should not

focus on information transmission and must move away from a model of ‘anytime, anywhere’

access. This led onto a discussion regarding how the technologies and, critically, how the

applications developed might be transformative in nature, i.e. allow learners to achieve things

that they couldn’t have achieved before. However, evidence of ‘transformation’ (from a

discussion of current applications) was found to be lacking. Thus, the workshop preferred to

characterise mobile learning

as an intervention in terms of guiding what the learner is

constructing

. Based on this premise, the next stage of the workshop was concerned with

developing short mobile learning scenarios. For this, we broke up into two groups and each

group was asked to focus on what mobile learning means for them in terms of their everyday

practices. Key points that emerged from the scenario-building process were as follows:

The relationship between the learner, teacher and parent/caregiver is important.

This is because

it helps to structure the interplay between student appropriation of technology and practices in

formal education.

Mobile applications often afford cross-curricular activitie

s. This aspect was seen as a key

advantage when engaging with teachers to link mobile use with classroom activity.

The ethical dimension is critically importan

t. this point came up at multiple points throughout the

day and was viewed as becoming even more relevant as we move towards a world in which

ubiquitous technology is ever present.

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Representation on mobile devices is an issue.

Not only do characteristics of the technology, such

as the small-screen size, need to be taken into account but there must also be an emphasis on

the types of representations that can be used for constructing knowledge. For example, the

‘poverty’ of texting was brought up as a constraint for visual learners.

Participants felt that the role of mobile devices in the socialisation process, and the implications

this has for learning needs were currently under explored.

Implications

The workshop proposed many implications for mobile learning. However, they are preliminary

and flag a need for further collaborative work. The first implication is that mobile learning

applications

are best viewed as mediating tools in the learning process. They are not ends in

themselves and should be related to other learning tools that students and teachers are already

using, and/or tools that having arisen as a result of technical developments (e.g. social

software). The second implication is that designing a mobile learning activity can be supported

by addressing the following factors:

1. The learner and their personal relationships (peer groups, teachers, etc.)

2. What is the leaner learning (topic, relationship to prior experience, etc.)?

3. Where and when are learners learning? This is deeply related to the notion of

context as emergent phenomena (Dourish, 2004).

The third implication is that by answering these questions, the application will be designed from

the ground up to form the basis for a

distributed learning network. This construct sees mobile

learning as part of a greater whole in which learning tools, activities, contexts and people are

distributed over time and space. However, by designing in this way and for this network complex

issues at both a technical and social level arise. This led on to a discussion around issues that

participants felt were important in the context of mobile learning within distributed learning

networks including: socialisation, representation and personalisation. Each of these is a topic in

itself and points to potential fruitful avenues for future research.

Resolution

To being resolving some of the issues raised during the workshop, we spend the latter part of

the day focusing on how we might

re-conceptualise mobile learning in light of what we had

learnt. This was done through a single group dialogue, capturing by iterating a concept map of

key characteristics, the final version of which is shown in Figure 1.

Perhaps, the most revealing aspect of this map is that it is centred upon

mediated rather than

mobile learning. This reflects the participants’ view that learning is mediated by a number of

factors, which when viewed from a particular perspective, help in characterising the unique

dimensions of mobile learning. By beginning to delineate these factors, participants felt there

was a strong rationale for using the concept map as a collaborative tool for

all stakeholders to

identify design sensitivities that need to be accounted for when developing mobile learning

applications. A partial list of these factors include:

–

Contexts

–

Curricula

–

Cultures

–

Ethics

–

Tools

8

–

Learning activity

–

Access to information and people

–

Communication

–

Community building

–

Appropriation

These factors are further delineated in Figure 1. Another interesting characteristic of this map is

that the technology itself takes a secondary role. What is important is to get the nature of the

tool (application) right, based on social factors (such as communication and appropriation) and

learning activities. When viewed in this way, the characteristics of the technology can be

leveraged in new and interesting ways. A related point is that new learning applications emerge

through interaction and communication between key participants in the development cycle

(researchers, teachers, learners, software developers), rather than educationalists only having

the opportunity to appropriate existing technologies for their purposes. It was noted that this

topic is being addressed by the ‘Learning patterns for the design and deployment of

mathematical games’ research theme within the Kaleidoscope Network.

Figure 1: Mediated learning through mobile technologies (M

2 learning)

Conclusion

This workshop aimed to address the issues of ‘what is mobile learning?’ This proved a topic of

fruitful discussion, with the rejection of any particular definition of mobile learning. Instead, we

focused on characterizing the dimensions of mobile learning. The main outcome was a

repositioning of the ‘mobile’ in learning. As one participant put it “learning is learning”, reflecting

the general consensus that learning is mediated through mobile technologies, which are in

themselves interwoven with other learning tools.

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References

Dourish, P. (2004) What we talk about when we talk about context,

Personal and Ubiquitous

Computing,

8, 19–30.

Laurillard, D. (2002)

Rethinking University Teaching: a conversational framework for the

effective use of learning technologies

. Routledge-Falmer, London.

O’Malley, C., Vavoula, G., Glew, J., Taylor, J., Sharples, M. & Lefrere, P. (2003) Guidelines for

learning/teaching/tutoring in a mobile environment. Mobilearn project deliverable. Available from

http://www.mobilearn.org/download/results/guidelines.pdf

, last accessed 27th March 2006.

Peters, O. (1998)

Learning and Teaching in Distance Education. Kogan Page, London.

Sharples, M. (2000) The design of personal mobile technologies for lifelong learning,

Computers

and Education,

34,177–193.

Sharples, M., Corlett, D. & Westmancott, O. (2002) The design and implementation of a mobile

learning resource,

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 6, 220–234.

Sharples, M. (2005) Learning as conversation: Transforming education in the mobile age,

Proceedings of Seeing, Understanding, Learning in the Mobile Age, pp. 147–152.

Taylor, J., Sharples, M., O’Malley, C., Vavoula, G. & Waycott, J. (2006) Towards a task model for

mobile learning: a dialectical approach. Available from

http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/document.cfm?docid=5374

, last accessed 27th March 2006.

Traxler, J. (2005) Mobile learning its here but what is it?

Interactions, 9,1. University of

Warwick.

[Abdullah AL-Rahbi]

I have some information about M-Learning

  

Benefits of M-Learning

 

M-Learning encourages “anywhere, anytime” learning

1.  Promote and improve social interactions and encourage collaboration. 
2. Fit within learning environments and bridge the digital divide. 
3. Portability
4. Address individual learning needs by: Increase student motivation
5. Reach underserved students
6.  Engaging learners

Disadvantages of m-learning devices

· Small screens of mobile phones and PDAs

· Limited storage capacities in PDAs

· Battery life/charge

· Lack of common operating system/ hardware platform make it difficult to develop content for all.

· Limited potential for expansion with some devices

· Devices can become out of date quickly

· Wireless bandwidth may be limited

· Difficulties with printing, unless connected to a network

 

This link is vedio about M-lEarning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Z8yY0wZ9A&feature=player_embedded#at=42

 

 

 

[Abdallah Hamed Hamid Al Rahbi]

Hello every on

I found that the new software technology allows cell phone and PDA users to download their medical records, making them quickly accessible in case of emergency. The new software, to be available in a year, can even display animated 3D scans. Computer scientists say the technology will also enable students to do research using their portable devices.

For more information click this link

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2006/0306-medical_records_on_your_cell_phone.htm#

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From: squ...@googlegroups.com [squ...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Abdullah AL-Rahbi [abdullah...@gmail.com]
Sent: 02 May 2011 08:50 AM
To: squ...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Mobile learning

[Shamsa Mubarak Rashid Al Mamari]

hello for all active members...

 

these more information about mobile learning

 

 

what is mobile learning?

the acquisition of any knowledge and skill through using mobile technology,

anywhere, anytime, that results in an alteration in behavior.

 

•Features of mobile learning:

M-learning is collaborative.

•M-learning is engaging and fun.

•Enables knowledge building by learners in different contexts. 

•Enables learners to construct understandings. 

•M-learning is convenient, in the sense that it is accessible virtually from anywhere (class, taxi, …) 

•Mobile technology often changes the pattern of learning/work activity.

 

 

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‏‏من: ‏‏squ...@googlegroups.com ‏[squ...@googlegroups.com]‏ بالنيابة عن Abdallah Hamed Hamid Al Rahbi ‏[u06...@squ.edu.om]‏
‏‏تاريخ الإرسال: ‏‏03 مايو, 2011 06:26 م
‏‏إلى: squ...@googlegroups.com
‏‏الموضوع: RE: Mobile learning