Online Assignment

1. ON-LINE ASSIGNMENT
Mobile learning

2. Introduction
Mobile learning is considered to be the ability to use mobile devices to
support teaching and learning. It is the ‘mobile' aspect of mobile learning that makes
it stand apart from other types of learning, specifically designing learning
experiences that exploit the opportunities that ‘mobility' can offer us.
This is because mobile devices have features and functionality for
supporting learners. For example, podcasts of lectures can be made available for
downloading. Learners are to expected to engage with these learning resources whilst
away from the traditional learning spaces. Although some will say that physical
books count as mobile devices too, in this advice document we are concerned with
electronic mobile devices.
There is a wide range of mobile devices on the market including
laptops, PDAs, and e-book readers. However, we will be looking at the most popular
mobile device - the mobile phone. Mass proliferation of mobile phones and the
features and functionality they offer make the device stand out as an area ripe for
exploration. Mobile phones are multi-function devices which are of interest due to
their very nature of offering ‘mobility', but also for their ability to create and
consume digital media. Furthermore its convergence with the internet offers further
potential opportunities to support teaching and learning.
What makes mobile learning exciting is that despite many of the
individual features being around for years, it is the bringing together of the features,
functionality and ability to connect to the internet that means we have now passed the
tipping point regarding learner adoption: thus creating and using digital media can be
seriously looked at with these devices. The mobile user experience is different from
the desktop computer experience and the face-to-face experience, however mobile
learning can be used to support both as well as standing alone.

3. Mobile Learning
Cameron Moll points out that we are now at a point where we
must consider the mobile experience in its own right - the learning objectives remain
the same - to provide a rich teaching and learning experience - but that the context of
mobile differs from that of designing for a desktop computer experience and that of a
face-to-face experience.
Teaching using mobile devices uniquely offers us newfound mobility,
and functionality opportunities that are not possible with desktop computers. These
opportunities should at a minimum intrigue us and will hopefully lead to many new
and exciting uses of mobile devices that we are able to take advantage of.
Current capabilities and applications
Basic mobile phone features include:
 Making and receiving calls
 Sending and receiving text messages
 Basic office tools e.g. calculator
Advanced mobile phone features include:
 Bluetooth
 Camera capable of taking stills and more commonly now video
(e-book readers, games)
 Recording audio
 GPS / location aware
 Web browser to connect to the internet

4. The term smartphone
It is quite common to hear the term ‘smartphone' which is meant to signify
that it has many features that traditional mobile phones do not. However in the last
few years this gap has blurred as nearly all new phones would fit in this 'smartphone'
label so we will just be using the term ‘mobile phone' as we are looking at current
and emerging mobile phones.
By now, it should be clear that with the wide range of mobile phone
functionality, there will be many potential uses for mobile devices in education,
including the creation and delivery of content. Not directly related to the teaching
itself, there are also potential secondary benefits, such as the possibilities for making
the teaching environment (smart buildings) more aware of learners based on their
mobile phone acting as a beacon or identifier and then both parties having the ability
to respond or act on pre-defined inputs and outputs.
Opportunities and challenges
There are a wide range of mobile devices, it is estimated that there are around 350-
400 different mobile devices to cater for. So where do we start? There are a small
number of key players emerging, each with their own operating systems and
hardware such as Microsoft, Apple, Google Android and RIM. It would make sense
to start by accommodating whichever are the most commonly used in your
institution, and also to use any common standards where possible to reach as many
devices as possible.
Creating and publishing multimedia
Most new mobile phone devices have the ability to create digital media, typically still
images and video with audio. This provides the opportunity for both teaching staff
and learners to produce multimedia that may have been expensive in the past and
involved institution-only devices. Now, using learner devices that have common
features for creating images, audio and video, we can design activities that support

5. these media such as evidence based learning activities. Other examples include
creating media that can then be used for discussion.
Further opportunities include using the context-specific opportunities of a mobile
device to devise new teaching and learning activity that takes advantage of mobility,
and features such as GPS for location-based activity. JISC is actively exploring
opportunities for mobile learning and has already funded projects that experiment
with many aspects unique to mobile learning.
Challenges
With the increase in usefulness of a mobile device, its use will also increase and this
will dramatically reduce battery life. A huge range of mobile phone devices may
make support difficult, for example interoperability issues to do with video file
formats will plague us until the key players agree on which standards to use. But
even if they do not agree, there are already methods to allow the device to choose
from a range of formats to help alleviate problems.
The cost of devices, service charges and range of features will always result in
learners owning a wide range of devices. This will make conducting ‘feature specific'
activities difficult for all (GPS related activity for example.) However having an
alternative suitable activity will mitigate much of this as will institutional support of
the infrastructure including wireless internet availability.
Consuming digital media
Many mobile phone devices are able to view and/or download digital media
such as audio and video. Once again this provides us with an opportunity for teaching
activity including contextualised fieldwork opportunities. For example, listening to
audio based activities that incorporate the listener's location are already being used in
multiple disciplines. The use of QR codes, which work much like a barcode, can send
the learner to relevant media/web services such as the printed session slides having a
QR code that send the learner to the download location online.

6. Challenges
The range of mobile devices means that anything created for multiple devices
will have some interoperability issues that need to be considered, which may mean
producing alternatives.
Supporting the mobile user
Even if you do not intend on designing mobile specific activities, where
possible you can begin to make your current resources mobile device friendly. For
example it may be that your video uses a format that works for both desktop
computers and mobile devices. It is also important to consider the platform from
which the learners will interact with publishing and consuming resources.
Application
Mobile learning in the context of higher education is relatively new and
undertheorised both in initial teacher education and more generally in university
teaching. Interest in mobile learning approaches in Teacher Education and
consequently academics are involved in sharing and exchanging information on
research and potential uses of mobile technologies through communities of practice,
working groups and professional learning communities Similar interest in the use of
handheld devices is evident in Maths Education contexts. Bannon, Martin and
Nunes-Bufford (2012) found that both pre-service and in-service teachers saw value
in integrating iPads into Maths education as a tool to promote student learning. For
example, supporting learning through the use of Maths games applications (‘apps’)
targeting specific concepts. The project noted the need for careful preparation in iPad
implementation to initiate transformation in teacher education. Also, smart phones
have been exploited to extend mathematical thinking and enhance problem-solving
procedures . Given the potential of these devices to support collaborative and
contextualised learning, their use may address some of the concerns in Maths
teaching such as didactic approaches and de-contextualised material removed from

7. real-world settings. At the school level, Tangney et al explore innovative uses of
smart phones among school Maths students studying in ‘out of class’ settings.
Informed by a social constructivist pedagogical approach to m-learning, the authors
provide examples whereby the functions and capabilities of smart phone applications
can be used as a basis for scaffolding learning scenarios occurring in real-life
contexts, opening up student exploration of trigonometry and fractions concepts and
developing higher order thinking skill. teacher educators need to be prepared to
explore the learning possibilities of mobile devices in Maths education and “need to
develop a professional attitude of evaluation and reflection about tools for teaching –
a thoughtful visioning that investigates and considers the impact of the tools for
teaching Maths” .
Exploring Maths in the real-world
A strong emerging theme was the pre-service teachers’ use of the iPad to
explore and become more aware of Maths in everyday environments and to initiate
their thinking about real-life contexts for K-6 Maths learning experiences. Activities
involved capturing and annotating images from rich, meaningful, user-generated
contexts. These artefacts subsequently became the focus of university class-based
discussions with peers and staff as a catalyst for their thinking about authentic,
technology-mediated Maths Education. In this way, they were developing knowledge
about their nuanced use of ICT in their Maths teaching . Geometry and fractions were
the Maths domains most often used in these scenarios.
Students was walking through the city and noticed geometrical shapes in the
urban landscapes. One student used her iPad to take a photo and later, on the train
travelling home, annotated it to highlight the shapes in the photo . She later showed
these photos and discussed relevant Maths concepts with her peers and lecturer in a
small group conversation ‘around the iPad’ during a campus-based class

8. Mobile learning exercise allowed pre-service teachers to generate artefacts
depicting rich contexts, enhancing their recognition and observation skills and
developing more positive attitudes towards Maths. The iPad allowed them to follow-up
and discuss the Maths associated with these artefact.
The pre-service Maths teachers used their iPads to mediate their own
professional learning, exploiting features of authenticity and personalisation in both
formal and informal settings. They used their mobile devices to notice and capture
‘out-of-class’ Maths phenomena, following-up and discussing implications for their
Maths teaching. They used the technology to facilitate an enhanced awareness of
Maths in everyday contexts, and then used this knowledge to develop rich,
contextualised ideas for their own ICT-mediated K-6 Maths tasks.

9. Conclusion
We are at a point where for at least a small percentage of our teaching and
learning we can begin to incorporate part of the mobile learning experience into our
course design. Initially this may simply mean that we acknowledge that some
learners will interact with our course using mobile devices and impact how we
choose to disseminate information. We can, fairly safely, expect that many learners
are already checking course email and accessing your resources such as podcasts
using a mobile device. It won't be long until we are able to fully integrate parts of our
courses with the mobile experience. A recent study by Edinburgh University, mobile
survey 2010 highlights that 50% of learners have contract phones with unlimited
internet connectivity. As more of these studies are released we can take stock of what
opportunities we can reasonably pursue.The use of mobile devices is here to stay and
we can progressively accommodate this new platform to enhance our teaching and
learning. Finally, the use of personal devices for both teaching staff and learners has
blurred the line between formal and informal learning. The implications of which
we'll know more about in the near future.
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10. Reference
1) A historical overview of mobile learning: Toward learner-centered education-
Crompton, H.
2)Using Network and Mobile Technology to Bridge Formal and Informal Learning-
Trentin G. & Repetto M
3)"Use of Mobile Technology for Information Collection and Dissemination" -
Matthew Davis
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