Big Issues in Mobile LearningMike Sharples

Learning Sciences Research InstituteUniversity of Nottingham

19741997

2002

2002

20032004

2005

2006

Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops LIVERPOOL, N.Y. — The students at Liverpool High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses…So the Liverpool Central School District, just outside Syracuse, has decided to phase out laptops starting this fall, joining a handful of other schools around the country that adopted one-to-one computing programs and are now abandoning them as educationally empty — and worse. New York Times, May 4th, 2007

Big Issues in Mobile Learning

Big Issues

• What is mobile learning?• Is mobile learning effective?• Evaluation of mobile learning• Conflict between mobile technology

and school• Ownership and copyright• Privacy, in an always-connected world

What is mobile learning?• Learning with portable technology

– Focus on the technology– Could be in a fixed location, such as a classroom

• Learning across contexts– Focus on the learner– Could use portable or fixed technology– How people learn across locations and transitions

• Learning in a mobile world– Focus on the mobile society– How to understand people and technology in constant

mobility– How to design learning for the mobile society

Is mobile learning effective?• Classroom response systems (Draper, Dufresne,

Roschelle)• Group learning with wireless mobiles and phones

(Nussbaum et al., Dillenbourg)• Classroom handheld simulation games (Collella,

Virus Game)• Mobile guides (Tate Modern, Caerus, Mobile Bristol)• Connecting learning in formal and informal settings

(Butterfly Watching, MyArtSpace)

• User centred

• Personal

• Networked

• Portable

• Ubiquitous

• Durable

MobileTechnology

PersonalisedLearning

• Learner centred

• Individualised

• Collaborative

• Situated

• Ubiquitous

• Lifelong

• User centred

• Personal

• Networked

• Portable

• Ubiquitous

• Durable

Mobile Learning

• Learner centred

• Individualised

• Collaborative

• Situated

• Ubiquitous

• Lifelong

Conflict between learning outside and inside the classroom

Everyday learning• Learner centred• Individualised• Collaborative• Situated• Ubiquitous• Lifelong

Classroom learning• Teacher centred• Institutionalised• Individual• Decontextualised• Located• Bounded

How do we connect

and

Extend the classroom into everyday learning?• Podcast lectures

• Learning environments on mobile phones

• Home access to the school intranet

• Assessment of learning outside the classroom– “send assessment questions and receive multiple choice responses via email or

SMS which can then be auto-responded to with feedback” www.ambientperformance.com

• School laptops at home– “The students at Liverpool High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange

answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses.” New York Times

• Boring, doesn’t connect with everyday learning

Extend everyday learning into the classroom?• Internet safety

– Firewalls, ‘white web’

• Ban on personal devices• “In class I have to power down” (Guardian, May, 2007)

• "At school, you do all this boring stuff, really basic stuff, PowerPoint and spreadsheets and things. It only gets interesting and exciting when you come home and really use your computer. You're free, you're in control, it's your own world.” (Guardian, May, 2007)

• Dangerous, loss of teacher control

Mobile Computer Supported Collaborative Learning: Eduinnova• Mobile CSCL developed by

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

• Wireless handheld computers• Individual, group, whole class• Teacher monitors and supports• Tested in schools, teacher

training, university students• Significant differences in learning

outcomes• Trials in other countries including

UK (Wolverhampton)

Connect learning inside and beyond the classroom

•MyArtSpace

•PI: Personal Inquiry

School Museum Visits• Should guide students towards development and

contrasting of their own ideas (Guisasola et al., 2005) – But how to guide students while allowing them to engage

with authentic artefacts and discover their own responses to the exhibits?

• Should connect with learning in the classroom (Guisasola et al., 2005) – But how to recall and continue the rich experience of the

museum visit back in the classroom?

MyArtSpace• Service on mobile phones for

enquiry-led museum learning• Learning through structured

enquiry, exploration, connection• Students create their own

interpretation of a museum visit which they explore back in the classroom

MyArtSpace• Combines

– physical space (museum, classroom)– virtual space (online store and gallery) – personal space (mobile phones)

• Museum test sites – Urbis (Manchester)– The D-Day Museum (Portsmouth)– The Study Gallery of Modern Art (Poole)

• About 3000 children during 2006

How it works• In class before the visit, the teacher sets an inquiry topic• At the museum, children are loaned multimedia phones• Exhibits in the museum have 2-letter codes printed by them• Children can use the phone to

– Type the code to ‘collect’ an object and see a presentation about it– Record sounds– Take photos– Make notes– See who else has ‘collected’ the object

• All the information collected or created is sent automatically to a personal website showing a list of the items

• The website provides a record of the child’s interpretation of the visit

• In class after the visit, the children share the collected and recorded items and make them into presentations

Lifecycle evaluation

• Micro level: Usability issues – technology usability– individual and group activities

• Meso level: Educational Issues– learning experience as a whole– classroom-museum-home continuity – critical incidents: learning breakthroughs and

breakdowns • Macro level: Organisational Issues

– effect on the educational practice for school museum visits

– emergence of new practices – take-up and sustainability

EvaluationAt each level

• Step 1 – what was supposed to happen – pre-interviews with stakeholders (teachers, students,

museum educators), – documents provided to support the visits

• Step 2 – what actually happened– observer logs– post-focus groups– analysis of video diaries

• Step 3 – differences between 1 & 2– reflective interviews with stakeholders – critical incident analysis

Summary of results• The technology worked

– Photos, information on exhibits, notes, automatic sending to website

• Minor usability problems• Students liked the ‘cool’ technology • Students enjoyed the experience more than their

previous museum visit• The students indicated that the phones made the

visit more interactive• Teachers were pleased that students engaged with

the inquiry learning task

Usability Issues+ Appropriate form factor

+ Device is a mobile phone, not a typical handheld museum guide

+ Collecting and creating items was an easy and natural process

– Mobile phone connection– Text annotations– Integration of website with commercial software,

e.g. PowerPoint

Educational Issues+ Supports curriculum topics in literacy and media studies + Encourages meaningful and enjoyable pre- and post-visit

lessons + Encourages children to make active choices in what is

normally a passive experience– Teacher preparation

– Need for teacher to understand the experience and run an appropriate pre-visit lesson

– Where to impose constraints– Structure and restrict the collecting activity, or learn from

organising the material back in the classroom – Support for collaborative learning

– “X has also collected” wasn’t successful

Organistional issues+ Museum appeal

+ attracting secondary schools to the museum

+ Student engagement+ Students spent longer on a MAS visit (90 mins compared to

20 mins)

+ Museum accessibility+ Ability to engage with museum content after the visit

– Problems of museum staff engagement– Burden on museum staff

– Business model– Maintenance of phones– Data charges– Competition with other museum media

Future• Multimedia company

The SEA has developed a commercial service, OOKL

• Deployed at Kew Gardens and other sites

PI: Personal Inquiry• Support for inquiry science learning

between formal and informal settings, KS3

• School for introducing and framing issues, and planning inquiries

• Outside, home and science centres for semi-structured investigations

• Construction– Students design the methods of inquiry

• Conversation– In classroom, at home, with peers, with

experts

• Control– ‘Scripted’ inquiry learning (dynamic

lesson plans supported by mobile devices)

Ownership of mobile learning

• Who owns the technology?

• Who owns the learning?– Control– Content– Communication

Where next?• Linking classroom and workplace learning

– ‘Dual-T’ project, Switzerland

• Powerful opposing forces: – In loco parentis vs learner control

– Standard curriculum and accreditation vs flexible workforce

• Reconciliation?– Cycle of exploration and reflection

– “Let us start a serious public debate about how and whether we can bridge this gap between children's experiences inside and outside school… should education and entertainment remain on entirely separate tracks?” (David Puttnam, Guardian, May 2007)

– Serious research and innovation