MDDE 623: INTRODUCATION TO MOBILE LEARNING

A COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION:

PROPOSING THE INCLUSION OF A MOBILE STRATEGY

IN MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE EDUCATION

Presentation date:

Wednesday, November

the 12th, 2014

Presenters:

Chrysochoou Chrysoula

Shaw Jeff

(Google images,2014)

OUTLINE

Learning outcomes Slide 3

MDDE601:Introduction to Distance Education Slides 4-5

Proposal Slide 6

Reasons for choosing it Slide 7

How to adopt a mobile strategy for Communication Slide 8

Edmodo application Slides 9-15

How to adopt a mobile strategy for Assessment/Feedback Slide 16

Handouts application Slides 17-21

Join our Course Slides 22-23

References Slide 24

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this presentation, you will:

Increase your understanding of how

to adopt a mobile learning strategy

Engage in critical reflection and

evaluation regarding the benefits and

challenges related to the inclusion of mobile

learning strategies

Be introduced to two useful mobile learning apps and acknowledge

their importance

MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE

EDUCATION

Main characteristics

The first core course in Athabasca

University’s Master of Education

Is required for all students

Follows an instructor-paced

procedure

Is presented via the Moodle

Learning System (LMS)

Instructional materials include two

textbooks, one e-book and online

articles

Teacher-student communication is

stressed upon through

communication boards

Content

Presents the contemporary forms of

distance education

Explores the application of said forms

in different settings (K-12 schools,

post-secondary institutions,

workplaces, training environments

Provides a wide range of insightful

theory and research

Offers distance learners the chance to

explore distance education

technology, acknowledge the

importance of learner support and

examine the management of distance

education programs

(Athabasca University,2013)

MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE

EDUCATION

Assessment tools

Four discussion forums

One collaborative group project

Three individual assignments

Course goals and learning objectives

To promote independent learning

To provide flexibility

For students to become effective

and competent distance learners

Increase their critical thinking and

researching capabilities through

scholarly writing assignments

(Athabasca University, 2013)

PROPOSAL

MDDE601: Introduction to Distance education has been chosen to

adopt a mobile learning strategy and include mobile technologies

in order to constitute an enhanced cognitive environment.

Incorporating a transactional distance theoretical framework, will

create a sense of familiarity by promoting interaction of learner-

learner, learner-lecturer, learner-content, learner-interface (Makoe,

2013).

A new impetus will be given to the course, making it more

demanding, yet challenging and interesting.

Simplicity will be the main focus to the implementation, but will

not always take priority, as learning will remain the main focus of

the course.

(Google images,2014)

REASON FOR CHOOSING

MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE

EDUCATION

Lack of interaction: Students need to interact with

both their fellow classmates and the instructor for

help, and instructors need to assist students in their

cognitive development

Need for more contact and encouragement of both

student-to-student and student-to-tutor

communication and collaboration (Fuegen, 2012)

Need for two-way communication to be enabled

Need to adopt a student-centred approach

HOW TO ADAPT MDDE 601 TO A MOBILE

ENVIRONMENT (COMMUNICATION)

Communication in a course, whether it be student-student

or student-instructor, should be seamless and ensure the

user feels comfortable and familiar with the process.

Poelhuber & Anderson (2011) discuss the fact that students

learn better from applications that they are familiar with

and are not required to learn how to use. For this reason,

Edmodo was chosen as the mobile application for the

communication portion of the mobile implementation. It’s

similarities to Facebook would be familiar to the students,

therefore there would be a minimal learning curve on the

interaction.

EDMODO SETUP

The setup of Edmodo would be a fairly simple process

for the instructor as it is very user friendly. The steps are as

follows:

Download the free application on your mobile device and sign

up for free as a teacher.

Choose the course title you wish, and attach a welcome

statement, if desired.

Then choose from multiple options to personalize the course

such as adding polls, creating a discussion, adding small

quizzes, etc.

To allow students to access this group they must also have the

Edmodo application downloaded and search for the group ID.

EDMODO

EDMODO DISCUSSION BOARDS Separate discussions for each part of the course are

easily established in Edmodo through the use of ‘Small Groups’.

Each course is considered a group. After the instructor creates a group, there is also the option to create smaller sub groups which will divide the course up.

The instructor has the choice to add all of the students in the class into each group or choose specific students to add to each smaller group. This allows for either discussion among the entire class or among smaller groups to take place.

EDMODO DISCUSSION

The discussion board within Edmodo allows the

students to post to a board. The posting process is very

similar to the method used by Facebook, as shown

below.

EDMODO SMALL GROUPS

MANAGEMENT

The picture shown below is an example of how the

small groups are divided up in a class. The example

below is shown in the perspective of the instructor.

EDMODO SMALL GROUPS PAGEThe picture below showcases the small group feature.

The group is more specialized into a specific topic (or for

the purpose of this course, discussion group).

BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF USING

EDMODO

BENEFITS CHALLENGES

The benefits of using Edmodoinclude it being a very user friendly application, in addition to bringing familiarity to the user due to it’s similarities to Facebook. This will allow the students to adapt to this application very quickly, further benefitting the learning process (Poelhuber & Anderson, 2011).

(

One challenge of Edmodo could be in the setup of the course, as it is a long and tedious process to setup each of the small groups and then add each of the students to the specific groups as required. This process is affected by the rate that the students join the group at the start of the semester, as they need to be added to groups, however, this cannot be done until they are added to the main group.

A second challenge of using Edmodo for a communication portion of a mobile environment is keeping track of the interaction of each individual student as there is not a counter to see quantity of posts each student provides.

HOW TO ADAPT MDDE 601 TO A MOBILE

ENVIRONMENT (ASSESSMENT/FEEDBACK)

Brown (2004-2005) states that assessment is still the most important thing that an educator can give a student, whether that assessment be formative or summative.

For this reason a more assessment driven mobile application was chosen to be used for this portion of the course.

The application ‘Handouts’ is a simple way to deliver the course assessments to the students, allow them to submit their work and receive feedback all in one place.

HANDOUTS SETUP Using handouts is a very similar process to using Edmodo.

The instructor is required to download the application, sign up as an instructor and create the course desired.

The course will be again given a course ID in which the students should receive upon registration and will allow them to access the course.

In the course, the instructor has a mailbox in which they will receive messages from the students, if need be with regards to any of the assigned work, a handouts tab which all of the assigned work is placed in, and finally a students section which allows the instructor to interact with a student by giving them their assessments, checking completion of work, or sending private messages with regards to work.

HANDOUTS (STUDENT SECTION)The picture shown below is an example what the instructor will see

when they open up the course (students in the class has been selected,

but the other options are clearly visible).

HANDOUTS (ASSESSMENTS)The picture shown below is an example of when the handouts

portion (assessment portion) of the application has been selected.

HANDOUTS (ASSESSMENT

DISTRIBUTION)

The picture shown below is an example of distributing

one of the assignments to the class and includes what

options are available to the instructor.

BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF USING

HANDOUTS

BENEFITS CHALLENGES

Handouts is again a very user friendly platform which provides the instructor with the options of uploading assessments in multiple, different formats. This is beneficial for the reason of not needing to remake previously made assessment assignments, rather, they can just be uploaded as they are.

It also allows the instructor to provide instant feedback to the students upon completing each assessment (either to an individual student of the class as a whole).

This application is not completely free for instructors, as once more there are more than 26 students per class, a yearly charge is allotted.

The students are required to use a second application for their assessment in addition to Edmodo. Using two applications can be overwhelming to some students as it is far less convenient.

JOIN OUR GROUPS YOURSELF AND

HAVE A LOOK (EDMODO)

Download Edmodo and enter as a student to the group

below

JOIN OUR GROUPS YOURSELF AND

HAVE A LOOK (HANDOUTS)

Download Handouts and enter as a student to the group

below

ReferencesBrown, S. (2004-05). Assessment for Learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education,

Issue 1 (p 81-89)

Edmodo. Retrieved from https://www.edmodo.com/ on November 4, 2014.

Fuegen, S. H. (2012). The impact of mobile technologies on distance education. TechTrends, 56(6), 49-53. Retrieved from http://0-eds.b.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/detail/detail?sid=fd445134-cef9-4a78-82f5-dd24da00701f%40sessionmgr115&vid=0&hid=103&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPXVybCxpcCx1aWQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=ehh&AN=82763727

Handouts. Retrieved from http://handouts.in/ on November 4, 2014.

Makoe, M. (2013). The pedagogy of mobile learning in supporting distance learners. In M. Specht, M. Sharples, & J. Multisilta (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning. Retrieved from http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-955/papers/paper_45.pdf

Poellhuber, B., & Anderson, T. (2011). Distance Students' Readiness for Social Media and Collaboration. International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 12(6), 102-125.

The Centre for Distance Education. MDDE 601: Introduction to Distance Education. Retrieved from http://cde-student.lms.athabascau.ca/course/view.php?id=51