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Monthly Archives: September 2010
Success Factors for Mobile Learning
In 2006, Naismith and Corlett, published “Reflections on Success: A Retrospective of the mLearn Conference Series 2002-2005” which focused on earlier pilot projects in mobile learning.
The following were identified as critical success factors for mobile learning:
Access to technology: The successful projects make mobile technology available where and when it is needed, either by developing for users’ own devices such as phones and media players, or by providing learners with devices that they can use at home and on the move.
Ownership: It is important that learners are able to either own the technology, or to treat it as if they own it. Using the technology for entertainment and socializing does not appear to reduce its value as a tool for learning, but rather helps to bridge the gap between institutional and personal learning.
Connectivity: Many successful mobile learning projects have been based on wireless or mobile phone connectivity, to provide access to learning resources, to link people across contexts, and to allow students to capture material that can be sent to a personal media space and then shared or presented.
Integration: Successful mobile learning projects are integrated into the curriculum, the student experience, or to daily life, or a combination of all of these. One way to achieve this integration is to extend a successful form of learning onto mobile devices, such as Frequently Asked Questions, or audio/Powerpoint recordings of lectures. Another approach is to provide mobile technology that augments the student experience, for example by mobile tools such as ‘moblogs’ (mobile weblogs) to maintain an electronic portfolio or record of learning.
Institutional support: Although a major benefit of mobile technology is “the ability to put control in the hands of the learner” (Naismith and Corlett, op. cit.) successful projects also need strong institutional support, including the design of relevant resources in mobile format, staff training and technical support.
Federal Panel Discussion – Implications of Digital-Age Learning
According to an eSchool News article, by Laura Devaney, the nation’s director of education technology called on schools to replace textbooks with mobile learning devices, and the head of the Federal Communications Commission said his agency would be voting this week on whether to lift some restrictions on the use of federal e-Rate funds to help deliver broadband access to more students, during a Sept. 21 panel discussion about the implications of digital-age learning.
Investments in broadband access and mobile learning devices are essential to helping students learn the skills they’ll need to compete on a global scale, said panelists during “Back to School: Learning and Growing in a Digital Age,” hosted by Common Sense Media, the Children’s Partnership, PBS Kids, and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.
“We may not have classrooms of the 21st century,” said Jim Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, “but we clearly have technology of the 21st century,” he added, referencing the “warp speed-like” changes in media and technology that enable today’s students to stay constantly connected to the internet and social media.
Three imperatives face U.S. education today, Steyer said: Every child should be digitally literate before graduating from high school, all parents must be informed about their children’s digital media lives, and every classroom needs to be a 21st-century learning environment.
Technology is making a major difference in the lives of U.S. students every day, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Children use multiple digital media devices to consume 11 hours of content a day, and teenagers send an average of one text message every 10 minutes while they are awake.
And while parents and teachers must find practical strategies to mitigate the risks of new technologies, including safeguarding students’ online privacy and security, “the opportunities of new communications technologies for our kids far exceed the risks,” he said. “The risks are real, but the opportunities are even larger.”
Mobl21 M-Learning Crossword
How many popular mobile learning buzzwords do you know? Try our crossword and find out!
(If you have any trouble, our blog posts will give you hints.) ..Continue Reading
Mobile Learning Events: Mobilize 2010
Mobilize 2010 | The Future of the Mobile Web
September 30, 2010
Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco, CA
About the Event:
Mobilize 2010 is a one-day conference that brings together the thought leaders and practitioners of the mobile web ecosystems for discussions, demonstrations and debate.
This year’s Mobilize 2010, will cover how Cloud Computing and Mobile Web will create the beginning of further opportunity.
Core Topics:
Mobile Cloud Services and Technology Enablers
Next-generation Wireless Infrastructure – Ultraband, UWB, Wi-Max, LTE, 4G, Broadband
App stores and the App Economy
Machine-to-machine – (M2M or “The Internet of Things”)
Virtualization on mobile devices and the new new services enabled
Network and “Mobile Cloud” infrastructure architectures and needs
Netbooks, Tablet computing and Ultraportables
Design and Ethnography — usage, lifestyle trends, technology adoption
Context and Location-based Services
Mobile Payments
Venture Capital and the economics of the mobile data boom
Who Should Attend:
Mobile Technology Executives
Carrier Executives and Buyers
Strategic Planners and Analysts
Technology Investment Professionals
Technology Entrepreneurs
Companies launching new products and services
The iPad goes to K-12 schools
We’ve read about colleges across the US getting the iPad into classrooms, but what’s happening at the K-12 level? These two recent news items give us a gist of the mood in schools towards the iPad and mobile learning.
Math Students Utilize iPads, Go Down In History
Some math students at Washington Middle School and Hudson K-8 in Long Beach Unified School District were welcomed back to school Wednesday with new Apple iPads loaded with the first-ever full-curriculum algebra application.
“This is the first day of school and the first day of you being part of history,” California Secretary of Education Bonnie Reiss told the students at Washington Middle School in north Long Beach.
Reiss compared the application of the iPad in algebra class to a statement written on a mural at the middle school. She said the technology is a single step along the 1,000-step journey towards giving students modern tools to enhance learning, something Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has promoted.
District to Give iPads to Fifth Graders
For four fifth grade classes at the Jackson Avenue School, the phrase “no more pencils, no more books,” took on a whole new meaning Tuesday morning. With about 80 students gathered in the school cafeteria, Mineola school Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler announced a new initiative that will provide each of them with an Apple iPad for the duration of the school year.
“This is an experiment,” he said. “It is to see if this is a new way of teaching and of learning. You are going to be a part of something that hasn’t been done before.” The district has purchased about 100 of the devices which connect to the internet wirelessly. The approximate retail price for each iPad is around $500.
According to Nagler, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger launched a “ripple effect across the country” with his Free Digital Textbook Initiative, where schools are able to cost-effectively incorporate technology into academia. Nagler feels his iPad initiative will aid a “new generation of students,” helping them learn the skills necessary for their futures. Jackson Avenue School principal Matthew Gaven believed that Mineola is the first school district to have an iPad program on such a large scale.
Image Credit: yto
Mobile Learning for Weight Loss
Textbooks & notebooks for every subject, pens, pencils, rulers, erasers, a diary, few workbooks, crayons & geometry boxes (if you’re a younger student), or calculators & logarithm books (if you’re older). All the stuff that went into your backpack. And was carried to class almost everyday.
Research the subject “weight of schoolbags” and you get a plethora of information from concerned parents, health experts, educational institutes and not surprisingly, bag makers. Averages have been measured from 5 kgs to 11.7% of body weight, and means of reducing and redistributing weight have been thrashed out.
The Weighty Matter of EBooks
With mobile devices getting smaller and more compact, the practicality of using ebooks and PDFs for learning in class is now becoming more plausible. Ebooks have been around for a while, but their usage in class has largely been limited by the computers on which they were accessible.
Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad are now being touted as the most popular ebook readers, and though format compatibility debates continue, the past year has seen more publishers quickly gearing up to get their books into multi-device compatible formats.
If more schools and colleges considered the digital textbook, students would be able to load all their heavy books onto a single device. Considering how (unlike fiction) students need to thumb back and forth through pages, the use of digital textbooks may even enable students to quickly search and find the pages they need, bookmark passages, and make study notes easily.
One of the earliest nods in this direction was the new California state law which requires all textbooks used to be made available in electronic form. Discussing his law, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger paid tribute to the heavy weights students today tote around with his comment, “I can use these for the curls”.
Whether other states go the same way, we’ll just have to weight and watch.
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How Schools Are Putting the iPad to Work
Universities and schools around the nation–and even the world–are distributing iPads to students and faculty to start the new school year. Some are using the device to lure talented freshmen; others hope faculty and students will merely experiment with the tablet as a learning tool. But a few educators are betting the iPad will herald a revolution in the classroom, once-and-for-all displacing musty textbooks in favor of a mobile multimedia device that can engage students in new and innovative ways.
Here are a few examples of how educators are putting the iPad to work this year:
Recruiting Tool
George Fox University in Oregon has recruited students since 1991 by distributing computers and laptops to all incoming freshmen. Officials have considered dropping the expensive program in recent years. Instead, this year’s freshmen were given a choice: MacBook or iPad. About 70 students–10 percent of the incoming class–chose the tablet, which costs about half as much as the laptop ($499 versus $999 for the base models of each).
Shoulder Saver
Cedars School of Excellence, a K-12 school near Glasgow, Scotland, is distributing iPads to all of its 105 students this fall. Fraser Speirs, who is supervising the project, is particularly excited about reducing the amount of paper students lug around. There’s no immediate plan to use e-textbooks, he said, but homework will be assigned and collected through e-mail–and completed using Apple’s Pages software.
Computing with Less Distraction
At another K-12 school–Hawaii Preparatory Academy in Kamuela–teacher Dr. Bill Wiecking said the app-oriented iPads are a safe way to bring computers to young students without leaving them at the unfettered mercy of the World Wide Web. If students jump onto the Web using Safari, he said, it’s easier for teachers to see. The flat tablet makes it harder to hide surreptitious surfing.
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