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Monthly Archives: August 2011
Mobile Learning – Starting small and scaling up
While the discussion on mLearning continues, the fact remains that learners are initiating activities themselves to enhance their personal learning experience. From educational apps to mobile friendly readers, learners are beginning to take advantage of technology to enable their learning.
So what are we waiting for?
The mobile learning marketplace has commercial options that allow many institutions to implement for growth with minimal risk of major capital. While there is validity in adopting and implementing generally accepted technologies and methods, the problem is that while educators wait, the students may already be working, playing, and learning without supervision.
Starting small and scaling up
The call to action is to initiate a mobile learning activity in your classroom in a small way and scale gradually. Using the existing devices, look at making and distributing simple highlight points or flashcards for your lesson. Ask your students to review these over the week whenever free. Based on these simple tasks you’ll get an idea of how mobile learning can and cannot be used in your classroom.
Next you can ask for recommendations from your students themselves on the educational apps they like and already use. Look for mobile learning tools that enable delivery of content so it can be accessed by students once the content has been delivered to the device.
Delivering learning experiences
A perfect example of delivering value through mobile devices is a course in natural science where an assignment required students to take a picture of a specific leaf and post it in an online environment. Prior to mobile learning the activity required two devices to accomplish, a camera and a computer. The new reality requires a quick picture and potentially instantaneous upload into the system.
Utilizing mobile devices for learning is about delivering learning experiences and about an eco-system of connectedness and engagement. Taking advantage of these opportunities means delivering meaningful one-to-one learning experiences like never before.
Technology Learning Curve of M-Learning
One of the main concerns facing newcomers to mobile learning revolve around the technology that needs to be absorbed and used. For those new to mobile phone technologies and web browsing itself, it could present some learning time, but otherwise mobile learning is easy to understand and fast to implement.
Internet browsing and basic formatting skills are important, but they are not critical to be able to offer mobile learning to students. If you are already browsing the net, emailing and creating documents and presentations with ease, you will have no trouble adapting to mobile learning applications.
Using Mobile Devices
Mobile phones are not new technology. Most of us have switched phones and service providers and have experienced a few days of steady paced usage before our fingers started to fly. Of course the pleasure of owning a new phone made the learning fun instead of tedious. Picking up usage on your new mobile learning tool will be something like that. Most mobile learning programs today incorporate smartphones, which are designed to be intuitive and usually touch based, and do not require special training to use.
Exploring Mobile Apps
Smartphone apps are almost everywhere now, and if you’ve used a smartphone device you’ve probably already downloaded and used new mobile apps. Like software programs, devices apps are programs designed to work on mobile devices and are usually very intuitive and easy to learn.
Software for Content Creation
What may require some getting used to, is the software that will enable your teachers to deliver customized content to student mobile devices. While these are designed to be easy to use, as with any new software there will be a small learning period which educators will need to become more familiar with the software features.
Mobl21 is an m-learning service that offers three ways (DIY, purchase, or purchase & modify) to get your content mobile ready. The Mobl21 is an easy-to-use platform which is designed to create content in just a few steps. You can even add video, audio, images and animations to lessons and create entire courses without any hassle.
Bandwidth & Connectivity
Multiple devices trying to access the internet from your school at the same time can lead to some bandwidth issues. Especially if your mobile learning plan requires multimedia applications, the transmission of voice and video over your school’s wifi could cause a bottleneck if your bandwidth is not geared to meet it. However thanks to the recent FCC’s E-Rate Order schools and libraries can now have access higher broadband speeds for lower prices by increasing their options for broadband providers and streamlining the application process. The FCC’s upgrades to E-Rate include ultra-fast fiber, school spots, learning on-the-go, and the 21st Century E-Rate Program.
