2010: The year the mWorld becomes mainstream?

I have deliberately used a provocative title based upon all of the articles that are appearing touting the rise of mobile computing in 2010, moving from the fringes of education to the center. But will it happen in higher education in the West? I am inclined to agree with Tony Bates when he suggests that the revolution will occur, but not where we might expect it to.

On a trip through Rajasthan in 2008, a relatively desolate place of sand and scrubby trees with little sign of habitation, I was constantly amazed to find a mobile presence - a connection to a mobile network on my mobile phone. More recently, attending a UNESCO event in Paris (Dec. 2009) I was intrigued and very engaged when the presenter talked about the impact that a project funded by Nokia was making on the lives of farmers in developing countries. Can you think of a more contrasting image to that above? Farming practices that have remained unchanged for hundreds of years, supplemented by real-time instant updates via a mobile phone to market prices for produce in the city.

In developing countries, where a small fraction of the population has access to a traditional library, the mobile phone provides a link to the internet for a much larger proportion of the population. The concept of learning via mobile phones is compelling, because that is the medium of communication and collaboration, providing access to the wider world, to markets, improving the fundamental aspects of peoples lives. In one sense, in developed countries we are too rich - we have so many other avenues by which we can access information, and so many alternative means available to us for collaboration.

Arguments for appropriate pedagogy when considering the use of technology in teaching and learning occasionally miss the point - pedagogy does not exist in a vacuum, anywhere. The local context, perceived educational needs and motivation, and the educational intent and knowledge of learning design of the teachers who design and develop learning activities are also key drivers that impact on the adoption of any technology - most especially mLearning. Having said that, it is clear that there is an unstoppable change occurring, with small mobile computing devices (netbooks, laptops and mobile phones in particular), outselling desktops. Mobile phones now have features that just a few years ago required a desktop with an ethernet connection. There seems to be an opportunity or two here to engage students with the technology they always carry and is always on.

Social media and Pedagogy

There is a very interesting interview with Associate Professor S. Craig Watkins (found HERE) on the impact of social media on teaching and learning, pedagogy and future employment. In a recent presentation at my university with over 1000 students present, nearly ALL admitted to having Facebook accounts, and with mobile phone ownership in Hong Kong approaching 170% you can guarantee that no students are without a mobile phone (and therefore, SMS).

The question I would like to ask is: as university faculty, what should our reaction be to this information? There is evidence that students don't want faculty staff in their personal space (see HERE) but equally there is evidence that Facebook and the mobile world is where the students are. One anecdote from the University of Hong Kong Library in which late-book reminders were sent via SMS. The income from fines decreased by 90%!. Communication via SMS was clearly more effective than the previous approach, email. In another recent study (see HERE) librarians who set up a Library Facebook site observed that while the use of email and Facebook were almost equal for inquiries, the Facebook site inquiries were dominated by undergraduate students.

Now, social media and mobiles are converging - fast. The plethora of applications that allow social technologies and mobiles to connect grows daily. Applications that support microblogging (Echelon, Twitteriffic), blogging (Blogger), social networking (Facebook, Fring, Skype, iPadio), content upload/download etc etc. are growing. The trickle-down of applications that were traditionally the domain of desktops, then notebooks and now mobile computing devices has turned into a flood.

Observations. Clearly social networking and mobile devices (particularly SMS) are going to continue to dominate the lives of our students, particularly the younger students arriving at our institutions. How these vehicles for communication and (potentially) interaction can be used effectively for learning (rather than merely low level reminders or a basic information medium) still remains issues of affordability, pedagogy, willingness (staff and students), available applications, support and most especially, learning design. What are the affordances of mobile devices that can be used to address higher order thinking skills (HOTS). The research evidence is growing - mobiles + social networking for field studies and language learning are just two that have been described recently.

More to come.

Mobile learning: Preliminary data

One aspect of the trip to Thailand was to test the new Moodle Block that facilitated the upload and download of files to PDAs and smart phones. The second was to see what effect access to a server and all of the communication (e.g., upload and download of files) that support would have. Some of the data has been analysed and the results are interesting.

Did students avail themselves of the mobile server, and access it? In total numbers, there were more than 1300 accesses within four days from 67 students. Given that they worked in groups for much of the time, it was expected that some students (ie., the ones with the notebook computers) would access the server for uploading and downloading of files more than others. This was in fact the case, as shown below. The mode of access by students was 7 times. What is interesting is that more students (60) than there were notebooks (about 35) accessed the server at least once. Only seven students didn't access the server using their own login and password. The maximum number of times was 88 while a number of students just accessed once to download specific files to work on as part of their analysis.

Did this impact on learning? During classroom observations each evening the students were engaged in:

• developing presentations on their learning and understanding using Photostory;
• post-processing their data gathered during the day (particularly Excel data);
• organising their extensive photographic resources taken during the day; and
• uploading and sharing data across groups.

More data (questionnaire and interviews) will be gathered from teachers and students to look more closely for evidence of learning. Anecdotally one of the teachers commented that a great deal more data analysis work had been done before returning this year than in previous years.

There is hope yet.