Mobile Learning? Monday, November 9 9:44 PM

Been giving a lot of thought to mobile learning lately. After some reflection of what I've seen in blogs, at a recent seminar, and at conferences etc, there seems to be several primary approaches to or uses of "mobile learning."

Mobile Delivery of Content. Perhaps the simplest form of "mobile learning," simply making content available to learners via a mobile interface: through a proprietary interface like Blackboard Learn or a mobile website developed in house.

Mobile Communication. In addition to mobile delivery of content, mobile learning can take advantage of anytime/anywhere and always on communication channels to enable increased communication: learner-to-learner, learner-to-faculty, learner-to-group, or learner-to-public.

Augmented Reality. Rather than simply delivering traditional content through mobile devices, augmented reality learning leverages mobile technologies to juxtapose information and content with an out-of-classroom type experience. For example, having learners use Art, an iPhone application, to access content and information while viewing select pieces by an artist during an individual museum visit.

Personally, mobile learning doesn't present anything new or unique with the simple delivery of content via mobile devices; the content is the same; learner interactions are essentially the same; the only thing that's difference is the location and timing of learner-to-content interaction. I know of at least one less formal study that's in progress to determine if mobile delivery of content engages students differently enough that they spend more time with content. My guesstimation is any benefits to learning of simple mobile delivery of content will be marginal over the long term; any gains reported in early studies may prove to be the result of learners engaging the novelty of mobile delivered content.

The true benefits to learning of mobile computing, I think, lie in mobile communication and the design of augmented reality learning experiences. Increased availability of the learning community within a classroom and the access by learners to the global community via mobile channels of communication may have long term, lasting benefits to education, and certainly, finding ways to engage learners with content accessed via technology within the context of authentic (non-classroom) environments will provide opportunities we've not had previously in traditional, formal learning spaces.

(image CC Steven Parker via http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenraymondparker/232424547/)

iPhone App Recommendations? Thursday, November 5 9:46 PM

I'm interested in recommendations for iPhone Apps - educationally related or otherwise.  This is what I currently have installed, in simple alphabetical order for easier comparison of app lists.  The vast majority of these are only installed because I explored them initially and just haven't removed them yet, and the exploration could be education related or not.  Are there any apps you use on a regular basis that I currently don't have?  How do you use those apps?  How could having the app and using it the way you use it be helpful for me?

Animoto AP Mobile Art Lite Battery Magic Bump Common Sense (Payne) Constitution Declaration DirectTV Dropbox eBuddy Epicurious ESPN ScoreCenter Evernote Facebook Flashlight

Flixster Geocaching.com Glympse Google Apps Suite.   Google Earth Google Wave History Lite History Map Houston CC Mobile HT Recorder iHeartRadio Instapaper Kindle Last.fm Mental Class MIT Mobile Portal

NASA Ocarina Pandora Photoshop Mobile Pizza Hut Presidents Shazam Skype SnapTell Spanish LE SparkPeople.com Speedtest Stanza TAMU Mobile TCT Lite

TED TripCase TweetDeck Tweetie Twitterific UrbanSpoon Waze Wikipedia Wikitude Yahoo Fantasy Football Yelp

Riding the Wave Monday, October 12 11:22 AM

A Google Wave invite hit my inbox last night. Of course, I immediately jumped in to see what I could find, learn and do - particularly given the negative hype surrounding it since the public invites began. Several impressions or thoughts...

iPhone Classroom Integration Cases Saturday, October 10 11:53 PM

Having been asked to experiment with an iPhone to identify how it may be used by would-be and current teachers and faculty in certification or faculty development programs, there's two primary integration cases for iPhones or iPods.  I've not yet encountered explicit mention of the two use cases in research or news literature.  The distinguishing issue is, of course, "Who in the classroom has access to or ownership of a device?"  The question of integration should be answered very differently if only faculty are assured of access to the device versus 1:1 programs in which the institution makes the devices available to each learner. 

Faculty Integration.  When faculty are the only ones in a classroom to have access to an iPhone/Touch/Pod, the focus of the integration should only be on how the device may be used as a content creation tool.  In what ways may faculty use an iPhone to create audio, video or text based resources to facilitate the learning process?  to create content all learners may access from any computing device?   

Learner Integration.  When each learner in a classroom will have access to an iPhone, the question of integration changes radically.  Rather than faculty producing content for learners to access via a mobile device, the 1:1 environment affords learners equal opportunity to generate content and to collaborate and communicate using a variety of mobile tools.

The issue I'm potentially facing is a 1:1 environment of faculty preparing for non-1:1 classrooms.  While I'd like to approach some of the features functional in a 1:1 environment, the more valuable tools will be those for generating content.  In subsequent entries, I'll likely focus on content generation tools but hope to address collaborative tools as well which are more applicable to 1:1 environments.

Magic of the iPhone & Education Friday, October 9 8:30 AM

Having toyed with an iPhone, finally, for a little over 3 days, I've learned a few things which I did not quite realize before - realizations I believe required the day-to-day presence of an iPhone ;-)

First, despite my very high expectations for the device, the iPhone has still exceeded my expectations.  Of course, that's all about the apps.

Second, for me, the magic of the iPhone is the extent to which it shortcuts access to web-based data.  Rather than having to, from a laptop or any other device, open a browser, navigate to a URL, manage the login process, open a data source or page, the iPhone gets you to the point of opening the data source or page in one step: opening the app.  Certainly, there's more complex features available from a desktop, but the iPhone simplifies the process of accessing and submitting data via the web.

Finally, I also didn't fully realize the extent to which the iPhone can be an all-in-one media content creation device for educational purposes: recording images, audio and video.  I was aware of the features before; however, the general ease of use of the device is still impressive and exceeds my expectations.


 

Complaints About Google Wave? Thursday, October 8 4:31 PM

I'm still waiting on my Google Wave invite, although I do have reason to believe one is "in the mail." In the interim, it seems Wave is on an accelerated hype cycle - already finding itself in a trough of anti-hype and complaints regarding the usability and productive utility of the application.

Several colleagues have commented that it seems like "Wave is a bust." My response has been that I'll reserve judgment until after I see it for myself, of course. One concern I have is that some of the anti-hype "seems" to be over-anti-hyped and, worse yet in some instances, inaccurate based on what I've seen of Wave through earlier demo videos. For example, eWeek published a presentation, Top 10 Complaints About Google Wave. The eWeek article makes little to no contribution to news or the scope of "reviews" regarding Google Wave. Those ten complaints and my brief, immediate thoughts:

Finally . . . an iPhone Monday, October 5 9:43 PM

But, it's not mine to keep . . . yet ;-)  It's part of a demo program; the explicit purpose of the demo is to identify specific curricular possibilities for an undergraduate educational technology course, an alternative teacher certification program, and an educational technology faculty development program.  I hope to blog regularly - near daily if I can maintain that pace - over the next month to document what I'm doing and considering with the iPhone.

First up.  Which apps am I downloading?  Why?

Who Misread @dtapscott's Growing Up Digital? Monday, August 31 9:52 PM

My hopeful dissertation topic focuses on computer literacy skills of community college learners; generally, there seems to be an assumption that early college learners are inherently tech-savvy and computer literate.  I believe that assumption exists in the mainstream consciousness - this past week I heard a local morning show radio personality comment, "They [teenagers] are all tech-savvy." At the very least, the assumption pervades much of higher education's consciousness. Many examples exist, through news reports and public announcements, of curricular, budgetary, and policy decisions being made by educational institutions at all levels based on that assumption.

One of the sources cited by researchers in the field as being a core advocate of the inherently technology adept "net generation learner" is Donald Tapscott's Growing Up Digital.  I've been reading much of that text, with a focus on sections dedicated to "N-Gen" and learning.

In short, I believe many of the overstated assumptions regarding the technological skill of the Net Generation Learner may be inaccurately attributed to Tapscott. 

Palfrey & Gasser's Born Digital Sunday, August 23 6:34 PM

Reading for my dissertation literature review, engaged Palfrey & Gasser's Born Digital.  Honestly, I was expecting nothing beyond more run of the mill net generation rhetoric; I certainly encountered some of that, but I also was pleasantly surprised by their chapter on "Learners." 

PLEs are Educationally Delicious, EAT-IT 2009 Tuesday, August 18 10:02 PM

I recently had the opportunity to travel to the Twin Cities area to attend and present at Emerging Academic Technologies and Instructional Techniques, otherwise known as EAT-IT (hence the presentation topic). Innovations in e-Education at Lake Superior College and Inver Hills Community College hosted, and Barry Dahl (twitter, blog, blog) organized and coordinated the event.