Monthly Archives: October 2012

M-learning comes of age in SE Asia (II)

Posted on by under M-learning

MobiLearnAsia Conference
Singapore
24-26 October, 2012

[Continued from Day 1 blog post]

In his plenary which opened the second day, Harnessing Magic: The Mlearning Opportunity, Clark Quinn suggested that it is time to find new uses for mobile technologies. Past technologies have successfully augmented our bodies; the question now is how we might augment our brains. Of course, we do have a history of using technology to augment our brains. Books are one example. This has limitations if the knowledge changes and the books don’t. He quoted Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. The limitations on how we use new technologies, he suggested, are between our ears.

Learning in the past was social, but as the volume of knowledge increased, we moved into a transmission model. In the 2009 US Dept of Education study of e-learning, which found that it was superior to face-to-face learning, the researchers suggested that the improvement was not due to the medium but the chance to step back and think about how we do education. Formal learning methods are important for novices; they become less important vis-à-vis informal learning for practitioners; and for experts, informal learning is much more important.

There are four Cs of mobile learning: content, compute, communicate and capture. The first three are not unique to mobile, but the last is. It’s about capturing in context. We’re beginning to see ways in which virtual worlds connect to mobile technologies. System-generated content is also becoming important as we move towards web 3.0. Web 2.0 was about user-generated content; web 3.0 is about system-generated content, where content is pulled together on the fly. This allows us to customise the online experience and online learning. Thanks to sensors of different kinds, the technology can work with the context.

He concluded by asking what’s on the horizon. Games will be important – learning should be ‘hard fun’. Social media will be important. So will augmented reality, where information relevant to the learner can be presented in a visual interface. The fact that a device knows ‘when’ we are (as well as ‘where’) means that key information can be provided before and during a performance, and then afterwards learners can be prompted to reflect, thereby turning real-world performance into a learning opportunity. Personalisation will be increasingly possible; different people need different information flowing to them in real-world contexts. He suggested, finally, that we should consider moving away from an event-based model of learning towards slow learning. We need to develop people at the rate their brains can handle.

In the panel discussion on the second morning, a number of key points were made. Gary Woodill noted that e-learning is just the classroom placed on the screen, whereas m-learning is about learning in context. Clark Quinn suggested that there is a need for teachers to show students 21st century skills so students can learn to search for themselves and, to some extent, bypass educational institutions. We’re not yet very good at delivering chunked, distributed content. He also suggested that mobile learning designers should be asking: “What is the least assistance I can provide?” though, as Woodill pointed out, the assistance must be sufficient to help the learner achieve learning goals. Gary noted, further, that we need a design science of mobile learning.

Woodill suggested that there is a subtle shift underway from competency-based to task-based education. What matters is not what you know (there’s just too much to know nowadays) but whether you can do a task. Mobile may be about learning something quickly when you need it, and then forgetting it and moving on to the next thing. Jawahar Kanjilal asked a very important question about learners in less privileged situations: what if you don’t have a teacher, but you have a mobile phone? It becomes your teacher. Gary suggested that a mobile device can be like a faucet which filters the firehose of the internet, bringing you what you need, when you need it. The next ten years, he argued, will be the age of the algorithm, to sort out all this information. Predictive analysis will be important (e.g., see: Recorded Future, Sweden).

In his presentation, Mobile Learning Case Studies: Examples of Effective Mobile Learning, Gary Woodill outlined a number of case studies of mobile learning solutions. The audience was then asked to analyse these in terms of the design patterns. One strategy for instructional designers may be to take case studies and reverse engineer them. On design patterns, he recommended the books: Technology-Enhanced Learning edited by Peter Goodyear and Symeon Retalis, and Diana Laurillard’s Teaching as a Design Science. He also recommended the Float Mobile Learning Primer app, which contains 63 case studies.

Singapore River Trail from LDR (http://www.ldr.sg/trail_catalog.html)

In his presentation, Create the Future of Mobile Learning, Png Bee Hin explained that the future will see a big shift from ‘e’ to ‘m’-learning. He described the development of interactive trails by LDR using the LOTM authoring tool, which allows multimedia content and interactive activities to be delivered to smartphones (Android or iOS) using location-based technologies and a geofencing approach. The delivery of materials can be triggered using GPS, IR (image recognition) and Bluetooth. To date, they have created 42 location-based mobile trails for Singapore. The Battle for Singapore app, set up as a game, is available as a free download.

Working with the MOE, they have created trails where teachers can track students’ progress, location, activity results, and multimedia submissions (which typically include photos and videos, but can also include oral interviews and even re-enactments of historical events). It can work like a treasure hunt; students are instructed to take pictures using an IR camera at some points, and a code is pushed to them so that they can complete part of a puzzle. Students can be of all levels from primary upwards. The Singapore River Trail (see above), which was originally in English, has now been converted into Mandarin as well.

Teachers can keep track of their students, and communicate with them, from a central location. Teachers are essential to the learning process: they need to re-enter their students’ learning spaces at the appropriate moments to guide their learning. They can also create customised trails for their students, by dragging/dropping and cutting/pasting within the LOTM tool, without any need for programming knowledge. Teachers and students have even worked together to create mobile trails that map their own environment.

He concluded that location-based technologies (GPS, IR, AR) have great potential to enhance field-based learning. Having an authoring tool simplifies and speeds up deployment. The most exciting result of all, he suggested, is the finding that user-generated trails are possible.

At the other end of the technology scale, but in a project with enormous potential to make a difference around the world, Jawahar Kanjilal and Bhanu Potta gave a presentation entitled Mobile-Based Lifelong Learning for the Millions: Nokia Life.  In it, they looked at how mobile learning can reach under-served populations in emerging markets.  This is a mobile-only paradigm for those who do not have access to the internet. Only a minority of people in the world have data connected smartphones; then there are feature phones which are data connectable; and then finally feature phones with no data, and SMS only. The projection for 2015 is that 2 billion people will have data connected smartphones; 3 billion will have feature phones (with or without data); and 2 billion will have no phone.

For many people who have mobile phones in emerging markets, it is their first phone, their first camera, and so on. They expect it can deliver many things. Information can be a great leveller for those who currently have no access to it. At every life stage there is an opportunity for informal learning. It is possible to provide content about education, health and agriculture, for example. It can’t be something which is broadcast to everyone, because it needs to be relevant to individuals and should ideally be local, even hyperlocal (how to you start saving in India as opposed to Indonesia?); it needs to be personalised.

The philosophy behind Nokia Life is: “Inform. Involve. Empower” (see: Life Tools is Now Nokia Life on YouTube). It is about “designing for personalization at scales of millions”. Emerging markets have the largest number of first generation school attendees. Parents who have a small income can pay for this service to support their children’s education. The messages can be a trigger for further offline learning. There are currently nearly 80 million users across India, Indonesia, China and Nigeria. Around 40% of subscribers overall are teachers rather than students, so teachers can use the messages as a resource in their classrooms. More than 10 million unique updates are sent out on a daily basis. SMS is used as the vehicle. It is embedded in the menu of the phone, rather than being a downloadable app. The creators considered voice at the beginning, but they were told the written word is more powerful. The users can refer to and show the written words to others.

The biggest problem was to get the content in the right format to distribute through the mobile system. Curation of content and knowledge was a major task. There are four categeories: Education (including Life Skills, Learn English, Exam Tips, General Knowledge,  Dictionary), Health, Agriculture, and Entertainment. Potta gave the example of the Learn English service in China, set up with the collaboration of the British Council, where a word of the day might be given, with pronunciation, an example, and a translation. In some messages, there is a button to call a hotline for more information. Since it is too early in these markets for user-generated content, which might conflict with users’ sense of the credibility of the information, the social – or web 2.0 – aspect involves a call button, a polling function, and/or a share function.

There is a variation of Nokia Life called Nokia Life+, a web app which is designed for those who have smartphones, or feature phones with data connectability. This may be the direction in which things evolve in the future. It’s a scalable platform to reach and engage the next billion. All in all, it’s about developing an ecosystem of partners: governments, NGOs, knowledge creators. The ecosystem is beginning to build up. Nokia Life can directly support six of the eight UN Millennium Goals.

In his presentation, Cross-Platform App Development: Going Native the Easy Way, Graeme Salter listed a number of reasons for setting up educational apps, including the following:

  • Improve learning outcomes
  • Improve student satisfaction (e.g., convenience)
  • Improve student or teacher productivity

There are, however, alternatives to having an app. One is to have a mobile optimised website (m.domainname.com). As a business, you can tap into existing apps and have your company advertised there. Another alternative is an iBook. If, on the other hand, you need an app, you should ask yourself whether it needs to be a native app. Android apps are catching up very quickly to iOS apps. Native apps have these advantages:

  • Operate fast
  • Can access all device features
  • Don’t necessarily require an internet connection
  • Have access to global marketplaces (including direct sales, in-app purchases, and advertising revenue)

On the negative side are these factors:

  • Royalty fee to marketplaces
  • Marketplace controls the customer information (for this reason, the Financial Times changed to a web app)
  • Approval delays (even for modifications)
  • Complexity of development

He suggested some solutions to these problems:

  • Step 1: Create a web app
    • Outsource development (e.g., Kenotopia – design an app in PowerPoint or Keynote, then outsource the coding to someone else; fiverr – will design an icon for $5; a company like oDesk or Vworker will do the whole thing. The big rewards are for ideas, not development.)
    • Use tools that don’t need coding (e.g., Tumult Hype, which allows you to write HMTL5 with no coding required; you can then use JQuery Mobile, Wink, etc, to add a mobile framework so you have mobile functionality like touch, swipe, and gestures)
    • Write in HTML5 (make some simple modifications to old HTML – there are few differences)
  • Step 2: Convert to a native app (e.g., with PhoneGap, Appcelerator, PhoneGapBuild – you can create native apps for multiple OSs)

For an inaugural conference, MobiLearnAsia 2012 did a superb job of pulling together a great deal of national, regional and international expertise, and provided a rich forum for interactions between participants from a wide range of countries. It has also filled a gap in bringing an annual m-learning conference to the Asia-Pacific region. I look forward to seeing how things have developed when the second MobiLearnAsia conference takes place in October, 2013.

M-learning comes of age in SE Asia (I)

Posted on by under M-learning

MobiLearnAsia Conference
Singapore
24-26 October, 2012

[See also Day 2 blog post]

The inaugural MobiLearnAsia Conference in Singapore has brought a much-needed regional focus to the emerging field of mobile learning. As the global phone count goes up (see image below), m-learning will become an ever more important strand of education. This conference drew together some of the world’s foremost experts in the area and showcased many local and regional initiatives. In fact, because of the richness of the content, I’ve divided this blog post into Day 1 and Day 2. The third day was devoted to full-day workshops.

Screenshot of Phone Count tally, 25 October 2012 (http://phonecount.com)

In his opening keynote, Mobile Learning: Past, Present & Future, Gary Woodill noted that there are different histories that underpin mobile learning. Learning before classrooms was mobile and social, and people learned by watching and talking to others. The printing press allowed standardisation, which helped foster the rise of modern classrooms. In the 1770s in Prussia many modern schooling concepts were developed: the idea of sitting at desks; putting up your hand for questions; recess and detention. Students were immobilised behind desks.

Mobile learning restores the idea of being in context while you’re learning.  There is a long tradition of learning without classrooms, on field trips, excursions, in apprenticeship situations. Mobile learning taps into this tradition.

One of the first school level mobile projects was the Wireless Coyote Project, run by Apple in 1991. In 1998, the HANDLeR project was run at the University of Birmingham by Mike Sharples. Clark Quinn defined mobile learning in an article in LiNE Zine in 2000, and then a flurry of mobile learning articles followed. Initially people saw mobile learning as an extension of e-learning, but now the focus has changed to the learner being mobile. The first mLearn conference was held at the University of Birmingham in 2002. IAMLearn was launched in 2007.

Mobile learning, Woodill argued, is an ecosystem consisting of devices, networks, and so on.  We are just at the start of Stage 2 in the scheme below:

  • Stage 1 – New technology applied to old problems (including coursebook & textbook delivery online, and use of LMSs, which are an example of a classroom metaphor that has not left us yet)
  • Stage 2 – Variations and mashups – struggle for ‘dominant design’
  • Stage 3 – New uses, new improved technologies

Key affordances of mobile technologies include:

  • Mobility
  • Ubiquity
  • Accessibility
  • Connectivity
  • Context sensitivity
  • Individuality
  • plus more

New uses of mobile technologies, which come under Stage 3, include:

  1. Social networking (e.g., ordinary users of the net spreading news before journalists report  it; or users of InstantMe, the mobile version of PatientsLikeMe; there is a real sense of community and emotional connectedness)
  2. Data Collection (e.g., citizen science such as on a mobile app like HealthMap)
  3. Live Trend Tracking (e.g., improved responses to disasters and outbreaks, or data on traffic jams, often provided automatically by phones without user input)
  4. Just-in-Time Information (e.g., the Baby helpline on 511411 in the USA; QR codes and Google Goggles also fit in here)
  5. Augmented Reality (e.g., see the Medical training Augmented Reality video)
  6. Mobile Games (e.g., the How Healthy is Your Food? app)
  7. Location-Based Apps (e.g., the WikiMe app)
  8. Storytelling (can create records and put them together in specific ways)
  9. Lifecasting (allows you to learn by revisiting experiences at a later date)
  10. Performance Support (e.g., on-the-job support, medical support for post-operative patients – this is a trend towards DIY health)
  11. External Interactivity (e.g., the BBC Bird Flu billboard in New York, where the public could text in responses)
  12. Haptics (e.g., the hug shirt or the kiss phone)
  13. Self-Tracking (e.g., tracking your own exercise, heart rate, etc; see The Virtual Self by Nora Young; there is also a trend towards self-tracking of informal learning: for example using Tin Can API, an extension of SCORM, or an app like Tappestry)
  14. Co-ordination (e.g., for emergency services; ‘vote mobs’)
  15. Collaboration
  16. Collective Behaviour (as seen in the Arab Spring)

Woodill’s predictions for the near future (around 5 years) include the following:

  • Mobile becomes ubiquitous (‘MobiComp’) (as we move from mobile learning to context-aware u-learning, using sensor technologies, mobile devices, and wireless communications)
  • New mobile interfaces arrive (such as contact lenses which measure health from fluid in the eyes)
  • Mobile devices become embodied (see: Mobile Interface Theory by Jason Farman, e.g., on the use of brainwaves to control technology)
  • Mobile learning goes 3D
  • A new gesture control language (including ‘surface computing’,  where there are projections onto your hand or body)
  • Sensors become integrated (see: Body Sensor Networks edited by Guang-Zhong Yang)
  • Device shape shifting (see: The Shape-Shifting Future of the Mobile Phone by Fabian Hemmert on TED)

In summary, before classrooms, learning was social, contextual and mobile, but classroom learning immobilised learning. Web 2.0 led to networked social learning. Mobile devices have now led to mobile learning. Woodill suggested that using mobile devices only in the classroom is like only using your car radio while parked in the garage.

We’re already beginning to move beyond mobile learning. Education and training have become mobile, networked, cloud based, curated, open, social, informal, location-based, shared, contextual, ubiquitous, peer generated, learner generated, filtered, collaborative, gamified, and personalised.  What will we call this? It’s not just mobile. We don’t have a good metaphor for this yet.

He concluded by outlining the ongoing impact of mobile learning along the following lines:

  1. Continuous learning for all
  2. Everyone can be a learner, everyone can be a teacher
  3. Increased access for those lacking education
  4. Innovation can come from anywhere
  5. New generation of leadership in technology
  6. Organisational disruption

In their talk, Oceans of Innovation, Sir Michael Barber and Saad Rizvi gave important background and context to others’ presentations on mobile learning, as they discussed the content of their recent publication of the same name.

A thousand years ago, the centre of gravity of the global economy (measured by GDP) was in Asia, but there was a gradual shift of dominance towards Europe and America. From 1950 onwards, we saw Asian economies begin to rise again, and in the last 10 years we have seen the most dramatic shift in history towards Asia. This will continue in coming years.

There are major challenges ahead in the coming half century, which require global leadership. But there is no clear leadership at the moment.  Global leadership develops when there is innovation, which leads to economic growth, which leads to economic influence, which in turn leads to global leadership. As the centre of gravity shifts eastwards, the important leaders of coming years may well be from the Pacific region. More precisely, the future leaders will emerge from the education systems of this region. The PISA results and TIMSS results show that there are very effective education systems in the Pacific region. An average 15-year-old in Singapore is performing about 2 years ahead of an average 15-year-old in the UK or US. They even have a lead in English, though it is a second language for many.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that these students have other skills like entrepreneurial skills. In other words, is the education system as measured by PISA and TIMSS enough to generate the kind of innovation and leadership that is needed to address global issues? No – it’s a good foundation, but it’s not sufficient. Well-educated means: E ( K + T + L), i.e.,

  • E [Ethical Knowledge]
  • K [Knowledge, i.e., Know-What & Know-How]
  • T [Thinking = all teachers helping students to think in different ways, creatively or deductively, rapidly or reflectively]
  • L [Leadership = the ability to influence those around you, to be persuasive, to be empathetic and listen, to influence decisions on all levels).

Countries like Singapore are well-placed to develop this knowledge and these skills, and develop global leadership.

They suggested that we need to rethink 45-minute back-to-back lessons. Maybe students can use mobile technologies and learn outside the classroom. The flipped classroom model provides one option. We also have to find ways of using new technologies to assess and test the new skills in new ways. Students can acquire reading, writing, maths skills at the same time as they learn new skills.

Barber and Rizvi presented an Innovation Framework for future education, arguing for whole system reform as well as systemic innovation leading to whole system revolution. With the educational changes of recent years, Singapore, Hong Kong, Ontario, Finland  (they suggested that though it is a very unique society and its lessons are difficult to replicate, what we can learn from is Finland’s recruitment of the most talented people into education) and Australia (under Julia Gillard’s reforms) are among the countries and regions  which are best placed to get this set of changes right.  Technology and mobile learning will be an important part of this. They noted that an excessive deference – as is sometimes found in some Asia-Pacific nations – can limit innovation. Students have to learn to question, to challenge, to debate. Much of the world’s innovation comes from large, diverse cities, and Singapore is well-placed in this regard.

In his presentation, Technology Enabling Education, Suan Yeo, from Google Enterprise Education, gave an overview of current trends from Google’s perspective. He noted that the second billion smartphone users are now coming online around the world (see: The Second Billion Smartphone Users by Jon Evans).  How we learned is not how our students learn.

It was the case 20 years ago that students went to school to access sophisticated equipment; but now the equipment students have at home is often more sophisticated than what is at school. The kids growing up today are going to expect technology to just work; they don’t want to think about messy operating systems, upgrades, patches and so on. Some things students of the future won’t need to learn include how to use paper maps; how to use a mouse; or how to burn CDs or DVDs. Banning new technologies in class is not an answer; students find a way around bans. Instead, we need to teach students how to use technologies, about digital citizenship, and so on. Learning analytics is a current major trend.

He made a number of points related to the growing importance of mobile learning and, in particular, Google’s emphasis on the browser as the key platform of the future:

  • Mobile has become students’ first choice for internet access.
  • Technology has to enable learning outside the classroom. Many schools are shifting away from closed classrooms and moving to an open learning model.
  • Using the OLPC program, the next generation of users can leapfrog a generation.
  • Using open technology is crucial in education – through the Khan Academy, Udacity, Gooru, Coursera and so on.
  • It is important to give everyone open access to information. Whatever the platform or operating system, the one common factor is the browser.
  • Google is starting to view the web as a learning platform. Google is betting that the web is here to stay, and so delivers many services through the web. It believes that the browser (notably its own browser, Chrome) will become the desktop of the future. This allows a unified experience as you move between different devices, e.g., desktop computer, tablet, mobile phone.
  • Google’s tools like Gmail, Google Docs, and so on, are designed to allow you to access anything from anywhere.
  • Google Docs allows people to collaborate from anywhere.
  • YouTube is Google’s second most popular service after Google Search. YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world. There are more than 700,000 educational videos on YouTube. YouTube is also a way of connecting with other people and crowdsourcing your learning.
  • Google’s Project Glass might allow people to get rid of phones eventually with wearable technology (see Project Glass on Google+ or the Project Glass: One Day … video on YouTube)

In his talk, Scaling Up Mobile Learning, Chee-Kit Looi asked what kind of curriculum we need to make use of the affordances of mobile technologies. While it may work in one classroom with one teacher, how can we make it work for the average teacher? Many countries are going 1:1, but what is a good pedagogical model that is sustainable? And how do we bridge informal and formal learning?

There are both planned and emergent learning spaces mediated by 1:1 mobile devices; some are outside class and some are in class:

  • Type I: Planned learning in class
  • Type II: Planned learning out of class (e.g., an excursion)
  • Type III: Emergent learning out of class (e.g., students use mobile phones to capture pictures)
  • Type IV: Emergent learning in class (when students inquire about some element of the lesson)

A smartphone can be a learning hub for all these types of learning, and it can be an essential part of the lessons. In comparing primary science classes, one of which worked with mobile devices integrated into their learning, there was improvement in student scores. Having students create animated sketches can help the teacher identify misunderstandings, for example. The teacher felt it deepened the students’ thinking and improved the quality of the questions they were asking.

There are advantages of scaling up this approach:

  • The research study showed gains in subject matter, positive attitudes to subject learning, new media literacy, and good learning habits – self-directed learning
  • There is more holistic learning with mobile devices as learning hubs to support seamless learning inside and outside the classroom
  • Teachers developed constructivist practices

Strategies for scaling up include:

  • Regular sharing at the TTTs
  • Teachers practise mock lessons
  • Lesson study through video-recorded classroom sessions
  • Customising lesson plans for high, middle and low achievers

Success with mobile devices is due to these factors:

  • Curriculum integration; the devices are not just an add-on
  • Mobile devices are personal to students and they have 24/7 access
  • Intensive PD
  • Strong leadership support

In summary, a mobilised curriculum can make a difference to students’ learning (engagement, self-directed learning, and collaborative learning).  It is important to find ways of scaling it within schools and across schools.

In her presentation, Mummies, War Zones, and Pompeii: The Use of Tablet Computers in Situated and On-the-Go Learning, Terese Bird outlined three projects involving mobile technologies:

  1. Mummies: Windows tablets were used by Museum Studies Masters students (not 1:1). This involved a cleverly designed PowerPoint presentation which had the feel of an app, and included information and videos from British Museum staff. It was used to support students on museum trips. At the same time, students could make their own multimedia recordings. They had to email in their multimedia-rich reflections by 10am the next day, which led to a much richer learning experience.
  2.  War Zones: iPads were used by MSc in Security, Conflict and International Development students on a 1:1 basis. The iPads contained a tailored app, SCID, designed by KuKuApps of Leicester, including key learning resources like e-books and OERs which could be accessed even without an internet connection. Many of the students were located in conflict zones and could not always access the internet.
  3.  Pompeii : archaeology researchers in Pompeii used iPads to superimpose archaeological data on photos. This supported note-taking, and data was synchronised wirelessly with a central database.

Thus, on Day 1 of the conference, a wide range of devices and platforms was presented, with presentations cohering around the value of mobile learning both in enhancing the classroom and in fostering contextual learning outside the classroom.

Going mobile in Asia

Posted on by under Uncategorized

GloCALL Conference
Beijing, China
18-20 October, 2012

The GloCALL 2012 conference moved this year to the Chinese capital. As always, it provided a great showcase of CALL teaching and research trends around Asia and the world. One of the strongest themes was the emergence of research showing measurable benefits for students’ language development through using computers and other digital technologies. Unsurprisingly, too, there was a heavy emphasis on mobile technologies.

In his plenary on the first afternoon, Writing to Learn and Learning to Write, Mark Warschauer stated that writing is absolutely essential in a knowledge economy.  Companies like Samsung, Nokia and Renault require all their corporate communication, even in their home countries, to be conducted in English. Over the last 20 years, the percentage of articles in PubMed (which tracks medical citations) in English has gone up to over 90%. So writing, and writing in English, are essential skills. But at the same time, students also need to write to learn.  He quoted Reeves (2010): “Writing is thinking through the end of a pen”. In his research, Warschauer has been addressing the question: What is the role of digital media for learning to write, and writing to learn?

He compared research on 1:1 versus shared laptop schools, noting that in 1:1 schools students write much more frequently – both on computers, and in total. He summarised a number of studies on the writing process, showing that where students work with computers, they:

  • gather far more background information
  • write longer papers
  • revise more
  • get more feedback from teachers and peers
  • get feedback from computers (automated essay scoring – although far from perfect, it does provide some feedback)
  • publish their work more
  • write better papers

He continued by looking at studies of writing outcomes, which have found that:

  • teachers asking students to write and revise with computers leads to higher writing scores
  • student time editing work on computers leads to higher writing scores
  • laptop access leads to better writing

He then turned to research on the subject of ‘writing to learn’.  When conversing in writing rather than face-to-face, students produced more syntactically complex language, and participated much more equally. He spoke at greater length about a classroom study undertaken over the past year, which revealed higher writing scores for those students using laptops. With a specific focus on 37 fifth grade students, 25 of whom were ELLs (English language learners), the researchers found:

  • the ELLs dramatically increased their participation over time, so that their overall participation for the year was around the same level as that of non-ELLs
  • SNA (social network analysis) revealed that at the beginning there were many students not communicating directly with each other, the teacher was the dominant node in the network, and much communication was unidirectional (notably from the teacher to the students); but by the end there were no isolated nodes, the teacher was no longer so dominant, and there was much more multidirectional communication
  • the number of posts went up, the number of words per post went up, the complexity of their language use increased, and they used more complex cognitive skills; much of this related to the teacher, who modelled academic language and cognitive strategies.
  • there was development from teacher to peer scaffolding
  • there was development of a learning community

It is important to investigate the effects of digital technologies on language learning and literacy. Warschauer summarised his own view of the overall value of laptops in schools as follows: “Laptops make a good school better, but they don’t make a bad school good.”

In their presentation, An Investigation into Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) Acceptance in China’s Higher Education Context, Yaru Meng (presenting a paper coauthored with Xiaomei Ma, Rui Liu and Huiqin He) began by mentioning that there are a number of studies of MALL from Japan, South Korea and the USA, but not so many to date in China.  She listed advantages of m-learning as:

  • portability
  • student connectivity
  • context sensitivity

On the other hand, there are:

  • technical limitations
  • users’ psychological limitations
  • pedagogical limitations

The current study, which involved university students in Northwestern China, addressed the changes in using different ICT devices for EFL in the past several years; mobile devices’ functions in different language learning modes; and students’ perceptions of mobile learning.  Overall, students preferred to use MP3 players and smartphones rather than traditional devices. They preferred paper-based learning for formal or deep learning, while mobile devices were preferred for informal learning. Some of the most common metaphors students used for mobile devices were: a resource centre, a treasure box, a sea of knowledge, an encyclopedia; a gate or window; and  a bridge, link or connection.

The top advantages they saw of mobile devices for EFL were:

  • they are convenient and portable
  • there are no constraints of time and space
  • they are resources

The main disadvantages they listed were:

  • there are distractions, students need self-control and have less concentration
  • there are fewer functions, the learning is less systematic, and the information is not always trustworthy
  • it is inconvenient to have small screens and memory
  • there is no deep learning and students are likely to forget what they have learned

In summary, Meng concluded that mobile devices are gaining popularity in China; MALL is preferred for informal learning; there is split attention in the learning process and limited resources; and MALL only serves peripheral learning. She argued that MALL can play a significant supplemental role within formal language education. There are implications for teachers, who must become developers and evaluators of online resources, and evaluators and advisors of online learning. Students become classroom participators, self-directed learners, problem solvers, and they learn how to learn. The integration of MALL remains a big issue.

In her talk, iPod Touch Impact on English for Specific Academic Purposes (Communication & Internet Studies) Oral Reading Fluency, Salomi Papadima-Sophocleous outlined a project at the Cyprus University of Technology Language Centre. She described the use of iPod Touches to improve reading fluency, using a version of ‘guided repeated oral reading’. Students worked over 6 weeks, in 2-week blocks, where they recorded themselves reading a set text, then practised reading the text following a native speaker model on YouTube, before recording themselves reading the text aloud once again. Changes in pronunciation and fluency from the first to the second student recording were compared.

To determine whether students’ ORF (Oral Reading Fluency) improved, the dimensions of automaticity and prosody were measured using Curriculum Based Measurement (automaticity) and the Multidimensional Fluency Scale (prosody). For automaticity, the speed or rate of correct words per minute, and accuracy, were assessed. The average number of words per minute, and of correct words per minute, improved. The word decoding accuracy also improved to a higher level. On the whole, the students’ prosody improved on all dimensions.  Student perceptions of the use of iPod Touches to improve their reading fluency were very positive.

Future possible directions for research include:

  • incorporating the ORF programme in all courses
  • using other technologies for ORF improvement such as students’ own smartphones, tablets or laptops
  • using the iPod Touch programme with other types of students, such as those with special needs

The ORF iPod Touch project is being implemented again in the academic year 2012-2013, this time with dyslexic students.

In his workshop, Using Mobile Phones for Language Learning, Skipp Symes outlined some common features of mobile phones that can be used in English teaching.  He focused in particular on:

  • using QR codes
  • using a mobile phone camera to take photos of objects and locations as part of the learning process
  • using free, flexible alternatives to SMS, notably What’s App
  • using mobile phones as student response devices using Socrative

He recommended following a BYOD model. If you do so, it’s worth identifying students who are in-class mobile phone experts, and  who can help other students, especially when they are using devices or platforms the teacher is not familiar with. He finished by noting that just because mobile phones are used, though, it doesn’t mean that students have to be able to access and use them during the entire class.

In my own talk, What Teachers Want: A Report on the Technology Needs & Wishes of Language Teachers in Southeast Asia, I gave a broad overview of research which Gavin Dudeney and I conducted during our digital literacies seminars in Bangkok and KL earlier this year.  I covered teachers’ comments on their current uses of new technologies in the classroom, the factors that had driven the use of the new technologies to date, and the factors they thought would drive further integration of new technologies in the future. Major themes were the slow shift to web 2.0, the need to find ways to integrate new technologies and new pedagogies into local educational cultures, and the need for teacher training which focuses more on pedagogy than technology. This data will be enriched by data collected from future seminar locations, including Moscow next month. There’s a summary of the paper here.

As always, the GloCALL Conference provided a snapshot of the use of new technologies in language teaching in both the developed and developing world. It will be interesting to see how trends towards research on measurable benefits, and practices involving mobile learning, will be represented at next year’s event.

It’s (nearly) all about mobile

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ACEC Conference
Perth, Australia
02-05 October, 2012

At the recent ACEC 2012 Conference, held in Perth, Western Australia, it was clear that almost everyone is starting to think mobile: there was a plethora of papers about iPads, iPods, XO laptops, BYOD models, and indeed mobile technologies in all their shapes and forms.

In her talk, Pedagogy! iPadology! Netbookology! Learning with Mobile Devices, Therese Keane reported on a study comparing two schools, one with a 1:1 netbook programme, the other with a 1:1 iPad programme.

In general, the iPad was used for more interactive tasks and the netbook for transactive tasks like handing in work. Teachers on the whole were more enthusiastic about the iPad. The students thought the netbooks had a positive impact in all subjects where they were used; the iPads were seen as particularly beneficial in some subjects rather than others.  This may be connected with individual teachers’ enthusiasm and use of the devices. Keane noted: “The iPad and Netbook seem to have both influenced and enthused teachers and students. Time for professional development was always at a premium and dedicated teachers needed and wanted more of this.” She highlighted three main findings:

  • Finding 1: The actual digital device was not as critical as the presence of a dedicated curriculum programme.
  • Finding 2: New pedagogical strategies were the key drivers of change.  The digital tool was only a means to an end, not the goal of the programme.
  • Finding 3: Student engagement was highly related to the enthusiasm of the individual subject teacher rather than the type of device. The device itself was almost inconsequential.

In conclusion, teachers said the key success factor in a netbook or iPad programme is not the device itself, but its use by engaged, supportive and prepared teachers within the context of a broader pedagogical change programme.

In our own talk on mobile technologies in schools, entitled Choosing to Teach with Mobile Technologies: Guidelines from Early Adopters, my colleagues Grace Oakley, Robert Faulkner and I gave an overview of our recent AISWA-funded research project, Exploring the Pedagogical Applications of Mobile Technologies for Teaching Literacy, which focused mainly on iPads. We outlined the nine general considerations about teaching with mobile technologies, with associated recommendations, which we derived from this project:

  1. Consider analogue vs digital tools.
  2. Consider free vs proprietary tools.
  3. Consider technology vs pedagogy.
  4. Consider traditional vs contemporary pedagogical approaches.
  5. Consider consumption vs production.
  6. Consider teachers as learners vs teachers as experts.
  7. Consider collaborative use vs personalised use.
  8. Consider formal vs informal learning spaces.
  9. Consider lower vs higher year levels.

We wrapped up with brief overviews of two case studies conducted as part of the project. The full report, with discussion of the nine considerations and four detailed case studies, can be read online or downloaded.

In her talk, Transforming Learning Using iPods and Web 2.0 Tools, Romina Jamieson-Proctor reported on a study of students’ use of mobile technologies for learning, with a major focus on creativity and 21st century skills. Observations were made of students using iPod Touches to support their learning in a Queensland school context. The project has now been extended to include iPads.

The project is still ongoing but there are some early findings. More teacher PD is needed. Teachers need to find creative ways of using the devices, and not just use them in mundane ways. Teachers also need more time to explore apps, and to become familiar with how the devices work. Completing tasks for assessment can be limiting for students if they are not allowed much variation in how they respond. Parents have questioned the use of the iPod Touches at home instead of students doing ‘real work’ – this may be because students didn’t get a chance to play with them in school, so they were doing this at home.

Emerging themes included:

  • Control – students can’t be creative if their work is too controlled
  • Transformation – devices are changing the way teachers think about the content and the classroom
  • Motivation – increased for students
  • Attitude – iPods impact attitudes to creativity
  • Learning Processes – iPods are beginning to change learning processes

In the One Laptop Per Child (Australia) Workshop, Rangan Srikhanta, the CEO of OLPC Australia, noted that a child born today will be entering the workplace around the time when computers are becoming as powerful as the human brain. While traditional numeracy and literacy is important, digital literacy is going to be crucial. There will be no concept of national unemployment in the global workplace of the future. Our kids need to be able to compete on a global level.

There are a number of market failures: One issue is teacher turnover, especially in rural and remote communities; another is maintenance and support of devices; and a third is childhood learning, because a lot of devices are designed for content consumption rather than education.

Srikhanta then described the rollout of XO laptops to remote communities in Australia.  It was noted that there were early adopter and late adopter principals and, similarly, early adopter and late adopter teachers, and even early adopter and late adopter students. Early adopters were people who ‘got it’ instantly and began using the XOs in effective and often original ways, which sometimes hadn’t even been considered by the OLPC team. Now the schools have to pay $100 per laptop, which means that there is greater commitment from the principals and teachers who buy into the programme.

OLPC Australia is now working with a new slogan: “Think globally, act digitally” and a new brand: “One education” (which has started in Australia). Any disadvantaged school in Australia can sign up for this programme, which is heavily subsidised by the Federal Govt. Amongst other things, children can complete certifications as XO-champions and XO-mechanics. Another initiative is the XO-Box programme, where children engage in a robotics programme developed with LEGO.

In her talk, Digital Content for a BYOD World, Kari Stubbs demonstrated the BrainPOP site, which is now also available in the form of a mobile app (which is essential since the web-based version relies on Flash, which doesn’t work on Apple’s iOS). It is now possible for educators to design their own quizzes and activities on BrainPOP.

In his insightful keynote presentation, Schools and Computers – So Where Now? A Cautionary Tale from the UK, Neil Selwyn argued that there is often a gap between the rhetoric and the reality of technology use in education. Technology in education is about politics with a small and a large ‘P’. It is important to take a historical view, a long view, in a field which is often rather ahistorical.

The UK has been pushing technology into schools for around 30 years now, starting with putting computers into schools in the 1980s. IT became a major part of the national curriculum of 1989, and developments continued well into the 2000s. Smartboards and VLEs were a major part of schooling. There was lots of interesting practice around. But things changed in May 2010 with the election of the Conservative Govt, which reversed much of the earlier policy – Becta was disbanded, Building Schools for the Future was cut, and many other programmes were also cut.

But then in 2011, Eric Schmidt from Google spoke about the fact that computer science isn’t taught as standard in UK schools. Students were learning how to use software, but not how to make it. This talk provoked a turnaround from the UK Govt. The NESTA Next Gen report, which made the case that UK industry was suffering from a lack of trained computer science students, gives a good idea of where the UK is going with technology in education. The Royal Society report Shut Down or Restart? made similar points. This led to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, talking about the importance of technology.

There is now huge hype in the UK about programming, coding, computational thinking, and the idea that every child should understand what goes on under the hood of a computer. There are initiatives springing up to help get coding into schools. The BBC, for example, is upgrading its technological literacy offering.  There’s a Code Club movement to get kids interested in coding. At the same time, the Govt has suspended the ICT subject as of last month. The plan is for it to come back in 2014. The Govt is saying it will be flexible and open source. The British Computer Society and the Royal Society of Engineering have been given responsibility for this. Meanwhile, big technology companies are moving into the role previously filled by the Govt in advising schools and providing equipment and materials.

There could be advantages and disadvantages here. The emphasis on programming is interesting, and fits with the arguments about coding from the likes of Douglas Rushkoff.  Old school ed tech is back, ICT is dead. People are talking about Seymour Papert. It is arguably good to take IT out of the control of governments and give it to specialists. By comparison, Israel has had coding in the curriculum for 12 years and is progressing towards a digital economy. Estonia has announced it will introduce coding in school. Business and companies like Google and Facebook are very happy about this.

But there is also much to worry about … Inequality could be an issue, since it’s not clear how the majority of schools and students will have better access to technology skills. These policies may reinforce the digital divide.  Is Raspberry Pi really going to be more exciting and interesting for children, or will it just be a 21st century version of the school computer club? Will suspending the curriculum really bring improvements, if schools just focus on things that they are accountable for? Coding may not really be the answer for the UK economy; we don’t need a whole generation of computer programmers, since there are limited jobs. In the rush towards coding and programming, what is being lost? Functional Office skills are still really important. The highly creative aspects of the ICT curriculum – as well as collaboration, communication, etc – are still really important. It’s important, too, to retain ICT throughout the curriculum. Indeed, warned Selwyn, the kinds of ‘cool’ innovations being talked about at the ACEC Conference no longer have a place in UK schools. There’s  a loss of the kind of evidence-based research previously done by Becta: now, he suggested, there is evidence-free practice. The Govt is withdrawing from technology in schools, and leaving schools and companies to it. The current Govt has given a Bible to every school – which is very different from a former govt which gave a micro to every school.

The key question should always be: Why? What problem are we trying to solve? A vague notion of the future, and the games industry, is not a good enough basis for these changes.  If education should be about empowerment, then:

  • We need strong Govt commitment and involvement. Computers in schools should not be governed by the marketplace; computers should be a key part of education as a public good.
  • We need digitally strong schools. There’s no such thing as a digital native. Schools have an important role to play here – kids are not effective users of technology when left to their own devices.
  • We need digital technology to be integrated throughout the school system.
  • We need a proper debate about these issues. There is great public alarmism about the use of technology in schools and a very low level of debate, when it occurs at all. The reality is that most people don’t care very much about the topic.

The take-home message which Selwyn left the audience with was this: the politics of educational technology are really important.  We should get more involved in the politics of ed tech before the politics come to us.

These kinds of political issues are certainly important macro-considerations, which we shouldn’t forget in the rush to employ mobile technologies on the more micro scale of individual classrooms, or even individual schools.

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