12th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn 2013)

In this paper we explore the outcomes of a mobile community of practice (MOBCOP) reified in the development of a mobile social media framework that we have implemented in the creation of a new mobile social media minor within the faculty. The domain of the MOBCOP was a year-long investigation of the potential for mobile social media to act as a catalyst for new pedagogies. The context of MOBCOP was an invited group of Bachelor of Graphics Design lecturers interested in investigating the implications of mobile social media for collaborative curriculum design. MOBCOP comprised six lecturers and an academic advisor as a technology steward. We argue that the resultant mobile social media framework developed from the MOBCOP experience is potentially transferable to a range of educational contexts. We illustrate the implementation of our mobile social media framework within the development of a new media minor that explicitly integrates the unique technical and pedagogical affordances of mobile social media, with a focus upon student-generated content and student-directed learning (heutagogy).

We increasingly operate in a multi-screen ecology, choosing the most appropriate devices for different purposes at different times. When educational institutions invest in mobile technologies, they often spend a great deal of time evaluating a range of devices. However, the devices themselves may matter less than their educational uses. This paper explores the case of an Aboriginal desert school in Western Australia which has adopted a mixture of XO laptops and, more recently, iPads. The background to the XO and iPad programmes is briefly outlined and the relative advantages and disadvantages of each device are indicated. It is demonstrated that, rather than the devices being in competition with each other, they are in many ways complementary. Teachers and students are able to work with both types of devices, as appropriate, to improve literacy, numeracy and other skills within a digital learning ecology.

Recently different sectors of society of many countries have been demanding significant improvements in their education systems, and teaching and learning practices (Keller, 2008; Latchem & Hanna, 2001). The need for keeping up or developing competitiveness has been the main reason for these improvements. These countries has been faced with challenges in terms of lack of skilled workers, capacity of resilience from the labor market to deal with dramatic economic changes, and the pursuit for more productivity based on the use of technology. Brazil is a good example of one of these countries. It has been struggling to improve its public basic education in order to develop the workforce. One of the initiatives to improve the education system is by changing the education paradigm in high schools with the use of tablet computers in a large scale deployment. This paper describes the social scenario that led to this initiative and how it has been made in a large country, as well as the research that is being carried out to investigate the impact of such initiative in the learning outcomes in public high schools in Brazil.

The exponential rise in the adoption of mobile devices around the world opened up unthinkable possibilities in many traditional lines of businesses. Mobile devices have become corner stones to publishing, news media, social media, ecommerce, navigation, location based services, travel companions, tour guides and much more. The consumerization of mobile technology enabled by factors like endless choice of devices, low entry barrier, high usability and disruptive innovations, has also presented mobile learning to the education industry.

Given the rise in the number of educational institutions across India, mobile learning is seen as more of a branding tool and less of a pedagogy or learning innovation tool. Owing to this perspective, the institutions focus on rolling-out an mLearning implementation at the earliest, rather than laying out a long-term strategy towards real innovation.

In this paper, we present some socio-technical issues faced in one such mLearning roll-out in a mid-tier Management Institute in South India. We relate our experiences to existing research, and attempt to provide a direction towards developing an mLearning implementation framework, that could provide a strategic approach to mLearning adoption.

Ethical concerns about mobile learning have been raised across all sectors of the educational system, sometimes resulting in the banning of mobile phones in schools and retarding the adoption of mobile learning as rapidly as might have initially been envisaged. A way of dealing with this problem is to empower mobile learning practitioners and researchers to deal effectively with ethical dilemmas through the development of their ethical reasoning. A commonly accepted approach to ethical development is by means of scenarios, to which ethical principles are applied in order to produce solutions. In this paper four scenarios are presented which were developed at two mobile learning and ethics workshops conducted in 2012. An ethics framework for the analysis of the scenarios is described and finally a strategy is outlined for conducting professional development of teachers and academics as well as training for student teachers. The authors propose that ethical scenarios provide not only a means of developing the competence of teachers and academics in dealing with ethical issues in their mobile learning practice and research, but may well lead to the greater adoption of mobile learning as fears of ethical issues diminish once a way to providing solutions is demonstrated. Finally, scenarios are seen as a tool to foster conversations with educational managers and administrators in order to promote policy development and practical responses to ethical issues in mobile learning.

This paper describes the design and initial testing of AnswerPro, a mobile academic peer support system for UK KeyStage 3 and 4 pupils (11-16 year olds). AnswerPro is a web application that enables pupils to seek support from theirknowledgeable peers on various subjects. This paper correlates the findings from a previous requirements-gatheringexercise (Anonymous), and from research into academic motivation, to propose design elements embedded withinAnswerPro. A pilot study was conducted with 7 school pupils over 3 weeks. Participants then engaged in a focus groupwhich discussed their experience using AnswerPro and the motivational elements embedded within it. Findings fromtheir use of AnswerPro, and from the subsequent discussion, highlighted some problems with the embedded motivationalfeatures. As a result, suggestions for potential solutions and their merits are proposed for the next version of AnswerPro.

An increase in accessible electronic pedagogy available in African languages is vital in extending learning resources to resource constrained schools and multilingual communities. The lack of appropriate mobile and electronic resources in these contexts often limits learners from participating in the digital age and discovering knowledge through technology. South Africa, used as the context for this study, has eleven official languages and promotes their use for education in schools. There are however limited bilingual resources that support bilingual education. The different challenges, such as the limited resources that enable an effective learning environment, often make it difficult for teachers to create new learning environments that embrace technology in classrooms. This paper presents a case study that evaluates the potential use of mobile learning to support the current informal learning process for resource constrained multilingual high school learners. In the study learners created their own audio based bilingual learning material on mobile phones using a constructivist learning approach, in the subject area of physical science. A total of 32 high school learners and their teacher from a South African school participated in the study, and though semi–structured interviews and questionnaires learners reported on their experiences. Infrastructure challenges, including limited access to free electronic resources, and slow and expensive Internet access, became the main hurdles in supporting a constructivist learning environment. The mobile learning process however gave learners an opportunity to create their learning content in their own languages at any location at any time, and use the content later for revision.

The use of students’ personal mobile devices in education seems an attractive option to higher education institutions as these devices may help reduce costs as well as support teaching and learning. However, the concept of “bring your own device” or BYOD, presents challenges to institutions used to control which technology students and faculty would adopt in teaching and learning practices. This paper aims to review key challenges associated with the BYOD initiative often discussed in the relevant literature. These challenges include network infrastructure, network security, IT support, equity issues, and BYOD disruptions. The paper also reviews a case study recently conducted at a higher education institution in the United Arab Emirates to illustrate in practice how these key challenges may affect the adoption of personal mobile devices in the classroom. Based on the review, this paper proposes potential strategies to help minimize these challenges

Learning from anywhere anytime is a contemporary phenomenon in the field of education that is thought to be flexible, time and cost saving. The phenomenon is evident in the way computer technology mediates knowledge processes among learners. Computer technology is however, in some instances, faulted. There are studies that highlight drawbacks of computer technology use in learning. In this study we aimed at conducting a SWOT analysis on ubiquitous computing and computer-mediated social interaction and their affect on education. Students and teachers were interviewed on the mentioned concepts using focus group interviews. Our contribution in this study is, identifying what teachers and students perceive to be the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of ubiquitous computing and computer-mediated social interaction in education. We also relate the findings with literature and present a common understanding on the SWOT of these concepts.

Results show positive perceptions. Respondents revealed that ubiquitous computing and computer-mediated social interaction are important in their education due to advantages such as flexibility, efficiency in terms of cost and time, ability to acquire computer skills. Nevertheless disadvantages where also mentioned for example health effects, privacy and security issues, noise in the learning environment, to mention but a few. This paper gives suggestions on how to overcome threats mentioned.

Intelligibility is what every English language learner strives for. To have the correct pronunciation and to be understood is a big part of the challenge to learning a new language. A contributing factor that makes correcting learner pronunciation difficult is the fact that many learners are unable to hear their own pronunciation mistakes, so speech to audio programs have limited value. A potential benefit of speech to text programs is that learners will be able to see their mistakes and thereby correct their own pronunciation with a technology they always have with them, is familiar with and is non-threatening. In addition, the fact that in remote areas 3G is more available than the Internet and mobile phones are cheaper than other digital literacy tools like iPads or laptops makes mobile phones as a teaching tool an appealing prospect. This project explores the possibilities DragonDictation, a free mobile phone app for voice recognition, brings to the adult ESL classroom, not only for the learners but also for the teachers. The extent to which it could be useful as an immediate feedback tool on pronunciation accuracy is explored, as are improvements to students speaking in English. The extent to which continued and supervised exposure to this digital literacy changes adult learners’ beliefs on the place of using mobile phones as a teaching and learning tool is also explored.