Mobile Learner Support

Having completed a talk on a range of mobile-related topics and work delivered, underway or in the proposal stages at the OU – for the IET Technology Coffee Morning series – here’s a slightly amended replay to incorporate demos and overlay prompt slides.

Since chaptering the podcast feed isn’t working as I’d hoped, please use the timecodes below to help find something of specific interest ['scrub' around using the playhead/slider below the video]
UPDATE: The timecodes below are also now hyperlinked to the appropriate segment on the IET YouTube channel as an alternate:
00:01:40 Overview
00:03:27 Student Usage [incl. background/context]
00:16:13 Student survey ’09
00:19:57 Mobile VLE beta [VLE1 on Moodle 1.9 - current, incl. staff demo via goo.gl/TMcPF]
00:26:07 Student survey ’10
00:34:17 Mobile-optimisation: VLE2 [incl. live demos using mobile emulators]
00:50:48 Mobile support [covering some proposals before wider release/publicity]
00:59:07 Mobile coordination [practitioner info, strategy, mobile-friendliness, improved interfaces]
01:08:06 Mobile web applications and third-parties [reflection on OU web-based approach]
01:12:03 Mobile apps & resources [outline of ePub eBook work]
01:14:40 Mobile exposure [proposal for OU Home mobile]

You may also find the prompt slides useful to identify an area of interest [via goo.gl/yjAkT]:

The last two days provided a useful opportunity for members of the OU Mobile Learner Support/Mobile Learning community to see what new work is planned and underway across the university. More importantly I feel though is that this was also a good opportunity for folk less familiar with work in this area to see that this isn’t a niche activity any longer, and that much of the work underway will be for the benefit of a mainstream audience.

Thanks go to Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, Daisy Mwanza-Simwami and the team in the Institute of Educational Technology for pulling the event together, and hopefully new project information will make its way soon to http://www.open.ac.uk/mobisite

Project stands included many areas with online resources to follow up, listed on Cloudworks at http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/4967

From the perspective of institutional support, it was great to be able to say that real inroads are being made into providing updates to more mobile-friendly learning and public-facing sites using Moodle and Drupal respectively. For the Mobile VLE in particular, some concept screenshots from the recent usability-tested wireframes were also on show:

At the same time, we could also relate that in December 2010, student mobile usage had now increased (possibly somewhat due to exam results time) to ~19.2K individual accesses to StudentHome via handheld devices (about 10% of students online that month) and ~9.3K mobile users of the [moodle] VLE.

We’re due for a bit of an update on some of the related project strands I think, so here’s an attempt to give quick overviews on what’s happening.

L120 research study into use of Learnosity Voice Response service: The findings and discussion around this innovative use of audio eAssessment have been well received at a number of internal and external sessions. Key elements of student feedback include the “authentic” aspect of working with audio stimuli/prompts and oral responses in this way, the ability to effectively construct a dialogue between pre-recorded audio interweaved between student responses in playback, and the potential to compare with model answers.

Work is now underway by colleagues in FELS to move the development onwards from research study to pilot; from formative to summative assessment (tutor feedback online); to work on OU integration with eAssessment colleagues and Exams; providing many modes of access – mobile phone, landline, Skype, mobile app (iPhone/iPod Touch), online, and to evaluate possibilities in other discipline areas. LIO are now supporting the service licence costs of the pilots (only) as mainstreaming evaluation work is undertaken by other areas in the OU.

ePub eBook technical evaluation and format development: Work has proceeded more sporadically in this area around other priorities and a shifting external market, but is now at a stage to better complement other work being undertaken by LTS in developing a multiple ‘alternative format’ pipeline system that will deliver many different format options. The main challenge remains to ably check that the ePub ‘standard’ is actually delivered consistently across devices/apps and in how to provide instructions or canned text prompts where Structured Content includes online activities.

Mobile ‘shell’ application develelopment: Initial prototyping work to define a method for packaging web content and synchronise with (initially Android) devices is nearing completion. Further consultation will follow in providing packages of learning content for students to use as part of a trial late in 2010. LIO will continue to resource development and exploration in this area.

Mobile coordination website: Commissioned design work is now progressing in bringing together content relating to all aspects of working with mobile technologies at the Open University. The intention is to cover projects researching the pedagogy and impact of mobile learning, pilot projects offering skills development or other aspects of learner support in mobile friendly formats. In addition, provision will be made for advice on using mobile technologies at work (e.g. connecting to the OU’s network or email systems) and updates about the relevant university mobile strategies.

The site will encompass both formal and informal approaches to exploring and working with mobile technologies, primarily providing a space to aggregate content currently available in multiple locations across the university. This will be achieved in part by collating, cross-linking and embedding content from other social/media sites and project pages, including Delicious and Cloudworks.

Some parts of the web site, where appropriate, will be visible to the public, enabling us to raise awareness of the OU’s efforts in this area, but much of the information will only be visible to staff (internal and Associate Lecturers) who are logged in via their OUCU. All pages will be optimised for mobiles and searchable via the intranet. To be discussed as part of the next Mobile SIG – UPDATE: Now called mobisite

And finally…last month StudentHome mobile hit a bit of a milestone with over 10,000 unique student visits via mobile devices. So more revisions and development to follow I think!

A summary of some of the work undertaken during 2009 is also now available as a set of case studies in an article in RCETJ, following last year’s Handheld Learning conference.

The final update from this current round:

In addition to cross-unit discussions about the above projects and sub-projects – some for technical integration, some for knowledge-sharing as part of the Mobile Technologies Special Interest Group (SIG) or the eLearning Community programme of events from Sept 09, there are many other activities underway:

Emulators – to aid those staff who don’t have access to devices themselves for exploration, the Digilab ‘mobile zone’ equipment has been updated, and the Mac and PC desktops have also been supplemented with device/browser emulators or simulators for newer devices including Apple iPhone/iPod Touch, Google Android, Palm Pre, in addition to older Microsoft Windows Mobile 6, Sun Java Mobile and the OperaMini demos [also available online via http://operamini.com/demo ]

Knowledge-sharing sessions – an ongoing programme of activities include mobile themes, presentations and seminars. These include the eLearning Community and the Mobile Technologies SIG as well as IET Technology coffee mornings and other Faculty and Programme-initiated seminars and symposia. There is also interest in improving the online presence available to staff interested in Mobile Learning, but until this is specified and agreed further, a co-created list of teaching and learning projects is also available for updating.

Staff briefings – most recently there are two briefings that provide an update and overview of mobile learner support coordination of teaching and learning activities and LIO projects, given as part of the above knowledge-sharing sessions: IET and eLC.
Ongoing briefings are also being conducted as part of the Digilab facilities, where ‘Digibytes’ and ‘Digiquests’ can be followed, by consultation with the staff: http://digilab.open.ac.uk

Cross-faculty consultation – commencing September 2009, there will be broader consultation via a group established by LIO, complemented by further interaction with course managers and teaching and learning staff in each unit. Building on this will be a series of activities to better coordinate information on any ongoing teaching and learning projects that are relevant to mobile learner support. While the main thrust of activity will be to improve communication and networking, the activities will also be an opportunity to feed back new areas of innovative practice and models for e-learning (and m-learning) for wider dissemination and to LIO. Evaluating new MobileVLE designs and small-scale student trial coordination is also expected to be part of the ongoing work in this area.

IET EPD and forward planning – although there was no Educational and Professional development programme for mobile learning this year, IET have released Teaching & Learning guide on Mobile Learning by Agnes Kukulska-Hulme and Anna Page.
The intention for 2009/2010 currently is to build on the consultation outlined above by working with course teams not only to explore which elements of current provision are most appropriate to mobile learning, but also to establish ‘microchunked’ course materials and activities lending themselves best to mobile learning. There is also currently interest in further investigating mobile usability with an educational focus, the facilities within the Jennie Lee Labs being ideal for conducting focus group investigations and establishing mobile learning journals among other activities.

Colleagues at the OU may already have seen this, but in the interests of covering all bases, you may be interested in the following from Keren Mills as part of her work currently based in Cambridge:

Win £30 in Amazon vouchers when you tell us how you use information on the move

I would like to invite you to take part in a survey intended to establish how the majority of Open University students and staff access, or would like to access, information away from your desk or laptop. The survey questions are primarily about how you use your mobile phone, smartphone or PDA to look up, use or interact with information.

I am a full time member of staff at the Open University, but this research is being undertaken in partnership with Cambridge University as part of the Arcadia project. Staff and students at Cambridge University will be receiving the same survey. For more information about the project, please click on the link provided at the end of the survey.

All answers will be completely anonymous. If you choose to provide your email address to enter the prize draw, or if you wish to contribute further to the project, we will not associate it with your responses or retain it after the end of the project. The aggregated survey results, however, will be made publicly available and may be used to inform development of services for students and staff.

Click here to take the survey:
http://cli.gs/OUinfo

It should take 10 to 15 minutes to complete, and will be available until 27 March 2009.

Entitled ‘Sharing ideas for mobile application development‘, the last MTech SIG meeting was a good opportunity to catch up with some familiar faces but also some new members and project areas.

Without wanting to formally record what is intentionally a more free-flowing knowledge-sharing session, we also agreed to extend involvement online via Elluminate and have also made a recording of the session as a result.

Accessible to OU folk only, you’ll need to go to http://learn.open.ac.uk/site/elluminate and find the MTech-labelled session. The event recording is at the bottom of the page showing session details.

We also agreed to update profile information pertaining to our projects and the OU Projects page hosted on the MTech wiki: http://conclave.open.ac.uk/m-tech-group/index.php/OU_Projects

Although BETT was interesting, it wasn’t for seeing (and trying out) some brand new devices and platforms unfortunately, but two updates (demonstrated in CES) that may be of interest concern Palm’s possible resurgence with webOS and the ASUS tablet developments. [The EEE Top is also interesting - a bit like a Linux iMac(!) with touch capabilities - if that's not too confused].

On an internal note, colleagues are welcome to join the next MTech meeting, details as follows:

Date: 27 January from 15:00 to 17:00

Venue: Library Presentation room (ground floor, next to the Digilab).

If you can’t make the whole two hours please feel free to drop in when you can.
For this meeting we’d like to invite you all to share your ideas about mobile applications or services that the Open University should be developing, or comment on ideas that other people bring forward. We can’t guarantee that any of these ideas will be taken forward, but if we have some definite suggestions written down we’ll be in better position to bid for funding or developer time when it does become available.

On this note, we’re pleased to welcome Paul Hogan to the group. Paul is the new Mobile Applications Developer in KMI and will be initially concentrating on developing applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Please let Keren Mills know if you’d like to attend.