Mobile Learner Support

A number of activities are now underway, but again in order to ground these in actual student requirements, the follow up survey on mobile use and feedback on the work to date is going on at the moment.

A student survey is again being held from StudentHome mobile, so staff who are also students are welcome to contribute (signing in with a student ID to see the notice), with a closing date of 1st Nov 2010.

I will be discussing interim points of note with colleagues in the mobile learning community next week at the mLearn 2010 conference as part of the poster session that’s been prepared.

Fuller results, and an update of current work will also be shared with our Mobile Technologies Special Interest Group on the 28th Oct 2010. The outline agenda is as below:

1.       Feedback from student survey – overview of current usage patterns and future indicators

2.       Validating development work for the RAP mobile strand, including discussing mobile web and apps and synergies elsewhere

3.       Open updates on project work/interest areas

4.       Capturing and sharing information and practice online via ‘mobisite’ http://www.open.ac.uk/mobisite

Note that I’m hoping the mobisite will be fully live imminently – at least in its basic state, to validate and start to input more content.

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.

Despite hearing that our work so far on the Mobile VLE will result in a reduced initial offering, I’m hoping that this will stimulate further suggestions for features during 2010. Building on the groundwork now reaching the end of the current development cycle (about to go in to ‘code freeze’), the LIO is now commissioning 3 development strands from Q1 2010:

• Extending the Mobile VLE optimised templates to Resource pages and Structured Content, also reformatting pages with left-hand-side navigation. Evaluating rollout of the template to VLE tools such as forums, wikis and blogs.
• Enhancing Structured Content so that the work on the ePub format (via XSLT) can be automated and added to the workflow, resulting in an additional link alongside the current ‘printable view’.
• Exploring mobile application development, particularly to create an ‘umbrella’ application that can allow selection and inclusion of other OU modular apps and WebKit-based resources and activities.

Separate from the development work, we are also now ‘benchmarking’ how other HEIs are increasingly offering mobile services, and how they’re going about this. Most of the publicity we’ve seen on this tends to be on campus-based services with little mention of teaching and learning support, but Mike Innes will be working for us in digging beneath the press releases to uncover more.

And on the external focus note, all of the OU presentations were received well at Handheld Learning and we have the option to include in a RCETJ special issue. [I've also included the overview presentation and paper on Slideshare]. Related to this, it was great to see that Gavin Cooney and Learnosity received the Secondary sector Handheld Learning Award for innovation, and that Valérie Demouy from the L120 research study team presented successfully in Toledo.

Firstly, in order to discuss further with stakeholders and other mobile developers in the OU, I’ve updated a series of wireframes building on the design document currently being worked on by our VLE developers:

In addition to the work on the VLE, separate projects are underway that should mean that student assignment information from the eTMA system is updated more promptly, and links to a further improved assessment block on StudentHome mobile will be made, in response to student feedback.

The good news is also that all 3 of our OU papers have been accepted for the Research Strand of the Handheld Learning conference, and there is a further session being given by Gavin Cooney of our contracted company, Learnosity, and also from colleagues in the English in Action project for Bangladesh. I’ve updated my report with the final data from the student survey and will add the presentation we use in our roundtables when I can.

Just a quick note to say that a few of us are hoping to hear additional confirmation soon that we’ll be presenting  updates on many different projects and activities at the London-based Handheld Learning conference in October 2009 (HHL09).

Within the LIO range of activities, most strands are now currently active, with some demonstratable outputs I will be discussing with colleagues in the new term.

Until then. you can access an interim version of my HHL09 paper that’s been accepted.

Before the Christmas break there were a few conferences that had mobile themes, and I’m including 2 reports which may be of interest to other folk: Online Educa Berlin, HandheldLearning.

The BETT show is next week, hopefully with some indications as to upcoming technologies and usage models in differing sectors (well I always hope). The same group which brought us Handheld Learning is also bringing forward a Game-based learning conference in March: http://www.gamebasedlearning.org.uk/

Just a short note today to say that I hope to be able to make information more public and tie in better with other Mobile Learning activity in future as part of the remit within the new Learning Innovation Office in the Strategy Unit. Watch this space!

In the intervening period, colleagues have been involved in both the mLearn and Handheld Learning conferences, both held this year in the UK.

You may also like to look at the details behind the OU on iTunes U initiative that has proved very successful!

Although a major international conference is currently ongoing in Melbourne – mLEARN 2007 - those of us unable to make this (!) had our own, more local forum to share practice in London last week.

Handheld Learning has grown, both as a conference and as a discussion community, and many more bloggers recorded the event this year, not least our own Gill Clough in IET with her Research Essentials record. Other blogs can be found on the Handheld Learning Forum, where presentations and podcasts will soon be available. As is commonly noted, ‘growing up’ can be difficult for a conference and it was interesting to note more mainstream corporate sponsorship – as long as it doesn’t spoil in the same way that BETT has changed over time.

HHL2007 had, again, a school focus to a large extent – but that’s where the money is, and that’s where a lot of innovation is happening. ‘Where is HE?’ was a frequent reflection…and some are doing well, with some practice-based work, comparisons of how different disciplines respond to the new technologies and methods, and how podcasts can be used to enhance material. But it IS patchy. Looking at a few universities such as Bristol, Leicester, London Met, Nottingham and Wolverhampton would be a good place to start to see a larger focus, but still somewhat isolated (although Bristol has a good VLE focus and Leicester has a wide scope of research pilots).

Policy makers at national and international levels are beginning to take mLearning more on-board, though even they have a fairly entry-level understanding to some of the issues that have been running for some time now. We heard from the minister and officials from the school sectors, but it would be interesting to compare with their counterparts in HE…

The good news is that next year, both mLearn 2008 and Handheld Learning 2008 will be in the UK again!

HL2006 – The second conference in the series was held this year at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference centre in Westminster, London, and attracted over 500 delegates. The increased scale of this year’s event was due in part to some corporate sponsorship and a degree of involvement from the DfES and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.

Sticking with the school-based element, it was refreshing to see many school projects and initiatives disseminated to a mixed audience from all learning sectors. There is a notable drive within the school sector towards mobile learning innovations, and some large-scale studies are gaining greater local buy-in from not only other early adopters but also from the mainstream.

A concern was raised, justifiably in my view that with these innovations occurring in the school sector, FE and HE should ensure that they maintain the momentum, and properly address the issues raised by learning on the move, and providing blended learning approaches. There may need to be a greater responsibility on behalf of the researchers in these projects (usually in HE) to disseminate and promote wider understanding in their own sector.

There are now many reports and literature reviews in the field provided by large educational institutions, and there have been some useful recent updates, such as those provided by Futurelab An interesting synergy was presented where gaming collaborations are informing some of the Web 2.0 peer networking developments and offer new opportunities in providing online assembly of content from devices, using increasingly cheap and available online storage facilities.

On a more cautionary note, growing concern was raised on the digital divide within the UK as well as elsewhere, where home access for learners is as much an issue as to whether to provide broadband-weighted services and increasingly synchronous web-based interactions.

Internationally, however, use of mobile technologies in widening communication and enabling democracy is an encouraging extension of development activity – where phones can be used to access national forums and the viral nature of ‘word-of-mouth’ peer collaboration lead to new opportunities for those people in challenging environments. Back in the UK communications market, of particular interest is the growing preference for push and subscription/update technologies, rather than extensive browsing and pulling of information.

It will be interesting to hear from colleagues what main points are raised by the longer-running mLearn conference, in its fifth year and this time in Canada, and how they compare.

You can also check out the podcast of many of the plenary room presentations. Tony Vincent, one of the workshop leaders and presenters has also posted on his blog.