described by Wood et al (2003) where
breast cancer patients are enabled to
access trustworthy information about
their condition, to communicate with
other patients, and to keep track of
the issues that concern them.
6 Learning and teaching support –
activities that assist in the coordination
of learners and resources for learning
activities
Education as a process relies on a
great deal of coordination of learners
and resources. Mobile devices can be
used by teachers for attendance
reporting, reviewing student marks,
general access of central school data,
and managing their schedules more
effectively. In higher education, mobile
devices can provide course material
to students, including due dates for
assignments and information about
timetable and room changes. Examples
of using mobile technologies in this
context include a mobile learning
organiser which has been developed and
tested at the University of Birmingham
(Holme and Sharples 2002; Sharples et
al 2003; Corlett et al 2004), and the use
of mobile phone technologies to support
computing students (Riordan and
Traxler 2003; Traxler and Riordan 2003).
A blended approach to enabling learning
with mobile technologies is necessary as
successful and engaging activities draw
on a number of different theories and
practices.
WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS
FOR LEARNERS, TEACHERS AND
CURRICULUM DEVELOPERS?
Learning and teaching with mobile
technologies is beginning to make a
breakthrough from small-scale pilots
to institution-wide implementations. In
order for these implementations to be
successful, educators and technology
developers must consider the following
key issues:
• Context: gathering and utilising
contextual information may clash with
the learner’s wish for anonymity and
privacy.
• Mobility: the ability to link to activities in
the outside world also provides students
with the capability to ‘escape’ the
classroom and engage in activities that
do not correspond with either the
teacher’s agenda or the curriculum.
• Learning over time: effective tools are
needed for the recording, organisation
and retrieval of (mobile) learning
experiences.
• Informality: students may abandon
their use of certain technologies if they
perceive their social networks to be
under attack. |
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• Ownership: students want to own and
control their personal technology, but
this presents a challenge when they
bring it in to the classroom.
Research-informed guidelines can help to
address these issues along with more
practical concerns such as cost, usability,
technical and institutional support. A set
of such guidelines (O’Malley et al 2003) is
presented in Section 4.1 and outlined here:
1 Investigate a cost model for
infrastructure, technology and services.
2 Study the requirements of all those
involved in the use of the technology
(learners, teachers, content creators)
to ensure it is usable and acceptable.
3 Assess that the technology is suited
to the learning task and examine
advantages and disadvantages of each
technology before making a decision on
which one to use.
4 Assign the necessary roles for initiating
and thereafter supporting mobile
learning.
5 Develop procedures and strategies for
the management of equipment when it
is provided by the institution.
6 Provide training and (ongoing) technical
support to the teachers to enable them
to use mobile technologies to enhance
current and to enable new instructional
activities.
7 Consider the use of mobile technologies
for student administration tasks.
8 Consider the use of mobile technologies
to support collaborative and group
learning.
9 Discover and adopt suitable applications
that match the needs of your specific
classroom and map directly to your
curriculum needs.
10 Ensure security and privacy for the
end users.
WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF MOBILE
TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION?
Mobile technologies are becoming more
embedded, ubiquitous and networked,
with enhanced capabilities for rich social
interactions, context awareness and
internet connectivity. Such technologies
can have a great impact on learning.
Learning will move more and more outside
of the classroom and into the learner’s
environments, both real and virtual, thus
becoming more situated, personal,
collaborative and lifelong. The challenge
will be to discover how to use mobile
technologies to transform learning into
a seamless part of daily life to the point
where it is not recognised as learning at all.
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learning and
teaching with
mobile
technologies
is beginning
to make a
breakthrough |
