3 TEACHING AND LEARNING
WITH MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES –
CASE STUDIES
This section presents both current and
recent examples of teaching and learning
with mobile technologies, categorised
under the themes introduced in Section 2.
The particular examples were chosen
because they possess one or more of the
following key characteristics:
• broad impact, mainly inferred from
the number of learners supported
• strong theoretical basis
• support of an interesting or
novel activity
• inclusion of both qualitative and
quantitative evaluation results.
3.1 BEHAVIOURIST LEARNING
The following case studies demonstrate
the unique capabilities for anytime,
anywhere learning that mobile devices can
offer, even for the most straightforward
‘drill and feedback’ activities.
3.1.1 Skills Arena
Skills Arena (Lee et al 2004) is a
mathematics video game, implemented
using the Nintendo Game Boy Advance
system, that supplements traditional
curricula and teaching methods. Drills in
addition and subtraction are presented as
a game with advanced scoring and recordkeeping,
character creation and variable
difficulty level. Students can select
the name and physical traits of their
character, which they use to compete in
‘matches’ against computer-generated
opponents, ranked by difficulty. Difficulty is
increased by increasing the speed at which
the problems display on the screen.
Compared to traditional worksheets,
Skills Arena was designed to offer faster
feedback, the ability for each student to
select the appropriate difficulty level and
to provide increased motivation.
An initial pilot study of Skills Arena was
tested with two classes of second grade
students (39 students in total) over 19
days. Students completed an average of
1,296 problems each during this period,
three times what would be expected with
traditional worksheets. Skills Arena also
had a significant impact on the classroom
culture. Both teachers found the activity
was easy to administer and control, and
one teacher even used Skills Arena as a
reward for good behaviour. Students’ active
engagement with Skills Arena extended
beyond the time allotted in the classroom,
as they were inspired to create stories
about both their experience and their
characters.
Based on the results of the pilot study,
additional classroom studies are planned
to quantify whether using Skills Arena
improves student’s performance in
addition and subtraction, and to compare
the impact with traditional drill activities
such as worksheets.
3.1.2 BBC Bitesize
BBC Bitesize (2003; 2004) is an initiative
to provide revision |
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materials via mobile
phones, using a downloadable Java game
and SMS text messages. Given the limited
amount of information that can be displayed on-screen and sent via text, the
revision materials really are ‘bite-sized’.
This initiative has been running since 2003,
and has proved to be very popular,
especially with the growing number of
phones with Java capabilities. The main
impact of the BBC Bitesize programme
comes from the size of its audience - over
650,000 GCSE students (as well as a
number of curious adult learners).
Some implementation problems
highlighted include:
• Problem of localised content: some
questions were not relevant to what
a particular student had studied.
• Lack of detailed feedback for learners:
the small screen size and memory
capacity of the mobile phones meant
that no detailed feedback about question
responses could be given. This was
highlighted as a key issue that learners
wanted to see addressed.
• Compatibility across devices: despite
Java being promoted as a crossplatform
environment, it was difficult
to get the Java game running on all
phones.
• Costs: the SMS service was originally
free, but excessive demand forced the
BBC to charge for messages, leading
to a significant decline in popularity.
3.1.3 Mobile phones for
language learning
Two mobile language learning systems for
mobile phones were implemented and
tested in 2003 (Thornton and Houser 2004).
SMS was used as part of an English
language course, where students were
sent frequent vocabulary messages, which
also act as reminders to revise. The
lessons proved effective and were well
received by the students. The system takes
advantage of ‘push’ technologies and
promotes regular study. Researchers did
note, however, that students were
postponing study until they would have
the time to concentrate on the task.
Video delivered on mobile platforms
(both mobile phone and PDA) was used
to demonstrate the literal meaning
and the special use of English idioms.
Students found the video quality low,
but the experience of using the videos
engaging.
A related commercial application is Pocket
Eijiro 1, started in December 2002 as an
English-Japanese, Japanese-English
dictionary. The site now receives more
than 100,000 hits per day and subscribers
number in the hundred thousands.
3.1.4 Classroom response systems
Classroom response systems can be
implemented as either specialist systems,
comprising both the hardware and
software such as Educue 2, or as
software-only systems that can be installed
on mobile devices, such as Discourse 3.
Dufresne et al (1996) report on the use of
a classroom response system called
‘Classtalk’ with first year physics students
at the University of Massachusetts, USA.
1 http://ojr.org/japan/wireless/1080854640.php
2 www.educue.com
3 www.ets.org/discourse/about.html
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