Category: Mobile Learning


The Future of Mobile Learning: Where are the Red Balloon People?

Filed Under: Learning, Marketing, mlearning, Mobile Learning, UMtrends11
Jul.13, 2011

I recently viewed an Ustream production and the topic of the Red Balloon project came up. I admit I never heard of it and, if I had been in the room, I would have my iPhone out and I would be googling and listening to the speaker.  Instead I googled on my laptop!

 “ The Red Balloon contest serves as a metaphor for the newly-networked world. This new way of generating, aggregating and disseminating information has profound implications for higher education. It challenges long-held practices of teaching and learning, institutional organization and structure, and the very notion of expertise. The Red Balloon contest also serves as an analogy for how a community of higher education institutions and their national association can work together to promote and support change in higher education.” http://www.aascu.org/programs/redballoon/

As part of my course on mLearning for the University of Manitoba certification in Emerging Technologies, our class designed a survey with Survey Monkey on the future of mobile learning and we received 153 responses. It was distributed through a range of networks representing our own personal educational networks (mine was via a group of 12 graduate students in education via a local university and via a Ning site, Learning Town).   We were then asked as part of the course to create a blog entry on results. You can view the  PDF of the survey and results on my Slideshare site.

As I reviewed the survey results below, I could not but help thinking that those adapting to the technology of the 21st century are launching more weather balloons and will challenge in the fortress of the status quo. But the results also show that much work needs to be done in creating awareness o f the potential of the mobile device.  For more on the Red Balloon Project see We Have a Winner and Introduction to the Red Balloon Project.  You can view the  PDF of the major project study (The Red Balloon Project: Re-Imagining Undergraduate Education) at the same Slideshare site.

1. When asked “Do you currently use mobile learning device(s) in your formal education or institutional training setting?”  152 answered the question and 55% said yes.  However, when we drilled down into that issue, the majority, 81 respondents, skipped the questions. They skipped over telling us the type of device, utilization rate, type of content, current use.  When asked about usage of apps2/3 skipped the question. And when asked what type of device they personally used, a third skipped the question.

My conclusion- Too many respondents did not take this seriously.  How can the majority say use mobile devices but are unable to provide detail into the device?  And at the same time, respondents listed the standards reasons for successful application to learning: multiple features in one device, better engagement with learners, immediate ability to connect to a server.

2.  Nearly 87% believe they will play an important role in the future of learning in K-12.  However, the top suitable uses cited were all transactional, not classroom instruction:  accessing lecture note, conducting polls, completing forms .  With the exception of conducting polls, the bulk of the activity cited can be done with a laptop.  And 41 percent will utilize email or texting in their formal learning

My conclusion:

-Respondents appear to be thinking as a sage on the stage, as a teacher in the traditional sense. In today tech savvy word, traditional ways of the data dump may no longer satisfy a generation of digital natives has rendered traditional learning obsolete.

- A significant amount of change management must be brought to the table, especially an awareness campaign to educate instructions in the classroom applications of mlearning. Please se my earlier blog entries,  Three Significant Challenges to Introducing Mobile Learning to a University Campus

3.  Significant percentages see the future in college classroom, high schools, online training. But only 32% see a significant growth in elementary schools.  I don’t agree. Young kids today play games on their parent’s smart phone and the like.   We as educators have to get as smart as our kids!

 

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Geocaching Part 1- An Innovative, Emerging Participant-Centered Activity

Filed Under: Communication, Marketing, mlearning, Mobile Learning, UMtrends11
Jul.02, 2011

I am always on the hunt for new and attractive ways to use mobiles for learning, communication and marketing and the article quoted below opened a few new doors. The author reminded me again of one of my favorite Lessons Learned, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

This is the first of a series of three blog entries. This entry serves as an introduction to what I think is an exciting marketing, communication and educational tool. Part 2 will be on use of geocaching in marketing, communications and team development.  Part 3 will explore the use of geocaching as a teaching tool.  All three entries will be supported by slides, print materials and a video on my Slideshare site.  Stay tuned!

What is geocaching?

“Participants (a.k.a., “geocachers”) use GPS systems to hide and find “geocaches” almost anywhere in the world. (They can even be found in Antarctica.) A simple geocache (or simply “cache”) is a small water-resistant container with a logbook and pen in it. You can buy specially designed caches, but a regular Tupperware container will do. Unlike pirate treasure, caches aren’t buried. If you can find your way to the GPS coordinates, you should be able to find the cache. Note that the caches listed on geocaching.com may come with clues to help you find them. (“Look for the missing brick in the ivy-covered wall.”)
 Dain Schroeder, “Treasure Hunting with Your  iPhone?

How long has it been around?

A full decade. However, it has only recently entered the fields of marketing and education. In fact, start ups have recently emerged to professionally develop geocaching campaigns for businesses.

 

 

 

What iPhone app did I download?

I downloaded the free Geocaching Intro app and found three caches near our home.  I immediately went after one. Lesson Learned- Do it in the cool of the evening, not at noon when it is 101 F in Houston! Then I went all out for the $9.95 US version loaded with more than I even wanted to know!  Global caches in our global world.  As we were driving to New Orleans for the 4th of July I hit the app and found 4 caches as we whizzed by.  The bottom line, however, is this is a no-to-low cost approach. Most smart phone have GPS and most have smart phones. The app is free.

I don’t have an iPhone (yet!)

No problems. Free apps exist for Androids and  Windows Phone 7.  Visit this site to download the apps.

 

 

 

Example Use in a Class

GPS and Geocaching Guide for Educators  by Dr. Alice A. Christie, Arizona State University President’s Professor Emeritus. Sample lessons

“Teams of students will use GPS units to locate geocaches that their instructor has hidden around their school campus. Students will return to the classroom with the recovered geocaches, examine and discuss the contents of the geocaches, determine a number of possible ways to categorize the contents of each geocache, and then use Excel™ to create spreadsheets and graphs that represent the categorized data. The contents of each geocache can be sorted in two or more ways.”

What does a cache look like? What am I looking for?

They come in all sizes and shapes! BYOP (Bring Your Own Pen) to sign the logbook.  And, if you take a token out, the rules say you must drop your own little keepsake into the cache for others to find!  They can be easy to find, as in PNG (Park and Grab), or more challenging to locate.  And you will be given clues along the way.  When you get near the stash, the app will announce that you are close!

 

For further information:

What is geocaching?  YouTube, short, simple introduction

Geocaching  Wikipedia, excellent list of variations

Geocaching.com The official site

Be sure to visit my flickr  site the set on geocaching: tips, key words, links to videos and more!  By the way, there are over 54,000 photos of geocaching  as of today July 8, 2011 @ 4:21 PM.

Stay tuned for Part 2 on the use of geocaching in marketing and communications.

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The Use of QR Codes in Learning

Filed Under: Learning, mlearning, Mobile Learning, UMtrends11
Jul.01, 2011

Today my Pastor called. “Skip.  That QR code on the bottom of your email. I have noticed these  around. How do I do it?”

Being ever the instructor, I sent the Pastor to my earlier blog on Quick Response codes and a self-taught free online training tool and to all the sites available to generate the codes. And then I created a code for him and decided to have one more blog entry on this subject.

So how can instructors use these for teaching?

1.  My QR Code Lesson Plan:  Kandinsky by Leilani Hickerson

Leilana is an art teacher and she shares in the link above.

2.  Use the code as an introduction to your topic before class. Create a code that links to a YouTube video, image, quote.

Here is an image for a history class

3.  Brittany Price- Shark Talk (Composition)

Her lesson used the code to take students to The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and then answer these questions:  What’s going on in this picture? What do you see that makes you say that?, and What more can you find?

4.  And check out this Slideshare site for 40 Interesting Ways to Use QR Codes in the Classroom

5. For a clever use in reading check out this YouTube on Around the World in 80 Days

6. Finally, check out this Flickr site to view a poster on QR codes.

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Three Significant Challenges to Introducing Mobile Learning to a University Campus

Filed Under: Communicaton, Learning, mlearning, Mobile Learning, UMtrends11
Jun.18, 2011

We are just entering the anytime, anywhere, anything digital culture originally created by Apple and the iPhone. For the moment, it’s all about the apps that are just being discovered for university communication and marketing use. (See my blog entry University Apps- The Challenge of Delivering Sustainable Information Just in Time, Anytime and Just for Them! )

Now I foresee three major areas that will challenge the status quo but potentially will also enable the future.  And I suggest specific remedies to each challenge.

For further information, see my blog entries  Mobile Phones for Communication and Learning on a University Campus  and Mobile Nomads- Opportunities for Universities to Harness the Power of Community

1.   Challenge: Managing Change in a University Environment

There are examples of universities that have undergone significant change, among them is North Carolina State University. The university has a strategic plan, and conducted a sequenced communication process with students, faculty and stakeholders. NCSU is in the execution phase. This institution used the proper tools of change management- stakeholder analysis, focus groups, feedback sessions etc.

John Kotter’s now classic 8 step change model is more than theory.   Implementation following Kotter’s sequence leads to, while never seamless, generally smooth change. (And as we live in a mobile age, check out a free iPhone app, Mindtools, where you can go to countless change management tools anytime, anywhere.)

1.  The first step begins at the top- an urgency to change, an urgency felt by Senior Leaders, in a university of a business.

What to do?

  • Identify potential threats, and develop scenarios showing what could happen in the future.
  • Examine opportunities that should be, or could be, exploited.
  • Get the conversation going. Start honest discussions, and give dynamic and convincing reasons to get people talking and thinking.
  • Build the case for mlearning. If the President, Provosts, Deans and other leaders aren’t for it, the introduction of mlearning will fail. The Communications plan is the critical element as the institution moves forward

2.  You must make the case for change. What are the advantages to the institution? Faculty? Students?  In short, you must form a powerful coalition across campus.

3. Create a vision of what the future will look like.   This becomes a change tool- it helps individuals imagine what the use of mobile devices will look like.

4. Communicate the Vision. (“A Day in the Life of an mlearning (instructor) (administrator) (student)” is an effective addition to the campaign to educate across the campus.  It is an idea that sticks.

5.  Along the way, the university will encounter obstacles, and they need to be removed.  Determine the treats to a roll out of mlearning and creating potential responses in advance is a key to removing roadblocks.

6. Identify the low hanging fruit, the easy successes and communicate those success.

7.  Don’t declare victory too soon. After every win conduct an after action review – what did you expect to happen? What happened? What did you learn?

8. Anchor the change in university culture.  Make that idea stick!

2. Challenge: Create a written communication plan.

For details on the how tos of communication plans, see my blog entry  Communication Plans- The Triple Ts of Transparency, Truth and Trust and Presentations and Media That Stick

Much work will have to be done on the ground level to share how universities are using these tools now.  (Stay tuned- I am in the process of creating a Creative Commons document for download on Slideshare that is a collection of examples of current mlearning usage, practical real-life ideas.)

FB about mlearning. Tweet the stories. Create campus posters with Quick Response codes.  Put the stores about mlearning  up on the university YouTube channel and Slideshare channel.  Crowdsourse it! Enlist students to use their mobiles to shoot video stories and email them into an mlearning blog.  Create an mlearning logo contest then use the logo on university shirts, caps etc.  Create a “Day in the life of an mlearner contest.  (For information on QR codes see my blog entry  Marketing, Communications and Early Adopters: Quick Response (QR) Codes Emerge in the States and What Are the What-To-Dos to Implement?)

3.   Challenge: Sustain the momentum and celebrate success

Celebrating mlearning success is a key factor. People like to be congratulated for work well done. It is bottom line human nature.   Sadly it is often overlooked.

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Mobile Nomads- Opportunities for Universities to Harness the Power of Community

Filed Under: Communication, mlearning, Mobile Learning, UMtrends11
Jun.02, 2011

What is a mobile nomad?

Always on the go lifestyle

University students, like many business folks, live in an “always on the go” lifestyle- walking and chewing gum, texting and walking and chatting, multi-tasking.  The Android device or iPhone is ubiquitous, always with them (and me!).

Speed of “been there done that”

Recently a 20 something said to me, “By the time I graduate two years from now, the information I have been taught will be old and outdated at the speed of change today.”

I do get his point, but George Washington will always be our first U.S. President and 2+2 will always = 4.  But new theories will be put into practice, new technologies will emerge that will enable us to do what we can’t do now, creating new jobs and process and tools.  (Take the text to chat or chat to text app- 5 years ago we would not have thought that was possible. Now it is.  I dial a number by saying the name.)

Brian Chen of Wired Magazine wrote, “Why listen to a single source talk about a printed textbook that will inevitably be outdated in a few years? That setting seems stale and hopelessly limited when pitted against the internet, which opens a portal to a live stream of information provided by billions of minds.”

Point taken.

Emergent change in behavior: The mobile in the hand

“About five years ago my students stopped taking notes. I asked, ‘Why are you not taking notes?’ And they said, ‘Why would we take notes on that?…. I can go to Wikipedia or go to Google, and I can get all the information I need.”  Bill Rankin, Abilene Christian University

So students are constantly on the move through a set of classes, exams, papers, Face Book updates, tweets, and parties, (of course).  They anticipate that the world is changing faster than ever. And they know that coping with information overload—learning about and using an aggregator like Google Alerts, deciding now what to scan, what to read, what to ignore, what site takes them to the most useful information or ideas, is critical to survival. The same technology that enables on the spot fact check just in time and just for me also can create the roadblock of information overload.

How to harness the power of change oriented mobile nomads for the university student community?

Engage them!

Here are four trailblazing examples of how institutions engage their stakeholders, their customers– the student– in the creation of apps. Many have taken up Apple on its offer to train students to create apps. Others have created “how to” courses or integrated app creation into an existing IT program.  Others engage through use of the mobile device in the classroom.  Check it out.

1.  Apple launched the  iPhone Developer University Program to train university students in app development,  for free.

2.  At the same time, Stanford launched its  iApps Project

“At Stanford, we envision the iPhone as having a profound potential to break barriers in the way we provide information and services to students – in how they converse with the institution, their curriculum, the faculty, and each other. With an enduring entrepreneurial, innovative, and technological leadership, those same qualities that helped shape Silicon Valley, Stanford is in a unique position to chart yet another new course, this time using the iPhone.”

Visit here to see Stanford’s impressive iTunes site

Other participating universities include

-The University of Wisconsin

-Indiana University

-The University of Delaware

-Vanderbilt

-University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and they have created their own wiki

For information on how your university could join Apple’s free app training program, enabling students to create university apps like those described in this blog entry visit iOS Developer University Program.

3.   Computer science major Evan Aumack created the application, or app during winter quarter as a final project for Dr. Enoch Hwang’s Introduction to Computer Programming class.

In fall of 2009, Hwang added the Apple application development component to his quarterly Introduction to Computer Programming classes to boost interest. Students create apps as fun, final class projects each quarter. “Before we were just using a traditional approach to teach computer programming,” Hwang said. “Now the students are learning the same logical programming techniques but applying it on the iPhone platform. After 10 weeks they can now write simple app codes.”

Instructional Uses

At Abilene Christian University, faculty

  • Have students look up relevant information on the spot and then facilitate a discussion
  • Put discussion question on a screen as a PowerPoint and then use polling software the university has developed for the iPhone
  • Deliver quizzes created for an iPhone.

For further thoughts on this topic see  University Apps- The Challenge of Delivering Sustainable Information Just in Time, Anytime and Just for Them!

My Call to Action

If your institution  teaches the “how tos” of app development, let’s hear from you!

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Mobile Phones for Communication and Learning on a University Campus

Filed Under: Communication, Marketing, mlearning, Mobile Learning, UMtrends11
May.27, 2011

 

By nature mobile phones are personal and lightweight. They travel with us everywhere and often in places that inherently contain a large number of distractions (riding a bus to work, for example).  In our Mobile Age rural learners, for example, are rural only geographically. They are as connected as a student in Cairo, Jakarta, Ottawa or New York, even globally with the Skype app for mobiles..The use of mobiles for communication and learning is very much an emerging technology. The hardware issue has been solved.  “The challenge is now in developing innovative, usable and affordable software applications and services for these devices.”  Razi and Mahmoud, 2008.

Abilene Christian University launched a program in 2008 to equip every student with a mobile and to rollout a program to integrate mobile learning with an iPhone or iPod Touch into classroom instruction. Apple launched the  iPhone Developer University Program to train university students in app development,  for free. At the same time, Stanford launched its  iApps Project

“At Stanford, we envision the iPhone as having a profound potential to break barriers in the way we provide information and services to students – in how they converse with the institution, their curriculum, the faculty, and each other. With an enduring entrepreneurial, innovative, and technological leadership, those same qualities that helped shape Silicon Valley, Stanford is in a unique position to chart yet another new course, this time using the iPhone.”

For information on how your university could join Apple’s free app training program, enabling students to create university apps like those described below, visit iOS Developer University Program.

My take on the challenge is, yes, we need to develop apps, but we also need to look at use of existing processes and tools to deliver information. (For an interesting look at the extent apps are just emerging, see the Pew Research Center reports, The Rise of the Apps Culture and App Hype Still Way Ahead of Use Adoption.)

The Prerequisite: SMS Text Policy

The University of Bristol offers a template of what a policy can include, beyond use of SMS for campus emergencies: reminding students to register or select options, announcing room and timetable changes; announcements, essay deadline reminders, updating reading lists;  seminar and lecture announcements, social events, concerts.

Yale allows for texts to the library on specific information.

An Innovative Use of SMS

I want to propose in this blog entry a concept using existing systems at minimal cost:  Text blasts (a Group SMS– Short Message Service– Text Messaging solution) and Quick Response codes. I want to place this example within the context of a university.

There are many low cost services offered for group SMS texting. I am not endorsing any one of the services, but see EZTexting.com for information and a webinar on how these systems work.  These services are beyond short lines- they also allow the user to open a page of information, which was my “aha” moment the first time I received such a text.

For a discussion of Quick Response codes, see my blog entry Marketing, Communicatons and Early Adopters: Quick Response Codes Emerge inn the States and What Are the What-to-Dos to Implement?

The Communication/Learning Scenario: New Student Orientation and the Scavenger Hunt

Mobile technology enables communication and learning in with a tool uinversity students mastered long ago.  Here is an opportunity for a university to collectively plan out activities that engage and entertain participants (imagine, learning is fun!)  in face-to face-activities that rely on social activity and technology.

The process is simple. This activity is an active ‘icebreaker” that meets all learning styles and I am certain that each reader will invent a variation to meet individual institutional needs.

1. Create the text clues in advance for each group in order to have students fan out at different rates and times to different places on and off campus.

2. Have a student from orientation planning in each group in order to check back and have the next clued blasted.

3. Have QR codes set up around campus providing links to further information. For example, QR codes could take a viewers to a set of photos around the development of the building or significant events in campus history and traditions, including campus sports “heroes” past and present. A link could go a sound file of the campus anthem (imagine what you could have teams do with that!) or puzzles.  In planning this event, a well facilitated meeting with students will generate countless ideas and potential activities. Generation of QR codes is free and very easy.

I previously posted an entry on the use of university apps and noted that some universities include walking tours.  Certainly a self-guided walking tour could be supplemented with QR codes. For more information see University Apps: The Challenge of Delivering Sustainable Information Just in Time, Just for Them

Other Uses

The University of Memphis texts links to videos on their YouTube channel.

A wide range of secondary schools text key information, and reminders, to parents.

As a footnote- The University of Maryland uses Twitter to support new student orientation.

For further reaiding on the development of SMS text quizzes see Niazi, Razieh and Qusay H. Mahmoud, Senior Member, IEEE. (2008). Design and Development of a Device-Independent System for Mobile Learning, IEEE Multidisciplinary Engineering Education Magazine, 3(3), September. Retreive from http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/e/sac/meem/index.php/meem/article/viewFile/28/29

My Challenge

So what say you? What learning and communication uses have you seen as applied in our  Mobile Age?

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