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My BlackBerry/ASP.Net Faculty Mobile Web Site

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It’s Presentation Time – Educause ELI Spring Forum

I have been preparing two presentations for the Educause ELI Forum on Mobile Learning. One presentation is a short 10 minute summary on mLearning Assessment and update of some slides I prepared for the Distance Education Conference at the University of Wisconsin – Madison I did this past August. I cannot say there is more research but there is a better framework since I have had more time to reflect on what I uncovered then and an opportunity to spend more time on mobile learning. I hope to have the presentation placed in SlideShare for anyone interested.

The second presentation is the one that may not make the conference. It is a back up keynote presentation I have been asked to put together in case of technical issues that could potentially arise with another speaker (I will make it available in SlideShare one way or the other). In my presentation, I make the assertion that mobile learning for most public higher ed. in the US is really mobile assisted learning. Mobile learning and its unique pedagogical elements (learn anywhere at any time, exploration, collaboration, etc.) can enhance learning with tools that other technologies or traditional learning cannot do as well. In my presentation, I present the idea of mLearning really being just another technology tool for the classroom. Unless you are delivering content for distance learning, most students will be using mobile technology for some aspect of their learning. They will be using “mobile assisted learning” and not implemented learning entirely delivered via a mobile device.

Whereas much has been done abroad with mobile based learning, in the United States (at least and with public institutions like community colleges), the expense of smart phone devices and carrier pricing of Internet always on support is too expensive for most students. That coupled with the fact that most colleges have extensive PC labs and wi-fi capability already, most students do not opt for the expense of a monthly data contract and the additional cost of smart phone hardware. Although it seems that everyone has an Apple iPhone, Google Android phone or Blackberry, it does not pan out in antidotal data/experience or from surveys done by groups like Educause in their 2009 ECARS Study on Student Information Technology. Sometimes I feel like the iPhone U’s get the big press but it is colleges like my own that really need to establish their mobile learning identity. This blog has talked to this in the past and will continue this thread hopefully with examples of low tech (less than a Smart Phone) mobile learning exercises.

My social spaces and tools (You need more than one!)

One of my revelations in 2009 was the importance of social learning and how I need more than one social learning space. I am a teacher but I am also a computer hobbyist (a.k.a. computer geek). I use Facebook for my personal social networks, my blogs and wiki’s are always open to all but my twitter tweats are both. Huh?

For the classes I teach, Facebook (FB) probably has a limited benefit. Computer programming tends to be a personal activity where interaction with a computer is probably more likely to be in the form of a search or a reference manual lookup. I keep my Facebook pretty much student free. Facebook for me is private and filled with family and friend feeds with information that is not relevant or necessary for my student’s consumption. Maybe someday this will change but FB is strictly a social network with an emphasis on social and less so on learning.

I have always used blogs (WordPress and Blogger) and wiki’s (PBWiki) as part of my classes since the social learning it presents can be relevant and informational. Most software problems do benefit from multiple perspectives and the ability to comment and inquire. I have used a wiki to develop classroom resources and student participation. My last Introduction to Java class started work on updating my class notes with more code examples in the hope that someday the wiki can become a free textbook for future Java classes.

I have used blogs (like this one) for articles and educational pieces. I will also be using WordPress as a presentation tool (in lieu of presentation graphics options) so that I might have more follow on comments to promote additional social learning after the presentation. I have spam filtering set up on my blogs so I catch the spammers posts before they hit my blog and I do get some comments (more would be better). My blogs have also been set up so that students can read them on mobile devices if they have a mobile browser.

I have two Twitter accounts. One I use from myself (for my political and sports rants) and one for students. For my students, I give course status (grading updates, testing reminders, etc.) via Twitter and encourage students to set up my account for device echoing so they can receive the tweat update as an SMS message. The content in Twitter is primarily class info that I use for student retention (a huge problem at most community colleges). I make sure that both of my Twitter accounts are set up where I control who follows me (students can follow the student account, others can follow my other account). I use TweetDeck as my tool for monitoring and sending tweats. TweetDeck also allows my to monitor Facebook and LinkedIn. I almost forgot LinkedIn but I do use that for professional networks (great tool).

So why so many social networks? Because it is not one social network that you belong to but many. How many may depend on your interests, the technology it provides (Twitter versus FB) and your relationship with the group you are a member of. Remember this as you post and as you set up accounts. Just like we remind our students to be careful on what they post on Facebook but also where you post and to who your audience will be and if the social network chosen is appropriate.

I am thinking of putting together a little Blackberry Java program for GCC Mapz (a mobile device program I developed for .Net, Java ME and Google Android during my Sabbatical and documented in an earlier blog post). Would anyone be interested in seeing it? Comment if so…

I am also getting ready for a Web 2.0 presentation next month. I will be creating the presentation in this blog so that it is viewable on a mobile device.

Back to Blogging… What mobile device features are students using?

After a bit of a hiatus from blogging (I have been on a special project working with strategic planning and accreditation this semester), I am back into mobile learning and picking up where I left off. After looking at a few of my favorite mobile tech places on the Internet, it is like I never left. As the iPhone continues to add apps and as BlackBerry and Android chase, my students are still not any closer to using data plans and using primarily SMS as the dominant fear

Which leads to the questions I think is critical to mobile learning… what will the platform be and what features can we count on most (if not all students will have)? My peers will point to the iPhone. Go to any meeting with a lot of techie types and it is all iPhone (to the point where I am considering the purchase of one) but the students have not made that transition. They are still photo’s, sms and mp3. Data plans for the average community college student is probably cost prohibitive.

My challenge for the Spring semester to start surveying as many Community College students who will let me know … what is their mobile device? What features do they use with this device? Do they access the Internet? Do they run applications from their mobile device? These are questions that need to be answered. (If you are interested in helping me with the questions or the students to take the survey, let me know via a comment. I am sure it will be a Google form with 12-20 multiple choice responses.)

If these questions on mobile device usage and features are not answered, the pioneers who are developing this technology for their classrooms will not be able to introduce it to other instructors (and see a spread in this technology). Stay tuned in 2010 for surveys and working examples of mobile learning in a community college setting. We have to move beyond the expectation that the iPhone is the only answer to one with is pregmatic and realistic (at least in the short term) and understand to get this off the ground the short term mobile learning opportunities will probably be with sms gateways, Internet ready mobile devices and utilization of video and sound on the device.

Lets think strategically here and not science fiction.

What mobile device features are students using… The question remains.

Random Stuff on Mobile Learning

I have been a little delinquent on my blogging the last couple of weeks. School has started and aside from having three classes to teach, I have also been working on a special project related to Strategic Planning at my College. But,,,, I have been thinking mobile.

Mobile for my Fall Classes

A couple of observations… They say Twitter is used more by (older) adults and I would agree but I would also say it is not used by college students. SMS messaging is one thing but micro-blogging is something parents do. Maybe students are not as narcissistic as older users of technology (baby boomers versus millennials). As a result, I still post class messages to Twitter but I have less than 5 percent of my students following me. At least for community college students, Twitter might not be a technology of significance. Thoughts / Comments?

My MLEX program has done me well this semester. I quickly created mobile syllabi and course calendars for my Fall classes.

And the big news …..maybe MLEX going open source this fall. A University in Canada (I am not sure I should publish the name without asking them) is interested in taking my MLEX (currently written in VB.NET) and migrating it to Java with the hopes of making it more powerful. The plan is for it to be open source so others can add to the program also. I am excited about this and as soon as some plans have been formalized, I will have more to share. I am psyched!

Leave it to Google

We have from time to time discussed how mobile device browsers do not do well with JavaScript and therefore it has not been easy to create mobile assessments (quizzes, tests, etc.). I created a solution using ASP.NET but this is somewhat constrained since you must use a IIS Server to host your pages. I have been experimenting with Google Forms for some surveys I have been creating and it appears to render fine on my cell phone. You can create text, M/C and option type questions from a Google Docs spreadsheet (select forms once in there) and it uses the spreadsheet to collect the responses and automatically summarizes the results. There are even themes to choose regarding form format. I think this would work fine for both quizzes and tests and the beauty is Google hosts it. You can also set up the document to "shared" where others can modify and read form captured results. Results are private by default unless sharing is specified. Many schools… such as mine… are taking advantage of Google email, calendar and Docs for students. Go Cloud Computing!

Google Forms does have promise…..

How uses iPhone

Get a group of techies in a room and everyone has an Apple iPhone. Get a group of community college students in a room and you see a lot of non-iPhones but cool looking hardware. Is hardware a bigger driver in cell phone selection then features? Is SMS the only feature really used and desired by the typical student? If so, we need to be spending a whole lot of more time on SMS gateway servers…. Food for thought… I think we are reaching a point where the mobile landscape has some definition with the following rules (my antidotal evidence):

• Wi-fi for mobile devices - not so important
  
• Applications for mobile devices - not so important
  
• GPS support - not so important
  
• SMS – critical
  
• Internet Browsing – too early to know for sure but Internet Apps and cloud computing might be the direction
  
• PDA's – probably dead
  

Thoughts/Comments?

Mobile Learning Assessment – same…different then other course assessment?

The back drop of the question…(warning: this is a thinking post)

I am preparing for a panel discussion at the 25^th Annual Distance Teaching and Learning Conference at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Part of my responsibility is to cover the topic of mobile learning effectiveness (a.k.a. assessment). I would summarize my interpretation of that request to be “is mobile learning as effective as or more effective than other delivery systems (specifically, traditional which is still the most common).”

Assessment is never one of the most popular teaching activities and although quality improvement programs and accreditation have placed an emphasis on assessment. It is still a topic that is more often than not treated as an afterthought rather than a priority. In the case of new technology, it is easy to become focused on getting the technology to work and not as interested in incorporated a formal assessment. Usually, the faculty member will create an end of course professional assessment on whether the new technology worked or not. Typically, is ends up being and evaluation of the class technology and whether it should be scrapped or more likely modified to make sure the technology works better next time. An attempt to prove its validity against other delivery mechanisms is not usually part of the plan. For me, my assessment is an assessment of learning objectives and if they were met. The delivery mechanism is not important unless it causes learning objectives not to be met. I currently teacher in a traditional, hybrid/blended and online format. Mobile devices/learning supplements all my classes (this is another subject in itself).

Mobile Learning Assessment

I would argue that assessment is assessment. When a teacher evaluates their learning objectives whether through testing, survey and observations, the process supports defect prevention and continuous quality improvement. This is good. Standardized assessment may be very difficult to achieve. Even if it was standardized, to what extent is it important? Even if a standard is created; Not all teachers are the same; Not all subject can be viewed the same; Not all technology is same; Technology changes and it can affect classes from semester to semester. The nature of mobile learning can be very diverse. One teacher may leave students mostly on their own and another may have close supervisor of student learning on mobile devices. A standardized assessment maybe “a tough nut to crack.”

I vote, any assessment is good…

I think a discussion on discussing the merits of any delivery system is helpful to the extent it can make the delivery mechanism better through improvement. Whether mobile learning is better or worse than traditional delivery is the same argument that has been going on with on-line versus traditional. I think the most important thing to consider is that learning has become and is becoming even more personalized. The class is designed in a way to cater to each student. This is good because it allows students who are many times 20 years younger than their instructor the ability to learn in a format that works best for them (i.e. multi-tasking, technology, audio/video based, etc.). Personalization of instruction may remove age, learning preferences and cultural biases that all teachers may innocently include in their course delivery and approach. Because of this personalization, I think the teacher needs to choose the assessment process that is the most helpful to the instructor. Teachers are as different as students.

What changes with mobile learning…

There is no doubt that there are new pedagogies with mobile learning that do not exist in traditional delivery. We may want to consider these approaches when we are specifically evaluating a class that uses mobile learning. Mobile learning does some things that traditional did not and visa versa. However, we may want to look at mobile learning from these different perspectives and incorporate this in our assessments.

Mobile learning might additionally want to evaluate:

• Was the technology available (especially in regards to network connectivity)?
• Was the performance of the technology acceptable?
• Does it work on a variety of hardware platforms?
• Was the class truly mobile and did the mobility factor meet the course learning objectives?
• Did the mobile technology support mobile learning elements (video, phone, audio, GPS, etc.)?
• Many more could be added here….

So what?

What do you think? Do you have some thoughts on mobile learning effectiveness and assessment?

Send a comment.

NOTE.... This blog is being moved. You can now find it at www.garymarrer.com/wordpress

Mobile Experiments with MS-ASP.Net

I have for some time been using and teaching Microsoft ASP.Net. ASP.Net is a product created by Microsoft to support client and server side web programming on its IIS Internet Servers. Even though Microsoft does sell tools to program in this environment, you can use it entirely for free. You will need a hosting service that supports ASP.Net (IIS server support) to store your pages but there are many very reasonable hosting services available (I use GoDaddy.com). ASP.Net started out as just ASP (Active Server Pages) and has undergone many changes over the years (including the addition of .net to its name). This is not the blog for that so I would suggest you visit one of the many web sites dedicated to ASP.Net. You will find info on its history, future direction and free training options.

How do know if you have used ASP.Net?

ASP.Net pages have a file extension of .aspx. If you look for them you will see them while surfing (just keep an eye on the address box in your browser). If view page source on an aspx file, you will see some html, some asp tags and maybe some JavaScript (ASP.Net can accommodate client side JavaScript but scripting languages are not supported by all mobile browsers yet so we will avoid it for mobile pages).

ASP.Net works by letting you combine html, asp graphical controls with the Visual Basic or C# programming languages to create rich web pages. The programming languages make this a very robust solution and the beauty of this is that the programming takes place on the server which sends the client device just html (note: there are some exceptions to this so like html only web pages, you have to be careful what you use in your page if you expect it to work on a mobile device). Whereas scripting is usually avoided for mobile apps and can be embraced with ASP.Net since the scripting takes place far away from the client browser (on the Internet Server).

So what's the big deal?

The benefit of this way of creating web content is that many of the limitations placed on mobile devices (scripting first and foremost) can be overcome by doing the programming on a server and having the server send just html to the mobile client. I have for some time wanted to create assessment pages for a mobile device (i.e. a quiz or a test). With ASP.Net, I can use html to create the questions and use the server programming to evaluate the answers and score the assessment. This is demonstrated in a page I created to illustrate a simple quiz Click Here.

The ASP.Net code used for this application consists of two files. One file describes the page (questions and answers selected with radio buttons) in a combination of html and asp elements. You easily see both in this file snippet (click here for full aspx file).

<%@Page Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeFile="Default.aspx.vb" inherits="_Default"%>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<htmlxmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head runat="server"><title></title><style type="text/css">

.style1

{

font-family: Calibri;

color: #333399;

font-weight: bold;

font-size: xx-large;

}

.style5

{

font-size: xx-large;

font-weight: bold;

color: #333399;

}

.style6

{

font-family: Calibri;

color: #000000;

font-weight: bold;

font-size: xx-large;

}

</style>

<link href="StyleSheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
/>

</head>

<body>

<form id="form1" runat="server">

<div >

<span class="style6">ASP.Net</span><span class="style1"> Assessment Test Experiment </span>

<br class="style5"
/>

<span class="style1">mobiledot.mobi<asp:Label ID="errLabel" runat="server" Text=""></asp:Label>

</span>

<br/>

<br/>

</div>

<! Question 1 -->

<div class="questoddStyle" >

….

</form>

</body>

</html>

Behind this ASP.Net page (the user interface page that has the definition of the screen has an extension .aspx. The programming file behind it has a file extension of .aspx.vb) are programming statements which read the input and process it against code that will provide a new feedback page viewable on a mobile (or PC) browser. That programming code looks like this. I don't believe is very complicated for anyone who has written a macro program before. This example is written in Visual Basic.

Partial Class _Default

Inherits System.Web.UI.Page

Private intScore As Integer

Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As
Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load

Application("hit_counter") += 1

hitCount.Text = Application("hit_counter")

authorproduct.Text = Session("author") & " | " & Session("product")

End Sub

Protected Sub btnSubmitt_Click(ByVal sender As
Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnSubmitt.Click

If RadioButtonList1.SelectedItem.Value = "Blue" Then

intScore += 1

RadioButtonList1.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkGreen

RadioButtonList1.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

Else

RadioButtonList1.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkRed

RadioButtonList1.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

End If

If RadioButtonList2.SelectedItem.Value = "Dr Zhivago" Then

intScore += 1

RadioButtonList2.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkGreen

RadioButtonList2.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

Else

RadioButtonList2.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkRed

RadioButtonList2.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

End If

If RadioButtonList3.SelectedItem.Value = "Kite Runner" Then

intScore += 1

RadioButtonList3.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkGreen

RadioButtonList3.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

Else

RadioButtonList3.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkRed

RadioButtonList3.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

End If

If RadioButtonList4.SelectedItem.Value = "VB.Net" Then

intScore += 1

RadioButtonList4.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkGreen

RadioButtonList4.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

Else

RadioButtonList4.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkRed

RadioButtonList4.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

End If

If RadioButtonList5.SelectedItem.Value = "mobiledot.net" Then

intScore += 1

RadioButtonList5.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkGreen

RadioButtonList5.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

Else

RadioButtonList5.BackColor = Drawing.Color.DarkRed

RadioButtonList5.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.AntiqueWhite

End If

lblScore.Text = "Correct right was " & intScore.ToString & " out of 5."

End Sub

End Class

The Experiment continues…

I am working to exploit the programming friendly environment ASP.Net affords mobile computing and hope to add an easy to use assessment component to MLEX. I also have plans to convert MLEX to an Internet application via ASP.Net. I think is a better way to deploy the program and will remove the requiement to run on MS-Windows (Even though ASP.Net is a MS product, it creates web pages which are displayable on any browser regardless of the operating system).

Summer Break (taking a little break…)

I have been very busy since starting my sabbatical in the Fall and teaching again in the Spring and over the summer. I am going to suspend my blog posting until September at a point in time that I hope to have more done on the web version of MLEX.