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.

Web pages on mobile devices (an xHTML template)

Anyone who has gotten the courage to venture on the Internet with a mobile device (usually from your cell phone), as found out immediately that size (screen size) is important with mobile devices. You may have also noticed that some pages looked better than others. The most annoying problem is scroll bars around the display because the page does not fit inside the screen.

What makes a page viewable on a mobile device is largely due to the html (or the xHTML) that has been created for that page. The page must be designed to fit on any screen size. The best way to describe the good mobile web pages is that they lack the features available on PC browsers and tend to look a little retro (circa. late 1990's). The HTML for mobile devices needs to be simplified to be displayable.

When I created the MLEX tool (soon to have a screen cast on mobiledot.ning.com with tutorials to get started) I simply created a program that made sure that the pages were kept simple and html elements what would not work on mobile devices were not included. The MLEX software tool keeps you on target but does not prevent you from breaking the page on a mobile device by adding elements and features that are not supported (JavaScript, frames, tables, etc.).

A xHTML Template

But, you don't have to use MLEX to create web pages that are viewable on mobile devices (and BTW also viewable on PC browsers). I have added to this blog a template HTML file (using xHTML tags which will work best with mobile browsers). You can take this file and open it in any text editor or HTML Editor and modify it to your requirements. Once saved, you can test it in your PC browser and finally, place it on your HTML server so others can access it.

About the template

The template is just a text file that has text and xHTML tags. I have placed HTML comment tags (which are ignored by the browser) inside the template to give clues as to what is happening. You may want to access a site on the web that discusses xHTML but anyone who knows a little HTML should be able to handle xHTML without any problems. The template references two css external style sheet files. CSS is a little more complicated and too much for this pos but it is not hard to learn and I have deliberately kept it simple. You can see a sample css file that could be used with this document below.

Note: The text in the web page is random letters just used to fill in the document.

---

<?xml version="1.0"encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!-- DOCTYPE STATEMENT - NOTICE THE DTD IS MOBILE -->

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC"-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.2//EN""http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/DTD/xhtml-mobile12.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us">

<head>

<!-- TWO CSS EXTENAL FILES ARE REFERENCED. ONE FOR THE PC AND ONE FOR MOBILE DEVICES -->

<LINK rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="handheld" href="mobile-0.css"/>

<LINK rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen, print" href="personalcomputer-0.css"/>

<!-- TITLE SECTION -->

<title>Web Page Title Goes Here!</title>

</head>

<body>

<div class="header" style="text-align: left;">

<!-- HEADER SECTION OF WEB DOCUMENT -->

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Quisque at risus. Pellentesque sapien metus, lobortis at, elementum et, malesuada non, urna. Sed dignissim justo sed urna. Nulla nibh. Suspendisse vestibulum imperdiet est. Aenean enim. Nunc lacus diam, imperdiet eget, consectetuer quis,euismod eget, sem. Morbi attis. Praesent viverra massa vehicula sem. Nunc viverra varius mi. Vestibulumultrices elit quis quam dignissim ermentum. Fusce tristique leo vel lorem. Mauris dictum massa.Integer fringilla. Phasellus vitae tellus vitae elit varius eleifend. Maecenas egestas blandit dolor. Cras sagittis lobortis nunc.</p>

</div>

<br/>

<div class="pagebody" style="text-align: left;">

<!-- BODY SECTION OF DOCUEMNT -->

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Proin sed justo non est feugiat porta. Phasellusornare placerat dui. Phasellus lacus mi, vulputate non, semper quis, imperdiet vitae, nulla. Aliquam tinciduntjusto ut purus. Maecenas vitae felis. Vivamus porta nunc sit amet risus. Ut at elit. Phasellus vestibulum.Vestibulum at lectus a nisl ultrices euismod. Proin ornare adipiscing eros. Maecenas convallis ultrices mauris.Sed turpis est, porttitor vitae, luctus et, rhoncus in, leo. Nulla tristique ligula interdum elit. Sed lacinia pulvinar odio.</p>

<p>Aenean sodales lectus vel lectus. Suspendisse nibh est, hendrerit sit amet, auctor a, dictum pretium,nisi. Cras suscipit consectetuer eros. Pellentesque mattis augue nec tellus. Vivamus ut leo. Curabiturpretium mattis pede. Sed volutpat egestas diam. Fusce eget nunc non ligula rutrum elementum. Sed erat turpis,placerat ut, tempus et, vulputate ac, dolor. Fusce convallis rhoncus sapien. Phasellus elit. Donec nec risussed nisl viverra adipiscing. Aenean mauris mi, malesuada vel, facilisis id, faucibus nec, velit.</p>

<p>Proin bibendum massa a urna bibendum pulvinar. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netuset malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Pellentesque ultrices scelerisque risus. Sed velit felis, convallis sed,fringilla sit amet, porttitor vel, eros. Aenean mollis, nibh id faucibus fermentum, enim quam facilisis nisi,non convallis enim arcu vitae nulla. Nulla vulputate. Integer imperdiet. Nulla feugiat dui ac sapien. Maecenas pretium.Mauris gravida. Fusce ut metus vitae diam congue vulputate.</p>

</div><br/>

<div class="footer" style="text-align: left;">

<!-- FOOTER SECTION OF DOCUMENT -->

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Vestibulum lacus. Suspendisse vel turpis. Sed tempus faucibus elit. Suspendisse et lacus imperdiet nibh semper tempus.</p>

</div>

<br/>

</body>

</html>

---

Mobile.css File

/* pagebody style                                              */

.pagebody {

    background-color: #D1E5D1;

    font: Segoe UI;

    color: black;

    font-size: x-small;

    text-align: left;

}

/* header style                                              */

.header {

    font-size: small ;

    font-weight: bold;

    color: #00006A;

    text-align: center;

}

/* Foot style                                              */

.footer {

    font-size: small;

    font-weight: bold;

}

/*  Make author info stand out.                                          */

.author {

    font-weight: bold;

    color: red;

}

/*  link style  */

A {

    background-color: transparent;

    color: green;

    }

A:Hover {

    background-color: white;

    color: black;

    }

A difficult subject… Learning (Teaching) Styles

I was all set to do a technical blog post this time around but I have had a couple of recent conversations (related to a mobile learning presentation I am preparing for) with some other faculty which has prompted me to write this blog post instead.

This post is a little more "pithy" than normal but I think it is a discussion important to mobile learning.

Topics to avoid...

There are several things/topics in life that make no sense in trying to change another person's opinion on. If the topic is religion, politics, operating systems (PC versus Mac), it makes no sense in trying to convert the person to your thinking. In all cases, you may be very passionate in your beliefs but chances are the other person will be in total agreement or disagreement with you. If they are in disagreement, you stand little chance of changing their mind. Read on...

Learning Styles (Teaching Styles) and Mobile Learning

I was at a presentation last week that highlighted the differences in workers attitudes/perceptions based on when they were born. Studies have shown that depending on when you are born (I am a baby boomer whereas my kids are millennials), you tend to look at things differently. The idea is that you are influenced by the events of your youth. Baby boomers are the post World War II generation that tend to be workaholics and millennials tend to value honesty and also be especially adept at multi-tasking. There is allot written on this subject framed around everything from how it applies to human relations to marketing and sales. I will let you Google the topic for more info.

Where I am headed .... an instructor's teaching style is influenced by their learning experiences and when they were born. How and instructor learns maybe different than their students based on these experiences. A student may like multi-tasking whereas an instructor, may not. Should the instructor try to teach to the student or should the instructor teach in the way they learned (hopefully understanding that in the middle is probably the best answer)?

In the research I did for my sabbatical and from my observations in the classroom teaching 18 and 19 year olds, I have come to the conclusion that I may be more effective in the classroom if I better understand how they may best learn even though I do not share life experiences with them. Given their preference for multi-tasking and personal electronics, my thinking is that any opportunities for me to take advantage of mobile devices (SMS) and Web 2.0 tools like Twitter, FaceBook, Ning, cloud computing (Google Apps) , collaborative computing, etc. the better chance I have of delivering content that will interest them (I should also note that I teach technology and business classes). It seems to be a very responsible and pragmatic way to creating active and engaging environments' for my students. I think most people would agree that on its face this does not seem to be an unreasonable approach to take.

What I am finding from my other Baby Boomers is some resistance. Many teachers' administer heavy penalties for text messaging during class time. They see use of portable electronic devices as a invitation to sanction a lack of concentration and discipline. They would say these are "bad habits promoted by the support of multi-tasking learning behaviors." I also suspect that many statements and policies on mobile devices tend to be blurted out without qualification when in fact most teachers are probably less strict concerning mobile devices then they advertise in syllabi and class rules.

I tend to be less strict but I too have times where text messaging inhibits my ability to teach (in lecture I need to see students and their body language to determine if I am getting my point across or if there are still questions). I can appreciate a resistance to an unstructured classroom but I also see many of my peers seeing multi-tasking as a lack of discipline and more or less ineffective in regards to learning. So much so, that there resistance is leading me to wonder if I should add "teaching styles" to my list of topics to stay away from. This is a problem. How do we introduce new asynchronous technologies to the learning process if multi-tasking learning styles are seen by many as ineffective? A mobile phone is a computer. A computer can be a very using learning tool. My suspicion is that there is some level of multi-tasking with mobile devices which is appropriate for the class and subject. My fear is that more often the reaction to mobile devices may to be draw a line in the sand that shall not be passed and this topic will end up on my list of things to avoid.

I am sure someone has written a paper on this but I am not sure this has to be an empirical discussion. Is this history just repeating itself? Did the same discussion also happen when the personal computer was introduced to the classroom? Is this a topic to avoid (I hope not)?

Anyone else have any ideas?

I told you it was pithy... maybe the last two weeks of class have gotten to me ;)

Other stuff this week – Mobile Learning Assessment

I am collecting data on how teachers and faculty are assessing mobile learning. Since most us have to provide learning objective evidence as part of accreditation. What is your campus doing? Is the assessment done the same as a traditional class or do you assess mobile learning differently? Let me know your thoughts and join my Ning at mobiledot.ning.com to join into discussion.

An Example: Mobile Assisted Active Learning

So what else can we do with a mobile device (like a cell phone)? Cell phones, aside from being a communication device also typically have audio, image and video capture support. In this post, I will discuss a way of using the video features of the cell phone for active learning.

I am going to use a business communications example for this post, one that would be covered in my general Introduction to Business class but the possibilities for similar uses in other subjects are only limited by your creativity. In my general business class, there are ample opportunities for role play exercises to learn business topics. We might do a role play exercise for job interviews, reprimanding an employee, performing a performance review, examples of potential sexual harassment, excellent salesmanship, etc.. One of the topics I spend time on is business communication. All forms of communication are covered but non-verbal communication presents an excellent opportunity for role play and the use of the cell phone to create a video to support learning.

For example, I might be able to take advantage of active learning on a mobile device by asking my students to record a short video demonstrating examples of conscious (looking at a clock when the class runs over) and unconscious examples (a frown when someone says something you disagree with) of non-verbal communication. Students could use their cell phones and with one or more students in their group, record an example of non-verbal communication for playback to the class. They would be asked to script out their example and make it obvious enough for the other students to recognize. The discussion could be expanded to cover other examples. It is active learning at its best and will engage students in topics that otherwise may not be as interesting. For visual learners, it may be the best way to reach them on a topic of this type.

When the video was recorded it will be sent to the instructors email (or to the Instructor's YouTube account if you trust the content provider) so that the videos could be played back to the class. YouTube is already a popular web site for playing videos submitted by others but many people do not realize that with a YouTube account (its free) you can submit your own videos and share them with a select list of family and friends or everyone via your YouTube email. To email directly to YouTube you will need to go into your account mobile settings and enable your YouTube account to accept videos via email. YouTube will produce an email for you to use. I will leave the explanation on how to use YouTube to YouTube. They have lots of great instructional videos to get you started.

For my cell phone carrier (Verizon), I can set my YouTube email account as a contact so when I need to send the video, I can just select from my contact list.

As always, make sure that before you start sending video files to YouTube, that your calling plan supports video file messages and that this feature is included with your plan and does not cost extra.

The mobile device facilitates an active learning exercise where the students get to have some fun with an important topic and also some technology which they own. For the instructor, it removes the need to acquire and share video equipment and allows for role play learning exercises. The mobile device does not deliver the course content but provides for a mobile assisted learning.

Do you have an idea for how you might use mobile assisted active learning? Post a comment to this post to tell us more. Also, you can also to the mobileDot Ning site and post it there.

A mobile learning definition for my Campus

A definition …. and a little history

I was preparing for a class on mobile learning for the faculty of my campus. Something to get them thinking or started with mobile learning. I was adding a PowerPoint slide on the definition of mobile learning from some sources on the Internet. The definition looked good….

It defined mobile learning essentially as distance or e-learning on a mobile device.

This simple definition seems to work but how practical is it for my campus?

I teach at a pretty good size community college (main and satellite campus) that is part of a county system of 10 campuses (yes, our District is very large by most standards but the campus is not). Our I/T infra-structure is very good. We have many opportunities for students and staff to access college computer resources from on campus (wired and wireless) and from home via the Internet. The mobile devices used by staff and students are quite powerful but not all students or staff have the financial resources for high end smart phones with application support and always on data connections. Most all have unlimited text messaging and many also have Internet connectivity with their cell phones. I think the mobile technology is typical for most metropolitan campuses.

Our faculty are suffering a little from technology shock (in total and not use mobile technology). A lot of money has been spent on technology but not all of the technology has lived up to the hype. As a result, there are many who may look at mobile technology as being a little "over the top" and something that is in the future and not today. Because of this, I know my best bet for mobile technology is with a teacher who has traditionally been an early adopter and supportive of new technology even with a few bumps and bruises. New faculty are also good candidates because they are typically techno savvy and are looking for a way to set them apart from more established faculty. Having said this and by giving you a little history.... Now from a practical standpoint, my definition...

A new definition – mobile assisted technology

Mobile learning technology on my campus will initially be rolled out as "mobile assisted technology". This means the mobile device will not be a primary or exclusive delivery mechanism. More likely for now, mobile devices will be used to supplement learning in one of a couple of ways. This mobile assisted technology can help the college in areas of student retention and active learning.

Student Retention

Community college student's multi task. They expect and require information to be available on-line and real time. They work on many things at the same time and they like it that way. Learning providers have to understand that this is the learning style they prefer. One way to support this is through the use mobile devices to provide syllabi, course calendars, course assignments via web pages browsable on a mobile device. With products like MLEX, one page can be used for both a PC or mobile display. The extra work for faculty to support a mobile component is marginal. The only limitation currently caused by providing mobile support is that the display size and technology supported in mobile browsers limit some page features (graphics size, animation, javascript). On-line, real-time, portable and mobile delivery of class information is quite feasible.

Active Learning

We often forget that most mobile devices are also computers. They also can support the recording and playback of audio and video not to mention digital pictures. I was walking across campus and a group of students approached me with a digital camera to record my response a their question they were asking students and faculty for use in their class. They were going to take my answer back to class. Discuss it with other students. Why not have a geology or botany class go out into the campus and take pictures of rocks and trees and catalog them with digital pictures? A cell phone is just the tool needed. For many active learning exercises, the mobile device is not the primary means of learning but an assistant in learning.

State of Mobile on my Campus

There is no scenario today on my campus where exclusive delivery on a mobile device is practical or essential. Distance learning is typically not an option for our campus which is a typical residential campus who just expanded into e-Learning just a few short years ago (I suspect very typical of many community colleges). But.... as hopefully my definition will demonstrate, mobile learning does have a place today in our toolbox for learning.

Any comments....

Freebies… Final Episode (for now)

I have dedicated this post and the previous two blog posts to free products that might be useful in getting a educator started with mobile computing via text messaging (SMS). Textmarks.com and especially twitter are very popular because they are mobile and because they are social media in nature (real time micro-communi

cation). 

This post explores something a little different then there previous two SMS tools. Many educators have been using (or are thinking of using) clickers in their classroom. A clicker is an infrared or radio device that allows a student to vote a response to a question posed by the instructor. These devices come with software that will display results to a screen and in some cases capture responses to be used in assessment. The biggest plus is that these devices help practice active learning which is an excellent way of getting the student actively involved in the learning process for that content area.

The down side of clickers is that they do cost money and they have a tendency to get lost or broken in the classroom. Someone has to distribute and collect the devices before and after each class. They can get stolen and lost like socks in an electric dryer. There is a mobile alternative.

PollEverywhere.com provides support for clicker via a cell phone (with text message support), a smart phone (via a browser interface) and a PC (via a browser interface). The instructor can work from the polleverywhere.com web site to display questions and output or can build PowerPoint slides which can be connected to the polling process (real-time with hardly any delay). The student can use their cell phone as a clicker (if they can send text messages and yes, charges may apply if the student does not have an unlimted texting plan).   If in a classroom with computers, the student can use the web interface via a browser and participate in the same surveys as others using a smart phone or cell phone. 

The product may be used for free in a limited format and there are educational discounts available if you are interested in bringing the product into a class or school. The free version which can only collect responses from 30 respondents has most of the feature set available for testing and certainty enough for a test run in a class. They have an excellent FAQ and blog. The web site is easy to use and well organized.

When the student is presented a question, they respond by sending text message to the polleverywhere.com gateway and the number that corresponds to their selection.

 

Surveys can by multiple choice, text and goal based. There are some report tools available with the free edition and even more with the paid edition. You can also have PollEverywhere.com create html for the poll questions or poll results to it can be placed on a web site or embedded in a another web page or blog.  This embedded web page survey would be the approach taken if the student had access to a classroom PC connected to the Internet.

Polleverywhere.com is free to try and another great tool to get starting with mobile learning in the classroom.

Next up on the blog.... Using MLEX to create one web page that displays on a PC or mobile device.