Category Archives: Pedagogy

Google Goggles – an important tool for mobile work based learning?

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Is Google running short of imagination. Not when it comes to applications – there seems to be a new product announcement almost everyday. But Google Goggles – who thought that up? Its a terrible name. But in terms of developing a work based mobile learning platform it may represent a big step forward.

Goggles is a very simple application. You merely point your Android phone at an object – a building, an object, an artefact – and it produces search results based on the image (Google say they will be porting it to other platforms in the future).

If course Goggles has not been developed for learning. Google are interested in driving more search traffic to their site and have arguably paid little attention to education in the past (witness the little attention paid to developing Google scholar). But we have noted before the way in which social software applications (as well as mobile devices) are being appropriated for learning despite their original design purpose.

Work based learning poses particular opportunities and issues and for mobile learning.  Most elearning courses are based on formal programmes of study, on a curriculum, usually designed around a particular discipline. Even vocational programmes envisage steady progression through a corpus of ideas and knowledge, albeit with practice based phases. Work based learning is predicated on occupational practice. Practice is often inter disciplinary in terms of a knowledge base and progression is dependent on the nature of the work being carried out. In other words in work based learning the context of action is king. Up to now it has proved difficult to develop elearning base don widely differing contexts of practice based action.

Mobile devices have portability to be used in workplaces where access to computers may be problematic. Goggles can allow simple gesturing to allow access to a wealth of information about the particular practice being carried out. Of course this is not enough to support learning. Learning requires reflection. But it is not difficult to envisage a simple interface allowing reflection through audio, video or text input which could then be aggregated along with the original video which sparked the reflection and the results of the Google search. The addition of keywords could allow such reflections to be added to a Personal or Organisational Learning Environment. Geotagging could also allow an extension to enhanced reality applications thus allowing interaction with other learners also encountered similar learning situations.

The object or artefact opens a Zone of Proximal Development in Vygotsky’s terminology, with ‘the significant other’ supporting learning being mediated through technology.

Workplaces could become a rich learning environment with learning opportunities embedded in artefacts and in geographical spaces. And at the sameGoogle Giggles  time informal learning, that learning which takes place everyday in relation to context, can be brought together within a formal learning base.

None of this seems unrealistic to me. Who wants to build me some apps to try it?

Hearing the learners’ voice

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One big thing was missing from last weeks Online-Educa Berlin conference was the voice of the learners. Not so strange I suppose in view of the cost of the conference. and not so strange when compared with other conferences on technology Enhanced Learning. Although we talk about leaners a lot, how often do we talk to them or, more importantly, listen.

Although many projects talk about user centred design, and research based design, I get the impression that there is more talk than action. Often technologists are happier with usability rubrics than they are sitting down with real learners.

Of course there is a problem of methodologies. How do we research what learners are doing with technologies. What research methods can help us and how can we interpret the results? Ethnographic studies are one obvious approach and one that many researchers I have talked to have advocated. However, ethnographic approaches, at least in the traditional form of the discipline, are extremely time consuming and require extended access to the subjects of study. Within the Mature project, we have used an approach dubbed Rapid Ethnography. What this really means, I think, is extended case studies.

The UK Jisc funded Learner Experiences of E-learning strand is extremely impressive in this regard. Initial project work helped us, they say, “to understand the complexity of learners’ lives and experiences.” The projects found

  • “Learners are living complex and time constrained lives. In these circumstances efficient and flexible access to learning materials, experts and communities are becoming increasingly important. Learners appreciate flexible access to course related resources.
  • Learners make frequent use of technology both at home and within their institution. They use the internet as the first port of call for information in their lives and expect to be able to locate and download relevant resources for their study.
  • Similarly, many learners are used to establishing and maintaining frequent technology mediated connections and expect frequent and responsive communications in relation to their study.
  • Personalisation and choice are core elements of technology use in learners’ lives that they expect to transfer to their study.
  • There is evidence of an ‘underworld’ of informal learning which is not expected or supported by the institution or its courses but may be enabled and sustained by use of technology.”

I am especially interested in the last of the bullet points and will return to it in a later post.

The methodology is also outlined on the project wiki pages. They found that

And best of all they have “produced a set of recipe cards for different types of data collection methods, particularly well suited to evaluations of learners’ experiences of e-learning:

This is an impressive piece of work. But I particularly like the use of the wiki, not only to provide access to the outcomes of the projects, but to share tools and methodologies with other researchers. If all projects were to follow such an approach we could collectively begin to address some of the methodological challenges for involving users in technology design.

This years most desired Christmas gift – a Blackberry of course!

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I am very fond of saying that we must look at pedagogy first. Technology is just a tool. But of course it is an important tool. And despite all the interest in mobile learning, thus far practice has been limited. One reason for this has been the limitations of the technology. Of course that has changed with the iPhone and the release of other smart phones in the last two years. However these phones are expensive and way beyond the budgets of most students.Many m-learning projects have had to lend smart phones to learners. And most schools still ban the use of students own phones in schooltime.

This could be all about to change. Firstly there seems to be a growing realisation from school and college managers that banning the use of what are effectively mini computers may not be the future way to promote learning. At the same time there are more and more examples of effective practice in using mobile devices in the classroom. Jenny Hughes’ recent blog post on 25 practical ideas for using mobile phones in the classroom is currently the most popular post on this web site. And critically, the price of smart phones is set to fall. In Germany the Palm Pre is on sale for one Euro with a 20 Euro a month contract and the Motorola Droid, named the Milestone in Europe, running the Android operating system is set to go out at the same price. These phones have full support for GPS, wifi etc. and at least in the case of the Milestone, appear less locked down than the iPhone.

Research I have been doing in the UK suggests most young people of 16 and over pay for their own mobile phones from earnings form part time work. Phones are seen as a priority – over and above clothes and entertainment. With this new generation of cheap smart phones it is not difficult to guess that their will be a rapid take up by students. Strangely, gossip suggests that this years most wanted Christmas present is a Blackberry, which is now being seen as a status symbol and fashions statement by school students in the UK.

So – students are getting the phones, teachers are developing the pedagogy. The scene is set to take off. having said all that though, I still think the major impact of mobiles will be for informal learning in work. Advanced mobiles have the potential to allow te recording and reflection on practice in a way we have never yet really been able to do with Technology Enhanced Learning.

25 practical ideas for using Mobile Phones in the Classroom

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We have been writing a lot about ideas on how mobile devices, and particularly phones might be used to support learning. But most of this work has been from a somewhat theoretical angle. Now Jenny Hughes has written a great guest blog on the practical work she has been doing on the use of mobiles in schools.

“I’ve been working with (primary and secondary teachers) on e-learning in the classroom – particularly the use of web 2.0 applications – as the roll out and dissemination of the TACCLE project. Part of this has been looking at the use of mobile phones as learning tools in schools.

There seems to be a lot of debate around the technology, the theoretical perspectives, the social dimension and so on but just at the moment the ‘doing’ is engaging me far more than the research. And as I’m always the first to complain about the practitioner – researcher divide, I thought maybe we should contribute by sharing some stuff we are experimenting with in the classroom.

What follows is some of the output from teachers. Firstly there has been a debate around the feasibility of using mobile telephones in schools; teachers from schools that have banned them outright, teachers from schools where they are allowed and teachers who are actually using them for learning generated a list of For-and-Against arguments. Secondly, there are some practical suggestions for using mobile devices (mainly phones), tried and tested and either contributed by teachers or trialed on the TACCLE course.

Arguments against allowing mobile phones in schools – for learning or social purposes

  • Loss and theft and potential bullying
  • Distraction and interruption
  • Taking photos of tests and instantly passing them on to other pupils
  • Texting answers of tests to other students
  • Taking photos of pupils in changing rooms, toilets
  • Spreading rumours fast
  • Sex texting and cyber-bullying
  • Non-filtered web access that can be used to spread content that some parents do not want their children exposed to.
  • Recording teachers and pupils in the classroom – can be detrimental to teacher and student reputation and proper consent to publish not asked for or given. Even bigger problem with younger children vis a vis Child Protection issues
  • Privacy issues with teachers having personal phone numbers of pupils and vice versa.

About using phones as learning tools –

  • Have and have not situation – some pupils will not have them, some will not. Some will support less applications than others – need to work at level of common denominator.
  • Cost implications for pupils and their parents – not just the cost of the hardware but the cost of use. Many pupils on ‘Pay-as-you-go’.

Arguments in favour of allowing them and using them for learning

(We excluded I-Phones, Blackberries etc as teachers in this area said most pupils do not have them) -

  • Is cost effective for schools
  • Reduces the need for all students to have access to computers in classroom
  • Need less equipment like digital cameras, camcorders, mics etc
  • If pupils are going to have them in schools anyway, irrespective of whether it is officially allowed, they may as well be exploited for learning. Overcomes some of the problems of ‘distraction’ etc.
  • Uses cheap and familiar technology
  • They are a good vehicle for teaching about ‘use-and-abuse’ issues such as digital identities, protocols, bullying, net safety etc
  • Can be used as data collection and recording devices – audio, pics and video – for recording experiments, field work, voice memos etc
  • Can be used as creative tool – making podcasts, picture blogs, twittering etc
  • Can use the phone itself as learning aid – creating ringtones, wallpaper etc (more on this later)
  • Pupils can ask questions of the teacher they may be too embarrassed to ask publicly.
  • Encourages engagement e.g SMS polling can ensure every pupils  voice is heard.
  • SMS polling (e.g using Wiffiti or PollEverywhere) can be used for formative assessment
  • Can be used for collaborative learning and communication (see below)
  • Pupils are encouraged to use general reference books so why not phones – as dictionary, spell checker, thesaurus, encyclopaedia etc
  • As specific research tool via web access

Practical ideas for using phones for learning that teachers tried out

(NB these are ideas generated by teachers working in a formal learning environment. We are aware of the huge potential of mobile devices for informal learning but this was not in our brief!)

Firstly, a few ideas about using the phone itself – rather than using it as a communication device.

  • Pupils can customize the wallpaper on their phones using something like pix2fone or pixdrop.
  • Either the teacher can ask them to take a picture with their phone around a particular theme or can send everyone in the class a picture she wants them to study / talk about to use as wall paper. This could be a photograph or a key message or reminder of some learning point.
  • Pupils can create ring tones using e.g  phonezoo. They create the ‘tone’ in Audacity, Garageband etc and export to phonezoo which then sends it back to mobile phone where it is saved as a ringtone.

We tried making up jingles for a particular topic, key dates for a history test, a poem to be learned for a literature test, a foreign language phrase and lists of chemical elements in a particular group in the Periodic Table!

Some more general applications:

  • Use sites like gabcast or evoca to make ‘instant’ podcasts straight from a mobile that can be accessed from a mobile (and you only have to be over 13 to use them) without having to use podcasting software. We did a geography quiz on local landmarks and geographical features “From where I’m standing I can see….where am I?”
  • Setting up audio tours e.g one group is working on a guide to places of interest in their town where at each point of interest there is a notice “to hear the story ring this number”
  • Using their phones to access podcasts. Some mobile phones can already subscribe to podcasts and a fair few can listen to streaming MP3s from the Internet. Even if these features are missing, pretty much every mobile phone you can buy nowadays can be hooked up to a computer and have MP3s sent to it to listen to on the go.
  • creating mini-documentaries using the camera in their phone. We did ‘food preparation hygiene’
  • recording field trips – using photos or voice or texting back observations to other pupils.  We did a nature walk where leaves / flowers / trees were observed by one group and identified by another group back in the classroom. We experimented by sending text only descriptions, pictures or voice calls and combinations of those to see which was the most effective. (Also posting back pictures to their blog / wiki whilst they are actually on the walk.)
  • be in different places working on the same project and be talking via instant-messaging.  Our example was a history  ‘Treasure Hunt’ where groups were competing to find objects and information. The groups split up and group members updated each other on progress using mobile phones.
  • recording science experiments and including the pictures /video with their written reports.
  • Using twitter. History teachers chose a period in history (was the second world war) and had groups of evacuees, host families, parents of evacuees back in bombed cities sending messages to each other about their feelings.
  • Use twiddeo to upload video made on mobile phone to twitter.
  • Make a tee-shirt using Reactee on twitter that you can wear in the classroom. Ours was a line to ring to get homework assignments and deadlines.
  • Photoblogging using telephones. (Blogger is particularly good for phones). We did local landmarks and geographical features. Also a vocabulary exercise where each person was given a word to illustrate with three photographs by the end of the day. (If you are going to use blogs use one that is mobile-friendly – like WordPress where you can get a plug-in called WP-Mobile so that students can access them from their mobiles)
  • Making slideshows for mobile phones You can make slideshows for mobile phones. It’s easy but you need a few basic techniques (which we can share if people are really interested.)  We made ‘revision’ slideshows which each teacher could produce for their subject area to be viewed on mobile phones.
  • Brainstorming using wiffiti. We found wiffiti is a wonderful way of getting pupils to create a communal, real time visual brainstorm, on a screen, from their cell phones.
  • Accessing Voicethread. You can use mobile phones to comment on Voicethread, which is a ‘digital conversation’ application. (We used some pictures of geometrical patterns and shapes and asked people to comment using mobile phones on where they could see those shapes and patterns in their townscape or in nature.)
  • Making simple Stop Motion animations. Take lots of photos on a mounted mobile phone e.g of a Plasticene model or bendy toy then import them into a slideshow presentation and set the show to change slides on the fastest (e.g 1 second) autochange. We did pictures of a the notes of a simple tune drawn with felt pen on an A1 sheet then ‘moved’ an arrow to each note in turn so that the pupils could see which note was being sung.
  • To save the cost of texting, use freebiesms on your computer
  • For those students with Bluetooth, a natural progression from students e-mailing homework or assignments might be to get them to send it by phone to your laptop at the beginning of a lesson.

Plans for future events

  • Experimenting with QR codes into which you can embed text, url, phone numbers and sms. (Camera phones can have software freely installed on them to recognise these codes and decipher them into meaningful text/links/images. This could be useful for homework or for embedding a ‘live’ link on a paper-based worksheet.)
  • Experimenting with 12seconds.tv for asynchronous debates, for synthesising work, commenting on Voicethread, making composite class documentaries, as a reflection tool for e-portfolios, as an ideas box, exemplifying good practice
  • Thinking about how we are going to use Google Wave

Thanks Mr Belshaw http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk for these great ideas – he should be on everyone’s RSS together with his blog http://dougbelshaw.com/blog .”

User-generated content, User-generated contexts and Learning

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This is a short video – the first in a new series of Sounds of the Bazaar videos – made as a contribution to a workshop on ‘Technology-enhanced learning in the context of technological, societal and cultural transformation’ being held on November 30 to December 1 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria.

This workshop is organised by Norbert Pachler, the convenor of the London Mobile Learning Group (LMLG) and is being hosted by the EU funded Stellar network. The workshop is looking at the following questions:

  • What relationship is there between user-generated content, user-generated contexts and learning? How can educational institutions cope with the more informal communicative approaches to digital interactions that new generations of learners possess?
  • Learning as a process of meaning-making for us occurs through acts of communication, which take place within rapidly changing socio-cultural, mass communication and technological structures. Does the notion of learner-generated cultural resources represent a sustainable paradigm shift for formal education in which learning is viewed in categories of context and not content? What are the issues in terms of ‘text’ production in terms of modes of representation, (re)contextualisation and conceptions of literacy? Who decides/redefines what it means to have coherence in contemporary interaction?
  • What synergies are there between the socio-cultural ecological approach to mobile learning, which the group has developed through its work to date, with paradigms developed by different TEL communities in Europe?
  • What pedagogical parameters are there in response to the significant transformation of society, culture and education currently taking place alongside technological innovation?

The LMLG sees learning using mobile devices governed by a triangular relationship between socio-cultural structures, cultural practices and the agency of media users / learners, represented in the three domains. The interrelationship of these three components: agency, the user’s capacity to act on the world, cultural practices, the routines users engage in their everyday lives, and the socio-cultural and technological structures that govern their being in the world, we see as an ecology, which in turn manifests itself in the form of an emerging cultural transformation.

I have created a Cloudworks site to support the workshop and you are all invited to participate in the discussions. The site features key questions from a series of background papers, all available on the site and you are invited not only to comment but to add your own links, academic references and additional materials. The discussion is being organised around the following themes:

Look forward to your comments on this site or in the clouds.