m-learning Forum - Newsletter
Issue 6 (12 September 2002)
This
issue has tended to focus on research issues but do remember the purpose of
the m-learning Forum is also about encouraging the development of new business
opportunities and appropriate solutions for creating new learning
opportunities. Research forms an important starting point for the development
of such activities.
1 Report on IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education" (WMTE 2002) Sweden
This workshop held at the
end of August and organised by Växjö University attracted about 100 people from
23 countries. It clearly showed that a global research community is now
developing in the mobile and wireless technologies for learning. Below is a
brief report of the presentations.
1a. Is technology too complicated?
Jeremy
Roschelle, from SRI International, USA was the first keynote speaker.
During his presentation he raised three key issues that he hoped would be
addressed during the workshop – price, scalability and standards.
On the point of price, he pointed out that in most
US school classrooms, students are still only tending to make occasional and
supplementary use of computers because there are not enough computers and what
are available are not easily accessible as they tend to be all clustered
together in a computer lab in another part of the school. Thus if the price
can go down for laptop or portable computers or other suitable mobile devices,
most students would have access to them. Wireless LANs also offers new
opportunities for more flexible usage in schools.
On the point of scalability, he noted that about
40% of US students have a Texas T1-83 graphics calculator because Maths
teachers actively encourage parents to buy them for their children. Although
this is good in some cases because there is a lot of compatibility over usage,
it also raises problems for encouraging students to buy other devices like
Palm organisers that could be used in a number of other contexts.
This also relates to his third key point concerning standards. With a number of different types of organisers available there are issues concerning the “beaming” compatibility and also compatibility when adding probes to such devices. He called on the manufacturers to agree on common standards otherwise they will just segment the market, which will slow down their uptake for educational purposes.
Whilst looking at developments over
the last 20 years, Jeremy questioned whether the technology is too
complicated. He cited Classtalk
first used in 1989 as a simple, more classroom community centred device but
still being used today. He considered that even simple but “intelligent”
bricks could be used by a group of children to simulate, for example, how an
inflection spreads by contact. A lot can be gained by these participatory
simulations that have involved perhaps only 10% effort in developing the
technology and 90% effort in structuring a clever activity.
Jeremy then described some of his work with the Palm Education Pioneers involving enquiry-based learning, data collection and interpretation in the field. He is also doing some work with Sony memory sticks.
His overall message was “Don’t use overcomplicated technology! Share what’s hot, but toss hot ideas into a cold bath of intellectual rigour”
1b. Mobile learning in schools and classrooms
Kathleen Luchini described some of her work on developing learning scaffolding with 8-13 yr olds using handheld tools, in particular - the IPAQ -using the PicoMap Concept map. Chih-Yung Chang, from Taiwan described some work on an Ad Hoc classroom-based system and in an outdoor learning environment using a tablet PC. He also described the eSchoolbag system used by students at Taipei City Zoo.
1c Mobile learning and training in workplaces
Harri Ketamo from Finland described xtask for adaptable working environments. Johan Lundin from Sweden described some research into the learning needs of customer relations staff at Volvo’s Information Technology services division. This is part of a project looking at mobile competence development for nomadic workers in order to better understand their needs and to support these needs with 3G or other wireless solutions as the platform.
1d Foundations and empirical investigations
Prof Kristóf Nyíri from Budapest, Hungary talked about the development of a philosophy of m-learning. Monica Divitini from Norway talked about the issues of improving communications through mobile technologies and Louise Mifsud also from Norway discussed the pedagogical challenges to mobile learning technology in education. Sarah Davis from the USA described four years of observations in classrooms using a network of handheld devices. Andy Stone from the UK described some results from research he has done using SMS messaging with students.
1e. Presentation of EU Projects
Various EU funded projects were presented including Moblilearn, SEED and AD-HOC.
1f. Concept mapping, modelling and simulation
Eric Klopfer from MIT, USA described his work on Environmental detectives – using PDAs as a window into a virtual work simulated world. Giasmemi Vavoula from UK described her work on developing KleOS - a personal mobile, knowledge and learning organisation system. Ulrich Hoppe from Germany described how various extensions to PDAs would aid collaborative modelling.
1g. Collaborative Scenarios and architecture
Hsue-Yie Wang from Taiwan described work using tablet PCs in a classroom situation and Franz Lehner, from Germany described how they were using wireless LANs for e-learning at his university.
1h. Collaborative Scenarios
Jeremy Roschelle expanded on some of his work collaborative learning and Umer Farooq discussed bridging the gap between mobile and desktop computing. Cyrille Desmoulins from France described some work with creating personal annotations using e-books and sharing them with others. Marcelo Milrad described the work on designing mobile and wireless applications to support collaborative knowledge building using C-Notes.
1i Specialised learning applications
Yuh-Shyan Chen from
Taiwan described an interesting project using tablet PCs for bird watching and
Sherry Hri from USA described user experiences of using a mobile electronic
guidebook in a museum setting. Fusako Kusunoki from Japan also described her
experiences with children and parents using an interactive mobile guide using
sensing and wireless network technologies.
And Ole Smordal from
Norway described the use of PDAs in medical education.
Professor Elliot Soloway, University of Michigan, USA and Professor Cathleen A. Norris, University of North Texas, USA were the amusing after dinners speakers arguing that there were just not enough computers in schools.
It is understood that the presentations will eventually be made available at the WMTE2002 web sitehttp://lttf.ieee.org/wmte2002/ Full papers are available at http://www.computer.org/proceedings/wmte/1706/1706toc.htm
2. "Mobile Learning and
Interactive TV" Conference London UK
Unfortunately the conference organisers - Access Conferences – have decided to postpone this event that was due to be held on the 15-16 October 2002. We had planned to work closely with the organisers and had considered that it would form an important event involving the m-learning Forum with discounts for m-learning Forum members. It is now unlikely that this event will take place until at least the middle of next year.
This has left a bit of a gap in our planned programme of activities for the latter part of the year, but we do encourage you to attend the Copenhagen, Dublin or Budapest events detailed below.
3. mLearning: the Cutting Edge
We
are pleased to announce that this one-day conference will be held at Ericsson International
Training Centre,
Adelphi Centre, Upper Georges St., Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Friday 22
November 2002. Full details and online registration can be found at http://learning.ericsson.net/leonardo/index.html
Admission is free!
This
event is being organised by Ericsson in conjunction with other partners in a
EU funded Leonardo project entitled “From e-learning to m-learning”. On
the evening before - 21 November 2002 at 20:00 hrs – delegates are invited
to a networking session in a Dublin Hotel (location still to be decided) If
any m-learning Forum members wish to meet to dinner before hand please let me
know and I will arrange a common venue. Email Peter Bates at pjb@pjb.co.uk
Although, attendance at the conference is free, delegates are responsible for their own travel and accommodation costs.
4. The Social Science of Mobile Learning”
A reminder that this event is taken placing in Budapest, on 29 November 2002. Conference topics include M-learning and educational theory, the cognitive psychology of m-learning, the construction of meaning in mobile discourse, Ubiquitous computing and integrated learning environment, and Pilot m-learning projects.
The event is organised by the Institute for Philosophical Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and WESTEL Mobile Telecommunications (Hungary) and the registration fee for this conference is $ 50. More information can be found at http://21st.century.phil-inst.hu/m-learning_conference/ or by contacting Prof Kristóf Nyíri nyiri@phil-inst
5. MOBIlearn Special Interest Group Meeting, Copenhagen, Denmark
There are plans to hold the first meeting of the Special Interest Group (SIG) of the MOBIlearn Project at the EC IST Conference in Copenhagen probably on the afternoon of the 5 November 2002. It has also been proposed that a workshop will be run on "The future of Learning: new technological paradigms for Ambient Learning" in the morning of 5 November between 9:30-11:00 hrs. The IST conference runs from the 4-6 November and there will be an exhibition stand throughout this conference that will act as a focal point for people to meet and discuss mobile and wireless learning developments. More details will appear in our next newsletter. Click here for details of the IST Conference
6. Mobile HCI 2002 - Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices 18th-20th September 2002, Pisa, Italy
Unless you are already planning to attend it is probably now too late to do so but you might find the web site of interest at http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/mobilehci/venue.html
7. Scenarios for MOBIlearn project
Prof Mike Sharples from the University of Birmingham, UK and one of the partners in the MOBIlearn Project is inviting people to contribute scenarios for the project which has three target groups – Mobile learners who are MBA students learning on the move; visitors to a museum or art gallery; and people learning about healthcare or first aid. The scenarios should be short narratives (one or two paragraphs) describing how they might interact with the learning technology, and with other learners and teachers. For more details contact Mike Sharples at m.sharples@bham.ac.uk
8. Future Events
We are considering a specific m-learning Networking Event in December 2002 or January/February 2003 ideally. In addition we are also starting to think about other face-to-face events during the rest of 2003 in other parts of the world. If there is any organisation interested in hosting such an event, please contact me.
9. m-learning Forum
We are pleased to say that membership is growing but if you do find this newsletter, the newsclip service, the web site and the face-face events useful please encourage other organisations to join the m-learning Forum. We are a “demand led organisation” – i.e. we are here to meet demand from members wanting such services to help them in their work and business. Organisations can show that they demand such a service by joining the m-learning Forum. This also helps us to become sustainable and continue to exist to provide such a service.