Pre Conference Workshops - Investigating low-cost mobile learning to enhance active experiential learning

Objectives

By the completion of the workshop participants will be able to;

  • Appreciate how sustainable low-cost mlearning can enhance active experiential learning,
  • Use the ©mInteract online tool to improve active engagement in lectures and other learning spaces at nil to very low-cost,
  • Identify their preferred mlearning research interests,
  • Form initial collaborative mlearning research project teams with other workshop participants,
  • Understand the activities required to successfully propose mlearning research projects focusing on the importance of planning and the timeline,
  • Prepare a draft proposal for mlearning research project funding including concept, rationale, objectives, outcomes and deliverables informed by the Facilitator’s learner-centred design framework.

Intended audience

Conference participants who are interested in getting involved in mobile learning research and development projects. No prior experience is required though enthusiasm for mlearning research is helpful to maximise your workshop outcomes.

Facilitators

Andrew Litchfield (Senior Lecturer Teaching and Learning and Coordinator of the IT Education Research Group)

Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney.
PO Box 123 BROADWAY NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA          Email: ajl@it.uts.edu.au   Phone +61 2 9514 4501

Andrew is coordinator of the IT Education Research Group in the Faculty of Information Technology at UTS and is responsible for supporting and improving the teaching and learning of award programs. His academic experience also includes lectureships in Media Communications and Educational Technology. He has extensive professional experience as a media producer, and in the planning, design and management of innovative small and large-scale educational projects. Andrew produced numerous award-winning video and mixed-media projects in the 1980-90s including four Australian Government funded Projects of National Significance. He established Australia's first multimedia communication undergraduate subjects in 1993, and was the project leader in 1998-99 of the e.learning@mq project and in 2004-5 of the ITED grant scheme – successful, discipline-based, faculty capacity building projects in innovative ICT education research and development. He is the co-leader of a 2006 ALTC Project 'TeCTra - supporting student self and peer assessment in large groupwork projects' and a team member of a 2007 ALTC Project 'iCurriculum - developing an evidence-based curriculum design, graduate attributes, criterion-based assessment & eportfolio information tool'. He leads the Workready Project a curriculum renewal project at UTS developing the professional curriculum. Andrew’s research interests include the diffusion of innovations, technology in education, curriculum design and change, academic professional development and the design and production of educational mixed-media learning resources. He has successfully facilitated many international conference workshops in preparing persuasive proposals for mobile learning research and innovative learner-centred educational project planning, design and management.

Dr Ryszard Raban (Head, Department of Software)

Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney.
PO Box 123 BROADWAY NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA          Email: richard@it.uts.edu.au                 Phone +61 2 9514 1829

Richard has 25 years experience in systems development as a software engineer and consultant in industry and as an academic developing and delivering system engineering courses. His research interests include system architecture, data and systems integration, user-centred systems development, knowledge management and educational issues related to delivery and assessment of large group project subjects. As the head of an academic unit, he provides leadership in educational and curriculum development and conducts research in knowledge management systems. He is researching the application of mobile technology to facilitate low-cost class interactions. The ©mInteract system has been developed and is now being trialled within UTS. Initial results were published at the IMCL Conference in Amman in April 2008.

Dr Laurel Evelyn Dyson (Senior Lecturer)

Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney.
PO Box 123 BROADWAY NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA          Email: laurel.E.Dyson@uts.edu.au              

Laurel has over 20 years experience teaching in the university and adult education sector. She has a special interest in the education of international students and disadvantaged groups. She has successfully taught and developed educational programs for Indigenous students, senior citizens, prisoners and special needs students. In 2007 she was awarded the UTS Equity and Diversity Award for her co-leadership of the Indigenous Pre-IT Program, a bridging course which introduces Indigenous Australians to professional Information Technology competencies. She researches adoption factors and the design of ICT for Indigenous people and as a result of her outstanding work in this area, she was invited by UNESCO to lead the evaluation team of their major Indigenous international project ICT for Intercultural Dialogue in 2006. Her research interests include mobile and online technology in education, collaborative learning and communication, and the adoption of mobile technologies by Indigenous people.

Details of activities

In this workshop we will participate in a variety of activities to investigate low-cost mobile learning strategies and tools to improve active experiential student learning. Participants use the Facilitator’s minteract tool and discuss the issues that arise. We discuss why theories of active experiential learning are important to mlearning strategies and practices. We examine directions for needed mobile learning research and identify potential projects. We form initial project teams and start to prepare persuasive project proposals;

  1. After introductions we will demonstrate, use and discuss a software system and online tool - mInteract – that has been developed by the Facilitators to support experiential learning in large lecture-halls and other learning spaces that are connected to the internet. Best understood by reading a recent national Australian newspaper story mInteract is a WAP/WML online application that allows students to use their smart-phone, wireless-laptop or other internet enabled device in the lecture hall and learning space to make learning more experiential, interactive and engaging at nil to very low cost.   
    May 13, 2008   <www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,23687851-15306,00.html>

    mInteract has more functionality and versatility than the existing clicker tools which are expensive to purchase by universities and often have ongoing license fees. Students can use their own phones with data-transfer plans or use mobile devices connected to university wireless networks for no-to-low cost. At most there could be a small data-packet charge of 2-4c per interaction.

  2. Discussion of mlearning strategies and the theory of active experiential learning. Models of experiential learning often comprise four elements in an iterative process and our toolsupports this learning cycle:

    • action that creates experience,
    • reflection on the action or experience,
    • abstraction drawn from the reflection, and
    • application of the abstraction to new experience or action.

    Supported by mInteract students are presented with an activity – multiple-choice and short answer questions – that engages them with the subject. All students are asked to respond and those with access to the internet provide their responses electronically. The tool instantly collates these responses and presents a representative summary such as a bar-chart or list on the teacher’s screen. The teacher then introduces and displays the group summary facilitating individual reflection and abstraction. The teacher can adapt to better assist the students to build abstractions from their initial response and so progress the lecture and the learning of applications of the new knowledge.

    Itin (1999) proposes a model of experiential education in which a transactional process between the teacher and the students takes place. Information is exchanged between the teacher and students and students learn from teachers and teachers learn from students. As students engage with each activity the teacher reflects and abstracts a better understanding of the status of student learning. So both students and teachers participate in an experiential learning cycle with each mInteract activity.

    • Possible research directions for mobile learning are discussed. There are many significant issues in mlearning that need to be better investigated. Five directions are suggested (Litchfield, Dyson, Lawrence & Zmijewska 2007);
    • mobile supported fieldwork,
    • fostering interactivity on-campus using mobile devices,
    • ubiquitous learning supported by mobile devices,
    • mobile learning for each discipline,
    • strategies for low-cost mlearning use,

    Other research interests of participants will be discussed.

    • Participants discuss their preferred mobile learning research directions and form initial project teams and commence partnerships for international research and development collaboration.
    • Participants examine the activities required to successfully propose mlearning research focusing on the importance of project planning and a well-thought-out timeline.
    • Participants start preparing funding proposals for their mlearning research and development directions informed by the Facilitator’s learner-centred design framework that examines project proposal, learning resource development and educational design processes and activities (Litchfield 1998).

Previous presentations of the workshop

This workshop's particular focus has not been presented before however the mobile learning research directions have. The directions were identified in the Facilitator's Ascilite2007 conference paper 'Directions for mlearning research to enhance active learning' and have been explored at these recent conference workshops;

  1. Timelines are everything: preparing proposals for mobile learning research to enhance student learning.
    IADIS International Conference on Mobile Learning, Algarve, Portugal, April 2008.

  2. Preparing proposals for mobile learning research to enhance student learning.4th International Conference on Interactive Mobile and Computer Aided Learning, IMCL, Amman, Jordan, April 2008.

    • Forming project teams and preparing proposals for mlearning research to enhance student learning.

    In ICT: Providing Choices for Learners and Learning. ASCILITE Singapore, December 2007.

    The Facilitator’s learner-centred educational project design and development model has been workshopped frequently.

References

Dyson, L. E., Raban, R., Litchfield, A. J. & Lawrence, E. (2008). Embedding M-Learning into Mainstream Educational Practice: Overcoming the Cost Barrier, 4th International Conference on Interactive Mobile and Computer Aided Learning (IMCL2008), Amman, Jordan, April 2008.

Dyson, L. E., Lawrence, E., Litchfield, A. J. & Zmijewska, A. (2008). M-Fieldwork for Information Systems Students, Proceedings of the Forty-First Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Waikoloa, Hawaii, January 7-10, pp. 1-10.

Litchfield, A., Dyson, L., Lawrence, E. & Zmijewska, A. (2007). Directions for m-learning research to enhance active learning. In ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning. Proceedings ASCILITE Singapore 2007. <http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/litchfield.pdf>

Litchfield, A. (1998). Designing educational media: Learner-centred processes. In C. McBeath and R. Atkinson (Eds), Planning for Progress, Partnership and Profit. Proceedings EdTech'98. Perth: Australian Society for Educational Technology.  <http://www.ascilite.org.au/aset-archives/confs/edtech98/pubs/articles/litchfield1.html>