Introduction to location-based mobile learning

[About the book] The report follows on from a 2-day workshop funded by the STELLAR Network of Excellence as part of their 2009 Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series and is edited by Elizabeth Brown with a foreword from Mike Sharples. Contributors have provided examples of innovative and exciting research projects and practical applications for mobile learning in a location-sensitive setting, including the sharing of good practice and the key findings that have resulted from this work. There is also a debate about whether location-based and contextual learning results in shallower learning strategies and a section detailing the future challenges for location-based learning

Augmenting the field experience: a student-led comparison of techniques and technologies

In this study we report on our experiences of creating and running a student fieldtrip exercise which allowed students to compare a range of approaches to the design of technologies for augmenting landscape scenes. The main study site is around Keswick in the English Lake District, Cumbria, UK, an attractive upland environment popular with tourists and walkers. The aim of the exercise for the students was to assess the effectiveness of various forms of geographic information in augmenting real landscape scenes, as mediated through a range of techniques and technologies. These techniques were: computer-generated acetate overlays showing annotated wireframe views from certain key points; a custom-designed application running on a PDA; a mediascape running on the mScape software on a GPS-enabled mobile phone; Google Earth on a tablet PC; and a head-mounted in-field Virtual Reality system. Each group of students had all five techniques available to them, and were tasked with comparing them in the context of creating a visitor guide to the area centred on the field centre. Here we summarise their findings and reflect upon some of the broader research questions emerging from the project

Fostering Intellectual Investment and Foreign Language Learning Through Role-Immersion Pedagogy

Recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of increasing the intellectual viability of lower-level foreign language (FL) study while facilitating connections between academic practice, learners’ lives, and global communities. This article reports on a content-based role-immersion simulation (RIS) designed to incite a critical orientation toward language learning, as 16 postsecondary intermediate Spanish learners adopted alternate identities and took part in a culturally grounded scenario centering on resolving problems related to drug trafficking and violence at the U.S.-Mexico border. Self-reported data from this qualitative study reveal that a majority of participants considered the simulation to approximate an intellectually stimulating real-world immersive encounter; however, some learners approached it as a language-learning exercise. The article elaborates on criteria that contributed to these divergent perceptions and concludes with implications for foreign language curriculum design

Global board games project:a cross-border entrepreneurship experiential learning initiative

Entrepreneurship training and development in the context of higher education has grown tremendously over the past four decades. What began as offerings of a handful of courses aimed primarily at business planning and small business management has evolved into over 3.000 higher education institutions around the world offering degree programs and concentrations in entrepreneurship on both undergraduate and graduate levels (Morris, Kuratko and Cornwall, 2013). Universities – particularly in the USA, UK and EU – have invested into developing entrepreneurship curricula but also extra-curricular programs and infrastructure aimed at supporting enterprise development. It is consensus among educators that entrepreneurship can be taught (Kuratko, 2005). Indeed, entrepreneurship education research has become a field in its own right (Fayolle, Gailly and Lassas‐Clerc, 2006; Pittaway and Cope, 2007; Penaluna, Penaluna and Jones, 2012; Fayolle, 2013; Fayolle and Gailly, 2015; Pittaway et al., 2015; Nabi et al., 2017). As literature indicates, entrepreneurship education can have an important impact on a variety of outcomes, including entrepreneurial intentions and behaviours. Intentions are a motivation to engage in certain behaviour that is geared towards venture creation (Gibb, 2008, 2011) as well as recognition and exploitation of opportunities (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000). Moreover, research has also identified the impact of entrepreneurship education on more subjective indicators such as attitudes (Boukamcha, 2015), perceived feasibility (Rauch and Hulsink, 2015), and skills and knowledge (Greene and Saridakis, 2008). Recently, the literature on the best practices in entrepreneurship education has centred on the importance of experiential learning allowing students to create knowledge from their interactions with the environment (Kolb, 1984). The key to effective experiential learning is engaging students individually and socially in a situation that enables them to interact with elements of the entrepreneurial context thus moving them away from text-driven to action-driven learning mode (Morris, Kuratko and Cornwall, 2013). Increasingly, digital technologies have been leveraged to create a learning environment that provides opportunities for experiential learning (Onyema and Daniil, 2017). This chapter provides findings of a study related to the development and implementation of a collaborative, digitally supported simulation project aimed at enhancing entrepreneurial social skills in an international context

Effectiveness of Teaching English for Specific Purposes in LMS Moodle: Lecturers' Perspective

Learning management systems (LMS) Moodle presents a beneficial arrangement of features that support language learning in the electronic environment. The English lecturers' challenge is to obtain interaction and adaptability with their online classroom. The study is to find the effectiveness of teaching English in Moodle-based.  The semi-structured interviews and open-ended questioner were employed to recognize the complete information to the English lecturer's teaching experiences based on Moodle. This study determines that the effective teaching of English Moodle-based depends on both lecturer competences in pedagogy English and lecturer experience in the Moodle system. It covers a complete curriculum with high expectations, composes applicable model content, and constructs it more obtainable, provides specific and culturally applicable instruction, maintains practical approaches to explicit learning strategies, allows learnings to use the first language, prepares vocabulary in various contexts, and develops reading comprehension, and integrates communicative competence abilities. The language learning activities of the Moodle classroom are capable of fulfilling learning practice for complete progression participants with peculiar configuration, management, adjustments, and teaching approach. The English teaching course designer should organize and manage an expected course model of course-related activity, and it applied to the utilization of the syllabus or course information page. The essential aspect of interchangeable communication significantly reshapes language teaching pedagogy in the electronic ecosystem. The effective teaching of English Moodle-based can be achieved with teaching pedagogy's full capabilities and technicality in the Moodle system

Reflecting back, looking forward: the challenges for location-based learning

This final section of the report has been reproduced from “D3.1 The STELLAR Rendez-Vous I report and white papers”, published in 2009 by the STELLAR Network of Excellence. It is included here for completeness; we, as co-authors, felt that it was important to look back at the main contributions to theworkshop and also where the challenges lie for the future. This chapter addresses two critical questions: - What has been learned from this workshop, especially in respect to the STELLAR Grand Challenges (“Connecting learners”, “Orchestration” and “Contextualisation”)? - What are the new research questions and issues for location-based learning, with respect to the Grand Challenges (“Connecting learners”, “Orchestration”and “Contextualisation”)

Relational Education: Applying Gergen’s Work to Educational Research and Practice

This article sketches the implications of Gergen’s relational approach for educational research and practice. Gergen suggests that we envision education as a set of processes intended to enhance relationships. This is a radical departure from most mainstream educational research and practice, which is designed to enhance the individual’s mind. We first examine three key assumptions about individuals and about knowledge that undergird mainstream educational research and practice—an emphasis on the individual as separate from the world, an account of knowledge as decontextualized and a tendency towards hierarchies which favor purified knowledge over lesser forms. We then describe three alternative assumptions from Gergen’s relational account of education—an emphasis on individuals as woven into contexts and knowledge as produced in relations, a view of knowledge as contextualized, and a view of knowledge and action as heterogeneous, not pure. We provide examples from current educational research and practice that illustrate these three assumptions about relational education

Culturally Relevant Teaching for the 21st Century: The Success and Challenges of Pre-service Teachers when Using Technology in Critical Ways

This case study examined pre-service teachers\u27 use of technology as they implemented culturally relevant literacy lessons while tutoring elementary students in their field placement sites. As we enter a new decade, we want our students to be future-ready with technology skills. Here, we present an examination of how pre-service teachers integrated culturally relevant teaching with technology along with a discussion of the tools and devices their students used. Findings provided evidence that as pre-service teachers experienced authentic and engaging learning experiences within a supportive space, they emerged equipped to teach in culturally responsive ways that supported student learning and deeper levels of engagement. The implication for practice is for community-engaged teacher preparation models to focus on shaping prospective teachers\u27 orientation toward culturally relevant teaching so that they build learning experiences around students\u27 lives in engaging multiple, multimodal, and multifaceted ways