The contribution of mLearning to the study of local culture in the Malaysian university context

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.This thesis is concerned with the impact of mobile learning (mLearning) on the study of local culture at Malaysian universities. For convenience, the term Local Cultural Studies (LCS) is given to Humanities subjects related to the teaching and learning of Malay culture, for example: Local History, Local Culture and National Heritage, Malay Wood Craft, Malay Drum, Cooking, Batik Textile, Ceramic, and Local Drama. These subjects are not as popular as Science and Engineering and are often referred to as ‘dying traditional knowledge’ with an uncertain future. They have a lesser degree of significance in modern Malaysian society in achieving a ‘developed country’ status. One motivation for introducing mLearning into LCS subjects is to make them more interesting: the learning activities and the subjects should appear more modern by linking them to the latest technology. The fact that all students own mobile phones in Malaysian universities creates an opportunity to use mLearning for the benefit of LCS. In addition, mLearning could be used to create student-generated content to add richer multimedia learning resources as one of the major challenges for LCS is the limited availability of resources. An exploratory preliminary study with managers and content developers within mobile application companies confirmed there were limited local mobile content and little incentive to develop more. A major focus of this thesis was to investigate two approaches to overcoming this problem: (1) the development of culturally appropriate interface design guidelines that could be used to assist developers and academics in the production of local content; and (2) involving students in creating local content in student-generated mLearning activities. This largely qualitative study focused on gaining an understanding of mLearning’s contributions to the study of local culture from the perspective of academics and students at predominantly Malaysian public universities. The research was designed in two stages. In Stage 1, Nielsen’s user interface design guidelines were first adapted to include two cultural design principles based on local Malay cultural content and aesthetic values and then used as a probe to uncover academic and student views on culturally appropriate design during a heuristic evaluation of three mobile applications with a Malay cultural focus. The heuristic evaluation of the mLearning applications also served to raise awareness of mLearning and opened the way for interviews with academics and focus group discussions with students about their pre-existing experiences with mobile technologies and perspectives on mLearning. The interviews and focus group discussions were audio recorded, transcribed, translated, and analysed using a thematic analysis approach. Consequently at Stage 2, student-generated activities using mobile devices were introduced. These included students making videos, taking photographs and sound recording interviews in their LCS subjects using a mix of mobile devices such as mobile phones, laptops and cameras. Then a second round of interviews and focus group discussions was conducted to understand participants’ perspectives of mLearning and in particular, mLearning involving student-generated content. Data was analysed again using thematic analysis. The first key finding of the study identified academic and students’ perspectives on culturally appropriate design guidelines related to the usability of mLearning LCS applications. The participants confirmed that suitable local cultural content appropriate to the subject and local aesthetic values were important and could motivate learning. The most important local cultural aspect was found to be the use of local language, Bahasa Malaysia, or bilingual interfaces. A more complex aspect of interface design was the inclusion of philosophical values relating to Malay and Islamic philosophy. The study also demonstrated that it is inadequate to exclusively emphasise culture. General usability principles were also observed as significant, for instance, consistency, minimalist design, efficiency, flexibility and error management, and should be taken into consideration in designing LCS applications. Furthermore, the findings identified participants’ pre-existing experiences and perspectives of mobile technologies and mLearning. They used mobile phones extensively for personal leisure and interest although students were more advanced than academics in exploring software applications for mobile phones. At university the majority of participants used their mobile phones for communication for educational purposes. However, they did this without being aware that these activities were mLearning-related. They also identified challenges for introducing mLearning: lack of local mLearning content and limited ethical policies to regulate mLearning were of concern for both academics and students. Changes to participants’ perspectives on mLearning were observed following the student-generated content activities in Stage 2. Academics were more aware and stated that they were more open to allowing students to use mobile phones for student-generated activities. Students benefited by gaining new multimedia skills and accomplishing better quality assignments using mobile devices. They reported creating, accessing and sharing multimedia digital content (videos, photos and audio files) both within the classroom and during fieldwork at cultural sites. This was found to reduce the challenge of limited local content for LCS subjects. Peer assistance and collaboration from other participants reduced technical challenges. Therefore, both academics and students showed more positive attitudes and interest in using mobile devices for facilitating learning in LCS after experiencing student-generated activities. The contributions of this thesis are therefore: • Understandings of culturally appropriate design in the Malay context which could assist mobile developers to produce more local content or could be used by academics or students to guide them in creating local content for learning. These understandings might further be extended to other cultural contexts. • Insights into how academics’ and students’ established mobile phone practices, as well as their pre-existing uses of mobile devices for educational purposes, could lead to greater awareness and a wider adoption of mLearning to improve LCS subjects. • A holistic understanding of participants’ perspectives on student-generated content in mLearning activities as a way to remedy the lack of content for LCS studies. This could be applied also to other subject areas

Transforming pre-service teacher curriculum: observation through a TPACK lens

This paper will discuss an international online collaborative learning experience through the lens of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The teacher knowledge required to effectively provide transformative learning experiences for 21st century learners in a digital world is complex, situated and changing. The discussion looks beyond the opportunity for knowledge development of content, pedagogy and technology as components of TPACK towards the interaction between those three components. Implications for practice are also discussed. In today’s technology infused classrooms it is within the realms of teacher educators, practising teaching and pre-service teachers explore and address effective practices using technology to enhance learning

Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

Children's rights in the digital age: a download from children around the world

Evidence from across the world is telling us that no matter where they are from, more and more children are relying on digital tools, platforms and services to learn, engage, participate, play, innovate, work or socialise. Foreward Some two-thirds of the world’s almost three billion internet users are from the developing world, with the numbers growing every day. Many of these new users are children and young people; in fact in many countries, internet users under the age of 24 far outnumber the rest. A growing body of evidence from across the world is also telling us that no matter where they are from, more and more children are relying on digital tools, platforms and services to learn, engage, participate, play, innovate, work or socialise. There are already countless examples of how – when harnessed appropriately – digital tools can help promote human development, by closing gaps in access to information, speeding up service delivery, supporting educational and health outcomes, and creating new entrepreneurship opportunities. The power of technology to jump across borders and time zones, to join the once disparate, and to foster social connectedness, has provided the means for the children and young people of today to participate in a global society in ways previously not possible. Sadly, there are also new or evolving risks – exposure to violence; access to inappropriate content, goods and services; concerns about excessive use; and issues of data protection and privacy. As it becomes increasingly difficult to draw the line between offline and online, it is necessary for us to examine how this changing environment impacts the wellbeing and development of children and their rights. Ensuring that all children are safe online requires approaches that promote digital literacy, resilience and cyber-savvy. It is only in partnership that we can reach consensus on how to create a safe, open, accessible, affordable and secure digital world. Critically, children and young people’s profound insight must help inform, shape and drive this goal – which needs to focus on equity of access, safety for all, digital literacy across generations, identity and privacy, participation and civic engagement. In April of this year, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and UNICEF co-hosted, in collaboration with PEW Internet, EU Kids Online, the Internet Society (ISOC), Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), and YouthPolicy.org, a first of its kind international ‘Digitally Connected’ symposium on children, youth, and digital media. The symposium sought to map and explore the global state of research and practice in this field, and to facilitate sharing, discussion and collaboration among the 150 academics, practitioners, young people, activists, philanthropists, government officials, and representatives of technology companies from around the world.   &nbsp

Motivations for OpenLearn: the Open University's Open Content Initiative

This short paper is a contribution to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) expert workshop to help identify "motivations, benefits and barriers for institutions producing open educational resources". The motivations are examined by looking at the reasons behind the launch by the Open University in the UK of a web based collection of open educational resources, OpenLearn. OpenLearn launched on October 25th 2006 and reflects an initiative backed by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Open University to develop a learning environment (LearningSpace) and an accompanying educator environment (LabSpace) giving free access to material derived from Open University courses. There are of course many reasons for the taking part in open educational resources and so this paper considers motivations in community, organisational, technical and economic terms.The paper was initially prepared for the OECD experts meeting on Open Educational Resources 26-27 October 2006 in Barcelona, Spain

EU–originated MOOCs, with focus on multi- and single-institution platforms

No abstract available

The development of a sustainable framework for an industry driven career-focused ICT curriculum in producing sought after ICT graduates

The employability of ICT graduates is a critical issue that needs to be addressed by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It can be argued that there are different challenges for higher education institutions, employers, and regulatory bodies around graduates’ readiness to join the modern workplace. The media and academic research is often critical on the matter of employability and continue to question the issues of (i) mismatches in the skills needed for and supply of ICT graduates; (ii) how faculty can keep themselves abreast with the changes in technology skills needed; (iii) how industry practitioners can be an integral part in the design and delivery of the curriculum that produces graduates with the global skills required by the workplace as demanded by Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Multi-National Companies (GNCs) and by the growing number of startups; and (iv) industry-academia collaboration for curriculum design and delivery. Typically, ICT remains the key driver and enabler of growth in all business sectors and is a recession-proof career; hence, all stakeholders should collaboratively design and deliver its curriculum. This study seeks to investigate the challenges Higher Education Institutions face in designing and delivering an industry-driven curriculum that would satisfy the expectations and requirements of students, academics, regulatory bodies, and employers. It aims to address the gaps and identify the mismatches in the expectations of these stakeholders. The goal is to develop a sustainable framework for curriculum design that contains strategic and measurable provisions in curriculum delivery, ensuring that experiential learning is genuinely embedded in the ICT curriculum. The research has achieved its research goal to develop a proposed framework from an extensive literature review and in-depth analysis of the findings obtained from online surveys and focus groups involving the different stakeholders – students, alumni, academia, and employers. This study contributes to the literature where minimal research is available on collaborative design and delivery of an ICT curriculum involving the different relevant stakeholders