Face-to-face media sharing using wireless mobile devices

Abstract Advanced personal wireless mobile devices, such as today 's emerging smart-phones, ar

Transforming pedagogy using mobile Web 2.0

Blogs, wikis, podcasting, and a host of free, easy to use Web 2.0 social software provide opportunities for creating social constructivist learning environments focusing on student-centred learning and end-user content creation and sharing. Building on this foundation, mobile Web 2.0 has emerged as a viable teaching and learning tool, facilitating engaging learning environments that bridge multiple contexts. Today’s dual 3G and wifi-enabled smartphones provide a ubiquitous connection to mobile Web 2.0 social software and the ability to view, create, edit, upload, and share user generated Web 2.0 content. This article outlines how a Product Design course has moved from a traditional face-to-face, studio-based learning environment to one using mobile Web 2.0 technologies to enhance and engage students in a social constructivist learning paradigm. Keywords: m-learning; Web 2.0; pedagogy 2.0; social constructivism; product desig

Designed and user-generated activity in the mobile age

The paper addresses the question of how to design for learning taking place on mobile and wireless devices. The authors argue that learning activity designers need to consider the characteristics of mobile learning; at the same time, it is vital to realise that learners are already creating mobile learning experiences for themselves. Profound changes in computer usage brought about by social networking and user-generated content are challenging the idea that educators are in charge of designing learning. The authors make a distinction between designed activity, carefully crafted in advance, and user-generated activity arising from learners’ own spontaneous requirements. The paper illustrates what each approach has to offer and it draws out what they have in common, the opportunities and constraints they represent. The paper concludes that user-generated mobile activity will not replace designed activity but it will influence the ways in which designed activity develops

Three applications for mobile epidemic algorithms

This paper presents a framework for the pervasive sharing of data using wireless networks. 'FarCry' uses the mobility of users to carry files between separated networks. Through a mix of ad-hoc and infrastructure-based wireless networking, files are transferred between users without their direct involvement. As users move to different locations, files are then transmitted on to other users, spreading and sharing information. We examine three applications of this framework. Each of these exploits the physically proximate nature of social gatherings. As people group together in, for example, business meetings and cafés, this can be taken as an indication of similar interests, e.g. in the same presentation or in a type of music. MediaNet affords sharing of media files between strangers or friends, MeetingNet shares business documents in meetings, and NewsNet shares RSS feeds between mobile users. NewsNet also develops the use of pre-emptive caching: collecting information from others not for oneself, but for the predicted later sharing with others. We offer observations on developing this system for a mobile, multi-user, multi-device environment

Engaging students with mobile web2.0.

Abstract: Blogs, wikis, podcasting, and a host of free, easy to use web2.0 social software provide opportunities for creating social constructivist learning environments focusing upon student-centred learning and end-user content creation and sharing. Building on this foundation, mobile web2.0 has emerged as a viable teaching and learning environment, particularly with the advent of the iPhone (Nicknamed “the Jesus phone” (Goldman, 2007)) and iPod Touch. Today’s wifi enabled smartphones provide a ubiquitous connection to mobile web2.0 social software and the ability to view, create, edit and upload user generated web2.0 content. This paper outlines how mobile web2.0 technologies can be harnessed to enhance and engage students in a social constructivist learning environment. Examples of student and teaching staff feedback are drawn from several mobile learning trials that have been conducted at Unitec New Zealand. Additionally the presentation will involve mobile web2.0 demonstrations and facilitate a discussion around the practicalities of integrating and supporting mobile web2.0 within a tertiary course

Mobilizing learning: mobile Web 2.0 scenarios in tertiary education

Based upon three years of mobile learning (mlearning) projects, a major implementation project has been developed for integrating the use of mobile web 2.0 tools across a variety of departments and courses in a tertiary education environment. A participatory action research methodology guides and informs the project. The project is based upon an explicit social constuctivist pedagogy, focusing on student collaboration, and the sharing and critique of student-generated content using freely available web 2.0 services. These include blogs, social networks, location aware (geotagged) image and video sharing, instant messaging, microblogging etc… Students and lecturers are provided with either an appropriate smartphone and/or a 3G capable netbook to use as their own for the duration of the project. Keys to the projects success are the level of pedagogical and technical support, and the level of integration of the tools into the courses – including assessment and lecturer modelling of the use of the tools. The projects are supported by an intentional community of practice model, with the researcher taking on the role of the “technology steward”. The paper outlines three different scenarios illustrating how this course integration is being achieved, establishing a transferable model of mobile web 2.0 integration and implementation. The goal is to facilitate a student-centred, collaborative, flexible, context-bridging learning environment that empowers students as content producers and learning context generators, guided by lecturers who effectively model th

Integrating Mobile Web 2.0 within tertiary education

Based on three years of innovative pedagogical development and guided by a participatory action research methodology, this paper outlines an approach to integrating mobile web 2.0 within a tertiary education course, based on a social constructivist pedagogy. The goal is to facilitate a student-centred, collaborative, flexible, context-bridging learning environment that empowers students as content producers and learning context generators, guided by lecturers who effectively model the use of the technology. We illustrate how the introduction of mobile web 2.0 has disrupted the underlying pedagogy of the course from a traditional Attelier model (face-to-face apprenticeship model), and has been successfully transformed into a context independent social constructivist model. Two mobile web 2.0 learning scenarios are outlined, including; a sustainable house design project (involving the collaboration of four departments in three faculties and three diverse groups of students), and the implementation of a weekly ‘nomadic studio session'. Students and lecturers use the latest generation of smartphones to collaborate, communicate, capture and share critical and reflective learning events. Students and lecturers use mobile friendly web 2.0 tools to create this environment, including: blogs, social networks, location aware (geotagged) image and video sharing, instant messaging, microblogging etc… Feedback from students and lecturers has been extremely positive

Emotions in context: examining pervasive affective sensing systems, applications, and analyses

Pervasive sensing has opened up new opportunities for measuring our feelings and understanding our behavior by monitoring our affective states while mobile. This review paper surveys pervasive affect sensing by examining and considering three major elements of affective pervasive systems, namely; “sensing”, “analysis”, and “application”. Sensing investigates the different sensing modalities that are used in existing real-time affective applications, Analysis explores different approaches to emotion recognition and visualization based on different types of collected data, and Application investigates different leading areas of affective applications. For each of the three aspects, the paper includes an extensive survey of the literature and finally outlines some of challenges and future research opportunities of affective sensing in the context of pervasive computing