Mobile Technology Bridges the 30 Million Word Gap

Education has been traditionally viewed as an equalizer for the poor to gain access to a better life. With the advent of the skills premium paired with rapid technological advances, the stratification and changing nature of education has ironically become one of the main causes of the income achievement gap. Research confirms that by the age of 3, children from low-income homes hear 30 million less words than children from more affluent families. Research has even revealed that the gap begins as early as 18 months of age. Children who enter school at higher levels of readiness have higher earnings throughout their lives. They are also healthier and less likely to become involved with the criminal justice system. These positive spillovers suggest that investments in early childhood can benefit society as a whole. Without intervention, the trend will certainly persist and further income inequality will lead to more social instability. Anger and frustration from the lower income classes may result as they continue to struggle with no real hope that it will make a difference to their lives in the long run. This paper traces the causes of the income achievement gap and proposes how mobile technology and the corresponding apps can potentially mitigate these factors by gaining access into the homes of the low income families. Indeed, it is critical to examine the causes of the gaps in order to propose relevant possible solutions. Mobile learning devices now have the potential to achieve a large-scale impact due to their portability, affordability, high memory capacity and ease of use. With the ability to personalize and adapt to the learning needs of the child as well as guide the parent or teacher with scaffolding, tablets can help to fill these damaging gaps and allow each child the chance to learn and succeed. Keywords: early childhood education, inequality, socioeconomic status (SES), vocabulary acquisition, literacy, mobile apps, tablet computers, word gap, digital divide, income achievement gap

Hidden in plain sight:low-literacy adults in a developed country overcoming social and educational challenges through mobile learning support tools

Illiteracy is often associated with people in developing countries. However, an estimated 50 % of adults in a developed country such as Canada lack the literacy skills required to cope with the challenges of today's society; for them, tasks such as reading, understanding, basic arithmetic, and using everyday items are a challenge. Many community-based organizations offer resources and support for these adults, yet overall functional literacy rates are not improving. This is due to a wide range of factors, such as poor retention of adult learners in literacy programs, obstacles in transferring the acquired skills from the classroom to the real life, personal attitudes toward learning, and the stigma of functional illiteracy. In our research we examined the opportunities afforded by personal mobile devices in providing learning and functional support to low-literacy adults. We present the findings of an exploratory study aimed at investigating the reception and adoption of a technological solution for adult learners. ALEX© is a mobile application designed for use both in the classroom and in daily life in order to help low-literacy adults become increasingly literate and independent. Such a solution complements literacy programs by increasing users' motivation and interest in learning, and raising their confidence levels both in their education pursuits and in facing the challenges of their daily lives. We also reflect on the challenges we faced in designing and conducting our research with two user groups (adults enrolled in literacy classes and in an essential skills program) and contrast the educational impact and attitudes toward such technology between these. Our conclusions present the lessons learned from our evaluations and the impact of the studies' specific challenges on the outcome and uptake of such mobile assistive technologies in providing practical support to low-literacy adults in conjunction with literacy and essential skills training

ALEX®: a mobile Adult Literacy Experiential Learning application

An alarmingly high number of adults in the world's most developed countries are linguistically functionally illiterate. The research presented in this paper describes ALEX©, an ongoing attempt to successfully develop an innovative assistive, mobile, experiential language-learning application to support the daily literacy education and needs of such adults, anywhere, anytime. We introduce a set of guidelines we have collated to inform the design of mobile assistive technologies, introduce our application and describe the design activities to date that have led to the development of our current application. We present this overview in the hope that it is useful to others working in the fledgling domains of mobile assistive technology design and/or mobile experiential language-learning technologies

Investigating Acceptance of Mobile Applications toward English Language Learning: Based On Qualitative Judgments

The concept of mobile entertains the fact of knowledge availability “anywhere and anytime” which suggests that the future will witness multiple changes in the continuum of education in general, and specifically in its mobile format. Mobile Applications for English Language Learning facilitates the process of English learning via mobile devices. Thus, it provides practical solutions to slowly move from old face to face learning into mobile application based learning. This paper shed lights on the links between the English language learning and technology acceptance of mobile applications in academic context.  Teachers could encourage the use of mobile applications by providing activities that utilize mobile applications, such as searching for a word’s meaning, listening to authentic radio application content, listening to audio books, etc. since informal English can be present in most chatting applications, teachers could encourage the use of proper spelling, language, usage, etc. via interaction with their students in a language learning environment. In addition to that, the limitations of the study were addressed. Finally, this paper provided implications for instructional practice along with suggestions and recommendations that discussed possible advantages of acceptance of mobile applications in English language learning. The students participate in this investigation were ten who are studying in University Utara Malaysia. A WhatsApp group of these students, MAELL research, was intended to incorporate the members in the investigation. The data gathering strategies were interview, the WhatsApp group visit log and perception. This subjective contextual analysis looks into was spurred by two research questions: 1. How the mobile applications are useful for English language learning? 2. What are the factors of mobile application use for English language learning? The outcomes of this research study suggest that in addition to the current uses of mobile applications, there are also pros and cons of using mobile application to enhance English language learning skills, specially listening and speaking. The results, implications, and recommendations are also discussed

Qualitative Case Study on Cell Phone Appropriation for Language Learning Purposes in a Dominican Context

This research study investigated how a Dominican English language teacher and her students appropriated cell phone features for educational purposes inside and outside the classroom. The dissertation used a qualitative approach that focused on the teacher, and four students selected from a class of 23. Data collection took place for 8 weeks in an English language center located at a public university in the Dominican Republic in the summer of 2014. I collected data through interviews, conversations, classroom observations, and questionnaires. Data were analyzed to identify emerging themes that described how the teacher and students used their cell phones for different educational activities related to English language learning. Findings identified four major themes on how the teacher used different cell phone features for educational purposes: cell phone as connectivity tool, content delivery tool, research and reference tool, and assessment facilitation tool. Findings from the four student subcases indicated that they appropriated features in their cell phones in different ways, including: iPod as a cell phone (student 1), assessment and feedback facilitation tool (student 2), peer- and self-assessment facilitation tool and e-reader (student 3), and multimedia delivery and social interactivity tool (student 4). Themes across subcases and from the classroom in general indicated that participants used features that allowed them to use their cell phones as tools for data gathering and note taking, reference and research, collaboration, and repository. Findings from this dissertation shed light on how a teacher and students can make use of their own mobile technologies to support English language learning in a Dominican classroom with uneven access to technology

Mobile Learning

Mobile learning has become one of the more influential aspects of the field of educational technology, given the ubiquity of modern mobile devices and proliferation of educational applications or ‘apps’. Within this volume, there are a range of studies and reviews which cover a breadth of current topics in the field, namely user motivations for using mobile learning, issues in evaluation, as well as domain-specific considerations (e.g., use within language learning or audio-based applications). Together, these studies represent the synthesis of a range of methods, approaches, and applications that highlight benefits and areas of future growth of mobile technologies and how they can be useful and most effective in education

Mobile Learning using Mixed Reality Games and a Conversational, Instructional and Motivational Paradigm. Design and implementation of technical language learning mobile games for the developing world with special attention to mixed reality games for the realization of a conversational, instructional and motivational paradigm.

Mobile learning has significant potential to be very influential in further and higher education. In this research a new definition for Mobile Educational Mixed Reality Games (MEMRG) is proposed based on a mobile learning environment. A questionnaire and a quantifying scale are utilised to assist the game developers in designing a MEMRG. A ¿Conversational Framework¿ is proposed as an appropriate psycho-pedagogical approach to teaching and learning for MEMRG. This methodology is based on the theme of a ¿conversation¿ between different actors of the learning community with the objective of building the architectural framework for MEMRG. Various elements responsible for instructing and motivating learners in educational games are utilised in an instructional-motivational model. User interface design for the games incorporates an efficient navigation system that uses contextual information, and allows the players to move seamlessly between real and virtual worlds. The implementation of MEMRG using the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) platform iii is presented. The hardware and software specification for the MEMRG implementation and deployment are also discussed. MEMRG has produced improvements in the different cognitive processes of the learner, and also produced a deeper level of learning through enculturation, externalising ideas, and socialising. Learners¿ enjoyment, involvement, motivation, autonomy and metacognition skills have improved. This research will assist developers and teachers to gain an insight into learning paradigms which utilise mobile game environments that are formed by mixing real and virtual spaces, and provide them with a vision for effectively incorporating these games into formal and informal classroom sessions