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

The genesis and development of mobile learning in Europe

In the past two decades, European researchers have conducted many significant mobile learning projects. The chapter explores how these projects have arisen and what each one has contributed, so as to show the driving forces and outcomes of European innovation in mobile learning. The authors identify context as a central construct in European researchers’ conceptualizations of mobile learning and examine theories of learning for the mobile world, based on physical, technological, conceptual, social and temporal mobility. The authors also examine the impacts of mobile learning research on educational practices and the implications for policy. Finally, they suggest future challenges for researchers, developers and policy makers in shaping the future of mobile learning

Appropriation of mobile cultural resources for learning

Copyright © 2010 IGI Global. This article proposes appropriation as the key for the recognition of mobile devices - as well as the artefacts accessed through, and produced with them - as cultural resources across different cultural practices of use, in everyday life and formal education. The article analyses the interrelationship of users of mobile devices with the structures, agency and practices of, and in relation to what the authors call the "mobile complex". Two examples are presented and some curricular options for the assimilation of mobile devices into settings of formal learning are discussed. Also, a typology of appropriation is presented that serves as an explanatory, analytical frame and starting point for a discussion about attendant issues

Location-based technologies for learning

Emerging technologies for learning report - Article exploring location based technologies and their potential for educatio

Context at the Crossroads of Language Learning and Mobile Learning

Contextual learning is the next step in the development of pedagogy in relation to mobile and ubiquitous technologies. The question addressed in this paper is whether research on 'context' within second language learning, and in the language sciences more broadly, can inform the development of the notion of context in research on technology-enhanced learning and mobile learning. As researchers in mobile assisted language learning, we stand at the crossroads of these disciplines. In this paper, we indicate the main sources and research directions that inform our work; we share our observations and propose some tentative conclusions

mLearning Journeys: Redesigning Teaching for mLearning

Abstract: The excitement surrounding the potential of web2.0 tools within education has continued to grow. While almost everyone has now heard of PODCasting and YouTube, there are many more examples of social networking and content sharing tools that can be harnessed for education. Recently Twitter (microblogging) has been popularised by the media, with a reported explosive growth rate (uptake by new users) of 1500% during early 2009. While this illustrates that there is undoubtedly phenomenal interest in web2.0, there are still few concrete examples illustrating how to integrate these tools using an explicitly social constructivist pedagogical model within contemporary tertiary education environments. This paper describes the purposeful integration of web2.0 and mobile web2.0 tools within a first year Bachelor of Product Design programme, based upon an under-pinning social constructivist pedagogy. Examples of the use of several web2.0 tools that support the development of collaborative student-centred learning environments are given. Initial feedback from lecturers and students are also reported

Conclusions: Future Directions in Researching Mobile Learning

Mobile learning is in the process of developing its identity as a distinct field of research with particular concerns and challenges. What can researchers learn from neighbouring disciplines and how can they harness new techniques and technologies, to smooth the way for their research efforts? On the basis of an analysis of key messages and reflections from those conducting mobile learning research, the author proposes four generic principles that can guide future research in mobile learning. The chapter also points to new directions in mobile learning research within the broader research agenda of Technology Enhanced Learning. These indicative directions should be helpful to all involved in setting future agendas for mobile learning research and development

What did the Romans ever do for us? ‘Next generation’ networks and hybrid learning resources

Networked learning is fundamentally concerned with the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to link people to people and resources, to support the process of learning. This paper explores some current and forthcoming changes in ICT and some potential implications of these developments for networked learning. Whilst we aim to avoid taking a technologically determinist stance, we explore the potential for future practice and how some educational and pedagogic practices are evolving to exploit and shape the digital environment. We argue that we can change both the ways in which connections between people (learners and other learners; learners and tutors) are made and the nature of the resources that learning communities (particularly distributed communities) can engage with. In doing this we draw on two strands of work. Firstly, we draw on the ‘IBZL Education’ a UK Open University initiative to develop new scholarship in the context of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) through which educators are encouraged to think about technological change in the next five to ten years and ways in which we can intervene and shape these developments. We use problem-based learning as an example of a learning experience that can be difficult to implement in a networked learning environment. IBZL identified two broad strands of significant technological development. 'Superfast' broadband networks that are capable of supporting novel applications are being rolled in the UK (and elsewhere). Also, boundaries between the real and virtual worlds are becoming blurred as in the ‘internet of things’ where, for example, RFID tags enable information about the real world to be brought into the virtual one. We use the term ‘artefact’ to describe designed components, whether entirely digital, such as a computer forum, or material, such as a tablet PC. Networked ‘hybrid’ technologies of virtual and material components have may great potential for use in education. Secondly, we illustrate how these changes may be beginning to happen in distance education using the example of TU100 My Digital Life, a new introductory Open University. . TU100 Students use an electronics board in their own homes to work on a programming problem in collaboration other students through a tutor-led tutorial in a web conferencing system. We also note some of the evident complexity that establishing such resources as part of wider infrastructures of networked learning would be likely to involve