Landscape Study in Wireless and Mobile Learning in the post-16 sector

In the post-16 sector (further and higher education, and adult and community learning) there is a need to understand how wireless and mobile technologies can contribute to improving the student experience of learning, and help institutions fulfil their missions in an age of incomparably fast technological change. In the context of this interest and growing need, a Landscape Study project was commissioned by JISC through the Innovation strand of the JISC e-Learning Programme in 2004-5. Our project aims were to take a birds-eye view of developments and practice in the UK and internationally, and to communicate our findings to a broad and varied audience. The Summary report is accompanied by 3 associated reports on 'Current Uses', 'Potential Uses' and 'Strategic Aspects'. (The four reports are available in one single document here.

Wearable and mobile devices

Information and Communication Technologies, known as ICT, have undergone dramatic changes in the last 25 years. The 1980s was the decade of the Personal Computer (PC), which brought computing into the home and, in an educational setting, into the classroom. The 1990s gave us the World Wide Web (the Web), building on the infrastructure of the Internet, which has revolutionized the availability and delivery of information. In the midst of this information revolution, we are now confronted with a third wave of novel technologies (i.e., mobile and wearable computing), where computing devices already are becoming small enough so that we can carry them around at all times, and, in addition, they have the ability to interact with devices embedded in the environment. The development of wearable technology is perhaps a logical product of the convergence between the miniaturization of microchips (nanotechnology) and an increasing interest in pervasive computing, where mobility is the main objective. The miniaturization of computers is largely due to the decreasing size of semiconductors and switches; molecular manufacturing will allow for “not only molecular-scale switches but also nanoscale motors, pumps, pipes, machinery that could mimic skin” (Page, 2003, p. 2). This shift in the size of computers has obvious implications for the human-computer interaction introducing the next generation of interfaces. Neil Gershenfeld, the director of the Media Lab’s Physics and Media Group, argues, “The world is becoming the interface. Computers as distinguishable devices will disappear as the objects themselves become the means we use to interact with both the physical and the virtual worlds” (Page, 2003, p. 3). Ultimately, this will lead to a move away from desktop user interfaces and toward mobile interfaces and pervasive computing

Físchlár on a PDA: handheld user interface design to a video indexing, browsing and playback system

The Físchlár digital video system is a web-based system for recording, analysis, browsing and playback of TV programmes which currently has about 350 users. Although the user interface to the system is designed for desktop PCs with a large screen and a mouse, we are developing versions to allow the use of mobile devices to access the system to record and browse the video content. In this paper, the design of a PDA user interface to video content browsing is considered. We use a design framework we have developed previously to be able to specify various video browsing interface styles thus making it possible to design for all potential users and their various environments. We can then apply this to the particulars of the PDA's small, touch-sensitive screen and the mobile environment where it will be used. The resultant video browsing interfaces have highly interactive interfaces yet are simple, which requires relatively less visual attention and focusing, and can be comfortably used in a mobile situation to browse the available video contents. To date we have developed and tested such interfaces on a Revo PDA, and are in the process of developing others

Emerging technologies for learning (volume 1)

Collection of 5 articles on emerging technologies and trend

Innovation in Mobile Learning: A European Perspective

In the evolving landscape of mobile learning, European researchers have conducted significant mobile learning projects, representing a distinct perspective on mobile learning research and development. Our paper aims to explore how these projects have arisen, showing the driving forces of European innovation in mobile learning. We propose context as a central construct in mobile learning and examine theories of learning for the mobile world, based on physical, technological, conceptual, social and temporal mobility. We also examine the impacts of mobile learning research on educational practices and the implications for policy. Throughout, we identify lessons learnt from European experiences to date

Mobile information access in the real world: A story of three wireless devices

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2008 ElsevierThe importance of the user perspective to the wireless information access experience cannot be understated: simply put, users will not indulge in devices that are perceived to be difficult to use and in technologies that do not offer quality infotainment – combined information and entertainment – content. In this paper, we investigate the impact that mobile devices have on the user wireless infotainment access experience in practice. To this end, we have undertaken an empirical study placed in a ‘real-world’ setting, in which participants undertook typical infotainment access tasks on three different wireless-enabled mobile devices: a laptop, a personal digital assistant and a head mounted display device. Results show that, with the exception of participants’ level of self-consciousness when using such devices in public environments, the user wireless information access experience is generally unaffected by device type. Location was shown, though, to be a significant factor when users engage in tasks such as listening to online music or navigation. Whilst the interaction between device and environment was found to influence entertainment-related tasks in our experiments, the informational ones were not affected. However, the interaction effects between device and user type was found to affect both types of tasks. Lastly, a user’s particular computing experience was shown to influence the perceived ease of wireless information access only in the case of online searching, irrespective of whether this is done for primarily informational purposes or entertainment ones

Designing mobile augmented reality art applications:addressing the views of the galleries and the artists

The utilization of mobile augmented reality to display gallery artworks or museum content in novel ways is a well-established concept in the augmented reality research community. However, the focus of these systems is generally technologically driven or only addresses the end user and not the views of the gallery or the original artist. In this paper we discuss the design and development of the mobile application ?Taking the Artwork Home?, which allows people to digitally curate their own augmented reality art exhibitions in their own homes by digitally ?replacing? the pictures they have on their walls with content from the Peter Scott Gallery in Lancaster. In particular, we present the insights gained from a research through design methodology that allowed us to consider how the views of the gallery and artists impacted on the system design and therefore the user experience. Thus the final artifact is the result of an iterative evaluation process with over 100 users representing a broad range of demographics and continues to be evaluated/enhanced by observing its operation ?in the wild?. Further, we consider the effect the project has had on gallery practices to enable both augmented reality designers, and galleries and museums to maximize the potential application of the technology when working together on such project

Mobile access to personal digital photograph archives

Handheld computing devices are becoming highly connected devices with high capacity storage. This has resulted in their being able to support storage of, and access to, personal photo archives. However the only means for mobile device users to browse such archives is typically a simple one-by-one scroll through image thumbnails in the order that they were taken, or by manually organising them based on folders. In this paper we describe a system for context-based browsing of personal digital photo archives. Photos are labeled with the GPS location and time they are taken and this is used to derive other context-based metadata such as weather conditions and daylight conditions. We present our prototype system for mobile digital photo retrieval, and an experimental evaluation illustrating the utility of location information for effective personal photo retrieval