Smartphones give you wings: pedagogical affordances of mobile Web 2.0

Built on the foundation of four years of research and implementation of mobile learning projects (mlearning), this paper provides an overview of the potential of the integration of mobile web 2.0 tools (based around smartphones) to facilitate social constructivist pedagogies and engage students in tertiary education. Pedagogical affordances of mobile web 2.0 tools are evaluated, and student usage and feedback is outlined via an interactive multimedia timeline (using YouTube videos) illustrating how these mobile web 2.0 pedagogical affordances have transformed pedagogy and facilitated student engagement in a variety of course contexts. A rubric for evaluating appropriate smartphone choices is provided, and a model for implementing mobile web 2.0 pedagogical integration is presented. Keywords: mlearning, mobile web 2.0

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

Strategies for mlearning integration : evaluating a case study of staging and scaffolding mlearning integration across a three-year bachelor’s degree

This paper outlines the third iteration of integrating mobile web 2.0 within a Bachelors level course. An analysis and comparison of the impact of mobile web 2.0 across all three years of the 2009 course enables the development of implementation strategies that can be used to integrate mlearning into other tertiary courses, and inform the design of further Product Design mlearning integration iterations

mLearning journey

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 poster 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

Reflections on 3 years of mlearning implementation (2007-2009)

This paper discusses the implications of 3 years of action research mlearning projects investigating the potential of mobile web 2.0 tools to facilitate social constructivist learning environments across multiple learning contexts. Highlighted are the design framework, identified critical success factors, and implementation strategy developed from the thirteen mlearning projects undertaken between 2007 and 2009. The projects encompassed five different courses, forming five case studies spanning from one to three years of implementation and refinement. KEYWORDS Mlearning, web 2.0, social constructivism

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

A mobile learning journey: Or "A tale of two academics' pedagogical partnership"

Today, less than a billion people have access to computers, whereas around four billion people have access to mobile phones. At the same time, the nature of the Internet has been undergoing a revolution labelled ‘web 2.0’. Most web 2.0 tools are also designed to be mobile friendly, allowing reading and updating of web 2.0 content from mobile phones, and also featuring enhanced mobile affordances such as photo and video blogging (from cameraphones), and geotagging (from GPS equipped smartphones). Hence mobile web 2.0 provides a platform for wider access than traditional computing that is context independent, facilitating ‘authentic’ learning environments (A. Herrington & Herrington, 2007, 2006; Jan Herrington, Herrington, Mantei, Olney, & Ferry, 2009) beyond the boundaries of the traditional tertiary classroom. Thus mobile learning (mlearning) presents vast potential for appropriation within tertiary education. This paper presents an academics journey into the use and appropriation of mlearning within their teaching practice. This journey is based upon a four year research project into the potential of mobile web 2.0 (Cochrane, Flitta, & Bateman, 2009). Critical incidents along this journey are identified and examples given of how mobile web 2.0 has been integrated into the academics lifestyles and pedagogical toolkits. The paper outlines the significant events in the pedagogical development of two academics over this period of four years. Critical Incident Analysis is used to identify significant ‘eureka’ moments for the participants in their mlearning (mobile learning) journeys. Several ‘lenses’ are used to bring into focus themes that emerge upon reflection over this period, including: Communities Of Practice, the Social Construction of Technology, Actor Network Theory, Activity Theory, and Social Constructivism. The symbiotic relationship developed between the academic advisor (technology steward) and the academic teaching staff has proven a rich environment for harnessing educational technology to design social constructivist learning environments for different groups of tertiary students. It is hoped the insights gained will be useful for other academic staff wanting to implement pedagogical innovation, and for professional development staff seeking insights for facilitating academics to integrate educational technology into their pedagogies

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

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

Facilitating social constructivist learning environments for product design Students using social software (Web2) and wireless mobile device.

It is well understood and has been well documented that there is much to gain by using social software in creating collaborative learning communities. However little is known about using a context independent interactive collaborative environment with an emphasis upon sharing, ease of use, customization and personal publishing (MobileWeb2). This paper describes an innovative and integrated MobileWeb2 technology in a product design live project setting, that assists product designers to solve a real problem to serve a real client. Students and teaching staff use a smartphone to capture design decisions and prototypes and collate and share these via an online eportfolio. From the data collected from staff/students surveys it was found that this method provided a stimulating collaborative environment that develops personal skill to bring out their latent creativity in such a way that these will become part of their project. Opportunities for mobile web2 product design projects are outlined. The logistics of providing access to appropriate hardware and software for all students are also discussed