Fallahkhair, Sanaz

Marcus, W.

Pemberton, L.

English

Name not available

A user created content approach to mobile knowledge sharing for advanced language learners

Portsmouth University Research Portal (Pure)

A User Created Content Approach to Mobile Knowledge 
Sharing for Advanced Language learners 
Lyn Pemberton 
Marcus Winter  
Sanaz Fallahkhair 
 
University of Brighton, School of Computing, Mathematical and Information 
Sciences, Lewes Rd, Brighton BN1 8EJ 
 
 
ABSTRACT 
Mobile and ubiquitous learning technologies hold out great promise for students of foreign languages who are resident in 
a target language country, since they can be used in the contexts in which the language learner needs to use his/her 
language skills for deploying or interpreting language.  The CloudBank project aims to integrate a user created content 
paradigm with mobile learning technologies so that language learners can upload, share and comment on interesting 
language items they encounter in everyday life in the target language culture. The mobile application is complemented by 
a Web interface more appropriate for extensive editing and extensive text-based communication, thus combining the 
affordances of the two platforms.   
Author Keywords 
Collaboration, Computer Support for Collaborative Learning, Mobile Learning, Informal Learning, Language Learning 
INTRODUCTION 
Mobile and ubiquitous learning technologies hold out great promise for students of foreign languages since they can be 
used on the “front line,” i.e. in the very contexts in which the language learner needs to use his/her language skills for 
deploying or interpreting language. Kukulska-Hulme and Shield (2007) report on a variety of initiatives to deliver web 
materials via mobile devices, podcasting of language learning materials and vocabulary teaching to mobile phone 
subscribers (Collins, 2005; Levy & Kennedy, 2005; McCarty, 2005; Morita, 2003; Pincas, 2004; Thornton & Houser, 
2005; Trifanova et al, 2004). More radical initiatives that have been mooted involve  learners not merely downloading 
information on their mobile devices, but also contributing their own discoveries. Petersen and Divitini (2004) and 
Kukulska-Hulme et al (2007) point to the potential of such approaches, while Ishikawa et al (2009) have been working 
for several years on encouraging language students to create their own photographic and video content to illustrate 
linguistic items. 
While each learner’s needs and experiences will be different, there will also be many occasions when one learner’s 
experience may be of help or interest to another, especially when learners find themselves in similar contexts, e.g. 
students at a foreign language University. Learners in situations like these may not be enrolled in formal language 
classes. International students, for instance, will typically have a high level of competence in English language, and may 
not feel the need to attend face to face classes. However, they will still be concerned with improving their facility in the 
language and their understanding of the native culture. In this work in progress paper we sketch the user centred design 
of a mobile phone application, CloudBank, that combines social networking and user creation features with mobile phone 
communication and information retrieval functionality to create a collaborative tool to support a community of language 
learners.  
 
SCENARIO BASED DESIGN 
The general impetus for the CloudBank system was to develop a system allowing students to collect, annotate and tag 
interesting or intriguing language and culture-related content found in everyday life, including text, images and other 
media, and to upload these content items to a repository for sharing, and also for editing and discussion via a Web 
interface. The overall architecture of the system initially envisaged is shown in Figure 1. 
In order to ground the design of the system in the reality of its potential users, a scenario based process was used (Rosson 
& Carroll, 2002; Pemberton et al, 2005).  The first stage in this process was to obtain a solid understanding of our user 
group, in this case International students at our home institution. We set up two user groups, a larger group (11 
participants), who are consulted  approximately every six weeks on issues of functionality, terminology and so on, and a 
core group of a further six users, who are consulted more frequently on issues of detailed interaction design. The 
participants were recruited by email and via the tutor for a pre-sessional English class. Between them the groups consist 
 of  eight postgraduate and nine undergraduate students, with ten different first languages. There are seven female and ten 
male participants. 
From meetings and questionnaire study with the student groups, we developed four personas, to represent the user 
population throughout the design.  As far as possible, characteristics that might influence attitudes to and take up of the 
proposed system were integrated into the persona design, summarised in Table 1. 
 
 
Figure 1: System architecture 
 
 
 
Manuela Brazilian, female, art history, undergraduate student, moderate 
use of English language social networking sites, moderate  
phone user 
Khalil Jordanian, male, masters student, engineering student, high use 
of English language social networking sites, high end phone 
user 
“Maggie” (anglicised chosen name), Chinese, undergraduate, interior 
design student, uses Chinese social networking site, basic phone 
user 
Keichi Japanese, male, masters student, international marketing studies, 
does not use social networking sites, high end phone user.  
  
Table One: Personas with selection of features 
 
On the basis of these personas, user scenarios were constructed to illustrate the possible uses to which the system might 
be put in different contexts, e.g. social, academic, outdoor. User scenarios have a number of uses in the design process. 
They can simply be used as a representation of the system for the design and development team, to ensure they share the 
vision of the system. They are also useful in communicating this vision to potential users, as for instance in our user 
group sessions, where they can make concrete what might otherwise appear to be a rather nebulous set of concepts. In 
this way, users can feel confident about commenting on proposed functionality and suggesting refinements and additions.   
The use of the scenarios is an evolving process within the project. An initial version was devised simply to ground the 
design, without direct user consultation.  
 
Khalil is Jordanian student at the University of Brighton. He is in the Student Union watching a football game 
with some English friends. A goal is scored and there is much hilarity over the goalkeeper being 
nutmegged. Khalil cannot make sense of this: there’s not much connection with the nutmegs of his experience, 
which are used in cooking. He asks his UK friends what it means to be nutmegged. They explain that it means 
the striker played the ball through the keeper's legs. Khalil thinks other non-native speakers may be interested in 
this new nugget of knowledge. He gets out his Android G1 phone, starts the CloudBank app and keys in “to 
nutmeg: in football: to play through an opponent's legs”, tagging the entry with “nutmeg” and “football”. For 
 
good measure he also records an English friend pronouncing the word, and adds the recording to the entry, 
before sending it to the CloudBank cloud. 
 
This same evening, Keichi, a Japanese student, reads the new item about the term to nutmeg through the 
CloudBank RSS feed on his profile page. By chance he’s just been watching a video clip of the goal from 
tonight’s match. He logs onto the CloudBank community portal, searches for the nutmeg entry, and adds a 
reference to the video clip, so that others can get a better understanding of what it means to be nutmegged. 
 
This first scenario, once agreed by the design team and funders, was then used to present some of the proposed 
functionality to the student users, whose comments t gave the material for developing personas and then further scenarios 
for different personas and contexts.  For instance, other users, rather than uploading a known phrase and recording, might 
type in a phrase they don’t understand, photograph an interesting bit of signage, record an unusual local accent or video 
an interesting interaction. Using multiple scenarios rather than a single one can be effective in widening the appeal of the 
system to a range of users. For instance, one of our users stated that they could not imagine themselves in a scenario that 
involved watching football in a pub. However, this did appeal to other participants. Providing a range of scenarios gives a 
greater chance that each user will find a situation to identify with. An interesting and rather challenging initial finding has 
been that scenarios illustrating information retrieval aspects of the system, i.e. looking up a word or phrase that someone 
else has contributed, are much more readily grasped than scenarios in which users contribute to a common knowledge 
base.   
 
FUTURE WORK 
The application is currently approaching its first working prototype stage. The prototype, designed for Google Android 
phones, will be trialled by members of the core user group, who will be asked to upload and comment on language items 
over several weeks. Their feedback will be used to design an enhanced version of the software. If the short term project is 
successful we would expect it to be incorporated into the local learning environment (a Blackboard/Elgg construct) and 
for it to become part of the learning experience of all ESL students. The application will be trialled in our home 
institution in the UK, but clearly has the potential to become used on a national basis. Given the connectedness of the 
modern student, it would be unusual and disappointing if this spread to other campuses were not to happen naturally. Its 
use could be extended to other languages, to learners “listening in” from their own countries or to other shorter term 
settings where people need to be able to share knowledge about specialised language. For instance, conferences, 
University induction weeks and other such occasions might be situations where sharing knowledge in this way via mobile 
devices would be of use. 
  
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
The CloudBank project is funded under the JISC Rapid Innovation Programme. 
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A Handbook for Educators and Trainers. London: Taylor and

An Overview of Mobile Assisted Language Learning: Can mobile devices support collaborative practice in speaking and listening? EuroCALL

Designed and User-generated Activity in the Mobile Age,

Development of a cross-platform ubiquitous language learning service via mobile phone and interactive television.

English Class on the air: Mobile Language Learning with Cell Phones,

Haruko Miyakoda, Norihide Shinagawa: Automatic Creation of Materials for Vocabulary Learning based on Pictures by Mobile Phones of Learners,

Language Learning: From Individual Learners to

Learner Centred Development of Cross Platform Language Learning Support System,

Learning Italian via mobile SMS.

Mobile ELDIT: Challenges in the transitions from an elearning to an m-learning system.

The Mobile Based Learning (MBL)

Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human Computer Interaction.

Using mobile phones in English education in Japan.

A user created content approach to mobile knowledge sharing for advanced language learners

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