A theory of Mobile Learning

According to Sharples et al, a theory for mobile learning should be tested against these criteria:
* significantly different from current learning theories
* account for mobility of learners
* cover both formal and informal learning
* theorise learning as constructive and social process
* analyse learning as personal and situated activity mediated by technology

This brings him to a tentative definition of mobile learning as 'the processes of coming to know through conversations across multiple contexts amongst people and personal interactive technologies'. Sharples puts the communicative interaction between learner and technology central. He regards learning as a conversational process of becoming informed about each other's 'informings', whereby the context is not a fixed shell surrounding the learner, but a construct that is shaped by continuously negotiated dialogue.

I like Sharples' notion of convergence of mobile technologies, which would demand a new learning theory and didactics. Look how New Learning and New Technology go hand in hand in this table:

New Learning / New Technology
personalised / personal
learner centered / user centered
situated / mobile
collaborative / networked
ubiquitous / ubiquitous
lifelong / durable

More on a theory of Mobile Learning by Sharples, Taylor & Vavoula next.

Affordances of mobile devices

Lai et al put didactics first by designing the learning script as well as the mobile device to facilitate experiental learning, thereby placing the device between technical setting and pedagogical practice.

This is a fierce move away from Ally-syndrome - they describe learning material as designed from the affordances of the device to be used! Lai tries to tackle the paradox of experiental learning: how can students in an authentic learning context be motivated to learn effectively without any careful design or guidance? In other words: authentic learning also needs a constructed setting and this could be achieved by technical (mobile) support to facilitate learning.

The term affordance originally refers to the relationship between an object's physical properties and the characteristics of a user that enables particular interactions between user and object (Gibson, 1977). In the same vein, educational affordances can be defined as the relationships between the properties of an educational intervention and the characteristics of the learner that enable particular kinds of learning by him or her (Kirschner, 2002).

Mobile technologies offer distinctive educational affordances:
* they 'afford' real-time information whenever, wherever - supporting learning flow and providing learning materials
* they 'afford' a rapid access interface for note & photo taking, for sound & video recording

These two characteristics of the artifact 'on hand' (i.e. a PDA), determine if and how a particular learning behaviour could possibly take place within a given context (Kirschner, 2002).

Will look at attempts by Sharples, Taylor and Vavoula to set up a Mobile Learning Theory next.

Mobility in context

Diana Laurillard has some interesting thoughts on pedagogical implications of mobile technologies. She lists the following intrinsic characteristics:

* Enable knowledge building by learners in different contexts
* Enable learners to construct understandings
* Mobile technology often changes the pattern of learning/work activity
* The context of mobile learning is about more than time and space

The first two characteristics of mobile learning are quite obvious and undisputed. The third and fourth are different and these are exactly the characteristics that relate to my study and the task-artefact cycle. The tool changes the pattern of learning, and ideally, the pattern of learning changes the tool in turn. Actually, the task-artefact cycle (negotiating in context) is the next step from the 'substitution-transition-transfer' threestep.

To see the context of mobile learning as merely a step forward in being able to learn anywhere, anyplace, is not going beyond that threestep (that suited 'regular' e-learning). Mobile learning is also about negotiating the tool used and the pattern of learning, both process and goal. This can go on and on because the possibilities of the tool will keep changing endlessly, adapting to the need of the learning intended. In return, the learning goal will keep changing because more has become possible through the tool used. Mobility in time, space and learning context.

Will discuss the notion of 'affordances' in connection to mobile learning next.

Ben dancing

What a strange night yesterday, Nordic Night in the Cultuurcentrum in Hasselt, Belgium. Have you ever attended a concert where the larger part of the audience didn't know the performers? It seemed that way yesterday.

Not the entire truth. I guess a big part of the audience came to see Jóhann Jóhannsson, who is quite well known outside of Iceland. I was there for Valgeir Sigurðsson & Ben Frost who did just what I expected them to do: make a lot of droning noise and weave in unexpected twisting & turning melodies and rhythms. Music to be felt in your stomach, which was a bit hard to stomach for most people present I guess... Four people in the first row left during their set. Applause was scarce and not very spontaneous. I don't know how these barefooted gentle men keep their concentration up. Because that's what they do, concentrate on the music, communicating through little nods and eye movements that the people right behind me (third row, "do you know any of the names on the bill?") will not even have noticed. I loved watching them.

And Jóhannsson, the top of the bill? It's not meant for me, too ambient, too slick. Not a single word to the audience, no introduction of the musicians, no communication. No respect for the obediently clapping masses. I know I would have preferred to watch Ben 'dancing' on tiptoes for another hour.

Find more pictures here! More info with links to audio and video here.

Edit: just found this on the wonderful blog 'Life's a Pitch':

I am pretty surprised how unaware audience members are of their own responsibility in preparing themselves to possibly have a special experience. (Or their own culpability in undermining it.) The process of opening one's self up to the experience...in my mind it is a kind of "unclenching"...is hard, and getting harder it seems. Helping audience members understand that they need to meet an artist half way is a start.

Yes, couldn't agree more. Source

Mobile Learning SIG

I'm starting to think I could spend the entire 120 hours for this particular master course on reading only - and then I still would have covered only a part of the available relevant literature. I bet the minute I'm typing this, somebody somewhere is submitting a report to a journal or uploading an article online that I cannot afford to omit in my study.

Last week I came across this SIG (Special Interest Group) on Mobile Learning, called Kaleidoscope. How come I didn't find out before? Anyway, they put out this 'Report on literature on mobile learning, science and collaborative activity' (main author Giasemi Vavoula), which means another 100 pages to read... Not to mention the 'CSCL Alpine Rendez-Vous' they organised, with (among other stuff) a 100 pages manual to a workshop called 'Beyond Mobile Learning'. All of these written by the best on mobile learning, I've come to recognise their names.

So I'm suffering from information overload and could do with a word from my coach. Christian, where are you? I need some guidance here to find a red thread, a theme to work on.

I am not being entirely honest here. I didn't just stumble upon the SIG. In my initial list of reports on mobile learning projects, there was one article about adult learners, dealing with 'intentional informal learning'. This means that the learning process and the learning goal are explicitly learner defined (within informal learning). A matrix to visualise a typology of learning as introduced by Vavoula was shown and this caught my attention.

Vavoula uses three types of learning:
intentional, formal learning - process and goal are explicitly teacher defined
intentional, informal learning - process and goal are explicitly learner defined
unintentional, informal learning - process is non-prescribed, goal is unspecified

I'm taking this a bit further next and hope to catch some important papers on this issue from the Kaleidscope SIG.

Transition or merely substitution - again

Upon reading through the various articles on mobile learning studies, it struck me how many still suffer from what I would call 'Ally-syndrome'. Mohamed Ally (Athabasca Uni, Canada) talks/writes about the benefits of transition when it comes to mobile learning but his many examples of accomplished projects show merely substitution of existing didactic materials onto a mobile medium.

I do like Ally's 'aspects of mobile learning', that seem to hint in the direction of a separate mobile didactic. Those aspects in ascending order of complexity:
object (using buttons)
linearity (putting things in order)
support
update (keeping track)
construct
reflective
simulation
hyperlinked (synthesise information)
non-immersive contextual
immersive contextual (virtual)

And so again I found mentions like 'for courses that offer Web-based materials, redesigning is necessary if they are to be accessed by mobile devices' (Thornton & Houser, 2005). Redesigning is substitution, from Web-based materials to mobile devices as much as from books to Web-based materials. Mobile learning is about more than just changing the medium. It could provide a starting point for a different view on learning and teaching.

Oh, and by the way - the concert last Wednesday was absolutely brilliant! Loved that world premiere of 'Impossible Things', you could hear a pin drop through all the 30 minutes of it, mesmerising and powerful stuff.

Britten in America

A little diversion...

"A programme of music from both sides of the Atlantic that delves into the subtle and rich sonorities of strings and voice. This concert offers a rare opportunity to hear celebrated tenor, Mark Padmore paired with the exuberant and imaginative violinist Pekka Kuusisto in a new work by Nico Muhly. A protégé of Philip Glass, Nico Muhly is gaining a reputation as being one of the most impressive innovators of new music, effortlessly crossing the boundaries between classical and pop.(...)" Source

So looking forward to seeing Nico Muhly for the third time in just over two months! And in the beautiful Muziekcentrum in Eindhoven again (less than an hour's drive away), where Nico is composer-in-residence for a few years. More info here!