mobile learning & commuting

Contextual Inquiry and Design of MobileScenarios

Eva Patrícia Gil Rodríguezegilrod@uoc.eduPablo Rebaque Rivasprebaque@uoc.edu

Learning Technologies Office

Our university

• more than 50.000 students & 2.000 teachers who teach and learn through a virtual learning environment• learning contents in different formats (xml technology): paper, pdf, web, audiobooks, videobooks, daisy, electronic books…

Introduction

Mobile society From Virtual Learning Environments to Mobile Learning Environtments

Objectives

• understand the needs and requirements of students who undertake on-line learning and use their commuting time to study or do learning-related tasks

• to build m-learning application scenarios, in order to design mobile learning applications useful and friendly, based on the requirements of potential users

State of the Art

reviewing the literature reveals a notable lack of research that examines the use of m-learning in education that is exclusively done on-line and its use by students while commuting

Methodology

in-depth interviews of students and ethnographic observations of their commuting context

Sample

seven students from our university who did some of their learning tasks (reading learning materials, e. g.) in their commuting context on the train, metro or bus

Field Study & Data Analysis

• these commuting journeys were either long (40-45 minutes) or short (20-30 minutes), in the morning or the afternoon

• in-depth interviews in commuting context

• additional observations on the characteristics of the context were noted in a field diary

• the transcriptions of the interviews and the field diary observations were subjected to a content analysis

Results (I)

• the interviewed students saw commuting trips as a study context: this means they study as much while commuting as at home• therefore, study organization and planning take into account all the study contexts, including mobile contexts

• the tasks performed and the variety of materials and devices that can be used to perform these tasks at home are what distinguishes the mobile context from the fixed context

Results (II)

• at home, students have access to paper material for reading (although several students stated they do not read at home) and the PC and/or laptop and netbook with an Internet: they can read learning contents, they can connect to virtual campus and they can do learning activities • while commuting, they only have access to paper, meaning they only read materials (underlining and making notes), although some students jot down preliminary ideas for activities

Results (II)

• what about devices? students were enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by e-books, as long as the devices had a series of characteristics specific for studying, such as the ability to underline and write, having Internet access, and being able to work with more than one document at a time

• in the case of mobile phones, the possibility for Internet access for performing on-line learning activities was very-highly rated, especially because it meant activities such as checking forums, email… and Internet searches, for example, could be done while commuting

Mobile Learning Scenarios

This information was used to define two scenarios: one for short trips of 20 minutes (1) and another for large trips of 45 minutes (2), in which how students could use mobile Internet and electronic-ink devices or tablets as ipad for studying contents, doing communication activities in the virtual campus, etc…

Mobile Learning Scenario 1Xavi is 35 and lives with his partner in Sant Cugat. To get to work he takes a train for 20 minutes from Sant Cugat to Diagonal. He is studying a Business Administration and Management degree to improve professionally. He is in his third semester and is studying 3 subjects. Whilst he waits for the train he accesses the virtual campus from his mobile to check the calendar and to find out what he needs to do for the next activity because he handed one in the night before. He listens to the introduction audio that is on his classroom with the summary and key words and concepts. The lecturer asks students to search for news in the papers relating to the economic crisis and to prepare a group project. He doesn’t understand the information very well, so he writes a message to the lecturer to resolve his doubts. The train arrives, he gets on the middle carriage because it’s normally emptier and there are more seats free. He doesn’t find an empty seat so he leans against the doors which don't open to continue looking at the campus. He looks at the forums of other subjects he is enrolled on, email, study group messages and takes part in a discussion.

Later he puts his headphones on and watches a video that the subject lecturer has uploaded. At work, at lunch-time and after eating, he accesses the campus from his work computer. The lecturer has responded to his query. During the journey home in the evening, from his mobile he connects to internet to search for the news article. He finds a suitable one, downloads it and sends it to his study group. As there is still time before he arrives home, he answers a self-assessment, multiple-choice activity. When he arrives home at 7 o’clock, he reads the theory module he has pending, he begins the assessment activity and discusses the news article with his group.

Mobile Learning Scenario 2Imma is 28 and lives with her partner in Mataró. To get to work she takes a train for 45 minutes from Mataró to Sants. She is studying a bachelor’s degree in Humanities as a hobby. She is in her third semester and has enrolled on 3 subjects. She arrives at the station and 2 minutes later the train arrives. The train is normally fairly empty so she can sit down. She gets out her e-book, which she always puts in her briefcase the night before. She has downloaded all the open content on UOC, the materials of subjects she is enrolled on this year and subjects from previous semesters. Using the e-book she connects to the internet and checks the schedule for a subject. She downloads the questions for the assessment activity and starts to read them. She opens the subject to read it (whilst she underlines, makes notes and marks the points which will be useful for the assessed activity) and at the same time has a blank document open for making brief outlines. A concept comes up that she doesn’t understand and she searches on the e-book for a subject from the previous semester. Another query comes up and she consults the forum to see if they can solve it for her. During the return journey she also finds an empty seat although the carriage is fuller.

She is tired so instead of reading she searches the internet. For the new assessment activity she needs to consult more bibliography and searches the UOC’s open content to see if the bibliography is there. She also searches on Google scholar. She finds 3 documents that will be useful and downloads them to be able to read them the following day on her morning commute. She does a self-assessment test. When she arrives home, thanks to what she has read in the morning she can begin to do the assessment activity following the outline she prepared during the journey.

Some mobile learning projects in progress (I)

• e-book’s• ipad’s• mobile applications (both web and native applications)

Some mobile learning projects in progress (II)

Mobile phone applications:

Some mobile learning projects in progress (III)

e-book:

Some mobile learning projects in progress (III)

ipad:

Questions?

Thank you very much!

Eva Patrícia Gil Rodríguezegilrod@uoc.eduPablo Rebaque Rivasprebaque@uoc.edu

Learning Technologies Office