Handheld Learning 2009

Monday 5th - 11:00 - 17:00 - Upper Sugar Room

Facilitated by Andy Black, Technology Research Manager, Becta

A series of inspiring presentations demonstrating best practice of how learning and teaching is being transformed to make it a more exciting, rewarding and successful experience for people of all ages and abilities with presentations by:

11:00 - Dawn Hallybone, Senior Teacher/ICT Co-ordinator, Oakdale Junior School, England - "Consoles in the classroom"

Looking at the way we have incorported using the Nintendo Ds in school, 30 consoloes over 340 children using programmes such as Dr K Brain training and Professor Layton. As a way of engaging, and inspiring children across a range of curriculum areas, Literacy, maths, Geography, Design and team work. How we have incorporated the use of Pictochat as a means of communicating ideas. We also use games via the Web such at tut pup and moshi monsters and how all these games have a real impact on both the motivation and engagement of pupils. We have also used a tool to encourage and model good behaviour as well as discussing their use in school with the children for discursive writing and enabling them to create their own games. We use across the school age 7 - 11 as well as running clubs. We are also part of a small network in the borough who from September are looking at COTS games on the Wii as a contextual hub for writing as well as improving fine motor skils of those children with dyspraxic tendency with the use of the wii fit. The consoles are now part of life in school and will be demonstrating how this use has had an impact on life in school.

11:25 - Victoria Owen, Project Officer, Liverpool John Moores University, England - “Roving Librarians – mobile freedom in the stacks!”

This paper will report upon the findings of a small research project investigating how library support in Higher Education can become more mobile and flexible. At Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) the library service has recently undergone a radical transformation which has been informed by a student experience review group. The recommendations of the group included making all student support services available in a single space and making enquiry and referral services easier to locate and access. Subsequently, ‘roving’ library support has become a feature of LJMU’s library services, whereby library staff are available on the floors of the library to answer or refer any queries that users may have. This initiative sits alongside the repurposing of the library enquiry desks so that staff are more proactive in answering queries, going to the user rather than the user having to go to them. Therefore, as part of a mobile learning project, librarians have now been equipped with iPod Touches, LG Notebooks and Asus EEEPCs in order that they may take the technology with them when they are roving and supporting students. The project objectives are to ascertain the experience of both the user and the librarian in using these technologies for such purposes, considering the effectiveness and efficiency of services being delivered in this way. The paper will present the final findings of the project based on qualitative evidence taken from librarian focus groups and survey results.

11:50 - Philip Griffin, Y6 Teacher, Radstock Primary School, United Kingdom - “Technology v Pedagogy”

This is the title of an article for ICTopus which is almost complete and which is aimed for publication in the Autumn. It is also the title of talk to be given at the NAPE conference in the Autumn of 2009 and might also be seen as suitable for one of the Handheld Learning sessions. Based on classroom experience, the article discusses how both pedagogy and technology have changed in the last quarter of a century and some of the conflicts that this has created. It argues that without a clear pedagogy the use of technology in the classroom does not make the best use of its full potential. However, the technology, and especially handheld rather than laptop technology can allow for creative, collaborative and cooperative experiences for learners, which not only develop their abilities but also increase their efficacy as learners. Through examples of projects completed by learners in his class, through Handheld devices and the Learning Platform, some of the pitfalls and possibilities for the future will be illustrated.

12:15 - Paul Hodgkinson, Co-ordinating Officer, ITSS (Durham County Council), United Kingdom - “24/7 Learning with families”

24/7 Family Learning A unique study of collaboration featuring parents and their children learning together. In this study project parents and children experience reversed roles in an imaginative programme designed to put technology at the heart of learning and teaching. In County Durham staff from the Education in the Community team worked with the Information & Technical Support Service to deliver a remarkable experiment into the impact of hand held learning. This ground breaking project introduced families to the world of learning with mobile technology, with parents and children working together in the school.. Mums, dads and grandparents were provided with a Samsung Q1 UMPC and worked alongside one another for the duration of a 4 week ICT course. It soon became evident that parents and children became, “both learners and teachers in the same classroom” as they explored the devices and developed skills that will enable them in the future to benefit from ever improving technology. The study was based upon an assumption that the reported benefits of parental engagement on children’s achievement could be mutually beneficial to parents. The aims of the project were: – create opportunities for families to learn together in a supported and non threatening environment and encourage positive interaction and talk between parents and children – for family members to be familiar with mobile technology and develop technological skills, which will enhance life chances.

12:40 - Joyce Ness, Education Consultant, RM Education, United Kingdom - “One size doesn't fit all”

Imagine this - you go into your kitchen to make a snack, have a drink, maybe do some washing, and why not bake a cake for later? Would you expect there to be just one machine that does all this? Is it a chore using all these machines simultaneously? No, it\'s a synchronised choreography between you and the technology to enable you to achieve the results you require in the most efficient and enjoyable way. How does this relate to handheld learning? Building on last year\'s success with PSP gaming consoles, Leeds schools have been running projects using a variety of different mobile devices. This presentation will demonstrate how these devices have been used to enhance the learner experience, but will also highlight that there is no one device that meets all needs. And why should there be? Having a variety of relatively low-cost devices allows for flexibility, differentiation, engagement and enjoyment. It also allows you to keep up to date with new and exciting technologies, giving many opportunities for your students to make their own choices about how, when and where they learn. We have found in Leeds that giving students access to a variety of devices supports their creativity and allows teachers to plan lessons which take into consideration many different learning styles.

13:05 - Katrina Smith, School Improvement Facilitator for/Head of ICT, Priory School Business & Enterprise College and Leading Edge School, England - “Handheld devices to enhance learning and teaching”

The presentation will examine the finding from an investigation intot he value of MP3/MP4 handheld devices to assist with teaching and learning. Students worked with various departments to create revision or learning resources in a format of their choice. We will explain what went well and some of the things we would do differently. You will see interviews with students explaining how they created materials, used the devices and how useful they found the whole experience. The presentation will include some examples of the wide variety of resources created for various subject areas.

13:30 - Adam Blackwood, E-Advisor, JISC RSC South East, England - “Transforming Engagement with Proximity Communication”

Communications with students can be very significantly enhanced through the appropriate use of proximity communication solutions. The potential for this technology to impact positively in supporting students has to be examined. The presentation looks at approaches to transforming communications between an educational organisation and its students through the use of proximity communication solutions. These applications work very effectively for commercial marketing solutions to target interested groups. The same technologies can be used to interact with any user’s personal mobile device and some companies are beginning to look at the educational solutions. The potential is exciting, allowing a tutor to send files to their class wherever and ‘whenever’ they happen to be on the campus. A student who has missed a day can arrive on campus and automatically be pushed the latest assignment or course resource to their mobile device without ever having to make contact with their tutor or connect to the network. And usefully, the tutor can see which students have received the communications. A library could notify specific curriculum areas about new resources and a student registering for a new course would find their phone calendar automatically populated with the course assignment dates, term dates and college or university event dates.

13:55 - Aidan Prior, Director of Educational Links, Steljes Limited, United Kingdom - “Safely bridging the digital divide”

The IT industry is being urged to bridge the digital divide to enable to Government to implement the Home Access program. Providing internet access to families raises social, financial and technological issues for suppliers and users alike. Steljes Limited, a pioneering supplier of education technology, has worked for many years within mobile learning sector leading the the development of Tibboh - the first service to offer safe,secure,age appropriate, mobile internet content for children and their families. Aidan Prior, Director of Education Links, will present the issues surrounding development of age appropriate mobile internet connectivity and the solutions developed to resolve the social, financial and technological issues.

14:20 - Richard Scullin, Founder, MobileEd.org, United States - “mLearning in the cloud: a drop(.io) in the bucket”

This short paper/presentation presents two mobile learning pilot programs, one for an English class at an arts and technology charter school, and one for a digital arts class at liberal arts college. Both institutions are located in Massachusetts (US). The goal of the pilots was to prove efficacy of mobiles as complements to core curriculum in the respective school programs. In neither case had a mobile device been used in the coursework of the class. As cloud computing becomes a dominant factor in emerging technologies and business models in the US, these mobile learning pilot programs seek to utilise emerging cloud resources to create blended learning opportunities, ones that cross traditional distinctions among mobile, online/web, classroom. The program also explores how students collaborate to in essence mash up images and content to create new aesthetics, imagery, and content. The lessons ask the students to engage in mobility: creative decision making (image selection and image making, photography), language (argumentative, expository, response, personal narrative), and technological literacy (mobile technology, drop.io site functionality, LBS, mapping, etc.). Perhaps most notable, students collaborated to (re)create new content and redefine texts, forging new relevancy of collaborative media. Both mobile projects combine visual and language learning elements.

14:45 - Shawn Gross, Project Director, Project K-Nect, United States - “Mobile Phones for Math and Science”

Overview of Project K-Nect: Until the implementation of Project K-Nect, the use of mobile phones leveraging 3G (broadband wireless) technologies had never been tested in an authentic US K-12 educational setting. Project K-Nect was designed to create a supplemental resource for secondary at-risk students to focus on increasing their skills related to math and science. Participating students received Smartphones with access to supplemental content aligned to their teacher’s current lesson plan objectives. Students were also able to communicate and collaborate with each other and/or access tutors after school to assist with mastering a targeted skill set utilizing a mobile education based social networking system. The system only allows authorized users to communicate electronically and was monitored to ensure students were not violating acceptable use policies. Overview of Presentation: This presentation will provide a hands on demonstration of the technologies utilized by participating students in Project K-Nect. Furthermore, third party research regarding the utilization and efficacy of the Project will be presented. Finally, the Project Director will provide recommendations to future organizations seeking to embark upon the development of a mobile learning initiative.

15:10 - Gavin Cooney, CEO, Learnosity, Ireland - “Use of mobile phones for language learning”

In 2007, in an attempt to promote the use of oral Irish language, the Irish Minister for Education and Science announced a significant change to the proportion of marks awarded for spoken Irish language in the State examinations. Further to this, Learnosity worked as technology partner in an exciting mobile learning project initiated by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). This project was very successful, and continued in the 2008/2009 academic year. With oral language fluency of the utmost importance to secondary language acquisition, this project focused on verbal abilities, allowing students to use any phone to dial into a voice application, and answer a series of voice-based questions. It also enables students to communicate one-to-one in real time (using voice or text), allowing them to use the target language in role-plays based on real life scenarios. This mobile language learning platform has since been deployed in a large scale pilot project conducted by the Australian government, in the teaching and learning of the Indonesian language across three Australian states. Students involved in this project showed significant improvements in spoken language abilities. The results of this project (http://bit.ly/tlf-mall) will be outlined in the presentation, as well as preliminary findings from various additional deployments in Ireland, Saudi Arabia, the US, and the Open University (UK).

15:35 - Derrick Welsh, Artist - "Cellphone touch screens to bring drawing messages?"

Derrick will talk about my past and current projects using touch screen hand held devices to draw on. Now a few nice words from Dr. Steve Bunce, Secondary Strategy ICT and Behaviour and Attendance Consultant. Derrick has inspired and engaged students to be creative using mobile technologies. Recently, he worked with a group of 12-13 year old students, introducing them to a range of devices, including mobile phones, mobile tablets, Nintendo DS and DSi consoles. The students were not only extremely keen, but took to using them straight away. The activities harnessed the technology, which was familiar to them, giving them a real and relevant purpose to create artwork. The students commented, “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that with a phone.” Also, after the session, “it was brilliant to use mobile phones to do art.” The activities were further enhanced by using Nintendo Wii consoles to create ‘big’ artwork, displayed by using digital projectors. They utilized a little-known feature of the console to ‘paint’ large images. Personally, I was amazed at the engagement and creativity of the students with Derrick. We are really keen to continue this work to aid the students to demonstrate their artistic skills, some of whom have never shown the ability before. Derrick’s input, ideas and use of technology had an immediate and valuable effect on our students.

16:00 - Nick Short, Royal Veterinary College, London - "Androids for Africa"

Mobile phones are increasingly being used in the developing world as the principle form of long distance communication. With improved bandwidth and coverage, cheaper handsets and a range of tariffs, mobiles are becoming affordable and accessible even the remoter rural areas. In East Africa mobile phones exceeds are now widely used to support health care services. For example Google.org has teamed up with the Grameen Bank to provide access to SMS healthcare advice in Uganda. In Malawihealth workers are able to keep in touch with patients using a text based services called Frontline SMS.

Animal health is also crucial to many rural communities. In Tanzania, the Royal Veterinary College has been working with aid projects and government services to explore the potential of mobile devices. By using the GPS geo-spatial functionality of the newer smart phones it is now possible to accurately track the spread of diseases such as avian flu. Working with the Google Android platform, the team have now developed a set of phone based forms which can capture and transmit key disease data to a central server.

An exciting new development in the use of Android phones has been the development of podcasts and videocasts which field workers can consult for expert back up. These are being recorded in the Swahili and will be available either for download or on a mobile SD card. This approach has the potential to revolutionise the access to knowledge in rural areas and could benefit health and education workers as well as the veterinary sector.

16:25 - Louise Duncan, Leading Teacher / eLearning Co-ordinator, Shepparton High School, Australia – "Essential ingredients for the successful implementation of mobile learning"

With more than 12 months of experience using the iPod touch in a 1 - to - 1 capacity in the classroom to share, this presentation draws together the teaching, learning and management issues encompassing this mobile learning project. Stemming from the implementation of a specialised personalising learning program for middle years students at Shepparton High School in Australia and our adoption of the Studywiz LMS across the school, our involvement in the Global Mobile Learning Project was a natural progression. With our students immersed in an ICT rich learning environment and encouraged to learn independently based on their preferred learning styles, the addition of a personalised mobile device for each student has further transformed the classroom experience and beyond. With the iPod touch in student hands only a few weeks after the iTunes App store opened in 2008, our own personalised mobile learning interface incorporated and ubiquitous access to a very ‘cool’ device in student esteem, mobile learning is now assimilated into our curriculum. The question of portability vs mobility in learning is explored, along with the tools, resources and structures adopted to make this approach to mobile learning a success.