Week 4: What Constitutes “Good” M-Learning?

Argument for M-learning

What Constitutes “Good” M-Learning?

How can educators use the new technology of mobile learning to create learning activities for their students?  This question is one that teachers can easily learn by studying the functionalities of their own smartphones.  Educators can learn to embrace what mobile learning apps can do to enhance learning in their classrooms.  Many educators today frown upon mobile usage in their classrooms as distractors that disrupt the flow of instruction.  If educators learn the capacity, utility, and integrative goodies that mobile learning can produce that does not necessarily need be the case.  According to a Pew Research study, “Six in ten Americans go online wirelessly using a laptop or cell phone; African-Americans and 18-29 year olds lead the way in the use of cell phone data applications, but older adults are gaining ground” (Smith, 2010).    

Even with increasing numbers of investigative studies, there are still significant gaps in the literature (Litchfield et al., 2007). Little is understood about when m-technology is most useful and what constitutes good m-learning.

(Anderson & Stead as cited in Koszalka and Ntloedibe-Kuswani, 2010) posit, “Using m-technologies in instructionally sound ways offers two advantages…M-technologies can effectively bring community instructional resources and activities from the outside into the classroom, bringing similar benefits to those that were seen when computer technologies were first integrated into classroom settings” (pp. 140 – 141).

(Facer et al., 2004; Sprake & Rogers, 2006; Williams, Jones, Fleuri ot, & Wood, 2005 as cited in Koszalka & Ntloedibe-Kuswani, 2010) report, M-technologies such as Smartphone are portable and connective by their very nature; thus, they can easily provide learners with resources and new types of instructional activities ‘out’ of the classroom and into the community. 

I concur; for example, a science teacher could easily integrate into a lab lesson into the curriculum that takes advantage of the portability and connectedness capability of Smartphones by having students research, identify, and categorizing and listing photographs they take, let us say, of dry rot in trees in their neighborhoods.  Another use I can think about for using Smartphone technology is to download apps such as “Popplet” that is a tool for the iPad and web to visually capture and organize your ideas.  It is used in the classroom, at home, or in the office.  It is an excellent tool to teach literacy-writing skills.   

As you can see M-learning is the new dimension of technology learning tools inside and especially outside the classroom.  M-learning devices such as Smartphones and some cameras such as my Samsung Galaxy NX300 have the capacity to create and connect learning whereby learners become less consumers of information and more collaborators, researchers, and publishers on-the-go (Stead, 2006 as cited in Smith, 2010).  

Always Ready to Share Your Memories

According to Samsung NX300 website, users can connect to their world—and to their smart devices. A dedicated Direct Link hot key lets the user quickly and wirelessly send images to a mobile phone, tablet, PC or Smart HDTV—directly from this camera. It is perfect for sharing moments with friends, family, and your favorite social networks. The Samsung NX300 also includes Dual band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) support so you can connect faster and with more stability to wireless networks around you.

 

References

 

Best Buy. (n.d.).  Samsung NX300 Digital Compact Camera.  Retrieved from http://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-nx300-20-3-megapixel-digital-compact-system-camera-with-20-50mm-lens-white/8660103.p?id=1218884672857&skuId=8660103#tab=specifications.

 

Edudemic.com. (2013, January 29).  Using Cell Phones in Class:  A primer for teachers.  Retrieved from http://www.scoop.it/t/mlearning-learning-on-the-go?page=2.

 

Koszalka, Tiffany A. & Ntloedibe-Kuswani, G. S. (2010). Literature on the safe and disruptive learning potential of mobile technologies. Distance Education, 31(2), p. 139-157.

 

Popplet App. (n.d.).  Visual Learning.  Retrieved from http://popplet.com/.

 

Smith, A. (2011). Pew Internet & American Life Project: Smartphones. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2011/PIP_Smartphones.pdf

 

Week 3 Social Networking Technologies

URL:  http://quizlet.com/mission is a free or paid resource for educators

The above screenshot depicts one of the social networking technologies I chose to talk about this week.  I chose this study tool because I think it is an excellent tool for teaching adults and for teachers creating and developing content according to the objectives of learning.  It provides adult educators unlimited potential to create many types of content.  The content teachers create can be integrated with external and repurposed content, courses, LMSs, and social networking sites such as Facebook. 

Quizlet also boasts an iPhone app for on the go mobile learning.  Moreover, Quizlet touts its free study tools and states that over a million students and teachers a day – from grade school to graduate school, language learners to vocational students, at home and in the classroom, use their apps.  Teachers and learners use Quizlet in every imaginable setting in almost every country – public and private schools, religious schools, charter schools, prestigious universities, and one-room schoolhouses (Quizlet, n.d.). 

Week 2 Benefits & Challenges of Technologies Selected

Benefits and Challenges of Technologies Selected 

The benefits of using Coursesites by Blackboard are that it has the ability to store all course materials in one place via Google Docs; it also has a built in library for Youtube, TeacherTube, and teacher created videos and audio. In addition, this application allows ID instructional designers or educators to create textual information such as welcoming students, course syllabus, resource page, and content where students can delve into learning. The superb thing is that the students are exposed to learning on many levels—visual, textual, contextual, and audio--all their various learning styles. Coursesites is an Online Learning Management System or (LMS) that has the capacity to tap into every student's lifestyle and learning style via asynchronous learning, delivery and participation.

Week 1 Emerging Technologies

Hello bloggers, I am your administrator and I greet you from snowy Minnesota, land of the Northern Star.  I am on this mission to discover technology tools I will use as an enhancement for teaching adult learners English language writing skills.  The literacy writing course I propose to create will take approximately six weeks to complete having one week each for each module.  Students will first learn the rules of conduct for learning online.  They will learn rules of conduct about appropriate and inappropriate speech for online learning. Vulgarity and disrespect will not be tolerated. I propose this course will be a hybrid-blended f2f course (Richardson, 2010).