mLearning

Mobile phones have rapidly been absorbed into the fabric of our day-to-day lives. They are now a key consumer item, a symbol of social capital and they connect their users to a mobile web with multiple applications. Mobile learning is a relatively new phenomenon and the theoretical basis is currently under development. Kearney (2012) presents a pedagogical perspective of mobile learning which highlights three central features of mobile learning: authenticity, collaboration and personalization, embedded in the unique timespace contexts of mobile learning. A pedagogical framework was developed and tested through activities in two mobile learning projects located in teacher education communities: "Mobagogy", a project in which faculty staff in an Australian university developed understanding of mobile learning; and "The Bird in the Hand Project", which explored the use of smartphones by student teachers and their mentors in the United Kingdom. The framework is used to critique the pedagogy in a selection of reported mobile learning scenarios, enabling an assessment of mobile activities and pedagogical approaches, and consideration of their contributions to learning from a socio-cultural perspective. Cognizant of the research gap in the theorization of mobile learning, Sha et. al., (2012) in their paper conceptually explores how the theories and methodology of self-regulated learning (SRL), an active area in contemporary educational psychology, are inherently suited to address the issues originating from the defining characteristics of mobile learning: enabling student-centred, personal, and ubiquitous learning. These characteristics provide some of the conditions for learners to learn anywhere and anytime, and thus, entail learners to be motivated and to be able to self-regulate their own learning. They propose an analytic SRL model of mobile learning as a conceptual framework for understanding mobile learning, in which the notion of self-regulation as agency is at the core. The dominant view that mobiles have no place in the classroom has recently been contested by educators, such as Parry, who suggest that mobile learning, and the literacies involved, should play an important role in education (Merchant, 2012). He argues for a more nuanced view of mobile technology, one that focuses on everyday social practices as a way of understanding the relationship between mobiles and learning. Using practice theory as a starting point, he suggests a way of mapping everyday mobile practices on to educational activity to illustrate potential areas for innovation and evaluation. A common issue among students' responses toward this type of learning concerns the pitfalls of mobile devices, including small screen, limited input options, and low computational power. As a result, mobile devices are not always perceived by students as beneficial tools for their learning. Such perception undermines the use of mobile devices in learning and dampens teachers' interest in adopting mobile learning.  (Ting, 2012). Ting provides a different view of mobile devices' pitfalls in learning and suggests that, relying unappropriate design, these pitfalls can be overcome to embrace a broader spectrum of mobile learning practice designs. Extra: Merchant, G. (2012). Mobile Practices in Everyday Life: Popular Digital Technologies and Schooling Revisited. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(5),770-782. Sha, L., Looi, C.-K., Chen, W., Zhang, B. H. (2012). Understanding Mobile Learning from the Perspective of Self-Regulated Learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 28(4) p366-378. Kearney, M., Schuck, S., Burden, K., Aubusson, P. (2012). Viewing Mobile Learning from a Pedagogical Perspective. Research in Learning Technology, 20(1). Ting,Y.(2012) The Pitfalls of Mobile Devices in Learning: A Different View and Implications for Pedagogical Design. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 46(2), 119-134. .

Launch of the GO Fight Against Malaria Project

Have you heard of "grid computing"? It's a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal (Wikipedia). The people behind the World Community Grid have a new project out.

This is what we read in the press release:

Malaria is one of the one of the three deadliest infectious diseases on earth and is caused by parasites that infect both humans and animals. Half of the entire human population is at risk: in 2006, 247 million people became infected with malaria. Of the nearly one million deaths caused by malaria each year, 85% of those are children.

The researchers at The Scripps Research Institute, are running the GO Fight Against Malaria project on World Community Grid to evaluate millions of candidate compounds to advance the search for new drugs that can cure patients who are infected with multi-drug-resistant mutant “superbugs” of malaria.

GO Fight Against Malaria is the nineteenth research project to be launched on World Community Grid and one of ten projects currently running on World Community Grid. The other nine research projects are:

Drug Search for Leishmaniasis (launched August, 2011

Computing for Clean Water (launched August, 2010)

The Clean Energy Project – Phase 2 (launched June, 2010)

Discover Dengue Drugs – Together – Phase 2 (launched February, 2010)

Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy – Phase 2 (launched May, 2009)

Help Fight Childhood Cancer (launched March, 2009)

Help Conquer Cancer (launched November, 2007)

Human Proteome Folding - Phase 2 (launched July, 2006)

FightAIDS@Home (launched November, 2005)

However, grid computing is considered as dangerous by some. Even though it sounds like an easy thing to do (just installing software which uses spare CPU cycles), could we be sure that the results will be used by the right people?

Assessing the effects of ICT in education

In the introduction to "Assessing the effects of ICT in education - Indicators, criteria and benchmarks for international comparisons", the editors Friedrich Scheuermann and Francesc Pedró, state that: 

"... despite  the fact that education systems have been heavily investing in technology since the early 1980s, international indicators on technology uptake and use in education are missing. For more than 25 years education systems have been able to design and implement policies in this domain without those indicators..."

In my opinion, the report fits well in the aims and purposes of the course on "Educational technologies", because indeed, every week we are confronted with the question on the use and perceived benefits of ICT in educational settings, but without hard research data to structure the discussion, our views remain just opinions and feelings, coloured by our personal affinity or dislike towards ICT.

As such, the book does not provide any data as of yet, but clearly demonstrates the need to develop a consensus around approaches, indicators and methodologies aims to provide a basis for the design of frameworks, the identification of indicators and existing data sources, as well as gaps in areas needing further research.

The book is a collection of articles that found their origins in the April 2009 meeting of international experts organised by the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning (CRLL), in co-operation with the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), on benchmarking technology use and effects in education and is organised around four blocks:

1. Contexts of ICT impact assessment in education
2. State-of-the-art ICT impact assessment,
3. Conceptual frameworks 
4. Case studies.

An interesting read and perhaps the basis of a research project in the future...

___________________________________________________________________________________

Assessing the Effects of ICT in Education
Indicators, Criteria and Benchmarks for International Comparisons
OECD, Joint Research Centre- European Commission. Published by : Joint Research Centre- European Commission
Version: E-book (PDF Format)
Imprint: Centre for Educational Research and Innovation
Publication date: 02 Jun 2010 
Language: English 
Pages: 217 
ISBN: 9789264079786
OECD Code: 962009111E1 
Electronic format: Acrobat PDF
___________________________________________________________________________________