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Mobile learning

Sue of Mobile Tech­no­logy in TAFE just pos­ted an art­icle of provid­ing learn­ing mater­ial on mobile phones and poin­ted out this art­icle about the options of deliv­er­ing train­ing mater­ial via the mobile phone. While I can see real advant­ages in be able to deliver train­ing mater­ial via mobile devices, so stu­dent can have their train­ing mater­ial on hand and eas­ily access­ible in the work­place. It should not be the only chan­nel at present.

All mobile phones do a couple of things well, the send and receive phone calls and SMSes, from there the sim­il­ar­ity ends. While almost all stu­dents own a mobile phone, their cap­ab­il­it­ies will vary from the basic model cap­able of send­ing and receiv­ing phone calls and SMSes, to small com­puters cap­able of run­ning a num­ber of dif­fer­ent pro­grams, surf­ing the web and con­nect­ing to vari­ous ser­vices through HDSPA, wi-fi and bluetooth. Unless all the stu­dents have (or are provided with) a suit­able mobile device, you can not provide train­ing mater­ial to the selec­ted few who have enough money to be able to pur­chase the right device and pay the con­nectiv­ity charges involved. And is some cases select the right pro­vider for their train­ing loc­a­tion, for example at least few months ago, Voda­fone and Optus did not provide cov­er­age to Kwin­ana or Rock­ing­ham, which means if you are training/working in one of those indus­trial areas you bet­ter be with Tel­stra or 3 if you want to access the inter­net on your mobile device cheaply.

That does not mean you should not provide train­ing mater­ial for mobile devices, you just need provide altern­at­ive means to access the inform­a­tion. For the examples given in the article:

1. XHTML-MP and CSS

This is the most restrict­ive option in terms of num­ber and cost of mobile devices cap­able of access­ing the web and the data costs involved (cur­rently in Au any­thing from $10 for 500Mb to 2.2c a kb). How­ever, it provides the easi­est altern­at­ive access if a web browser in your phone can view a webpage, so can the web browser of any com­puter. Using a con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem, the con­tent can eas­ily be provided in both a mobile friendly format and large com­puter format.

2. a Java and eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML)

I thought this was the best option in term of being access­ible on the largest num­ber of mobile devices, as well as the advant­age of down­load once, access many times. Unfor­tu­nately the con­tent cre­ation tool Max­dox has dis­ap­peared from view. So unless an altern­at­ive can be found this is no longer an option. What is really needed is an applic­a­tion that takes the XML and pack­ages the inform­a­tion for both mobile devices and PCs.

3. Mobile movie format

Tools like Lectopia make it so easy to deliver audio and video content in a variety of formats suitable for different mobile devices. So creating the content is not the problem, it is content delivery and storage. Videos can consume bandwidth, which is expensive when you pay by the kb. However using alternative methods it can be a cost effective solution.

The future

While Stuart Smith believes that web enable mobile phones are inexpensive enough in the UK and this is probably true in Australia for a basic web enabled phone. The main issues here are data cost and coverage. I believe that over the next couple of years as data costs and coverage improve, not only will some learning material be delivered to mobile devices, but students will demand more learning materials be delivered to their mobile devices. Time to start thinking about how to better deliver State Library material to mobile phones.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 8:10 am and is filed under mobile web . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to “Mobile learning”

  1. Sue Waters Says:
    August 22nd, 2007 at 3:46 pm

    Great post Nick and I totally agree with your view that train­ing mater­ial can not be mobile device alone. I think that data plans in the UK aren’t that cheap — if you read some of Stuart’s other art­icles he does talk about blue tooth. The reason why he is focus­ing on mobile phones is because more learners have them than any other device how­ever we are all faced by exactly the issues you are talk­ing about. Not all stu­dents will have mobile phones, or afford data plans, is it real­istic to expect them to pur­chase — prob­ably not. On the other hand, it is not real­istic for organ­isa­tions to be expec­ted to sup­ply them, espe­cially given how fast mobile tech­no­lo­gies are changing.

    We have an inter­est­ing chal­lenge ahead which is why I believe we need to keep whatever con­tent we cre­ate adapt­able to a range of mobile devices, and situations .

    Lecto­pia is def­in­itely a great sys­tem, but based on the cost of imple­ment­ing and the fact that TAFE is shift­ing from cam­pus to work­place based deliv­ery it is unlikely that our sec­tor will invest in this technology.

    Sue

  2. Stuart Smith Says:
    August 22nd, 2007 at 5:06 pm

    Nick, I think those who are in favour of using mobile devices in learn­ing are prob­ably broadly in agree­ment that they shouldn’t be used in isol­a­tion in learn­ing and they are unlikely to be the only medium we use. How­ever, as I’ve been dis­cuss­ing with Sue we are the cut­ting edge of the tech­no­logy and that does offer chal­lenges as I dis­cussed in the art­icles I wrote which are dis­sec­ted here. As I pos­ted before it does look like Max­dox is out of the pic­ture for the time being but that does not mean that J2Me is dead as well. Although it is definately a blow for main­stream use of the tech­no­logy for con­tent creation

    Here is the UK the cost of access­ing the web and down­load­ing etc. via mobile is decreas­ing rap­idly. It is not as cheap as desktop broad­band nor as effect­ive but it is going in the right dir­ec­tion. Only a year ago I argued that down­load costs were very pro­hib­it­ive its a lot harder to make that claim now.

    The real bar­rier still remains a lack of ima­gin­a­tion about how to use the mobile medium with stu­dents and hope­fully those of us in the van­guard of using this tech­no­logy are help­ing chal­lenge and change that.

  3. nick Says:
    August 22nd, 2007 at 11:00 pm

    Stu­art, access to the web via mobile in Aus­tralia is also decreas­ing rap­idly, not as cheap as the UK yet, but far cheaper than it was 8 months ago. But cost should not be the only factor, accept­ance of the tech­no­logy by stu­dents and avail­ab­il­ity of the ser­vice in the area were train­ing will occur are also major factors.

    Cost would not be a major factor if a large num­ber of stu­dent were already using the mobile web. My show of hands sample at Bar­Camp, had about half the audi­ence using the mobile web (but that was a quite dif­fer­ence group).

    My main con­cern is the avail­ab­il­ity of mobile web. In the outer areas of Perth, and likely loc­a­tion for train­ing (indus­trial areas) are only ser­viced by 1 or 2 of the 5 major Aus­tralian tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions providers.

    J2ME ref­er­ence mater­ial for mobile devices that can be dis­trib­uted by vari­ous means is a good solu­tion for West­ern Australia’s vast dis­tances and lim­ited tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions infra­struc­ture. It would be great for stu­dents any­where in this state to be able to grab their phone and find the inform­a­tion they need, then and there. I hope an altern­at­ive solu­tion is found soon.

    Sue, Lecto­pia does a great job in con­vert­ing audio and video, not just lec­tures to vari­ous dif­fer­ent formats suit­able for dif­fer­ent devices and deliv­ery methods.

    Stu­art, ima­gin­a­tion is some­thing we need to show in provid­ing ser­vices for mobile devices with stu­dents or any­body else. Because I am sure if you provide the right ser­vices, they will be used.

  4. Mobile Technology in TAFE » Blog Archive » Will Mobiles Be THE Tool of The Future? Says:
    August 22nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm

    […] We debate which mobile devices (e.g. PDA, ipod, mobile phone) to use for mlearn­ing? And it is good to hear dif­fer­ing opin­ions from people like Stu­art Smith and Nick Cowie on the use of mobile phones. But more import­antly, we have oth­ers reflect­ing on whether they should be let­ting their stu­dents take their mobile phones out of their bags. Unfor­tu­nately, in most cir­cum­stances, if teach­ers want to use their student’s mobile phones for learn­ing they will not be allowed to because it is against school policy! [image by bb_matt] […]

  5. Sue Waters Says:
    August 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 am

    Hi Nick

    I agree totally with you about Lecto­pia; done quite a bit of research on it. The key issue in the VET sec­tor will be whether the organ­isa­tions will be will­ing to spend the money to set up Lecto­pia and sup­ply the staff to sup­port it. I believe without Lecto­pia you will not see wide­spread up take of pod­cast­ing in VET but I can not see TAFEs pur­chas­ing the system.

    Sue

  6. » STOP, LOOK, THINK - What Is Material Really Going To Look Like on A Mobile Device Mobile Technology in TAFE Says:
    February 23rd, 2008 at 4:47 pm

    […] Mobile learning […]

  7. shakir miah Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

    i’m at the moment doing my course­work and need con­trst­ing inform­a­tion of mobile learn­ing. if pos­sible you could post some inform­a­tion. address deleted

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