Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

Please post your results here once you can share them. I, for one, am very interested in finding out exactly what you found  .

All,
After the successful special issue on Learning While Mobile of RCETJ, we are doing a special issue of blended learning in Spring 2009. I think you'll see once reading the brief definition of blended learning below that there is all kinds of room here for mobile learning topics.

Here is the call (feel free to pass this on or repost):

The Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology provides a multimedia forum for the advancement of scholarly work on the effects of technology on teaching and learning. This online journal seeks to provide unique avenues for the dissemination of knowledge within the field of educational technology consistent with new and emergent pedagogical possibilities.

The Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology (RCETJ) is seeking articles on Blended Learning for a special issue, edited by Karen Swan, to be published in the spring of 2009. Articles to be considered for this special Spring 2009 issue should focus on the integration of face-to-face and online instruction in a planned and pedagogically sound manner, but they may address issues of blended learning from research-based, practical, or theoretical perspectives at any levels of academic and institutional contexts. Articles addressing the use of blending to increase access to education and/or link academic and various real world contexts will be particularly appreciated.

To have your article considered (even if it is presently in progress) you must submit an abstract of at least 500 words (full drafts will, of course, be gratefully accepted) by October 15, 2008 to the editors:

Karen Swan (kswan@kent.edu) & Mark van’t Hooft (mvanthoo@kent.edu)

Please put “submission for RCETJ issue on Blended Learning” in the subject line your email message.

Notifications of acceptance/rejection will be sent out by October 31, 2007. NOTE: Acceptance of the abstract does NOT guarantee that your manuscript will be published. RCETJ is a refereed journal, and as such, all submitted manuscripts are subject to a comprehensive review process.

Final submissions for the online journal articles are expected to include multimedia evidence and sources that might include: images; illustrations; video; sound; animation; simulation; and links to online data and references. For more information please visit www.rcetj.org or contact the editors.

Important dates:

October 15, 2008: Deadline to submit abstracts (250-500 words)

October 31, 2008: Notification of acceptance/rejection of abstract

January 31, 2009: Author deadline for submitting completed manuscript and multimedia files

February 27, 2009: Editor deadline for reviewing papers and returning comments to authors

March 27, 2009: Author deadline for making revisions and submitting final papers and accompanying materials

April 24, 2009: Expected publication date

To learn more about this special issue or RCETJ, please visit www.rcetj.org

Now that's an interesting use of the WiiMote. Any chance you can post some pictures here of what you're doing?

Interesting story, although I hope the use of the DS's will go beyond the brain "training" they are doing with them now. Definitely some potential to expand on this project ....

Hi Tom,
Great to see a fellow countryman on this here forum..... I read your review of the IADIS conference and I wish I could have been there. And by the way, calling Graham "a bit of a rebel" is an understatement ... 

Yep, can't wait to see it, and hopefully participate as well. I think this has to be a conference first ... Awesome idea!

Haven't heard of this one. How is it similar to/different from Google's Open Handset Alliance and Android?(http://code.google.com/android/)

Interesting video. Important point to mention here is the wording of the question: "Do schools kill creativity? The crucial factor here is how we define the word "school" in this question. In my opinion, it is the institution of schools that does most of the killing, not necessarily the people in it (although some do). I've worked (and still do) with some excellent teachers and administrators, who are often limited in what they can do with and for students because of politicians, funding, and above all, standardized testing. It's not that they don't want children to be creativity, inquisitive, etc., it's that often their hands are tied (although the really good teachers and administrators find ways around this).

Educational systems are a reflection of the society that builds them, and I don't like what I'm seeing in a lot of places right now ...

The Spring 2008 issue of RCETJ on Learning While Mobile is now online at http://www.rcetj.org/?type=ci&id= It contains an interesting mix of five articles (a sixth may still be coming, and that's the beauty of electronic publishing  ). Here is the lineup:

Bridging the Gap? Mobile Phones at the Interface Between Informal and Formal Learning
by John Cook, Norbert Pachler, and Claire Bradley

Affordances of PDAs: Undergraduate Student Perceptions
by Yanjie Song and Robert Fox

The Effect of Information Visualization and Structure on Mobile Learning
by Hyungsung Park

Using Place as Provocation: In Situ Collaborative Narrative Construction
by Deborah Tatar, Steve Harrison, Alli Crandell, and Matthew Shaefer

A Personalized Mobile Mathematics Tutoring System for Primary Education
by Xinyou Zhao and Toshio Okamoto

All articles are freely accessible. If you would like to receive announcements about future issues, please subscribe at http://www.rcetj.org/?type=su&id=

Thanks,
Mark

This is an interesting post. For the past few years I've done quite a bit of work with regards to mobiles breaking down walls, but they were mostly barriers of space and time, never groups of people (other than access to them). I think it'd be interesting to see in what respects (if any) that mobile devices are breaking down walls between people: teachers and students, administrators and students, parents and students, students and students, parents and teachers, etc. I think it is also high time that we take a more in-depth and systematic look at the barriers that the same devices continue to create between these same groups of people and what effect that has not only on learning, but also on teaching, both inside of schools and out.

Mark

I hope somebody will post a report or two on the conference. Unfortunately I won't be there.
Mark

Well Andy,
I was going to post something but you beat me to it  Volume 3 is a nice addition to Becta's yearly series, I'm very happy with the way my piece turned out and proud to be part of a very reputable group of authors (I didn't know who the other authors were until the volume was published last week).

Anyway, as Andy said, well worth a read.

Mark

And to complicate things a bit, how about handheld, portable, or mobile?

Here are a couple of interesting ones I've run across lately:

Rudi de Waele's Mobile and wireless trends for 2008: http://www.m-trends.org/2008/01/mobile-and-wireless-trends-for-2008.html

Chetan Sharma's Mobile industry predictions for 2008: http://www.chetansharma.com/blog/2008/01/01/mobile-industry-predictions-2008/ (note question #11 in their survey: "Will Palm survive 2008?"

Jim Durbin asks: Will there be a mobile web? http://www.situationalmarketing.com/my_weblog/2007/12/will-there-be-a.html

Andrew Grill wonders if the 3G mobile broadband dongle will kill the wifi hotspot market: http://blog.andrewgrill.com/blog/_archives/2008/1/9/3442195.html

I'll post them as I see them.

As far as my own predictions go, haven't thought about it much yet, but I figure that we'll see

• **attempts to compete with the iPhone, especially if Google's Android and the Open Handset Alliance take off
• **some serious developments in the mobile web beyond cramming the Internet onto a mobile device (a la Jim Durbin's post), e.g. mobile social networking
• **increasing prominence of the UMPC form factor
• **content that is increasingly device agnostic

Mark

Carnival of the Mobilists is a weekly write-up of developments in the world of mobile technology, in round-robin style. I've been following it for a while and actually hosted this week's episode, #99). Definitely a different way of writing about mobile than what I'm used to, but a very interesting one nevertheless, and a good way to keep up to date. A new episode is posted every Monday.

The recent activities of Google, with the Open Handset Alliance and Android, are particularly interesting, and it remains to be seen what their potential impact on education/learning will be.

Go check it out. The Carnival may not be a mobile education resource, but it's a good way to keep your finger on the pulse of the mobile world, and get some interesting commentary to boot!