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« on: August 09, 2005, 06:16:30 PM » |
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Kathy Eeps and Dirk Frohberg started an email conversation after Dirk had made a posting on the "Introduce yourself" thread. After the conversation had progressed they thought that it should be included on the forum itself so that other members could contribute to the discussion and so have sent me a copy for posting here! Many thanks to them both  Please excuse the formatting which is due to the way my email client seems to have mashed them up!
Hello. I have just read your "introduce yourself" post on the
Handheld Learning Forum.
I think we might have some interests in common: I am the IT teacher
at the International School of Geneva's new campus - Campus des
Nations - in Grand Saconnex GE. This building will open in a few
weeks, and we are requiring all the secondary students (classes 7 -
11, c. 240 students) to buy Palm Tungsten E2s (not wireless) to use.
It is the first time our school has used handhelds. The E2s
communicate with Bluetooth and Infrared.
Though this is not "mobile learning" as it would be with laptops and
wireless, it is certainly "informal" and "collaborative". And as it
will be new to almost everyone using it, it will also be "learning"!
I hope to encourage the Palm's use for its agenda, timetable, reminder
functions (for which it was built, and does very well, then as a
graphing calculator, as a reference book(s), and after that we will
see what the kids discover!
Let me know if any of this is of interest to you for your studies.
I'd be happy to help in any way.
Kathy Epps
International School of Geneva - Campus des Nations
Dear Kathy
First of all thank you very much for your courage and effort to contact
me.
It seems to me, my understanding of "mobile learning" does not fit your
activities and maybe the difference is in the terms "mobile learning"
versus "handheld learning". Until now I was not aware of a different meaning
here but there is one and thanks to you I learned it.
I will try to explain, why it might not fit. Maybe it will turn out that
I have misunderstood major things. Please do not see it as any criticism in
your work.
"Mobile learning" means to me that technology enriches and supports the
learning (whatever you may understand under "learning"). In your case it
sounds as if the technology itself is the matter of learning. To see your
activities as "mobile learning" I am missing a didactic concept behind
the introduction of the devices.
The usage of the Palms is obviously designed to be a single user tool to
organize ones activities (calendar, reminder, timetable, notes etc.).
From your explanation I do not see yet in what way it is collaborative usage.
Could you tell me what collaborative activities you are having in mind?
Remark: Sending a document from one device to the other is not
necessarily collaborative. Lacking any possibility to access the internet (via wLAN)
reduces the possibilities for mobile learning tremendously.
The term "informal" in my introduction was related to "learning" as well.
Informal learning is of course a fuzzy word, but to my understanding
informal learning includes some clear intention to learn something
specific without being guided by any teacher or curriculum. It might be
unintentional, but there needs to be a reflection then. "Informal
learning" is to my understanding not "doing a calendar entry" or "checking the
timetable".
I told you now with many words, why I think, your activities are not
"mobile learning" as I do understand it. I did not explain what you would need to
do to make it mobile learning. Just three quick ideas from other projects
which should be possible to do with your technology:
a) Interactivity in classroom: Students use their device to ask questions
if they do not want to raise their hand, the teacher can send small quizzes
to check if all students have understood the major concepts, the class can
to an electronic brainstorming session. This idea comes from an university
with hundreds of students in a lecture hall. I am not sure how relevant it might be
for classes of maybe 20-30 pupils.
b) Data collection in field trips: A class goes out into nature (e.g.
biology) evt. with sensors attached to their devices. They collect data
(e.g. temperature of different objects or ph-level in water or number of
birches within a certain area) and can work with the data directly at
place and come to conclusions comparing and discussing the data. Check
http://www.concord.org/publications/newsletter/2002winter/probeware.html
c) Participatory simulations: E.g. virus spread. Many pupils run around with their palms. One is secretly "infected" with a virus and can infect others.
Children learn by own experience how a virus spreads. Check
http://education.mit.edu/pda/games.htm for it and other
examples.
I am curious, what you think. Where do you agree, where disagree. What do
you think about the projects, I showed to you? Were they a help or could
they inspire you?
Greetings
Dirk Frohberg
Ah ha! We have to cut immediately to a definition of learning! This
is refreshing!
Yes, of course, we will all spend a great deal of time learning how to
use all our equipment.
There a number of other institutions who have already such an
introduction of infrastructure. As you are aware there are many of
non-trivial things that need to be decided and you could learn from them,
how they did it avoiding same mistakes. But I assume, you have done that?
But working out how to do what, when (and in some cases, why) are small
exercises in logic and systems. I hope we move more or less quickly
beyond that stage to questioning when the use of a particular tool might
be helpful in a given setting - Can I do/share/understand this
easier/quicker/ better/differently with a computer/palm/camera/microphone ?
The answer might include experimentation, research, or simply a decision
based on previous experience.
My conception of mobile learning is very broad indeed. Google just
produced this for me: "Mobile learning is learning that is mediated
via mobile technologies such as mobile phones, personal data
assistants, handhelds, wearable devices or laptops.
www.bbk.ac.uk/ccs/elearn/glossary.htm" but others would
insist on the wifi component. I don't think so. If one has an audio book in a Palm
or an iPod, there is no wireless connection involved in the actual
hearing of the book, but it is mobile learning.
There are even broader definitions like "Any sort of learning that
happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or
learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning
opportunities offered by mobile technologies." By this definition "reading a book in a bus" would be
considered as mobile learning. I agree with you. Mobile learning does not
necessarily need wifi. I would rather not define mobile learning with focus
on the technology. You can do many things with mobile devices and I would
not consider it as mobile learning. I try to see it not from a question
"what can you do with mobile stuff", but rather "why are you doing it". Many
projects try to send learning content (texts, animations, videos etc.) to a
mobile device and argue "now you can learn any time and any where". My
question always is the value of it. In some specific cases it might have
value, but often I cannot see any. I have problems reading more than one
page of text on a large screen. How much less do I want to read it on a tiny
screen? The video quality might be good enough for some short funny
animations or fun films, but what is the value? Maybe using unused time, but
often such time is not as dead as it looks like. Sitting in a bus and not
doing anything can be great. And if I want to learn content ... I take a
printout with me.
Mobile learning is very much driven from technology. I realized it in
Germany in the projects "computers in schools" and then "schools to the
internet". After many months I read an article with the title "Ok, we have
computers and we are in the internet ... now, what? The same happened with
the extremly large project "notebook university". We made an analysis of
this project. In most universities it was up to students, what they would do
with the infrastructure. The teaching had not changed at all. Almost none of
the universities had any concept what to do with the infrastructure.
While I think about how to answer your questions, have a look at the
wiki I have begun for the staff and students at
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/ict_at_nations
I also write http://ictnations.blogspot.com/ but that is more reflective.
I found your blog through the HHL forum discussion, and have tried to
read it with the help of AltaVista BabelFish....my German is
rudimentary...and so is Bablefish's, but it helps.
Kathy Epps
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