Any portable (usually hand-held) device used to communicate over a wireless network has the potential for mobile-learning: cell phones, PDAs, laptops, etc. We believe the near ubiquity of these devices will bring mobile, or ‘m-learning’ into prominence in the next 2 to 3 years. (Actually, there are many other trends out there that suggest this - the subject, perhaps, of a later discussion.)
Now, I’m not going to talk about the tech, or speculate about the future, but I do want to talk about the learning part of m-learning.
Observation One: In a wireless world, m-learning will allow us to escape the confines of time and location. Simple sentence, massive implications. Learning can now move right out of the classroom (possibly never to return?) and go wherever it wants. This will dramatically affect life-long learning, corporate learning, and eventually traditional education. I leave it to you to extrapolate!
Observation Two: The new levels of choice, flexibility, and freedom that m-learning creates, means that learning can now be (you’ve guessed it) even more on your terms. Which is why we want to start doing it. Soon, we will roll out a series of mobile features here on ChinesePod and SpanishSense.
Observation Three: These are early days. No-one really knows where this is going. We we want to work with the Big Brain to innovate an m-learning approach that is relevant to you. You’ll be hearing more on this during this week
Observation Four: The emergence of m-learning seems natural to me. The brain itself is a mobile learning device, a Personal Learning Environment of sorts. Humans use technology all the time as an extension of our gray matter - Clark Quinn, an expert in the field, calls his Treo his ‘external brain‘.
Observation Five: M-learning will help us to manage time. We all face downtimes throughout our days because we are, er, mobile - driving, on the subway, etc. Mobile devices (like cellphones) can help us to use that downtime productively:
- By receiving data instantly, and 24/7 (if we wish)
- By connecting with others (teachers, learners, practitioners) at the times and locations that we choose
Observation Six: Mobile learning can be context-sensitive. Visiting the Olympics? The zoo? The museum? Just call up the relevant lessons and learn in the most highly contextualized way possible - at the point when you need it.
Observation Seven: Mobile learning is another form of blended learning. It is designed to enhance other learning efforts. No one would advocate (at this point) learning exclusively though mobile means, but we see how it can be used for, review, testing, connecting, and much more.
Observation Eight: Mobile learning is social, enabling collaboration, and communication. It helps reach people who might otherwise be hard to reach. It suits the needs of an increasingly mobile population who may have no choice but to learn on the go.
If I had to summarize, I’d choose two points that are relevant to your learning:
- M-learning is on your terms
- M-learning helps integrate the learning
Phew! That’s enough observing for one day. I’d be interested to hear from you.
Ken Carroll
Although I like the idea of mobile working/learing and utilizing otherwise unused time slices, I think there is a natural boundary for its relevance. It stems from the answer to the question:
How much time of the day am I *really* “on the move”?
I for my part spend 80% of my day at a desk or in a desk-like setting (e.g. notebook on the train, notebook in a hotel, …).
And current mobile times are already stuffed with CPod. There might be shifts in the usage profile (Fix and Dialogues substitute a few lessons), but there is no potential for further growth.
And the PDA? Most of the time I can use a PDA I find it more convinient to open up the notebook.
But other learners obviously have differently strucured usage profiles, as can be seen here:
http://forum.chinesepod.com/vi.....5a935d61d5
Ken,
What is your vision for mobile learning? (I always ask a vision question). Do you see a Praxis Acadamy or a Praxis University in the future?
Also, we know that language acquisition is fundamentally different from other kinds of learning, both in L-one and in L-two as well. And since it’s real communication that feeds language acquisition, I find it hard to imagine… hard, but not impossible… to imagine an m-learning method that approximates real communication.
So, then, what is your vision for mobile language instruction? Will the product be a supplement or an alternative to classroom instruction?
Either way, the business plan should be to make a product that is as essential to the student as, 501 Spanish Verbs…
Ken,
I’m a lot more sceptical of m-learning because of the degree of control that mobile operators have over delivery, pricing and availablity. There is really no such equivalent intermediary in the Internet food chain (eventually blanket wi-fi changes this I think).
At present, it seems that m-learning could potentially be great (but expensive?) for pull learning (on demand). I could envision where learning events could be requested exactly when they are needed. However, I also think this might resemble a short term information dump (cram for the big test) more than long term learning (where there is a need to get it all into long term memory).
New terminology might be needed here because much more of m-learning might tend to resemble these short term dumps. I’m guessing that the focus of these dumps will be to help people understand something quickly and help people remember key facts quickly.
I suspect m-learning will be great for this “learn and forget” type learning (see what I mean about new terminology).
Finally I think that in the initial stages m-learning will be much, much less social than fixed learning (classroom, home computer). We can see a lot of social interaction taking place in these last two environments. I don’t see nearly as much social interaction happening in m-learning in the forseeable future. (maybe I’m wrong and you can paint us a possible scenario).
As a mainly pull based tool for language learning I see m-learning as appealing to a small niche. I think for the most part that most mobile language learning needs can be encapsulated in mp3 and mp4 form at a much lower cost to the student.
For your reference. I received this e-mail today. I didn’t have time to look at this carefully but I like the idea of action mazes as I have used them in class with students before.
Free mobile phone games for language learning
Given the increased importance and capabilities
of mobile phones, we have designed a set of
English language learning games for mobile
phones. The games are based on the ideas
of action mazes =96 a fun reading activity
where the reader decides on their own path
through a story. Three different mazes
are available, each with Thai-language support
for learning English while reading. The language
in the mazes is at lower intermediate to
intermediate levels. The games also emphasise
decision making and problem solving skills.
Screenshots of the games are available at
http://arts.kmutt.ac.th/mom/
from where the games can also be downloaded
either onto computer or directly onto mobile
phones.
If anyone would like a full copy of the program
to change the support from Thai into another
language, I can send the full Flash Lite 1.1 file
to be adapted and distributed.
Richard Watson Todd
School of Liberal Arts
King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi
E-mail: irictodd@kmutt.ac.th
Website for Thai teachers: http://www.moobankru.com/
re: Henning, I have a problem with the usage profile you’re refering to as I think way the question was asked negates the notion of mobility. Put it some other way, it seems to be ignoring the ‘New digital disorder’ described in ‘Everything is Miscellaneous’.
I may be extremely lucky but I almost always have internet connectivity, generally broadband/wifi/laptop even at boring meetings, with smartphone/GPRS as fallback, can double as mp3/4 player too or in the car when connectivity is simply not convenient to make use of. To me it boils down to the question of how much screen real-estate is available at any given time or how much is the brain busy doing sth else (e.g. driving), so I can’t conceive of any knowledge tool -much less learning tool- that isn’t mobile-ready in one way or another. That’s how I think CPod should strive to deliver their services, that’s how I am assessing the upcoming mobile offer.
This isn’t sci-fi either, 30% of phones to be ’smart’ by 2010 according to some sources, though I think it’s a conservative estimate, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re phones, PDAs, UMPCs or whatever.
re: Ken on context sensitivity (Visiting the Olympics… Just call up the relevant lessons). CPod could make more extensive use of contextualisation. For instance, tag search : if I can only drill down by tags once I find a lesson, can’t search for tags from a list.
The unit also seems to be the lesson, I can’t search for vocab linked to a particular tag, which would also be useful to organize in rings of increasing difficulty (from newbie to advanced). Would also be useful to contextually search around concepts or characters, such as all words containing a certain character, likely to be in the same tag cluster. If you’re into legal things, you might want to drill around 罚 fá or 侵 qīn. Not the best example but that was my practice lesson today.
Chinese language learning has been using M-learning to make downtime productive for decades, through the cutting-edge technology of “flash cards.” I often carry around a stack of character flash cards in my shirt pocket and flip through a few while standing in line, waiting for the train, and so on. So do a lot of other Chinese students I know. Frequent, short sessions are a good way to learn this kind of information, and you can flip through a few with no long-term time committment.
If there was a flash card program on my Blackberry that was better than paper, I would probably use that, instead. But right now, the paper cards seem to be my best option.
So the question is: what can M-learning technology offer that paper flash cards can’t? I think that’s where the technologists need to focus. Build on what we already do on the road. We already know it works. New technology should complement or enhance it rather than trying to start from scratch.
chapka, you may want to check PlecoDict, amazing tool though admittedly won’t run on BB until they have a network version. I don’t know what paper flash cards can offer that this doesn’t, but then I could never get used to flashcards, and it’s not for lack of trying. Learning whole sentences by rote carries at least *some* context, flash cards just don’t.
With a laptop and a desktop at work, the same laptop and 2 other desktops at home, one of which is running Opensuse linux, one Palm TX and a couple of mp3 players but NO ipod, I feel like I am constantly juggling around files and mp3’s learning on the website, being frustrated not to have loaded the right files on whatever device I have with me while on the move, frustrated not to have the exercises and expansion on my mobile devices, etc. Also between my PC’s and my Palm and between Windows and Linux, there are also several encoding and font problems that I am constantly soving. I can see that there has been a lot of improvement since I chose CP as my main learning tool, so I am not complaining. I wish we were 5 years or so further down the road with competitively priced real mobile internet, network storage of my files, UTF-8 on every device, real portable PDF’s, etc. I feel there is still a long way to go.
Marc in Belgium
M-learning has all the advantages that Ken referred to in his observations…but what about the downside ? For example:
1. M-learning involves co-learning of new technical skills which detract from the main task…learning Chinese. If you are a techno-geek, obviously this doesn’t apply to you. But how many of us are Bill Gates ?
2. The benefits of M-learning assume that a person doesn’t have a career or family commitments. Can you really expect your boss to be sympathetic when you explain that the project deadline cannot be met since you spent the entire day using your Plecodick to study Chinese ?
3. M-learning assumes multi-tasking skills that are difficult, if not downright dangerous. The other day, I was adjusting my Ipod and writing notes while driving to work when I lost control and plowed into a busy bus stop. Fortunately there was no damage to my Ipod.
4. We are inundated with information overload. M-learning may not simplify things…but it has the potential of introducing more complexity and more stress to an already crowded environment. Now, not only do we have to listen to people’s cell phone conversations in public, we have to listen to them rant in Chinese.
I second Marc’s and CleverDick’s statements.
M-Learning is not an option for me in the moment. Normally I have access to all web ressources all day long. That’s enough. I enjoy being “offline”, enjoy nature, and other things - without mobile, without WWW. Reading a Chinese grammar book may be an option
Sometimes, being abroad during vacation or during business trips, I may have some free time to study but have no direct access to the WWW. But then high connection prices and/or technical problems (no GPRS/UMTS) stop be from accessing the Internet and doing M-learning. That may change in the future.
But I see a trend to less Internet usage than even more (mobile) usage (”Simplify your life” trend).
I would love to be able to record me speaking sentences that I think make sense and then get some feedback from a Chinese native on my tones, sentence structure etc. This would work for me in a M-Learning setting as I don’t have the ability to commit to a regular practice call but desparately want speaking rather than just listening practice. I think this would work well if the topic, key vocab or dialogues had been agreed upfront. For example, I might be want to concentrate on buying train or plane tickets to travel around China. Learning how to speak key sentences correctly and then understanding all likley permutations of answers would be invaluable. Audio feedback on my pronunciation etc would be invaluable.
goulnik,
C-Pod used to have a list of topics and the ones that had more lessons associated with them were larger text and the ones with less were smaller text. I used that quite a bit.. it helped me when I decided to study by topic.
I was sick for a few months and was out for the count and when I came back it was this version and that list was gone, so I’m afraid I don’t know what was said/done about that list in the community and on Ken’s blog.
Erika Lee, yes they used to have tag clouds but they’ve long been gone. This is replaced by drop down lists of either topics of function tags under Advanced Lesson Search. I guess the tag prevalence is reflected in the ordering of the drop down lists, but I find the result most confusing. Tag clouds do have visual appeal and all tags are presented at once, but to me the only intuitive / effective way to organize such lists is alphabetical since in effect you can’t search it, just scroll.