Recently I talked about how m-learning will give us the freedom to learn wherever we please. Some people responded to the effect that: “But I can just take my book and go sit under a tree to read somewhere. Books (flashcards, etc) are just as portable. What’s the difference?”
Let me try to elaborate. Reading a good novel under a tree is definitely one of the great pleasures in life. More of it. But let’s just say, for example, that you wanted to research something rather than read a novel. To do that, you’d either need to bring a stack of books or be limited to the one you brought with you. You’d also be on your own - not connected to other sources of information, other learners, or practitioners. (Obviously being alone is desirable at times, but learning in a social context can be much more effective for many tasks.)
In this case, your portable, wireless, multi-tasking device could offer you a more effective learning experience. It fits neatly into your pocket. You search with it, connect with others, write comments, take notes, get involved in discussions. You read and discuss blogs, search for podcasts, and email colleagues or professors. You could join communities, and get the latest knowledge on topics (blogs are becoming the best place to get the latest knowledge on things). You could receive audio, visuals, graphics, sms, anything that helps you learn the subject at hand. And so on. (This is theoretical, in the sense that you probably wouldn’t do all of this at the same time, but the point is that you can select the elements you wish.) In the end, it’s a matter of different experiences for a different purposes. In other words it’s about and choice - your terms again.
M-learning leverages all the benefits of the web, but in a mobile way. It’s the arrival of the mobile web and it allows us to leverage the collective intelligence of groups and participate in the production (not just the consumption) of knowledge. It allows us also to break the information into smaller, manageable chunks, and do what Hank called ‘micro-learning‘ earlier this week: accessing the content we need when, how, and where we need it. All of these have applications in a learning context.
This scenario is not for every person in every situation, but it is how our young people are learning these days (depending how you define ‘learning’, to some extent). I think it’s kind of inevitable.
Nor is this future is far away. For some, it’s already here. The iPhone is going to change things. This discussion is just getting started.
Ken Carroll
中文 Chinese
Michael Butler Says:
June 28th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Ken,
I find your example to be a great one. Examples like this help us think more concretely.
In the situation that your described above I would never attempt to do any serious research, if I couldn’t have at least three sources open at the same time. The screen size on a m-device makes this impractical for the present. This is not a device that will make it easy to jump between a variety of sources making comparisons.
Moreover the cost (in terms of time spent learning on a small screen) and the cost of m-device air time makes it a very inefficient, cumbersome and ultimately expensive research tool in comparison to laptops.
I don’t see these things being used in this way at all.
Steve@ChinesePod Says:
June 28th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Hi Michael,
I’d agree that the mobile device is not suited to scholarly research, but there are many other types of research for which it would be tremendously useful.
In the pharmacy and can’t remember the Chinese for ‘aspirin’? Just query an online source.
Buying textiles in Mexico and want to get a price check on the price being offered by the market vendor? Ask the community through your phone.
I guess my point is that even though it is hard in advance to envisage exactly how new mediums and technologies will be used, having a resource as powerful as the internet in your pocket is bound to yield tremendous benefits - as long as service providers can figure out what kinds of resource and tool suit this medium. This is what we hope to explore in the coming months and years in the context of language learning.
Michael Butler Says:
June 28th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Steve,
Those examples that you gave bring me to the heart of the problem. Does m-learning mean information on demand or learning on demand? I think both of your examples are of the former.
I’m really hoping to have someone give me an example of m-learning that is more than transitory information uptake (please do not interpret this as being critical of your comments). Believe me, I am not against m-learning for info retrival it is just I am hoping against hope that I can see an example that goes beyond transitory info. uptake.
IMHO earning, in the “ideal” sense, points to information that is taken in, digested, fit together with pieces that are already known and then retained for multiple future use. This kind of learning probably also needs some kind of reinforcement.
While single event, just in time, use and lose learning might be extremely beneficial is it learning in the “traditional” sense and does this matter?
goulnik (郭力毅) Says:
June 28th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
re: Michael Butler, you’re under a tree (!) listening to a CPodcast, following the dialogue on the browser of your portable screen, checking other listener’s comments, Amber’s answer, quickly flicking through the vocab or looking up a recent lesson on a related topic…
Lee Says:
June 29th, 2007 at 8:12 am
I use a windows mobile phone as my primary study tool, and I love using it - but I love using it with content I’ve already synced up with my phone. If you look at all the existing really successful mobile applications, they’re all applications that synchronize content with little or no user intervention. I will use a mobile ‘net connection at home or abroad under specific sorts of conditions:
- download email i.e. pushmail
- updating rss feeds, downloading articles - i.e. lessons
- Use mobile widgets, e.g. gmail’s java midlet
Nothing else if I can help it.
I really don’t think fully interactive mobile has arrived. I avoid using the mobile for any interactive online content unless I’m in a bind. This is in part due to online costs, esp. while travelling abroad, but even when I’m in the U.S. with a 3G connection and unlimited downloads I only use a mobile interface to a web site as an act of desperation - mobile browsers and traditional web/mobile web design approaches just aren’t there, and I’m not sure they ever will be.
Some email solutions set good examples for mobile web apps, I think MS Directpush actually presents a great example of a successful web 2.0 app, albeit one that’s a complete application.
Updating RSS feeds is typically done when the device is tethered to a pc with a real connection, but if I see an article/lesson I really want while on the move I can always download it, but this still isn’t really an interactive process. The great thing about RSS is it’s like email - once I download it the information stays on the device, offline, until I delete it.
Using widgets like the gmail midlet can be good, as the widget skips the requirement of downloading some sort of interface as part of every page request. Many of these still have a click and wait model, and if the data portion isn’t cached most of the benefit is lost.
The powerpoint in Hank’s last post discussed widgets a lot, and I do agree with a lot in that presentation. I think some combination of widgets and mobile oriented RSS are probably the best ways to go. The widget itself might use RSS to present content to the user, and/or download a user’s vocab lists for flashcard review and keep them cached until they request an update. To service the most users and most phones the two leading options are Java midlets or Flash Lite. Java is more ubiquitous, but a lot of the premium content on cpod is already in Flash - porting over to a flash light application might be faster.
The problem with the iphone’s widgets is it sounds like they’ll be semi-proprietary - i.e. only support on the iphone and OS X. The iphone is a bit to pricey and niche to be the killer app for this.
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