STORIES OF MOBILE LEARNING

Christopher Higgins Acting Director, OIT Academic Support

Mobility Initiative @ Maryland

• Initiated by Undergraduate Admissions• Recruitment focus

• Targeted population• Banneker Key and Maryland Incentive Awards Program

(Honors College)

• Device• iPod Touch or iPhone

• Steering Committee• Faculty, University Admissions, OIT Staff

Mobility Initiative Focus

• Enhance the classroom learning experience• Promote interaction between faculty and students• Provide students with a tool to help them manage

their time and navigate the physical and administrative environments on campus

• Enhance the personal safety of our students• Promote the university's world class status

through innovation and technology

Mobility Initiative Focus

• Enhance the classroom learning experience• Promote interaction between faculty and students• Provide students with a tool to help them manage their

time and navigate the physical and administrative environments on campus

• Enhance the personal safety of our students• Promote the university's world class status through

innovation and technology

• Moving mobile support to the enterprise level

UM MOBILITY INITIATIVE AT A GLANCE

• Year 1• 175 students - ~40%/60% iPhone/iPod Touch• Weekly seminars during Fall 2008• Pre- and post- semester evaluations• Applications:

• Mobile Portal, MyeVu, Clickers

UM MOBILE PORTAL

Access to:•Schedule of Classes•ELMS (powered by Blackboard)•Student Services:

• Dining• Recreation• Transportation• Campus Life• Etc.

YEAR 2 AT A GLANCE

• Year 2• 165 students - ~35%/60% iPhone/iPod Touch• 5 Fall seminars• Pre- & Post- evals• New Applications

• Native ELMS app• Data Collection apps• UM Info

• 10 Faculty Fellows

ELMS

MOBILITY INITIATIVE AT A GLANCE

• Year 3• 150 students – ~35%/65% iPhone/iPod Touch • 55 students for Digital Cultures & Creativity

program get iPads• Pre- and Post- evals• Faculty engaged in CTE Summer Institute• Data Collection App – UM Forms• 9 New Faculty Fellows

UM FORMS

Mobility Initiative @ Maryland

• Apps:• Year 1

• MyeVue, Mobile Portal, TurningPoint

• Year 2• Data Collection Apps, UM Info, ELMS Mobile

• Year 3• UM Forms - ODK based Data Collection App

Faculty Engagement

• Engaged faculty thru two methods:• Center for Teaching Excellence Summer

Institute• 12 faculty fellows

• Mobile Learning Class Projects• Call for proposals process• 7 faculty fellows

• Access to sets of loaner iPod Touches

• Support for application development and research

Class Projects1. Kinesiology: Teacher Observation

• Developed data collection app2. Communication: Media Journal

• Developed data collection app3. Architecture: Walking tour

• UM Forms, Google Maps4. Arabic: Film Studies

• Blog, YouTube5. Computer Science: Programming class

KNES491: THE CURRICULUM IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION

• Students observed local physical education class sessions

• Recorded their observations with Ecological momentary Analysis (EMA)

• iPod Touch devices with Collector app provided to students

• Students participated in pre- and post- experience surveys

KNES COLLECTOR APP

• Master Teacher observations by student teachers.

• Data Collected off line during off site observations.

• Data reviewed with students after observations were completed

COMM 370: MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

• Students tracked daily media usage habits for a period of two weeks

• iPod Touch devices with Media Diary app provided to students

• Learning goals:• Increasing students’ awareness of their own media consumption

patterns• Enhancing their mastering of the usage of a new mobile device• Comparing the effectiveness and efficiency of recording the

information with and without these mobile devices

COMM COLLECTOR APP

• Recorded media usage of all types

• Time recorded was to be down to the minute

• Data compared with the other universities participating in the study

STUDENT EXPERIENCES

• “Using the iPod Touch gave me convenience and accessibility because it was always closeby.”

• “I used the iPhone and I found [it] really helpful in completing the media project because it was in my pocket easy to use, had internet on it, the apps on the device also made it easy to keep updates and access online sites like twitter, facebook, youtube, and flickr.”

STUDENT EXPERIENCES

“Using technology to record my data confused me. Even though it’s a diary of media usage, the proper way of doing it would have been through the use of electronics, but I wanted to write everything on paper and keep my diary organized. The cons of using a mobile device would be the confusion of writing everything down in a small device, if it was in an excel sheet it would have been better to look at. Pros would be that its always accessible.”

PROGRAMMING THE IPHONE

• Course taught fundamental programming principles with a focus on the mobile environment and the iPhone OS

• Combination of individual hands-on labs and group-based final project

• Final Projects• UM Tour• Shuttle Trac• iPostcard• Beat Builder

UM TOUR

IPOSTCARD

BEAT BUILDER

INFORMATION 3.0

• All activities were devoted to investigating the practical issues of ubiquitous media

• Social networking, news (including emergency alerts), location-based GPS communication, and citizen journalism were considered in context of handheld devices

• http://info3pt0.blogspot.com

INFO 3.0 APP

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• enhance knowledge and use of technology to find, use and exchange different types of information

• know the social, psychological, political and private issues of that activity for diverse audiences

INFO 3.0 MOBILE PORJECT

• Students used devices in conjunction with Maryland Day held on Saturday, April 24, 2010

• Captured and shared information about various events on websites including Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, blogs and ELMS (powered by Blackboard)

• Important Apps for the project:• Qik video• AudioBoo

MARYLAND DAY PROJECT

• Total mobile content for the day:   • 510 tweets• 454 photos• 91 audio interviews• 32 videos

STUDENT EXPERIENCE

“I did not have any issues with the technology, except I would have liked to have been able to upload photos immediately to go with the tweets I was posting (my cell phone camera is not that great, so I chose to stick with the digital and upload later.) I enjoyed using the small devices and the iPod touch was a great way to carry several tools around at once.”

STUDENT EXPERIENCE

“Other than the iPod Touch, I used my laptop, cell phone, and my bike (if that counts). I only would use my laptop towards the end because of a dying signal and battery with my iPod Touch…. I had problems uploading my video interview to YouTube via a text/email with my phone so I manually transferred the video to my laptop. All in all, I was comfortable with using the iPod Touch and my cell phone to communicate information, but I would try to avoid solely relying on the small mobile devices for coverage.”

DIGITAL CULTURES AND CREATIVITY

• Digital Cultures and Creativity (DCC) provides an innovative curriculum and learning community that combines art, imagination, and global citizenship with new media and new technologies.

• An Honors College living and learning program • Students pursue activities as varied as digital

music and video production, digital art, computer game design, creative electronic writing, virtual worlds, and developing online communities.

DCC BASICS

• Living and Learning together• Academic Courses

• HDCC 105: Examines the history of creative digital expression from  the invention of computers in the mid-20th century through the "Web 2.0” landscape of today

• HDCC 106: A practical introduction to developing new tools and applications for mobile platforms. Hands-on experimentation is designed to focus awareness on the historical, theoretical, and cultural contexts in which digital creativity happens.

STRUCTURED PLAY

• Digital Cultures and Environmental Sustainability• discover places where UMD can improve sustainability &

invent a digital cultures solution• Long term project

• The Exquisite Corpse• a day-long creative project in time based art and

crowdsourced storytelling

• Drifting the City• spend a day in the city learning about and 'digitalizing'

The Situationist concept of the Dérive.

REACTIONS TO DATE

• "It's great for reading textbooks — a lot cheaper and more convenient than carrying around stacks of books”

• “I use apps such as flash drive, reading, and language apps for my classes.”

• "This is the first year of the program, so we're kind of like guinea pigs”

• “We use it for Honors Online Journal meetings, to test our group's entry in UMD's Mobility Contest.”

LESSONS LEARNED

Next Steps• Support of faculty

• Loaner pool? Supporting the “next” device?

• Access for Students • Moving to enterprise level support of mobile devices• Defining infrastructure, content, applications

• What does the long term picture look like?