Informal Mobile Learning

1. Informal MobileLearning Mike Sharples Learning Sciences Research Institute University of Nottingham Giasemi Vavoula University of Birmingham/The Open University mike.sharples@nottingham.ac.uk

2. University of Nottingham • LSRI: International Research Institute • Member of Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence • Member of G1:1 global network for learning with personal technologies

3. Informal mobile learning Only reference to mobile learning in Encyclopedia of Informal Education www.infed.org is 1916! A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability. Dewey, 1916, “Democracy in Education”

4. Informal learning (Tough, 1971) (Livingstone, 2001) • Nearly all adults (95%) are involved in some significant form of learning • Adults spend on average 15 hours per week on deliberate personal learning • Almost everyone undertakes at least 1-2 major learning efforts a year. The median is 8 projects. • Learning for career, hobbies, sports, community and voluntary work, household and survival • Consistent across ages (above age 16), cultures, and social classes • Less than 1% of adults’ learning projects are for formal credit

5. Vavoula’s study of mobile learning • March-August 2004 • Diary study • 44 participants registered • 15 kept diary for 2 weeks (161 episodes reported in total) • Definition of mobile learning • “Learning away from one’s normal learning environment, or learning involving the use of mobile devices”

6. Recording learning in context • Temporal context: e.g. date, duration. • Social context: e.g. other people, roles they assumed. • Situational context: e.g. location, event • Educational context: e.g. learning method, purpose (if any) • Activity context: e.g. learning topic, available support • Historical context: how learning interleaves with other, everyday activities.

7. Sample diary entry

8. Results • 59% of the reported learning episodes were mobile • 49% were not in home or office • 8 outdoors, 34 workplace, 10 place of leisure, 3 friends’ house, 1 public transport, 23 other (e.g. places of worship)

9. Results • Most learning was to enable activity (40%) and/or solve a problem (15%) • Only 5% of mobile and 10% of non-mobile learning was related to a curriculum

10. Results • Conversation was the main learning method of mobile learning (45% mobile and 21% non-mobile) • Mobile learning involves more activity and interaction than non-mobile

11. Caerus: example of Informal Mobile Learning Caerus, in Greek mythology, was the personification of opportunity and favourable moments • Informal outdoor learning • Automatic location-based delivery of content and services • Personalised multimedia tours, educational games, outdoor experiments • Tell the stories behind the sights • Physical navigation

12. CAERUS Caerus, in Greek mythology, was the personification of opportunity and favourable moments Handheld Delivery Desktop Administration

13. Desktop Authoring System • Import map image • Scale map to GPS coordinates • Associate multimedia with regions on map • Create tours linking map locations • Create themes for personalised guides and games

14. Handheld client • Map based on current location • Select a theme • Multimedia content or service automatically ‘pops up’ when you walk to a location • Leave ‘virtual graffiti’, share impressions, create location-based blogs

15. Reconception of learning • Classroom learning • Learning as knowledge construction • Supported by ICT • How to design and manage an effective learning environment • Mobile learning • Learning as conversation in context • Enabled by continual interaction with personal technologies • How people artfully engage with their continually changing surroundings to create transiently stable and effective sites of learning