Using the iPhone in connected learning

www.wired.com

A great story from Wired about an American university piloting the use of customised iPhones for student learning and collaboration.

The rise of connected mobile technologies for learner interaction, content access, and collaboration is likely to be one of the big buzzes of the next year or so.

You probably didn't read that here first, but if you're reading it on a smartphone then you're surfing along nicely on the Zeitgeist wave.

Mobile Tech and the Incentive to Learn

 I came across this story in a roundabout kind of way.

Droga5, an advertising agency, has recently won two prestigious black pencil awards at the D&AD awards. The first was for its viral video campaign featuring Sarah Silverman, 'The Great Schlep', which was used to empower and motivate older Jewish voters in America to vote for President Obama in last year's election.

The other award, which is what interests me more, is for a radical educational program currently being tested in New York.

The Million Motivation program sees students from the most deprived backgrounds being issued with adapted Samsung mobile phones. These can't be used to make calls during the school day, but come with a range of learning apps integrated into the phone.

What makes the program most interesting though is the way the contract for the phone operates. Rather than pay with cash, students earn air time and the ability to get downloads via hard work and good behaviour. The more 'points' a teaacher gives out the more time the student can talk, text, web browse, and so on.

There are , of course, always risks related to these sorts of incentive based programs, and the Digital Journal has a good article that outlines the scheme and delves into these. Principally, there's the risk that doing anything for something leads to skewed intellectual and moral values regarding the benefit of study.

On the other hand, with drop out and failure rates as high as they are amongst disadvantaged groups in the Big Apple, anything's worth a shot. Academic support is provided by Harvard University's newly founded Ed Labs, that's looking for scientific solutions to educational problems, taking an analytical R&D multi-disciplinary approach. The results of their various projects should make for fascinating reading.

In the meantime, we shall have to wait and see what benefits or hindrances the Million Motivation program brings. Let's hope, for the sake of the children taking part, it works. 

Twitter, Mobile Learning, Africa, and a whole heap of big ideas

Right, I'm going to attempt to draw some threads together here.

First up, a fascinating story, with accompanying video, all about how an American professor is using Twitter to get real time feedback and asynchronous comments during and after her History lectures. Read all about it here. 

I've noticed that only a few of my Media students have engaged with Twitter (or maybe they have, they just don't want to engage with me!). Still, it's something I'm going to try with my sixth form Media students come September.

I noticed in the video that a number of students were using iPhones and other smart phones. I got a Samsung Omnia at the end of last year and I love it. Running off Windows Mobile I can sync with Outlook, watch BBC streams live when I get a 3G signal, and best of all, pick up Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents from students and colleagues when I'm out and about. 

I also run Skype off it, play movies and generally use it as a good tool for taking notes and gathering ideas. In that vein I'm quite excited by the ways new smart phones are developing. For example, HTC's Hero, using Google's open source Android operating system, seems to be taking the Web 2.0 criterion of 'collective intelligence' and allowing users to tap into that on the phone. It's possible to select someone from your address list and see their details, Facebook postings, Flickr uploads, Twitter tweets and so on. As someone who resides in numerous spaces online this is an attractive option. 

Educationally, I can see the potential for it being harnessed to improve informal and formal learning opportunities. Students could harvest ideas and search engine entries into a format that will allow information from a range of sources be assimilated and presented in meaningful ways. This could be distributed to friends, peers, teachers and learning groups, in order to drive projects and assignments forward.

All of which ties in with this week's topic on H800 Technology Enhanced Learning, the MA module I'm taking at the Open University's Institute for Educational Technology. I've been preparing some ideas on the use of mobile learning in Africa, since my school, Berkhamsted, sponsors Sandi School, a developing school in the Eastern Cape. As Head of Media/ICT I'm keen to help the school explore ways of bringing e-learning into the curriculum. So, here are some articles that I read which I hope you'll find interesting too.

Making Good Use of Mobile Phone Capabilities in Africa (2007)

Harvard Kennedy School - Mobile Phones in Africa (2008)

Mobile Learning: From single project status into the mainstream? (2009)