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By Nicky Hockly, July 17, 2010 12:35 pm

As part of this week’s computer housekeeping, I’ve been going through my Twitter favourites of the past two weeks on the topic of mLearning. Below are five of the tweets I’ve found most interesting or useful. I’ve ordered them from tweets on more theoretical issues, to those with a more practical slant. Hope you find them useful as well!

1 mLearnCon2010: Mobile gets real

Learning Solutions Magazine provides a good overview of the mLearnCon 2010 conference, divided into key sections, including lessons learned, and considerations for developers.

• One thing I especially like about the post:
  Thorough, with a nice list of other blogs posts about mLearnCon 2010, at the end – good for further reading.
• My favourite line:
  Designing mLearning is more about the user and less about the technology.
  

2 Mlearning on multiple devices: A practical guide

A blog post from The Learning Journey blogger Nicole Fourgere, which summarises her notes from a session of the same name at mLearnCon 2010.

• One thing I especially like about the post:
  Provides a useful overview in list format of general considerations, development options, ad testing options.
• My favourite line:
  If you are going to go with cross platform be sure not to favor the logic of one OS over another.

3 Layar & Augmented Reality for Your Campus

From the Mobile in Higher Ed blog, this post briefly describes a project to use the augmented reality (AR) app Layar with a campus map. Includes some helpful videos on location-based AR and object/simulation-based AR if you’re not sure what these are!

• One thing I especially like about the post:
  It’s critical and points out some of the shortcomings of location-based AR (the ‘Yes, but…’ factor).
• My favourite line:
  Location-based augmented reality isn’t quite there yet.

4 Classroom iPod Touches: Do’s and Don’ts

Tony Vincent’s excellent blog has a post on iTouches from Feb 2010, which I had missed. Useful, very practical advice for educators planning to use these devices with classes.

• One thing I especially like about the post:
  The advice is based on experience, and covers a range of areas, from tech considerations, to implementation issues such as having a fair usage contract (with several examples).
• My favourite line (ok, two lines in this case):
  Don’t forget professional development. There’s always something new to learn when it comes to teaching and learning with iPods.

5 A Phone for Geography

An interview with Noeline Wright (University of Waikato, NZ) about using mlearning in the secondary school geography classroom, with practical examples.

• One thing I especially like about the post:
  It’s practical, and the project could be replicated by foreign language teachers, especially for CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning).
• My favourite line:
  Secondary school learners that I’ve interviewed say that mostly, they prefer to be able to work with others to develop knowledge, understanding and skills.

Please add any tweets or resources related to mLearning YOU have found especially helpful, in the Comments section here – thanks!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
July 2010

Comments (4)

By Nicky Hockly, July 7, 2010 3:23 pm

[Or: Two ways to integrate social networking into mLearning]

What social networking sites do you use? Facebook? Twitter? Linked in? You Tube?

If you are reading this blog, chances are that you use at least one or more of these sites on a regular basis. And what about where you access these sites from? Your work or home computer, or your mobile device? Or both?

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have seen massive growth in the last year or two. No doubt you’ve already heard that ‘’if Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous country in the world’’.  Part of this massive increase has been driven by the rise in the use of mobile devices and smartphones. It’s now quicker and easier than ever before to access these sites. And this is true in both the developed and developing world. (See this article from the Guardian Weekly about the increase in Facebook access in several countries in Africa, for example).

I recently came across this infographic about mobile phones and social networking sites. It shows how people use social networking sites on their mobile:

See the full infographic here. Note the range of things a user can do (post and tag photos, instant messaging, post to a message board, comment on a blog etc).

A second infographic that got my attention is one that shows what apps people are using on smartphones. What do you think are the most popular apps on the iPhone, Blackberry and Android? Facebook is in the number 1 spot for all three.

So, more people than ever before are using mobile devices such as smartphones to access social networking sites. And the numbers are rising. What does this mean for educators? Well, clearly that we can tap into and exploit this trend to support learning. How?

1 Integration
Use of social networking  is integrated into the app or learning program. An example is the new British Council radio-style podcast Learn English: this includes a Facebook page for the podcast presenters, where learners can post comments and questions. This app is thoroughly reviewed by David Read here.

2 Addition
Use of social networking sites or tools are external to the app itself, but learners use these networks to support the learning programme. An example is the K-Nect mobile project: US high school kids used specially created apps for learning algebra and maths, but insisted on being allowed to set up blogs and to use instant messenging through which to communicate outside of the program itself. Teachers were initially skeptical, but the social networking part of the project proved immensely successful. I’ve blogged about this project here.

I’d love to hear about other examples of mLearning projects that are using social networking to support  learning … Please feel free to post any examples below and share your project!

Read more

• An excellent summary of the recent mLearnCon2010 (mLearning Conference) from Learning Solutions magazine. Links to a number of blogs at the end are worth checking out as well.

• A good place to look for infographics is Visualoop.

Comments (1)

By Nicky Hockly, June 21, 2010 4:00 pm

[4 formats for running webinars]

Have you ever attended an online seminar or ‘webinar’? If so, did it follow

by davidking

this pattern?

• introduction by moderator
• talk by presenter (with PowerPoint slides)
• question-and-answer time

Chances are that it did. This is a common format for a webinar, and an example of the chalk and talk presentation style, delivered online. It can also be the least engaging type of webinar.

So what other options do we have? Here is my webinar format guide, which currently includes four formats*. I’ve ordered them from the most straightforward to the more complex format (and given each a groovy name):

1 Chalk and talk

PowerPoint slides and presentation. Framed by an introduction from a moderator, and a question-and-answer slot at the end. There are ways to liven up this format, which I blog about here, but plenty of webinars I have attended don’t get any audience participation at all during the presentation stage. Added to this, there are unfortunately still some webinar platforms out there that only allow PowerPoint slides and voice. So no text chat window for participants to use as a back channel, or to socialise among themselves, or to respond to questions asked by the speaker. To me a webinar platform that allows no place for participants to interact with each other and the presenter should be shunned. We are in the age of Web 2.0 for Pete’s sake.

2 Talk and talk

Basically an interview. The moderator interviews the speaker, possibly with pre-prepared questions, or questions which have been collected from the participants beforehand. The moderator should also be able to integrate relevant questions that are appearing in the chat window as the interview progresses. The advantage of this format is that participants are listening to two people speaking; the cut and thrust of real conversation makes listening far more engaging. The session can be rounded up with one of the short finishing activities mentioned here. A variation on the talk and talk format is the ‘Coffee with…’ format, where you get two subject experts shooting the breeze on a topic, in a less formal ambience. Doubly engaging. Here is an (audio)  recording of a Coffee with.. session we ran with well-known language teaching experts, in Second Life (SL) last year. This recording is of Jeremy Harmer giving his first ever presentation in SL.

3 Listen and do

This is an effective webinar format if you would like participants to actually try out a tool for themselves during your presentation. Obviously, it is especially effective when you are talking about web-based tools. A few months back I gave a webinar about how to use a micro-blogging tool (Edmodo) in teacher training — and participants actually tried out Edmodo in the talk itself. You can hear me describe in 2 mins how the talk was structured – if you’re interested, take notes and you’ll have a webinar session plan!

Edmodo Webinar

4 Guided tour

Using shared browsing in the webinar platform, the presenter walks participants through a process, or a website. Especially effective for showing complex sites such as 3-D virtual worlds like Second Life to newcomers. It’s a good idea to stop broadcasting the presenter’s video when giving a guided tour, as it detracts from the shared browsing window. It also helps save bandwidth. The downside of shared web browsing is that not all webinar platforms are robust enough to support it. My own experience of shared web browsing has been patchy — sometimes it works fine, especially with smaller groups, but sometimes it can crash the platform. Make sure you try it out in the webinar platform a couple of times beforehand, if you are planning to use it.

What about you? Have you attended or given any webinars that follow other formats? Please add them to the comments section!

*Thanks to my the Consultants-E colleague Ana d’Almeida, who inspired me with ideas for this post through her recent work in writing a short online course for the British Council.

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
June 2010

Comments (9)

By Nicky Hockly, June 9, 2010 1:54 pm

How do you feel about housework?
Personally, I’m not a big fan. But in a recent fit of (late) spring cleaning, I decided to sort out my mobile learning bookmarks in delicious, in preparation for some research I’m doing on the topic. And voila! I came across all sorts of fantastic stuff I had forgotten about.

Given the power of lists, here are 6 key (to me) mobile learning resources. Actually, this is cheating a bit, because some of the key resources in my list of resources are themselves lists of key resources. If you know what I mean. But hey, my list only has 6.

What are these resources good for?

• showing you how others are using mlearning in education
• inspiring you to try out some mobile learning with your own classes (see especially number 1 below)
• providing you with specific apps and activities to use with classes
• showing you case studies and success stories that you can refer to with aplomb
• persuading colleagues and managers at your institution that mlearning is a Big Thing in education (by referring to the point above)
• getting managers at your institution to invest in mlearning (by referring to the two points above)

Number 1: Kids with iTouches video

I have tweeted and blogged about this video, which is still top of my list for seeing mlearning in action. It describes a project carried out in the UK at a primary school, in which an entire class of 32 8-year olds were given an iTouch each. The video shows how the device was seamlessly integrated into the curriculum over a period of time, and the video includes comments from the teachers and kids themselves. Totally inspiring.

Number 2: St Marys City Schools project

Schools in St Marys City in Ohio, USA, have been using mlearning in a series of pilot projects. This website includes not only experiences and reports on the St Mary’s projects, but also links to other case studies, and news articles on topic. Also worth a look is their Acceptance Use Policy for those of you considering introducing the use of handheld devices into your class/school. Plenty to keep you busy on the site for several hours.

Number 3: Learning 2 go project

Another school-wide initiative in mobile learning, this time from the UK, and started in 2003, and this is another site worth browsing if you are thinking of introducing mobile learning into your school/institution. The site includes this very clear graphic of factors to consider in implementation.

Number 4: 50 Top m-learning resources

From Upside Learning, this slide show consists of 50 resources, one per slide, including a short description of each. I really like this as an original way of producing a (long!) list of resources. It also cunningly takes my list of mlearning resources up to a total of 56.

Number 5: Top 50 iPhone Apps for Educators

Another (long!) list, this time of iPhone apps for education across a variety of disciplines. This list was published in December 2008, so there have been some additions to this list since then. To update this list, especially for language learning, check out Graham Stanley’s blog post (on iphone apps), and Neil Ballantine’s blog post (on iPhone and Android apps), as well as the British Council mobile learning site. But in the meantime, this brings my list up to 106 resources.

Number 6: 7 Things you should know about… Mobile apps for learning
I am a big fan of Educause and their ‘7 Things you should know about…’ series. One of the earlier educational organisations to start using the web and numbered lists to get key concepts across, it’s clear and to the point, and perfect as an introduction to the topic, for both teachers and managers.

Now for the disclaimer. This is a very personal, very short list of what I consider to be useful and interesting resources on the topic of mobile learning. To keep the list down to these 6, I had to leave out plenty of other resources that equally deserve to be included. You can find a fuller list of resources on my Delicious account – just search with ‘mobile’, or ‘mlearning’ to see what else I have.

But in the meantime, I’m sure you have a favourite mlearning resource that I have left off this list, and that you are tutting to yourself about right now. Please add it to the comments section below!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
June 2010

Comments (3)

By Nicky Hockly, June 1, 2010 12:34 pm

[Or: Mobile learning in your high school]

Imagine you are the principal of a high school in the USA. Students are constantly bringing their mobile phones and iPods to school. Last year you banned these devices from the premises. Parents and teachers supported you in this. Bags are searched at the school gates every day, and any mobile phones or iPods that are found are confiscated. But the kids keep finding ways to sneak them into class. Now teachers are complaining about the amount of time and effort they spend punishing the kids, confiscating their devices, and reporting them to their parents. And still the kids come to school with their mobile phones and iPods. What do you do?

This is the situation that Edward Spurke, the Principal of Roswell High in Georgia USA, found himself in last year. What he decided to do was to stop fighting a losing battle, and to persuade teachers and parents to embrace mobile technology in the school (the kids needed no persuading).

Education Week recently ran a webinar on the topic of mobile learning in high schools in which Spurke outlined experiences of trying to fight the technology that students were already bringing to class. Spurke was followed by Shawn Gross of the K-Nect project, both with first-hand experience of implementing mobile learning. You can access a recording of the webinar – or read my summary of key points below!  Here are some of the things I learned from this great webinar about mobile projects in schools:

• There is no point fighting a losing battle. Kids are already bringing mobile devices to class — find ways to embrace the technology, not suppress it.
• Investing in class sets of one device (e.g. iTouches, or netbooks) ensures that everybody can use the same software and apps on the same machines.
• Using devices with no inbuilt cameras or sms/telephone facilities will avoid kids constantly taking photos during class, or needing expensive phone data plans.
• You can allow students to take home the mobile devices. But get students and parents to sign a liability form to deal with lost, stolen or damaged devices first.
• Make the entire school building WiFi, and forget website blocking software — the kids will find a way around it. Instead ensure that you have an Acceptable Use Policy in place.
• Ensure constant free access to the WiFi in your building — kids will then use their mobile devices e.g. during lunch and their free time.
• On the K-Nect project, when asked what sorts of technology students would like to see in the classroom, 90% of them preferred mobile devices.
• On the K-Nect project, students also wanted access to social networking facilities such as blogs and instant messages on the devices.

What is particularly interesting about the use of mobile devices for the K-Nect project is how students used these social networking facilities to help each other problem solve. Also, they generally spent a lot more time on mobile-enabled schoolwork than they had done previously (and we are talking about algebra and maths!). Also interesting are the research results for this project, which showed higher test scores in maths for the classes that used the mobile devices and mobile-enabled materials, as opposed to classes who use traditional methods and content.

Here’s a video overview of the K-Nect project

If you want to find out more:

• Listen to the recording of the Education Week webinar.
• Listen to podcasts produced by the Roswell High student is with their mobile devices on the school website.
• Find out more about the K-Nect project on their website and blog (some interesting videos on the blog)  .
• Read about other case studies in mobile learning.
• For the private language schools sector, Nik Peachey has a good blog post about why all schools should have free wifi.

Any more pointers to specific mobile case studies, or anecdotes and suggestions welcome!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
June 2010

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By Nicky Hockly, May 18, 2010 1:17 pm

Coping with social media, professional development and information overload

Meet Olga. Olga teaches English several hours a day. Apart from preparing her classes, teaching, and marking assignments, in the course of a normal week she also does the following things:

• She accesses the online staffroom of her school to download material to use in some of her classes.
• She reads daily digests of e-mails from the five online professional development discussion groups belongs to. Sometimes she contributes a posting to the group on a topic she is interested in or knows something about.
• She notes down the date of a free webinar in her calendar, which she plans to attend next week.
• She checks her RSS reader and catches up with postings on two or three blogs written by other teachers around the world.
• She posts to her own professional blog about a new podcasting project that she has started with her elementary class. She usually posts once a week to her blog.
• She listens and responds to the podcasts her students have contributed to the podcasting site.
• She logs into Twitter once a day, to see what colleagues are up to, and to quickly follow a few links or articles recommended by her Twitter network. She sends a few tweets, including one about how her new class podcasting project is going.
• She bookmarks a few recommended sites from Twitter for later reading. She will add the really useful sites to her social bookmarking account (she uses Delicious).
• She catches up on postings and coursework from the free online course called ‘Digital Storytelling’ she is currently taking. She attends a video conferencing tutorial session with her online course colleagues and tutor.
• She updates her ePortfolio with the name, dates, length and a brief content description of her online course ‘Digital Storytelling’. Next week she’ll add a description of her class podcasting project and a link to what the students produced.

Olga is a teacher who knows how the Internet and social media can help her develop as a teacher. She is also Superwoman.

How many of the above things do you do? How many do you plan to do, but not have time for? How guilty and pressured does this make you feel? And admit it, are you one of those people who can’t get through a meal with friends without checking for new email or tweets on your phone surreptiously under the table?

Web 2.0 has brought us many varied and wonderful opportunities for professional development. This we all know. What is less talked about is the psychological stress that being exposed to an endless stream of information causes us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a technophobe. I love technology, and adore the vast range of options that technology brings to my teaching and training. Hell, I even have my own blog! But I also feel a bit stressed out. A lot of the time I feel as if I’m only just keeping my head above water. I also feel that everybody else knows a lot more than I do. Everybody else seems to be so much more active on their blogs, on others’ blogs, on Twitter, on Facebook, on YouTube, on discussion lists, on …

And worst of all, I worry that it’s just me. Am I the only one who feels unable to cope with all of this information? Am I the only one who wakes up at two in the morning thinking about that article I only half read last night, because I just didn’t have time to finish it? Am I the only one worrying that I haven’t logged on to Twitter for two days, and have probably missed lots of really important stuff? Am I the only one wondering how to juggle my normal workload (large), my family life (demanding), my social life (meagre) and all this extra stuff?? I suspect I may not be the only one, but I don’t hear a lot of my colleagues talking about it.

So let’s talk about it. Let’s share some coping strategies, some tips & some advice for how we can best manage all of the rich resources that Web 2.0 provides. Below are some of the strategies I (not always successfully) try to use.

7 Tips for coping with social media:

Tip 1: Accept the inevitable. You will never know everything, and you will never be able to fully keep up. Be very Zen about this.

Tip 2: Make a list of all your ongoing online professional development sources (Twitter, discussion groups,  blogs, webinars…). Prioritize them. Choose just a few to focus on each week or month.

Tip 3: Put your list on the wall above your desk (yes, on paper – I do!) so you don’t do too much. Relax – you will cover those other things on your list, but all in good time.

Tip 4: Use time management – allow yourself to log on to Twitter, say twice a day for 15 minutes only. Allow another 20 minutes a day to check your RSS feed, read a few new blog posts by colleagues’, and comment on one or two. No more. One or two comments a day is plenty!!

Tip 5: Use personal management tools to help you organise incoming info. For example, use some sort of ‘read it later’ application or strategy to deal with fast incoming info from a source like Twitter. Send tweets with useful-looking links directly to Evernote, to Instapaper, or to Read it Later, to check out when you have time. Or mark the tweets as favourites (eg in Tweetdeck, where you get a separate Favourites column) and read them later, in your 30-minute daily Twitter slot.

Tip 6: Be selective about links you save permanently. And make sure you use social bookmarking, NOT your old Firefox or Explorer Bookmarks! Very passé (those folders!) and only accessible from one machine. You want your bookmarks accessible from anywhere, and searchable by tags – by you and your network. Delicious and Diigo are two popular options.

Tip 7: Finally, when in doubt, ask your Twitter network for help. Here’s the advice some of my Twitter colleagues gave me for coping:

None of my tips are rocket science. But sometimes it helps to sit down, set things out, and take a good look at them. Then to make a plan, and (try to) put some strategies into practice.

Please add any tips or advice you may have for coping, in the Comments section below, and help me not drown in information overload!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
May 2010

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By Nicky Hockly, May 12, 2010 6:41 am

[Or: Getting your learners started with learning on the go]

Look up a definition of mobile learning, and one of the most common phrases that turns up is ‘on the move’, or ‘learning on the go’. Although mobile learning can be integrated strategically in the classroom (see this earlier post for more ), the easiest way to start using mobile learning with learners may be not use it in the classroom.

Sound like a cop out? It´s not. It’s just a low-risk approach to getting you and your learners into the idea of mobile learning. You get them to do the work outside the classroom – on the move. Simple. Here are five steps to follow:

Photo by emrank

Step 1

Find out what mobile, handheld devices your learners have. You could take the opportunity to teach them some computer-related vocab too (here’s an image of devices you could use). What do they use these devices for in their personal lives? How often? What  about language learning – do they use their devices for this in any way? How?

Step 2

In groups of two or three, learners brainstorm how they could use these devices to support and develop their foreign language study when they are on the move. Some learners may already use their mobile devices for this. Get a list of options on the board or onto a PowerPoint slide.  Here are some suggestions:

• Language learning apps and games (see some specific apps and some more)
• Dictionaries and thesauri – monolingual and bilingual
• Book and magazines in English (e.g. on an e-reader or smartphone)
• Audio and video podcasts (e.g. from the BCC, or CNN. Other ESL podcasts here)
• Get information/reviews about specific locations they visit via geotagging (e.g. with the free app Rummble)
• Translate signs, ads, menus etc to and from English or their native language when in a foreign country (e.g. with apps like Pic Translator)

Step 3

In pairs, learners discuss one or two mobile options they would like to try out, depending on the handheld devices they have, outside the classroom. They also discuss when and where they might do this learning, and for how long (e.g. commuting to work by metro; in the evenings after dinner on the sofa; waiting for the bus etc.) Point out that just 5 or 10 minutes each time is fine, and they should decide on only one (or max two) options. Tell them to try out their chosen option at least once before the next class if they would like to – make it clear that this is an optional experimental activity!

Step 4

In the next class, or about a week later, get learners to report back on what they did to the group. What did they find useful? What was not so useful/helpful? Is this ‘on the move’, informal learning for them – or not? It´s important to explore learners´ perceptions of the activity, and to debrief. Ask those who would like to, to try another of the mobile options explored in Step 3, before the next class. In a subsequent class, get them to report back again, this time more briefly.  Carry on this cycle of experimentation of trial and reporting back, for a period of time (e.g. bi-weekly over a month or two).

Step 5

After encouraging learners to experiment for a period of time, draw some conclusions about mobile ‘on the move’ learning with the group, led by those who have taken part in the optional (bi-)weekly activities. Some learners may then continue to work out of class with some of the mobile resources they have found. Some may have been infected by the enthusiasm of others, and now be tempted to try out apps. Some may not. Some may never have got involved in the first place. This all fine and good – at the end of the day, you are simply giving your learners options and tools. Whether they like these tools or find them useful is up to them. But you’ve helped make them aware of what is out there.

Some extra reading

• Educause’s ‘7 Things you should know about mobile apps for learning’
• David Read has a recent blogpost about what his students use mobile devices for in their independent language learning
• Another great post from David about getting students to create their own personalised word lists with apps
• Top 50 iPhone apps for educators

If you get your students to try out apps with some on the move learning, let us know about how it goes in the comments section below!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
May 2010

Comments (4)

By Nicky Hockly, May 5, 2010 10:32 am

[or: An APPetite for learning - guest post by Neil Ballantyne]

Based at the British Council Hong Kong, Neil works with a team developing web products and smartphone apps for learners and teachers. In this guest blog post, Neil gives us a great overview of the smartphone apps out there right now for English language learners. Teachers and learners, take note!

Nicky mentioned a few ways learners are using their mobile phones to help them improve their language skills. This post will focus on a number of the smartphone apps available to language learners.

iPhone with apps described in this post

There are so many apps it is impossible to keep on top of all of them so please use the comments box below to suggest other useful apps for language learners.

The focus below is on iPhone and Android phones only, if only for the simple fact that I possess these phone so have access to the apps, although they are by far the two largest app markets at the moment.

I have structured this review into categories, looking at dictionaries, language games, vocabulary and grammar focused apps, flashcard-based apps and courseware.

Dictionaries

There are a lot of dictionaries available from the app stores. A lot of these are web-based apps requiring an internet connection. Essentially these are just applications that render the web content in a phone-friendly manner.

• Native apps (those which ‘live’ on the phone and do not require an internet connection) often cost a lot of money. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English costs US$29.99 but is a useful reference tool for learners on the go. It contains all that you’d expect from the book version, plus audio files.

• Cambridge have a range of learner dictionaries including bilingual dictionaries and the Audio Cambridge Advance Learner’s Dictionary ($21.99).

Games

There are loads of word games available both for the iPhone and Android from word-searches to Boggle-type games. A couple of noteworthy apps aimed specifically for the language learner come from the British Council.

• Johnny Grammar’s Quizmaster (free) for the Android has a selection of quizzes for spelling, grammar and vocabulary where users choose the correct answer from a number of options.

• For the iPhone, 60 Second Word Challenge (free) has the user race against the clock to complete the blanks in sentences based around topics such as shopping, food and useful idioms and expressions.

Grammar-focused apps

Put grammar into the iTunes App store and dozens of titles appear – all much of a muchness, working around the concept of testing discrete items within a range of question types (usually gap fills or multiple choice).

• Cambridge have put two versions of Murphy’s Grammar in Use onto the iPhone. The Test version ($4.99) looks nice enough but does not provide any explanations on the grammar being tested. If the learners wants to find out the rules behind a particular grammar point, the traditional book unit is referenced – meaning you have to have both the book and the app to make the most of it.

• The Activities version ($9.99) contains exercises similar to the book but again lacks any useful feedback if the learners gets a questions wrong.

Flashcard apps

Android phone with apps described in this post

The flashcard genre works on pretty much the same principle across the apps. A card is presented with a phrase or word. On the reverse is either a translation/picture/sound file. The sophistication of the products vary wildly from those that simply present the words to those that can remember which words you are struggling with and force these to be revised more often. They generally work well in the phone format; an easy three minute killer to practice a set of words, either browsing through the flashcards or being tested on recall from a sound phrase.

• There are lots of such apps on the market. Gengo flashcards for iPhone have a range of languages although if the learner wants to practice more than just lexical sets of fruit and weather you will have to part with $5.99. The paid version also provides the ability to add user-generated flashcards.

• The byki series (free, upgrades from $7.99), also for iPhone and spreading across many languages including English, follows a similar format but also focuses on useful phrases rather than just discrete items.

• Ankidroid (free) for the Android can be loaded with flashcards produced on a computer. This app could be particularly useful for teachers who want to produce sets of flashcards for their learners to practice on their phone or computer (see here).

Courseware

Smartphones lend them selves to short bite-sized interactions so it is interesting to see what developers are looking at with regards to courseware.

• By far the most engaging I have come across are the iPhone apps developed by Red River Press: Conversation English, English at Work and Learning English with the New York Times ($5.99 each). The three apps have been developed around then same principle: a collection of lessons with a dialogue or reading text with a pre-listening/reading vocabulary check, post listening/reading comprehension questions and a variety of activities based around the vocabulary in the text. The NYT app is set around classic news stories from the New York Times. None of the texts are too long. The Conversation English and English at Work courses build around a continuous story that, although rather contrived, does keep some interest and motivation to continue from lesson to lesson.

• Others of note include Everyday English. This polished production provides a series of videos with a tutor talking through some of the basic aspects of English. ($0.99/episode).

• For both iPhone and Android, EnglishPod (free samples), allows you to download magazine style audio programmes based around a dialogue. Apart from a key phrases glossary there isn’t much wrap-around and unfortunately this app falls for the classic mistake of making the instructions and introductory language more complex than the target language.

Special mention to…

• StoryKit (free) comes preloaded with four classic fairy tales providing good reading practice for younger learners. The great thing about this app is that you can edit the story and then share it with your friends. Users can also create their own books importing images from the gallery or the camera. These user-generated books can be shared between users. Could be great for literacy classes.

Moodle on iPhone

Finally, considering this blog is aimed at e-Moderators, there are a couple of apps and projects running at the moment for putting Moodle onto the iPhone.

• mTouch ($2.99) is a web-based app that allows access to Moodle courses. A reasonable attempt but not quite there yet. The quizzes module is not supported, SCORM activities can’t be viewed and the forums and wikis are fiddly. Not really worth the couple of dollars they are charging at the moment.

• There are a few other projects out there at the moment and more will undoubtedly appear as smartphones become the baseline for mobile devices. Check out this exciting looking project.

Neil Ballantyne
British Council Hong Kong
May 2010

Comments (2)

By Nicky Hockly, April 26, 2010 10:17 am

[Or: What do I need to keep in mind if I want to start using m-learning?]

You´ve decided to introduce some mobile learning into your teaching. Where to start? What to do? Before you focus in on possible content and activities, there are some wider issues that you need to explore. You want your use of mobile and handheld technology with learners to be principled and coherent, rather than adhoc and, well, incoherent. You need to have a clear idea of why you´re getting your learners into m-learning, and what benefits it will bring them. How your use of m-learning relates to overall pedagogical principles will not only help you decide what to do, but reassure your students that you know what you are doing and why!

The first question to ask yourself is: Why do I want to use mobile learning? Here are some possible reasons:

• You like technology
• You want to try out something new with your learners
• You’ve seen your learners all have smart phones or iPods / iTouches already. Why not get them using these for learning?
• A few of your learners have asked you to recommend apps, games and other mobile-friendly content they can use out of class
• You’ve read/heard about the benefits of  informal learning

The second question to ask yourself is: How can I use mobile learning effectively with my learners?

Answer: you need to relate your use of mobile learning to wider pedagogical issues. Here are what I see as some of these issues. I imagine these issues as a series of clines or continuums. It´s not a case of one or the other, but a matter of degree. Each cline lends itself to a series of questions you can use as check list.

in the classroom ————————————————— on the move
Are you going to get your learners to use handheld devices regularly in the classroom (e.g. to access dictionaries, to research on the web, to take polls…)? Or are you going to encourage your learners to use their own handheld devices outside the classroom for independent study (e.g. to play games, to listen to podcasts, to learn vocabulary…) on the move and in their spare time? Or both? It may be easiest to start by simply recommending a number of good apps to your learners for their own informal learning. Make this optional – encourage only those students interested enough to try this out. Get them to report back regularly to the class. The enthusiasm may spread to other learners. Or not. Mobile self-study may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But it may be some learner´s cup of tea. And that´s better than no tea at all!

class sets ————————————————————– own devices

What handheld devices will your students use? Smart phones, netbooks, e-readers, iTouches…? And whose devices will they use? Will you or your institution invest in class sets (e.g. of iTouches or netbooks), or will your learners need to use their own devices? Or both? What if only some learners have handheld devices, or if everyone has a different make of phone? How effective can classroom-based mobile work be if everyone has a different device and operating system? It makes a lot of sense for learners to use their own devices for out of class , optional, on the move mobile learning, and class sets in the classroom for more formal learning activities…

rich content ————————————————— discrete content

What about the content that will be used on the mobile devices? Is it going to be rich content that includes multi-media (images, audio, video), the chance to interact with others via social networking, and access to web resources? Or are you going to focus your learners on discrete content such as quizzes, polls, SMS, simple games, and apps? Or both? Given the danger of assuming that mobile learning only means SMS or apps, it makes sense to at least explore rich content options, and to refer your learners to these both for in class work, and for out of class self study. Don’t make the mistake of thinking mobile=apps, or mobile=SMS.

push content —————————————————– pull content

And how is this mobile content going to reach your learners? Are you the teacher going to ‘push’ content out to your learners? In other words, are you going to be responsible for sending mobile-friendly content such as quizzes, SMS-based content, audio and video to your learners? Or are your learners to ‘pull’ in content themselves? In other words, are they going to search for and access mobile-friendly content on their own, depending on their own interests and needs? Or both? And how does this fit into the clines above? Will you focus mainly on pushed content for learners’ out of class work, and mainly on pulled content in the classroom? Or the other way round? Or a mixture of both, in both contexts?

strategic use ———————————————————- discrete use

And related to the previous cline, is your use of mobile learning overall going to be strategic – that is, learners use handheld devices as a resource and tool covering a wide range of functions, in every class? Or is your use of mobile learning going to be discrete – that is, learners use handheld devices every now and again, for ´one-off´ activities? Or both? How about strategic use of class sets of handled devices in the classroom, and discrete use as optional for out of class self-study work, for example?

Once you’ve come up with sensible answers for some of the above questions, you’re ready to start trying out some mobile learning with your classes!

Any comments or thoughts on the above clines, and how useful or not they are as a basic framework, are very welcome!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
April 2010

PS Coming next:
Mobile learning #3 and #4: What you can actually do in the classroom with handheld devices, and some recommended apps for out of class language learning.

Comments (4)

By Nicky Hockly, April 14, 2010 10:20 am

[Or: What is it and what's it got to do with me?]

1 The big picture

The sale and use of mobile handheld devices has soared over the last few years. The 2010 Horizon Report predicts that mobile technology will be mainstream by the end of this year. And not just in developed countries where access to technology is relatively ubiquitous. This Guardian Weekly article, for example, reports on the massive rise of mobile phone use in Africa.

2 The language learning picture

The implications for education in general, and language learning in particular, are enormous. Increased connectivity via Internet enabled mobile devices means access to learning content cheaply and easily. Even the simplest mobile devices such as low-end mobile phones (which are not necessarily Internet enabled) allow access to learning content via SMS, as the BBC Janala project in Bangladesh shows. In China, the mobile provider Mobiledu has teamed up with partners such as Pearson Education, and the British Council, to deliver English-language content preloaded onto mobile handsets, or accessed online. Publishers are starting to produce apps (applications, or programs) which you can download onto your iPhone or Android phone. Schools and universities have been experimenting with handheld devices both inside and outside the classroom — for details on some of these projects, see here.

Times they are a-changing. And they are changing fast. All of this can leave the average teacher feeling a little overwhelmed.

3 The mobile devices picture

Mobile learning does not mean learning by mobile phone alone. I find that many teachers equate the words ‘mobile learning’ with ‘mobile phone’ — perhaps this happens less in other parts of the world where they are far more sensibly called cell phones! But in general, there is a misconception that mobile learning means SMS. It doesn’t. Or rather, use of SMS is one small brush stroke in the overall mobile learning picture.

Can you match the words to the pictures above? (The slide is from  my recent conference talk on mobile learning at IATEFL Harrogate). Learning can take place via a number of handheld, or mobile, devices: Smartphones (picture 5), tablet PCs (picture 4), netbooks (picture 3), e-readers (picture 2), and MP4 players (picture 1). And let’s not forget digital cameras, gaming consoles, and standard mobile phones! All of these devices can be used in informal, ‘on the go’ learning, and also in more formal learning situations. Let’s look at both scenarios.

4 The independent (language) learner picture

Many language learners already use their mobile devices to help them learn. I know several of them, and I am one of them myself. Here is a slide from my recent IATEFL talk called Teaching the Mobile Generation; the slide summarises a number of ways in which people are using mobile devices to help their informal, out of class language learning:

Going clockwise from the top of the slide:

• A teaching colleague in the UK is starting to learn Hindi and Farsi on his iTouch. He uses flashcard apps to help him memorise vocabulary, on his way to work on the London underground.
• I am currently studying French. We use no authentic audio or video materials in the classes, so I subscribe to video podcasts from a number of French TV stations, and watch the news every night on my iPhone on the sofa, at a time that suits me.
• A British teaching colleague who recently moved to Japan uses a Japanese/English dictionary on his iPhone to check any new words he comes across while walking around Tokyo.
• A UK colleague’s son recently met an Austrian girl last summer, and continues the relationship mainly via SMS. His German has improved remarkably
• We had a participant from the Maldives, who completed one of our online training courses in Moodle, completely from his Nokia phone. And this was back in 2005!!
• A friend here in Spain who is learning English listens to grammar podcasts in his iPod while training for marathons. He is especially fond of the BBC’s Grammar Challenge podcasts, he says.

5 The in-class learner picture

Learning with mobile devices does not necessarily happen only outside the classroom. Watch this inspiring video about the use of iTouches  with a class of 32 8-year-olds.

The use of iTouches  as a research tool is seamlessly integrated into the curriculum in this project. The kids hardly seem aware of the technology, and instantly recognise its use as a research tool and learning aid. The technology has, in the words of Stephen Bax, become completely ‘normalised’ in this classroom.

6  Some stuff to look at/read:

• The slides above come from my recent IATEFL 2010 Conference talk on mobile learning. Full PowerPoint at IATEFL online.
• IATEFL online interview about mobile learning with me
• IATEFL online interview about mobile (or handheld) learning with Andy Newton
• David Read’s blog Mobile ESL about the ongoing mobile learning experiment he is carrying out with language students at a UK university

My next blog posts on mobile learning will look at applying mobile learning to f2f teaching, mobile learning and e-learning,  and current apps for language learning.

There are of course many ways to use mobile devices in both independent and in-class language learning — please feel free to add any uses you have for your mobile devices, to the comments section!

Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E