Technology trend:

Mobile Phones Offer Opportunities For M-Learning

Mobile phones, also known as cell phones, are merging with other devices and becoming indispensable, not only for communications, but also for information gathering and sharing. Like other technology tools previously banned in the classroom, such as calculators, they may eventually be considered essential learning tools.

Sixty-one percent of the US population uses mobile phones, according to a report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2007) and the usage is skewed to young people. The under-25s use their phones not only for voice communications, but for text messaging, and taking and sending pictures. Use is also skewed toward minorities, in particular English-speaking Hispanics, even though that group lags in adoption of the Internet. This is because mobile phones can be cheaper than land lines, especially when a family moves frequently.

Thirty-seven percent of US mobile phones are Internet-enabled. As that number grows, the difference between cell phones and computers will blur. And as it does, mobile phones will become useful and cost-efficient teaching and learning tools. In fact, a name has been given to these activities: m-learning.

Only about one-fourth of Americans say they have connected to the Internet using their cell phone, (Pew, 2007) but that number is set to rise, as US mobile phone service providers expand their offerings and open up their networks to multiple uses. Under pressure from competitive threats such as a potential Google-phone, Verizon Wireless announced in late November that it would begin to open up its networks to broader uses. Providers typically block some uses, or prevent users from taking their phones with them when they switch providers, which has dampened m-learning development.

Every year, The Horizon Report, a project by Educause Learning Initiative and the New Media Consortium, identifies technology trends in higher education. The 2007 report, published nearly one year ago, identifies mobile phones as having a 2-3 year adoption timeline. But recent events may have speeded that up: the Virginia Tech shootings of April 2007, and Google, which owns Skype, the extremely cheap VOIP long-distance phone service. Google is known to be developing a “Google-phone”, putting pressure on traditional mobile phone service providers to open up their services for more Internet use to keep their customers.

The Horizon Report identifies three examples of mobile phone applications across disciplines: self-paced audio and video tours; delivery of campus-based services; and encouraging creativity and media-making.

We offer here a list of mobile phone technologies and potential uses, to give the CYFAR audience a few ideas on things you can be doing in your programs.

Text messaging

The most common non-voice use of mobile phones is text-messaging, most popular among young people —80% of Americans age 10-24 are texters, according to the Pew survey. That popularity is being leveraged by several universities establishing campus-wide alert systems following the Virginia Tech shootings last spring.

The University of Minnesota is rolling out its txt.umn program over the coming months, a voluntary registry of student and staff mobile phone numbers. It will be used for emergencies only. 

Montclair State University in New Jersey has gone further. It issues – and requires – Internet-enabled mobile phones for all students, as part of emergency readiness. The phones are equipped with GPS and a “panic button” enabling students to communicate their location by GPS and their predicament, if necessary.

Penn State has launched PSUTXT, which offers a menu of options for users, from emergency alerts to weather information and team sports announcements, including tickets going on sale. It is administered by a vendor called e2Campus, which advertises a pricing plan of $1.50 per student per year for unlimited text notifications throughout the year, although this pricing plan is intended for a large population.

Text messaging may be a more useful technology to 4-H and community youth groups than the Internet, due to its pervasiveness, especially among certain groups, namely youth and some ethnic minorities. Lower income families are more likely to have cell phone service than Internet access. For example, 59% of Latinos in the US have cell phones, according to a Pew survey, and 49% use text messaging. Internet penetration among this group is about 56%. About 12% of the US population has a cell phone but no land line.

Program leaders might consider using text messaging for communications with group members and leaders in a variety of ways – to issue reminders, meeting notices, deadlines, or just to make contact with kids outside of program time. The cost of sending and receiving averages about 10 cents per text message, with monthly plans available that bring the rate down. It is easy to imagine a lesson plan that includes a “word of the day”.  Bear in mind, however, that an equal cost is borne by the recipient, since mobile phone service providers charge both for sending and receiving text messages.

Sending and receiving images

When buying a new mobile phone, it is hard to find one these days that doesn’t have a camera. Depending on the memory of the phone, these can be single still images or videos up to 20 minutes long. Images taken by them can be sent to other mobile phones or uploaded to a website by sending a text message with an attached picture.

Chances are, you have probably already seen many pictures taken by phones. They are increasingly turning up in the news media, as “citizen journalists” record and pass along what they have seen at disaster sites and other news events. Many people saw pictures of the Interstate 35-W bridge collapse in Minneapolis last summer courtesy of citizen journalists, who were either involved in the incident or happened to be nearby when it happened.

A 2006 Pew Internet survey found that 55% of people age 18-29 used their cell phones to take pictures, and 15% had used them to shoot video, so many youth already have the tools to send and receive images. The cost of sending and receiving images varies by service provider; some plans include a “media package” that reduce the cost.

The camera function of a phone can be thought of as just that – a camera – or it can be thought of as a podcasting tool.

Podcasts

Podcasting is the sending of files, usually short audiovisual recordings, to mobile devices or computers. Mobile phones must be Internet-enabled to receive them. Apple’s iPod popularized the idea, but all Internet-enabled mobile phones can receive podcasts. A podcast is tailor-made to a small screen, with smaller text and fewer graphics for faster downloading.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art offers videos of the museum’s current and past shows by podcast. Free of charge, a museum visitor can download a recording onto his Internet-enabled mobile phone upon entering the museum and use it while touring the exhibit, or download it to her computer at home and get a feeling for the exhibit without travelling there.

Language learning is an obvious application for m-learning, and some programs have been developed at Stanford and other universities for their curricula. One, in Japan, integrates a feedback feature that measures language learning during class via pop quizzes delivered by mobile phone. 

In Japan, a significant percentage of language learning is done on the phone by businesspeople upgrading their skills during commute time, or students cramming in some last-minute study. The dominant phone company, NTT, provides a Japanese-English-Japanese dictionary that gets more than 100,000 hits per day, and an English-lesson service to paid subscribers.

Iowa State University Extension also got into podcasting relatively early, according to Jay Staker, of Iowa’s Science Engineering and Technology program. Iowa Extension’s website offers many podcasts of short informative programs on gardening, agricultural market news and investing, as well as using the creation of podcasts as a teaching tool. “We have used podcasts for several purposes for youth out of Iowa Extension.  We did a series of podcasts from the state fair that we posted for deployed Iowa soldiers so they could ‘experience’ the fair,” Staker said.

In August 2004, Duke University issued free iPods to its entire freshman class, provided training, and integrated their use into its curriculum, particularly language classes. The school tracked outcomes and the following July, it issued a report that said “broader use of multimedia for major student course projects, resulting in reports of increased student motivation, more integration of original source materials into student work, greater use of authentic cultural materials, and better overall quality of student work.” Faculty also had fun with the iPods – they reported “creating more multimedia content, such as film excerpts, guest speaker videos, and review materials such as flashcards.

In Europe, cell phone costs are lower, and thus many uses have been developed there. The Horizon Report mentions British primary school students using cell phones to photograph and text data for their geography class in the field and submit them to the teacher, who remained in the classroom. Documentary films are also possible: in Australia, a grant-funded project incited filmmakers to write and shoot five-minute movies specifically for the mobile phone platform, a project that taught media literacy and film.

Program leaders can think about integrating podcasts into field trips, community mapping, activities and demonstrations. These three non-voice uses of mobile phones – text messaging, photography and podcasting – can benefit youth by


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