Mobile practices

How the weeks go by, and I feel that once again I am playing catch up. There’s just so much info out there and not enough time! So stepping back a week, after finish my last assignment, here’s a summary on mobile learning. Coherency not to be expected.

Activity 2, Students (including MAODE) and mobile devices.

Kukulska-Hulme, A., Pettit, J., Bradley, L., Carvalho, A.A., Herrington, A., Kennedy, D. and Walker, A. (2011) ‘Mature students using mobile devices in life and learning’, International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, vol.3, no.1, pp.18–52

Firstly looking at things from the learner point of view. Kukulska et al continue the discussion about how learners use technology, but like the learner research from weeks 13 and 14, here we are talking about mature students.

Key points:

“Due to the rapidly changing landscape of technology use, there is a continual need to understand learner practices and their technol­ogy adoption, including any new barriers and enablers that can be identified.”

·         Mostly use mobiles for our personal and social life, so investigating circumstances for the use of mobile for learning important

·         Students who use mobile devices minority at moment.

·         Age less important than position as early adopter

·         Age is significant when asking learners to reflect on the experience

·         Therefore research focused on mature learners, five countries

·         “some activity reported under the rubric of ‘social interaction’ may also relate to learning.”

Key findings

·         Mobile use near universal (expected finding)

·         Most prominent use communication, access to information

“Reported benefits of using mobile devices to be part of groups or communities include spontaneous communication, flexibility, speed, fun, support, experience sharing, intellectual stimulation and use of technology to cope with changing arrangements.”

·         Most frequent uses – sending messages, browsing for information and listening to music

“While the predomi­nant use for mobile devices is communication, it seems that other aspects of social interaction can benefit, such as the ability to share media between mobile devices directly or blended across other social networking technologies like Facebook.”

Activity 3, How do you and your group use mobile devices?

Looking at our own group use, it seems to vary. Clearly those directly involved in teaching use mobile devices for teaching more often. Everyone used a mobile device once a day for social interaction. Most used a  laptop or computer for learning regularly...but we are on a Masters course.

What we didn’t really delve into was why we use it. Are we consumers or participators? Looking at my own use I would say on the whole I am a consumer...but I am trying to participate. In fact following some wise words about needing to be immersed in order to understand, I have been making more use of twitter and trying to adapt my approach. It’s been an interesting week for open learning across the twitter world, and I hope that I am creating as much as consuming – or rather directing and well as receiving. And how do you measure whether you are being collaborative?

AS well as that, other questions arose which are about getting behind our answers. When we said we use laptop for work, what does that really mean. I have a work laptop, so naturally going to use it every day. What do we mean by entertainment/teaching/learning? We may all define this differently so when preparing research we need to give some thought into the specifics of the questions we are asking. Back to those conceptions/perceptions again........

Activity 4, Mobile 2.0 and ownership in formal learning.

Looking more at the practitioner point of view,

Pettit, J. and Kukulska-Hulme, A. (2011) ‘Mobile 2.0: crossing the border into formal learning?’ in Lee, M.J.W. and McLoughlin, C. (eds) Web 2.0-based E-learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching, Hershey, PA, IGI Global

This paper focuses on practitioner use of mobile technology and raised the question about the dilemma of using mobile technology while not losing the user driven nature of it. How do we harness activities that people are already doing for themselves?

“However, it is arguable that lack of fit between the grain of learners’ practices on the one hand, and educators’ intentions on the other, is one reason why it may be difficult to design mobile-enabled learning for a group”

Article gives different examples of the uses of mobile technology, through communication to creativity and starts asking the questions about the blurring of the boundaries between professional and personal.

 “For instance, investigations are needed into how people recall what they have learned in non-traditional spaces, and into matters of social etiquette when people unexpectedly shift their attention to learning.”

And a reminder that we need to focus on our own students.....

 “Educators and institutions need to find out about their own students rather than simply assuming they are like learners of a similar age elsewhere.

 Some interesting questions to think about. I already blur the boundaries. But is that a bad thing? Or is it because my work and the things that interest me intertwine? Is that not the definition of a professional? I use my mobile in lots of different ways, and it’s purely driven by my need to know, and my need to interact. Does it matter if the boundaries blur when you are passionate about a topic. Although maybe they are different boundaries? Often we talk about boundaries in a negative way as it can be the ability to separate work from home life. I don’t answer emails, or do ‘work’ when at home, but the reason I study to learn..and for me that essentially involved making sense of the world around me and figuring out, maybe in an expansive way, what I can then do with it, how I can pass it on.  There is integrity in individuals that they can be the same inside and outside of a professional context. There doesn’t need to be a separation.

This links to one of the articles picked up in the twitter stream this week: Professional versus personal profile.

Does one separate the two? An interesting question because we teach young people that they should behave in the same way online as they do offline. I also have many conversations with volunteers about thinking about the way they use social media, as what they say can have an impact on their roles as volunteers. Which brings us to an interesting link from our tutor, Janet, on the difference beween lifecasting and mindcasting. Not long ago I almost stopped lifecasting. I reduced my Facebook friends from 360 to 60. Now it’s just close friends and family, or those I still feel a strong link with, share my views or make me laugh.

It’s a huge importance within voluntary world to have these discussions.