Activity 4 I am not so sure about this.

Bringing mobile phones into the classroom, now why would I do that?
It is difficult enough getting my students to pay attention as it is, if I make the mobile part of the learning just what do I expect to happen.

I shared my concerns with a small group of 19-20 year old male students to try to see if they were on board with my ideas. I posed questions like, if your phone was allowed on the desk during lessons what would you do with it? Do you know what a web 2.0 app is? Would you make notes on you phone? What would be the most useful app you would use?

My findings told me quite clearly that these students are not ready for this yet.

Here is a taste of some of my findings. The most used tool would be facebook not twitter none of the group actually used twitter and when I explained it they said "well we can do that on facebook", good point I suppose. Notes? we can just write it on the precis in front of us why would I want notes on my phone, less room for photos. Only one student gave a glimmer of hope, when he said "I could google something if I needed more detail" but then he ruined it by saying "I might be able to find an awkward question for you to answer" , give me strength. As for web 2.0 not a clue, they just use the phone to quote one student.

21stcenturyfluency.com

This left me in no doubt that if I introduced a activity that utilised a mobile phone it would be nothing more than a distraction at the moment. They are just not ready for posting live questions or blogging their ideas for a project. It also identified another problem not all students had a smartphone one hated technology and only used his phone to make calls and avoids using a computer as much as he can. Surprisingly in this small group (12) he was the most attentive and asked the most questions, he was in tune with the lesson material, I know for a fact that some student where there in presence only and no doubt were thinking how can I get a message on facebook without the old guy down the front seeing them.

Little do they know about the power of the phone in their pocket and the apps they are missing out on, but for now I am happy to keep it that way, especially with this current trend of students.  

Mobile learning is crying out for Nanotechnology

Having read Pettit and Kukulska-Hulme (2011) and gained an incite into the use of mobile technology in learning, when I relate this to my own use of a mobile device I can see clear correlation. It is safe to say that social websites have added enrichment to my experience; twitter, blogs and more recently Diigo have been experimented with and their uses can be explored. However there is one issue that I keep coming back to which is a barrier to my full adoption, ‘The screen size’, any prolonged use is difficult and the experience is nowhere near as good as a laptop.

Fellow students offer positive comments about the iPad and yes it looks very useful but is this a portable device in the same way as a smart phone. To be truly portable surely it needs to tuck away into a pocket or small bag. My blackberry is perhaps not as good as as iPhone displaywise but it offers a proper keyboard and the latest blackberry has both a touchscreen and larger screen so the future looks better on this front.

So where does Nanotechnology come in

Today's scientists and engineers are finding a wide variety of ways to deliberately make materials at the nanoscale to take advantage of their enhanced properties such as higher strength, lighter weight, increased control of light spectrum, and greater chemical reactivity than their larger-scale counterparts.(nano.gov 2011)

In 2000 nanotechnology enhance products started appearing in the marketplace which included improved displays for televisions, mobile  phones, and digital cameras. It also provided for golf balls that fly straighter and scratch resistant coatings to name just a few. 


Many more current enhancements still in design or concept stages of manufacture include extend-able and flexible screens and keyboards. Notice in this short clip how the screen size can be changed, now when this is possible all I will need is a better keyboard, but with the development of flexible keyboards this too will be a concern that will disappear.

And taking this  a stage further a concept phone using Nano technology. A phone that changes shape.

Nano.gov (2011) What is nanotechnology’ [online] http://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/definition (accessed 18 June 2011).

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; also available online at http://www.igi-global.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/ gateway/ contentowned/ chapter.aspx?titleid=45023&accesstype=infosci (accessed 12 April 2011).

Pros and Cons of a Blackberry

To address the question of how I use a mobile device I thought I would reflect on a typical day and the benefits I receive having a Blackberry in my pocket.

As a fan of Google applications it goes without saying how many apps link seamlessly to my phone. Google mail, reader and calendar are the main tools. All conferences that I subscribe to as both a Learner and Tutor post messages to my phone. This is an easy method of both tracking and reading messages without going oinline. I could link into the conferences from my phone but rarely do.

At work I syncronise my calendar and teaching appointments to Google Calendar and my phone automatically. Appointment's added on the phone also sync to my online calendar.

All sites and RSS feeds that link to my reader are available I usually catch up on this activity whilst having a tea or coffee break.

Personal emails also pop up in a different mailbox on my phone ans of course SMS mainly from the family.
I have loged into Moodle to read course notes but prefer to do this at my PC but it is useful when on public transport. This is one area that I think an Ipad would excel. I download and read some course readings in PDF format but again screen size is a problem here.

Capturing ideas in note form or a quick voice message helps to prevent loosing ideas. Capturing photos is also seamless a few clicks and any photo can be available online through Picasso. Blogging is possible but again the keyboard size is a problem its ok for short messages but anything with detail is not worth the effort.

Pros
You are more accessible (also a con depends how you look at it)
Ability to keep track of conference activity
Emails activity is efficient I rarely check mail at a pc.
You can capture thought as and when.

Cons
Moodle conferences are slow and cumbersome to deal with.
It can be difficult to ignore activity and switch off, relaxing with the phone vibrating nearby  can be a nuisance.
It helps to contribute to information overload but it just needs will power and managing.
You are more accessible
Screen at times is too small

Conclusion 
I think it is safe to say that my main use of a mobile is for the email and conference activity as both a learner and tutor. This is a considerable saving on time makes me more accessible and much more efficient when it comes to both activities.

Why does my head hurt so much? It wasn’t like this when I was at Uni.

Reading Hara (1999) and Noble (1988).

Do you think these issues are representative of the broader picture of technology adoption in universities?

What issues would you personally identify as problems associated with the use of digital and networked technologies in education (either in your practice or more generally)?

A Students Perspective

'I need more individual help', it is much easier for the tutor to explain this to me than it is for me to sit and study and gain my own understanding. Why? Because I have a busy life I have 100s of facebook friends to gossip with and many other distractions that are much more interesting than learning. So you sit with me tell me what I need to know to pass the exam. In fact do I need an exam, can’t I just copy and paste something of the internet after all, it holds all the answers doesn’t it? It’s alright for you when you were a student you never had all this technology to deal with. Buy the way it is fine for me to use the technology but on my terms, don't force me to try and interact online and produce collaborative work it's too time consuming I'll do it down the students bar and hand it in on a scrap of paper.

I am paying for this course so tell me what I need to know, and if I choose to use facebook and twitter during the lesson, and turn up late or give the odd lesson a miss; put up with it.

A practitioners perspective

By creating all this innovative learning and presenting it in a format for web based access will I be making myself surplice to requirements. All this technology is for ever changing having designed discrete web pages before Web 2.0 apps I now have to move to a new platform. My delicious account although safe now, looked like it was going to crash and burn and I have learnt how to use Jing, Picasso, Google Docs, Diigo the list is endless. All this technology, my head hurts talk about information overload. If that’s not enough my students email me 24hrs a day and expect an immediate reply and ask to many questions because they email as their first port of call. Why won’t they use the conference?

The technology doesn’t always work anyone who has tried to do an Elluminate online tutorial will know how stressful this can be. Because I study distance education I am biased and probably too much so if I was honest (Hara 1999). I feel sorry for the laggards that lag behind because students expectations are that they will use technology and develop shared documents online and converse in a facebook group with the rest of the class and tweet each other during lessons and… and …. the list goes on.

Oh dear I just want to teach my subject, why won’t the students listen to me, why are they always on their phones, why do they not get involved in the discussions oh why does my head hurt so much? It wasn’t like this when I was at Uni.

Hara, N. and Kling, R. (1999) ‘Students’ frustrations with a web-based distance education course’ [online], First Monday, vol.4, no.12, http://firstmonday.org/ htbin/ cgiwrap/ bin/ ojs/ index.php/ fm/ article/ view/ 710/ 620 (last accessed 10 February 2011).

Noble, D.F. (1998) ‘Digial dipoloma mills: the automation of higher education’ [online], First Monday, vol.3, no.1,http://firstmonday.org/ htbin/ cgiwrap/ bin/ ojs/ index.php/ fm/ article/ view/ 569/ 490 (last accessed 10 February 2011).

Reflection on TMA02

Week 16 already H800 is flying along, with TMA02 nicely tucked out of the way it may be an ideal opportunity to reflect on my approach.

The TMA question was pretty straight forward, well that was until I started researching it and starting to form 1000 words per activity so it was worth a quick recap and yet another read of the question which in summary was:-

For each activity, explain to your tutor:
what it enables you to understand about:
     choices that practitioners make about ways of applying technologies for their learners

and/or

    choices that learners make about their own learning, in terms of which technologies they use, why and how.

I approached this task by picking my three activities based on popularity and my own interest and ended up looking at:

• Blogging
• Visual representation of design
• The learner experience

My approach was to extract a number of forum messages that made relevant points, produce a mind map of my initial ideas, determine what key points I wanted to make and finally find some readings from the block which generally supported my ideas or added a different viewpoint.

Pretty straight forward then, if only.

All I can say is it took hours and having read my final version I am still not sure if I am answering the question. It’s a strange feeling you breathe a sigh of relief when you reach the word limit, read it back to yourself and realize that there is so much more that could be written.

However it was made a lot easier by the cohort of H800 students in my group this year, plenty of forum activity which made the finding of ideas and evidence straight forward so a big thank-you from me here.