Location based Learning Activity using Mobile Web 2.0

The higher education teachers who deliver this project and the students they are delivering the project to will use this instructional guide. The guide will help users implement and design a mobile learning project using Web 2.0 technology. It contains a pedagogy that has a social constructivist perspective and adopts an approach to knowledge building where students learn through mobile devices that are used as cognitive tools rather than merely data collection tools.
Web 2.0 technologies such as Wikis will be used as learning tools to create the project outcome (a short trailer that creates an impression of one of five London locations). The students actively participate in the construction of knowledge. With the assistance of mobile devices, they search for and develop a personal, meaningful, and goal-directed understanding of the activity.

The triangulation and alignment of expected learning outcomes, activities and assessment that takes place in this project is known as constructive alignment (Biggs, 2003). Using Wikis such as Pbworks can facilitate new learning opportunities that align the instructional expectations of students and teachers.

The website:
a) Functions as an instructional guide that lecturers and students can access;
b) Serves as a shared resource;
c) Enables others to comment on the shared resources;
d) Enables others to upload and contribute their input to the shared resource area;
e) Ensures that the body of knowledge uploaded to the site can be shared with the community.

The activity: ‘Create a short trailer that captures the character of a location’

Through research, exploration and innovation the participants design an experimental panoramic montage of moving imagery, still imagery, kinetic typography and sound that creates an impression of and evokes thought images of one of five London locations. The activity integrates the skills and knowledge gained in the use of moving image, photography, title animation and audio to make a trailer using Flash CS software. This is a problem solving activity where students collaboratively use smart-phones to collect digital media (pictures, video and audio) and combine them to create a trailer that is then shared with their colleagues. The trailer can be real, symbolic, fictional or virtual. It should be built around an impression of a location.

This guide is a set of key instruction points designed to clarify each of the three sessions listed below:
Session One: Theory session
Session Two: Located Learning
Session Three: Practical based Learning

Through research, exploration and innovation the participants will develop an appropriate secondary school age learning experience. They will design an experimental panoramic montage of moving imagery, still imagery, kinetic typography and sound that creates an impression of and evokes thought images of one of five London locations. The activity integrates the skills and knowledge gained in the use of moving image, photography, title animation and audio to make a trailer using Flash CS software. This involves a problem solving activity where students collaboratively use smartphones to collect digital media (pictures, video and audio) and combine them to create a trailer that is then shared with their colleagues. The trailer can be real, symbolic, fictional or virtual. It should be built around an impression of a location.

Pre-activity preparation

Before the first session starts the teacher will need to create an academic workspace using www.pbworks.com

1. Go to www.pbworks.com

Pbworks has three options for educational wikis. The basic wiki will meet your needs.


5. Create the front Page (home page for the Wiki)
2.Sign up

4. Create the classroom Wiki
5. Create the front Page (home page for the Wiki)
6. Create student accounts
7. Create pages and folders for the students
8. Edit the pages in the Wiki

Mobile Web 2.0

Web 2.0 or social software, is a term used to describe a group of internet technologies in which the web is used as a platform to create rich Internet applications using open source technologies that are formatted for delivery with mobile devices (O' Reilly, 2005).

Mobile Web 2.0 is a phrase that loosely represents the accessing of web content on a mobile device. The fact that more people worldwide have access to a mobile phone than a personal computer means that more people can use and have access to web content. The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) recently reported that mobile web use had risen sharply in the UK.

In 2010, approximately 31% of Internet users said they used their mobile phones to access the Internet. This figure can be compared to 23% in 2009. A further 26% said they accessed the Internet through a laptop’s wireless connection away from home or at work. Research indicates that men compared to women are more likely to take advantage of mobile Internet access options.

Web 2.0 is the part of the web that is interactive with its users instead of the parts of the web that simply allow users to read an online published page. Web 2.0 technology allows users to interact, edit and even create their own content, for example, blogs, wikis, digital photo sharing (e.g., Flickr), video sharing (e.g., YouTube), podcasting, fan fiction (Jenkins et al., 2006) and others. Web 2.0 technologies involve creating new forms of online connections between two or more people, between two or more online services, and between individual users and online software applications. Web 2.0 has the potential to be a teaching and learning tool that can be used to promote and support learning in environments that focus on student-oriented and user-driven learning. Web 2.0, or ‘social software’ tools can be easily understood through social constructivist learning pedagogies. Tim O' Reilly (2005) emphasises that the use of Web 2.0 technology has an important social aspect, it establishes connections between people. He suggests that the most important word when using the Internet is not ‘search’ but ‘share’. We use the Internet to share information with other people. This is the basis upon which Web 2.0 technology and the corresponding online tools contribute towards a social constructivist perspective of learning.

Wikis

Wikis are a twenty-first century learning tool that can combine pedagogy and learner-oriented practices with the integration of technology. The intersection between technology and pedagogy is where Wiki use takes place. But more creative classroom experimentation are needed as well as research into approaches that keep in mind society, people, and culture using Wikis in education.

Anybody with a Web browser and access to the Internet can view a Web page. A Wiki is a Web page that can be viewed and modified. The potential for mischief exists within this framework because anyone with access to the Wiki can change the content. Wikis have however, proved to function on collaborative group sites that are surprisingly robust and open-ended in terms of user contribution. The combination of CGI scripts and plain text files in a Wiki allows users with access to the internet and a Web browser to create Web pages very quickly. A click of a Wiki page’s ‘Edit’ link results in the CGI script sending the raw text file to the browser in an editable form. This allows the user to then modify the content of the page. Pressing the ‘Save’ button sends the modified text back to the Wiki server and the existing text file is replaced with the changed version. When a Wiki page is requested, the CGI script gathers the appropriate text file, changes its marked-up text into HTML, turns user-selected words into hyperlinks, inserts this information into a page template, and sends the result to the user’s browser.

Want more ideas? Check out out my 'Cameden On the go' project see how I am using PBworks.

If you would like to share your mobile teaching experience, please contact 'Camden on the go' team for the password to edit the wiki.

Theory session

Duration: 2hours
Location: Skype session, Lecturers room or computer room
Key activities:
1. Discussion of Dewey’s function of Art
2. Cropping a specific area from a large photo
3. Choosing the location

1. Discussion of Dewey’s function of Art

The objective for this session is to use brainstorming techniques to assist the participants with their understanding of selecting what to include in their design of an experimental panoramic montage. The participants will be shown an example of an experimental panoramic montage from the resources page. The introduction starts with a discussion about Dewey’s ‘function of art theory’ and how this can assist the participants when they plan and conceptualise their approach to the design activity.

Dewey’s (1954, p.184) summary view of the function of art is:
‘ The function of art has always been to break through the crust of conventionalised and routine consciousness. Poetry, the drama and the novel are proofs that the problem of presentation is not insoluble. Artists have always been the real purveyors of news, for it is not the outward happening in itself which is new, but the kindling by it of emotion, perception and appreciation.’

Dewey’s view of the function of art is articulated by his claim that it is the artists’ ‘emotion’, ‘perception’, and ‘appreciation’ that generate the new by the artist. It is the new (which by breaking through the crust of conventionalised and routine consciousness by often presenting a critical and new interpretation of that consciousness) that fulfils what Dewey defines as being the function of art.

How then do ‘emotion’, ‘perception’, and ‘appreciation’ produce the new?

2. Cropping a specific area from a large photo

The participants will be provided with a large landscape image (2045 x 768 pixels) from the resources page. They will then be asked to select their favourite 640 pixels by 480 pixels part of the image using software that has the ability to select and crop images.

The points below will be used to help the participants brainstorm their ideas about the cropping task before they attempt the task. The participants will be told which group of 4-5 participants they will be part of so that each group contains students of mixed ability. Seating is arranged in circles, so that group members can exchange ideas easily and each group nominates its own leader, recorder and speaker.

2.1 Cropping an image of a location is a selective process. The chosen image can focus on the negative or positive aspects of that location, or it can attempt to be factual. What purpose if any should truth serve in this selection process?
2.2 How true to the impression of a location can an image be? Will an impression always be subjective? Is there such thing as an objective impression?
2.3 Can the cropped image combine a truthful impression of a location with innovation or does truthfulness need to be sacrificed for the sake of innovation so that the artist can be the purveyor of an outcome that is informed by his or her own emotion, perception and appreciation (Dewey (1954, p.184)?

At the end of the brainstorming, the class joins together and the speaker from each group reports to the class on their groups’ ideas, evaluating how well their group worked together and explaining how their ideas have addressed the activity and met the learning outcomes.

3. Choosing the location

1. The participants need to agree on which one of the following five locations (Tutor input or student input or random generation, Students can explore any of the following areas for the development of their experience) they want to design an experimental panoramic montage of. Their experimental panoramic montage will explore aspects of that location.

The teacher will conduct a pre-visit to each location. The provision by the teacher of images, facts and reference material relating to each of the locations will provide the participants with the information they need to make an informed decision.

Mobile learning activity specific to your location

Duration: 3hours
Location: One of the five London locations
Key activities
1. Café discussion
2. Walkabout and exploration of the location
3. Collecting and gathering multimedia data using mobile devices
4. Selecting data and uploading it into a shared user area using Pb works

The teacher prepares a map of the chosen location to suggest what parts of the location the participants can explore. The teacher will also plan the duration of the exploration and will organise a meeting place.

The teacher meets all the participants at the meeting place and will lead a discussion about what the participants feel about the location? What is so special about this location and why this location is a well-known location in London? How can the participants characterise this location?

The group will need to start walking through the location together. The most important key factor at this point of the located learning task will be the mobilisation of the learners and the learners’ conversations. The Mobile web 2.0 technologies will help the students to learn through communication. They will work on and build their knowledge base together through close observation assisted by the cameras within their devices.

The teacher will monitor the participants’ effort and ask rather than tell them what to do. The teacher will provide motivation when necessary, guide the students as they approach problems and encourage the working group to collaborate and think about issues and questions. The teacher will support the participants by providing advice and activities that relate directly to their intentions and will devise strategies that help them implement the use of technology as a social construct.

Mobile learning is about mobilised learners who are learning through conversation. The teacher needs to elaborate upon topics of conversation in order to help stimulate the conversation between the members of the group and increase their willingness to participate in the activity. The teacher needs to extract the thoughts of the participants’, to help them share these thoughts, and to increase their involvement in the task.

The participants should use the interactivity of Mobile web 2.0 technologies to generate a knowledge building dialogue that results in the sharing of ideas. Each member of the group needs to share ideas, clarify misconceptions and provide critical feedback, thus adding to his/her own personal learning and the learning of the entire group. Some of the participants may decide to record themselves explaining their ideas instead of sketching or writing their ideas on paper. They can do this while walking, conversing, and taking photos.

At an agreed time the group needs to gather together and share the photos taken by the participants. The experiences of the task and ideas the participants had whilst completing the task can also be shared. The participants should evaluate how well the group worked together and should explain how their ideas satisfied the task brief.

Practical based Learning

Duration:N/A
Location:N/A
Key activities
1. Workshop exercises that will teach students how to use Adobe Flash CS
2. Introduce an example of a short trailer and then clarify the use of Adobe Flash CS
3. The analysis and selection of data that has been collected in Pbworks
4. The creation of a storyboard
5. The making of a short trailer

The next step requires the participants to upload their images and audio files using the web 2.0 tool Pbworks. Pbworks will be used to display the images and provide access to the audio files the participants have collected. The teacher needs to take into account the fact that the web 2.0 tool Pbworks only offers 2GB space free. This needs to be enough for the all participants. The size of images needs to be restricted. The participants who used digital cameras to record images tend to produce larger size images than the I-phone users. This has to be carefully monitored.

Temporary accounts in Pbworks need to be created for all participants. Web 2.0 technologies are easy to set up, access and understand. Participants need to be fully aware that they are sharing resources and collaborating. If a participant modifies or deletes a file, Pbworks will generate a notification email to all members. When the participants save their files it is always better to provide detailed file names rather than ‘img_0030322’. Similarly, easy accessibility means that participants can upload their files into the wrong folder or delete other folders by mistake. The Teacher should often monitor the Wiki.

Adobe Flash CS will be used to integrate the multimedia gathered by the participants. It is the industry standard software used to integrate multimedia. Lots of mobile applications are designed and programmed using the Adobe Flash CS product. The software can be used in other multimedia products such as iMovie, Adobe After Effects and Macromind Director.

The participants are shown an example of a short trailer. Workshop exercises that teach the participants the Adobe Flash CS software are uploaded to Pbworks. The exercise files are an important resource that stimulates learner curiosity and willingness to get involved in the task. Each exercise file is short because the participants need to see their achievements in a short period of time. When all the participants have completed their exercise, the teacher can monitor the level of understanding before moving the participants on to the next exercise. This method of teaching enhances the participant’s sense of achievement and satisfaction levels.

The teacher needs to encourage the participants to complete a number of Flash CS exercises. It is important for the participants to learn the final production process. The teacher needs to specify what size of stage the participants should start with and should explain how to use the tools from toolbox in Flash CS. The participants need to be taught how to publish the flash shockwave files, jpeg and QuickTime movie files. They must have a clear idea about how the production process works, so that they have the confidence to start and output their complete production.

A learning platform where teachers and students create learning projects

This part of the site is intended to be a store of useful resources for teachers and students in Mobile Learning using Web 2.0. It will grow as additional resources are contributed by you and the 'On the Go' team. If you would like to share your mobile teaching experience, please contact 'Mi-Hee Kim' for the password to edit the wiki.

Recommended links for additional information on mobile learning using Web 2.0 tools

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011
Group, Project, Team, Community & Enterprise Collaboration Platforms
Mobile Learning Myths - Experiences and resources from MoLeNET projects
Social Bookmarking Tools: A General Review - D-Lib Magazine, vol. 11, no. 4 (April 2005)

Archived mLearn conference websites

mLearn 2009, Florida, USA
mLearn 2008, Telford, UK
mLearn 2007, Melbourne, Australia
mLearn 2005, Cape Town, South Africa
mLearn 2004, Bracciano, Rome, Italy
mLearn 2003, London, UK
mLearn 2002, Birmingham, UK
Please note that some dynamic content will not function as it would have done on the original site.

Contribute or share an idea by posting details of your project here. Want more ideas? Check out my 'Cameden On the go' project. See how I am using PBworks.

If you would like to share your mobile teaching experience, please contact 'Mi-Hee Kim' for the password to edit the wiki.

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Contribute or share an idea to this page by posting details of your project here. Want more ideas? Check out my 'Cameden On the go' project. See how I am using PBworks.