The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology

Designing the Learning Task

Agnes Kukulska-Hulme

Sony Ericsson

What kind of learning?

Learning for the mobile age:

“the processes of coming to know through conversations across multiple contexts amongst people and personal interactive technologies”

(Sharples, 2007)

The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology

eds Beetham & Sharpe, 2007

Chapter by Kukulska-Hulme & Traxler:

Designing for mobile and wireless learning

•Characterizations of mobile learning include: ‘personal’, ‘spontaneous’, ‘opportunistic’, ‘informal’, ‘pervasive’, ‘situated’, ‘private’, ‘context-aware’, ‘bite-sized’, ‘portable’

•This implies a conceptualization of mobile learning in terms of the learners’ experiences with an emphasis on device ownership, informality, movement and context that will always be inaccessible to conventional e-learning

Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age

The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology

Degrees of participation

• Receive content

• Take part in prescribed activities

• Take part in proposed activities

• Seek out new content

• Share with others

• Create own content

• Create own activity

Critical success factors for mobile learning

Based on papers from mLearn conferences 2002-5, Naismith & Corlett (2006) identified 5 critical success factors:

• Availability of Technology: Whether provided for, or by the learner, successful mobile learning projects make mobile technology available

• Institutional Support: Extensive and well thought out support resources, including staff training and equipment/software maintenance

• Connectivity: Successful mobile learning projects incorporate wireless network access, whether through local wireless LAN or over the mobile telephone networks

• Integration: Successful mobile learning projects do not stand apart, but are integrated with the curriculum, the student experience, or ‘real life’, or any combination of the three

• Ownership: Ownership of technology helps to promote ownership over learning. Learners should either own the technology or at least treat it as if they own it (use it any time they wish, be free to customise or upgrade it, or even to use it subversively)

Describing a mobile learning activity

Activity title: …..

1. Learning context - type of setting: school learning, university, workplace, everyday learning, museum learning...

2. Target audience – who will participate?3. Learning need - addressing an existing need, generating

new needs by enabling new practices? 4. Pedagogical approach – learning principles and ideas

underpinning educational design; integration with other activities/ other learning

5. Learning activity - short description of the activity itself6. Technology - what technology/ies are used in which parts of

the activity (hardware, device, sensors, etc.). How and where do you expect learners to use the technology?