Teaching and Learning with Mobile Technologies

Posted by: Biray Alsac

Presented by Gary Marrer (GCC)

In the Fall of 2008, I was on sabbatical investigating the feasibility and uses of mobile technology in teaching and learning. During my sabbatical, I was able to create, investigate and utilize various mobile technologies. From that research, I have identified several mobile technologies which can be utilized today. See Sabbatical Portal at: http://sites.google.com/site/mobiledotsite/ Blog at: http://mobiledot.blogspot.com/ and NING at: http://mobiledot.ning.com and http://mobiledot.net

Marrer uses mobile technology to:
- Content delivery (syllabus, class schedule)
- student retention (Flash cards)
- active learning (video/camera/audio capture, role play, non-verbal communication-group assignment)
- General marketing

But some constraints:
- Cost of technology to student/institution (smartphones are expensive, some cell phone plans don’t have unlimited text-messages, etc)
- it’s portability (display size, memory, processing)
- still experimental
- Cell phone business models regarding applications

Most teachers want mobile devices to be turned off… Marrer wants to take advantage of this technology because students are much better at multi-tasking. They like short, asynchronous bites of information. Gary is trying to take this into consideration while still meeting the objectives of the classroom.

ACTIVE LEARNING:
- Capturing information with a mobile device – be it audio, text, video to be more involved with the real world. He hopes that these types of assignments will help students be more interactive as well as build a repository of information for the students.

STUDENT RETENTIONS SCENARIOS:
- Uses Twitter (SMS) for assignments, tests, final grades
- These are ways to keep students in check and connect with class/instructor

He notes that this is all experimental – it gets students engage with the technology and of course, he uses these technologies as a teaching point because he teaches a business management/tech courses.

There are other sites that link to mobile technologies – like Textmarks, Polleverywhere, Facebook, Twitter, MLEX (mobile learning experiment).

A take-home message: Take advantage of the computers in their [students] hand. And keep the focus on the teaching and learning – not necessarily the technology.

Last 3 posts by Biray Alsac

May 19, 2009 · Filed Under Conference

Author's web site: http://www.BeFitWithBiray.com

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