ICTBITES, Presentation på eLA 2010

M-learning to empower the learner and to facilitate informal study groups Presentation at eLearning Africa 2010 Bengt Nykvist and Mats Deutschmann , Mid Sweden University

16 000 students
More than 50% on distance
Teacher education more than 80% on distance
We love e-learning!

But... there are some problems with e-learning, using PC’s, in the developing world!
Accessibility problems
Power problems
Band width / Internet infrastructure problems
Affordability problems
Low availability of PC’s
Limited knowledge how to operate PC’s and computer networks

Some of these problems can be addressed by m-learning and usage of mobile phones
Mobile phone networks have high coverage in e.g. Africa
Cheaper equipment
Equipment that can operate without daily access to electricity
Equipment familiar to student and teachers

The Project, the idea born at eLA 2007!
Participants included a group from SPIDER and Swedish Universities
Discussions with representatives from Tanzania MoEVT
Demand for in-service education of secondary teachers
E-learning suggested as a tool for supporting teachers with limited introductory training (licensed teachers) in order to give them more comprehensive, continuous vocational training

Problem Area and Motivation
Project background:
The millennium goal to “achieve general primary school for all” is about to be reached in Tanzania.
60 % attended primary school year 2005, 97% year 2007
But… short supply of secondary teachers with adequate capacity!
ICT - B ased I n-Service T eacher E ducation for S econdary School Teacher in Tanzania" ( ICTBITES )

Request 1. Access to learning material
On the memory cards in the mobile phones:
overviews, slideshows for each learning module
study guide in text
study guide interpreted as voice
additional materials such as films
diagnostic quizzes
Access to Internet (3G or GPRS) for additional learning material

Request 2. Learning activities and communication with fellow students and teachers / tutors
Students do quizzes on their mobile phones
Teachers respond using mobile phones or PC’s sending SMS through the Moodle system

Technical solution
Study guides in text ( Free software, Java based book reader, http://tequilacat.org ) about 2000 pages of text
The same texts interpreted as voice (Commercial software: http://www.voice-corp.com/ )
Narrated slideshows (overviews of learning modules, produced with MS-PPT and Camtasia )
About 2 GB of the 4 GB availably on the memory cars was used for 3 complete courses

Technical solution, cont
Auto corrected quizzes (Mobile Quiz from Mobilestudy.org, results sent by SMS to teacher mobile phone or to Moodle using Moodletxt from Txttools)
Movie clips with related material (Open Educational Recourses downloaded from the Internet, saved as mpeg4 on mobile phone memory cards)

Phone specifications
3G/GPRS
Java
SMS
QVGA display, 320*240 pixels, display not smaller than 2 inches
Ability to play MP3 audio and MPEG4 / 3GP video
Memory card option, card size e.g. 4 GB Micro SD

The ICT BITES project: Introduction of pilot group, January 2009 The 18 students (participating in in-service teacher education) quickly learnt the operation of the phones, how to access the learning material and how to communicate using mobile phones.

The pilot test, mobile phones to support learning and communication in three courses

Evaluation meeting in December 2009, summary of results
The students had communicated using voice and SMS
The media on the phones was used and appreciated, especially the voice interpreted texts of the study guides. (the whole material for three courses is available on the phones as text and voice (on the memory cards)

Evaluation meeting in December 2009, summary of results, cont
The students had used the phones to look for information on the Internet, accessing e-mail. This was much appreciated and a new experience even though they had been using mobile phones for several years.

Evaluation meeting in December 2009, summary of results, cont
But…the project management was not successful in fully establishing acceptance for the project model among the lecturers.
Low level of interaction between the lecturers and the students

Discussion
There are several possible reasons for the low participation from the lecturers:
They were not compensated for the time required for participation in the project;
The extra time involved in communicating with students was seen as an additional task involving more work and commitment.
The project underestimated the complexity of introducing collaborative models in the academic culture of the target institutions

In a scaled up project….
More effort should be put into working with the lecturers to increase their involvement in the project
Alternative ways to organize mentoring and tutoring could be tried
Use of previous students as “e-mentors” or “peer mentors”, these could assist in setting up study groups (using Yahoo-groups, IM-systems, Facebook or whatever system the students find attractive)
Teachers at educational colleges could be used as additional tutoring support.

In a scaled up project…. cont
The students at the evaluation meeting suggested that more material should be added to the memory cards in the mobile phones:
Encyclopedias and wordbooks
More quizzes/ questions
Previous exams
More courses.

Some final remarks
Even when structural support is limited, supplying students with electronic access to learning material and tools for communication is of great value for the students, the students are empowered as learners .
Supplying learning material on memory cards for mobile phones showed to be an attractive way of distribution of learning material.

For more information
Google ICTBITES
or
Project website: http://sites.google.com/site/ictbites/
Demo: Search for ICTBITES on Youtube
Welcome send e-mail to: [email_address] ,

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ICTBITES, Presentation på eLA 2010

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