Location-based mLearning reminders

Björn Hedin Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden [email_address] http://twitter.com/bjornh Slides available at http://tinyurl.com/iadis09 Location-based mLearning reminders

Quick overview In this study we have …
Built a J2ME application to study chemistry on mobile phones
Built a J2ME application to remind students to use the chemistry application when they leave or arrive at places they have chosen are suitable for mobile studies
Evaluated the use in two university level chemistry courses

Research questions
What are students’ attitudes to Location Based Reminders for mLearning?
How well can learning opportunities be detected using such a system?
Which places are added, what strategies are used to detect learning opportunities?
What are students’ attitudes to a simple (flashcard) system for mobile learning?

Background Previous studies/projects
MUSIS project- Various content pushed to university students' mobile phones
Education related reminders most popular content (more than fun videos, music etc)
SimpleLearn - Reminders to study sent via email and SMS at times determined by an algorithm.
Flashcard system for mobiles/desktop
Reminders often occurred at inconvenient times

Idea The objectives of this study
Why not try to send mLearning reminders based on location rather than time
Easier to determine that "when I am on the bus on my way to the university" is a good time to study than "at 8.43 AM".
Location can be determined using positioning of the student's mobile phone

Determining your location Mobile positioning
Location Based Services for mobile phones is a rapidly growing area
GPS often used but...
No coverage indoors or underground
Drains battery very rapidly
Position of current GSM cell an alternative
Available on low-end phones
Coverage everywhere
Low power consumption
but less precise location (or not even a location at all)

Level of precision needed? Do we need 5, 50 or 500 meter accuracy?
Symbolic places more important than coordinates, i.e. "At home", "At the university" or "On the metro”
Changes are important, i.e. "when I leave home and enter the metro”
Especially the metro is easy to detect
For this functionality GSM cell based location could work out fine for Location Based Reminders (LBR)

The reminder application Basic functionality
Detects places through GSM cell id (no coordinates)
Students can “add places” (or “meaningful locations”)
The phone searches for nearby GSM cells, and the students attaches a label to them (At home, Metro …)
Attach study reminders to places for “arrive-”, “at-” or “leave”-events.
Next time the student enters or leaves such a place, a reminder is triggered asking if the student would like to study using the chemistry application

The reminder application Adding a new place

The chemistry application Basic functionality
Flashcard-like system
See a question
Press button to see answer
Self assessment – Knew answer well, to some extent or not at all
Session of 10 questions
Questions you didn’t know answer to will appear again next time, questions you know will be replaced by new questions

The chemistry application Picture questions + self assessment

The chemistry application Text questions with short answers

The chemistry application Text questions with long answers

Results
Technical problems encountered
Results from user study
11 university students in two courses
Content adapted for the courses
Used applications for one week
Suggested improvements

Implementation issues
APIs to get cell information not available on all Java implementations and/or platforms
Problems with implementing sound- and vibration alerts from Java programs running in the background
Autostart of application

Problems with “places” One place associated with several cells
Cell changes can be changed several times per minute even if the phone remains stationary
Some cells appear very rarely, thereby making them difficult to detect
Right: One hour at my office (red dot). Three cells detected. Five cells during whole day
(Scale: Smaller circles = 500m)

Problems with “places”(2) One cell associated with several places
The cells to the right can be connected to
“ the university”
“ Metro station Tekniska Högskolan”
“ Bus 4”
Difficult to know whether I arrived at the university or if I am just passing by in a bus

User study results Reminders
Sometimes forgot to start application ->Autostart would be a good feature.
Long time to detect departures from less densely populated areas (with large cells)
Most appreciated reminders: When travelling by public transport.
“ On-place”-reminders not used much

User study results Places
Most places added were “informal learning environments”
The university was only added to be reminded when leaving the campus
Everyone added “at home”
Detecting places worked fairly well

User study results Suitable mLearning places
Public transport was considered best
Phone size convenient in cramped places
Felt it was “Bonus study time” – they don’t do much else useful anyway
Home
N ice break from other activities
Easier to study on phone for 10 minutes than to open your books

User study results Motivation
Bonus time – study at places not possible otherwise
F un way to learn
Promotes regular studies
“ Microlearning” possible

Suggested improvements
Add questions/flashcards of your own
Share questions/flashcards with friends
Let learning content be anything accessible via a URL
Mobile web, v ideo, audio, Evernote, Google Docs, eBooks, local files
Web interface + synchronization for easier editing of tags/URLs
Learning portal with learning content/activities to choose from

Suggested improvements(2)
Make it possible to attach several tags to one cell
Implement ”add tag to current cell”
Implement continuous tagging mode
Add time restrictions, i.e. “Only weekdays between 8 A.M. and 8 P.M.
Adaptive reminders, i.e. if reminders don’t trigger actions, remind less often

Discussion
Do we really want students to get such reminders?
Planning yourself?
Increased stress?
Perha ps very infrequent reminders could be good?
“ You took the exam XXX six months ago. Would you like to review the exam questions”?

That’s it – Questions?
Slides available at http://tinyurl.com /iadis09
Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bjornh
Contact me via email at [email_address]

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Location-based mLearning reminders

by bjornh on Feb 25, 2009

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Location-based mLearning reminders — Presentation Transcript