Using Google Groups in a m-learning environment

Using Google Groups in a m-learning environment Steven Lopes Abrantes Instituto Politécnico de Viseu (Portugal) [email_address] Luís Manuel Borges Gouveia Universidade Fernando Pessoa (Portugal) [email_address] EduLearn10 5-July-2010

Study main purpose
Establish whether laptop users are in the flow state when using Google Groups
Verify if Google Groups are a viable tool to support learning

New technologies allow the creation of new knowledge spaces;
Now, besides the school, both workplace and home have become additional locations for education and learning (at least informal);
There is an increasing number of people using home Internet to advance their knowledge;
The computer can still be understood, not just as one common tool, but a tool to support and enhance collaborative learning.
Technology Environments

For a long time, it was felt that teaching was primarily (1) the transmission of knowledge ( content ), (2) the training of the memory , and (3) the sharing of the society values ;
also, learning was to acquire knowledge through a process of attention, memorization, and its reproduction;
The integration of computers in education is now a reality impossible to ignore and one that must be studied.
Technology Environments

Google Groups and the flow experience
An issue that’s relates users interaction quality with the value of collaborative environments is the flow experience concept, introduced by Csikszentmihalyi (1975).
Csikszentmihalyi considers that a person who is in the presence of the flow state has the following characteristics:
Clear goals and immediate feedback;
Equilibrium between the level of challenge and personal skill;
Merging of action and awareness;
Focused concentration;
Sense of potential control;
Loss of self-consciousness;
Time distortion;
Autotelic or self-rewarding experience.

Our study uses five dimensions to define the flow state, as proposed by (Trevino & Webster, 1992) and (McKenna & Lee, 2005):
Control;
Attention Focus;
Curiosity;
Intrinsic Interest;
Sense of time.

Involves one hundred and twelve students from higher education school;
The main tool used was Google Groups ;
The survey gathered student data for five dimensions :
Control;
Attention Focus;
Curiosity;
Intrinsic Interest.
Sense of time
The conducted study

Some of the study results:
78.57% of the respondents were males and 84,82% had ages between sixteen and twenty four years;
The majority of the respondents used laptops (72.32%) to access the tools of the project, followed by the desktop (27,68%) ;
Cronbach’s alpha is superior to 0.7, allowing to conclude that the data is related to one same dimension
The study data

Further analysis:
From a factor analysis it was possible to isolate two factors :
Factor group 1 : (Intrinsic Interest, Control and Curiosity),
Factor group 2 : (Attention Focus and Sense of time).
In order to determine the presence of the flow experience for users with laptops to access Google Groups, it was verified that, on average, students provide positive answers (above three in a Likert scale of five points).
The study results

The majority of the students:
are males;
their ages are between sixteen and
have already used discussion forums
The variables described all the same characteristic which shows the presence of a state of flow experience (confirmed with the Cronbhach’s alpha)
From the factor analysis it was possible
to isolate two factors
Factor group 1 : (Intrinsic Interest, Control and Curiosity),
Factor group 2 : (Attention Focus and Sense of time).
Conclusions

The students majority that uses laptops to access Google Groups , are in a state of flow experience.
Google Groups seems to be a good way to support students learning when they are using laptops
Conclusions

Using Google Groups in a m-learning environment

by Luis Borges Gouveia on Jul 05, 2010

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