Disruptive Mobile Learning

Disruptive Mobile Learning Mike Sharples Learning Sciences Research Institute University of Nottingham www.nottingham.ac.uk/lsri/msh

1908 1958 2008

Why have schools changed so little over the past 100 years?

The education system is internally consistent and self sustaining…

The education system is internally consistent and self sustaining…

National curriculum Standards League tables Research Assessment Exercise QCA TDA LSC HEFCE LEAs SATs

… but doesn’t connect with the rest of learning

Diagram with permission from “The Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center” http://life-slc.org

Children’s approximate arithmetic (Gilmore et al., Nature , 2007) 5-6 year old children 73% gave correct answers But these approximate arithmetic skills are not developed at school “ Sarah has twenty-one candies” “ She gets thirty more” “ John has thirty four candies. Who has more?”

Rich learning outside the classroom

The 3C’s of effective lifelong learning

Construction

relating experience to knowledge, creating new ideas

Conversation

with teachers, with learners, with ourselves, and with the world

Control

actively pursuing knowledge

Construction

Conversation

Control

How do we connect…

learning in the classroom…

… and learning at home?

How do we connect…

learning about the world …

… and learning in the world?

Extend the classroom into everyday learning?

Podcasts Teaching on mobile phones Home access to the school intranet Send assessment questions and receive multiple choice responses via email or SMS which can then be auto-responded to with feedback” www.ambientperformance.com

Extend the classroom into everyday learning?

Podcasts Teaching on mobile phones Home access to the school intranet Send assessment questions and receive multiple choice responses via email or SMS which can then be auto-responded to with feedback” www.ambientperformance.com “ At school, you do all this boring stuff, really basic stuff, PowerPoint and spreadsheets and things. It only gets interesting and exciting when you come home and really use your computer. You're free, you're in control , it's your own world.” (Guardian, May, 2007)

Extend everyday learning into the classroom?

What do these have in common?

Answer: They have all been banned in classrooms

10 to 1 ratio

3 to 1 ratio

1 to 1 ratio

1 to 1 ratio

Moblogging Online research Group media creation Collaborative online writing Serious gaming Conversational language learning Mobile social networking Group learning Peer teaching Personalised learning

“ In class I have to power down ” (Guardian, May, 2007)

Personal technologies

Cyber-bullying Classroom texting Exam cheating Game playing Disruptive mobile learning Loss of teacher control Powerful Connects home and school Ownership

Challenges for schools and educational suppliers

Connect learning inside and outside the classroom

Manage children bringing their own powerful personal technologies into school

Enable effective 1 to 1 learning in the classroom

Support learning through construction, conversation and control

Eduinnova conversational classroom learning (Steljes) RM Asus MiniBook computer from £169

Connecting learning inside and beyond the classroom

MyArtSpace

PI: Personal Inquiry

MyArtSpace

Service on mobile phones for enquiry-led museum learning

Learning through structured construction and conversation

Students create their own interpretation of a museum visit which they explore back in the classroom

MyArtSpace

Museum test sites

Urbis (Manchester)

The D-Day Museum (Portsmouth)

The Study Gallery of Modern Art (Poole)

About 3000 children during 2006

How it works

In class before the visit, the teacher sets an inquiry topic

At the museum, children are loaned multimedia phones

Exhibits in the museum have 2-letter codes printed by them

Children can use the phone to

Type the code to ‘collect’ an object and see a presentation about it

Record sounds

Take photos

Make notes

See who else has ‘collected’ the object

All the information collected or created is sent automatically to a personal website showing a list of the items

The website provides a record of the child’s interpretation of the visit

In class after the visit, the children share the collected and recorded items and make them into presentations

Summary of results

The technology worked

Photos, information on exhibits, notes, automatic sending to website

Students liked the ‘cool’ technology

Students spent longer (90 mins compared to 20 mins)

Supported enquiry learning

Encouraged children to make active choices

Museum more accessible

Need for more teacher preparation

PI: Personal Inquiry

Project with the Open University

Inquiry science learning

Connecting learning inside and outside the classroom

Handheld wireless technology

SceDer Jitti Niramitranon PhD project

Participate project ScienceScope BT, BBC, Blast Theory, Microsoft Research, University of Nottingham, University of Bath, Sciencescope Personal carbon monoxide monitor linked to Google maps

Beyond disruptive mobile learning Fusion of physical and virtual 1 to 1 learning in the classroom 1 to 1 primary classroom, Taiwan

Beyond disruptive mobile learning RSA Academy at Tipton Designed to support a new competence-led curriculum Building schools around the 3 C’s

Beyond disruptive mobile learning Inquiry learning in the world Ambient Wood Equator research collaboration (Universities of Nottingham, Bristol, Lancaster, Glasgow, Southampton, Sussex, University College London, Goldsmith’s College) Learning-enabled environments