Implementation of Mobile Education to MDDE 601

1. A COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION:
PROPOSING THE INCLUSION OF A MOBILE STRATEGY
IN MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE EDUCATION
MDDE 623: INTRODUCATION TO MOBILE LEARNING
Presentation date:
Wednesday, November
the 12th, 2014
Presenters:
Chrysochoou Chrysoula
Shaw Jeff
(Google images,2014)

2. OUTLINE
Learning outcomes Slide 3
MDDE601:Introduction to Distance Education Slides 4-5
Proposal Slide 6
Reasons for choosing it Slide 7
How to adopt a mobile strategy for Communication Slide 8
Edmodo application Slides 9-15
How to adopt a mobile strategy for Assessment/Feedback Slide 16
Handouts application Slides 17-21
Join our Course Slides 22-23
References Slide 24

3. LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this presentation, you will:
Increase your
understanding of how
to adopt a mobile
learning strategy
Engage in critical
reflection and
evaluation regarding
the benefits and
challenges related to
the inclusion of mobile
learning strategies
Be introduced to two
useful mobile learning
apps and acknowledge
their importance

4. MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE
EDUCATION
Main characteristics
 The first core course in Athabasca
University’s Master of Education
 Is required for all students
 Follows an instructor-paced
procedure
 Is presented via the Moodle
Learning System (LMS)
 Instructional materials include two
textbooks, one e-book and online
articles
 Teacher-student communication is
stressed upon through
communication boards
Content
 Presents the contemporary forms of
distance education
 Explores the application of said forms
in different settings (K-12 schools,
post-secondary institutions,
workplaces, training environments
 Provides a wide range of insightful
theory and research
 Offers distance learners the chance to
explore distance education
technology, acknowledge the
importance of learner support and
examine the management of distance
education programs
(Athabasca University,2013)

5. MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE
EDUCATION
Assessment tools
 Four discussion forums
 One collaborative group project
 Three individual assignments
Course goals and learning objectives
 To promote independent learning
 To provide flexibility
 For students to become effective
and competent distance learners
 Increase their critical thinking and
researching capabilities through
scholarly writing assignments
(Athabasca University, 2013)

6. PROPOSAL
MDDE601: Introduction to Distance education has been chosen to
adopt a mobile learning strategy and include mobile technologies
in order to constitute an enhanced cognitive environment.
Incorporating a transactional distance theoretical framework, will
create a sense of familiarity by promoting interaction of learner-learner,
learner-lecturer, learner-content, learner-interface (Makoe,
2013).
A new impetus will be given to the course, making it more
demanding, yet challenging and interesting.
Simplicity will be the main focus to the implementation, but will
not always take priority, as learning will remain the main focus of
the course.
(Google images,2014)

7. REASON FOR CHOOSING
MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE
EDUCATION
 Lack of interaction: Students need to interact with
both their fellow classmates and the instructor for
help, and instructors need to assist students in their
cognitive development
 Need for more contact and encouragement of both
student-to-student and student-to-tutor
communication and collaboration (Fuegen, 2012)
 Need for two-way communication to be enabled
 Need to adopt a student-centred approach

8. HOW TO ADAPT MDDE 601 TO A MOBILE
ENVIRONMENT (COMMUNICATION)
Communication in a course, whether it be student-student
or student-instructor, should be seamless and ensure the
user feels comfortable and familiar with the process.
Poelhuber & Anderson (2011) discuss the fact that students
learn better from applications that they are familiar with
and are not required to learn how to use. For this reason,
Edmodo was chosen as the mobile application for the
communication portion of the mobile implementation. It’s
similarities to Facebook would be familiar to the students,
therefore there would be a minimal learning curve on the
interaction.

9. EDMODO SETUP
The setup of Edmodo would be a fairly simple process
for the instructor as it is very user friendly. The steps are as
follows:
 Download the free application on your mobile device and sign
up for free as a teacher.
 Choose the course title you wish, and attach a welcome
statement, if desired.
 Then choose from multiple options to personalize the course
such as adding polls, creating a discussion, adding small
quizzes, etc.
 To allow students to access this group they must also have the
Edmodo application downloaded and search for the group ID.

10. EDMODO

11. EDMODO DISCUSSION BOARDS
 Separate discussions for each part of the course are
easily established in Edmodo through the use of ‘Small
Groups’.
 Each course is considered a group. After the instructor
creates a group, there is also the option to create
smaller sub groups which will divide the course up.
 The instructor has the choice to add all of the students
in the class into each group or choose specific students
to add to each smaller group. This allows for either
discussion among the entire class or among smaller
groups to take place.

12. EDMODO DISCUSSION
The discussion board within Edmodo allows the
students to post to a board. The posting process is very
similar to the method used by Facebook, as shown
below.

13. EDMODO SMALL GROUPS
MANAGEMENT
The picture shown below is an example of how the
small groups are divided up in a class. The example
below is shown in the perspective of the instructor.

14. EDMODO SMALL GROUPS PAGE
The picture below showcases the small group feature.
The group is more specialized into a specific topic (or for
the purpose of this course, discussion group).

15. BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF USING
EDMODO
BENEFITS CHALLENGES
The benefits of using Edmodo
include it being a very user friendly
application, in addition to bringing
familiarity to the user due to it’s
similarities to Facebook. This will
allow the students to adapt to this
application very quickly, further
benefitting the learning process
(Poelhuber & Anderson, 2011).
(
 One challenge of Edmodo could be in the
setup of the course, as it is a long and
tedious process to setup each of the small
groups and then add each of the students
to the specific groups as required. This
process is affected by the rate that the
students join the group at the start of the
semester, as they need to be added to
groups, however, this cannot be done until
they are added to the main group.
 A second challenge of using Edmodo for a
communication portion of a mobile
environment is keeping track of the
interaction of each individual student as
there is not a counter to see quantity of
posts each student provides.

16. HOW TO ADAPT MDDE 601 TO A MOBILE
ENVIRONMENT (ASSESSMENT/FEEDBACK)
 Brown (2004-2005) states that assessment is still the
most important thing that an educator can give a
student, whether that assessment be formative or
summative.
 For this reason a more assessment driven mobile
application was chosen to be used for this portion of
the course.
 The application ‘Handouts’ is a simple way to deliver
the course assessments to the students, allow them to
submit their work and receive feedback all in one
place.

17. HANDOUTS SETUP
 Using handouts is a very similar process to using Edmodo.
The instructor is required to download the application, sign
up as an instructor and create the course desired.
 The course will be again given a course ID in which the
students should receive upon registration and will allow
them to access the course.
 In the course, the instructor has a mailbox in which they
will receive messages from the students, if need be with
regards to any of the assigned work, a handouts tab which
all of the assigned work is placed in, and finally a students
section which allows the instructor to interact with a
student by giving them their assessments, checking
completion of work, or sending private messages with
regards to work.

18. HANDOUTS (STUDENT SECTION)
The picture shown below is an example what the instructor will see
when they open up the course (students in the class has been selected,
but the other options are clearly visible).

19. HANDOUTS (ASSESSMENTS)
The picture shown below is an example of when the handouts
portion (assessment portion) of the application has been selected.

20. HANDOUTS (ASSESSMENT
DISTRIBUTION)
The picture shown below is an example of distributing
one of the assignments to the class and includes what
options are available to the instructor.

21. BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF USING
HANDOUTS
BENEFITS CHALLENGES
 Handouts is again a very user
friendly platform which provides
the instructor with the options of
uploading assessments in multiple,
different formats. This is
beneficial for the reason of not
needing to remake previously made
assessment assignments, rather,
they can just be uploaded as they
are.
 It also allows the instructor to
provide instant feedback to the
students upon completing each
assessment (either to an individual
student of the class as a whole).
 This application is not completely
free for instructors, as once more
there are more than 26 students
per class, a yearly charge is
allotted.
 The students are required to use a
second application for their
assessment in addition to
Edmodo. Using two applications
can be overwhelming to some
students as it is far less
convenient.

22. JOIN OUR GROUPS YOURSELF AND
HAVE A LOOK (EDMODO)
Download Edmodo and enter as a student to the group
below

23. JOIN OUR GROUPS YOURSELF AND
HAVE A LOOK (HANDOUTS)
Download Handouts and enter as a student to the group
below

24. References
Brown, S. (2004-05). Assessment for Learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education,
Issue 1 (p 81-89)
Edmodo. Retrieved from https://www.edmodo.com/ on November 4, 2014.
Fuegen, S. H. (2012). The impact of mobile technologies on distance education. TechTrends, 56(6),
49-53. Retrieved from http://0-
eds.b.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/detail/detail?sid=fd445134-cef9-4a78-82f5-
dd24da00701f%40sessionmgr115&vid=0&hid=103&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPXVybCxpcCx1a
WQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=ehh&AN=82763727
Handouts. Retrieved from http://handouts.in/ on November 4, 2014.
Makoe, M. (2013). The pedagogy of mobile learning in supporting distance learners. In M. Specht,
M. Sharples, & J. Multisilta (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th World Conference on Mobile and
Contextual Learning. Retrieved from http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-955/papers/paper_45.pdf
Poellhuber, B., & Anderson, T. (2011). Distance Students' Readiness for Social Media and
Collaboration. International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 12(6), 102-
125.
The Centre for Distance Education. MDDE 601: Introduction to Distance Education. Retrieved
from http://cde-student.lms.athabascau.ca/course/view.php?id=51