ELI Spring Focus 

Abilene Christian University: William Rankin and Kyle Dickson (English profs) 

Developing a way of explaining/storytelling to explain how mobility & collaboration would change classroom structure (day in the life short story and video (15 min)) 

Brought faculty in early; did interest meeting (70% of faculty showed up); 42 faculty funded and 14 were Mobile Fellows; Got them to faculty to get them comfortable before deploying to students 

Low hanging fruit: content (events in local area and on campus; quick checks for balances; dashboard for classes on Google Calendar; faculty interacting through calendar and email); other schools: GPS buses route tracking, webcams, etc 

Move beyond one way content delivery (though faculty are still central): collaboration and communication 

Initial apps: 

• Distribution of files, Xythos (in class and out of class document launching) like MobileMe and Dropbox; access to content native file formats accessible *
• Drawing student voices in class: nanoTools (self-built) Like Hotseat, Connect Yard (backchannel) 
• Polls: Turning Tech polling devices/clickers
• Third party developer collaboration (emantras' Mobile Livewire) 
  

Making students creators as well as consumers Had had previous innovation with early adopter faculty who were dissatisfied w/current LMS and were using Web 2.0 tools (WordPress for updating textbooks and conversation around it, etc) WP Touch was mobile app for WordPress; blogs used for sharing thesis statements and immediate, posting examples, authoring content and sharing media; engaging students before class and outside class showcase 

Used Posterous or Dropeo (can leave a podcast like you can leave a voicemail) 

Partner with open development communities 

Promising platforms: Google Wave, FB, Twitter 

Places doing cool stuff: Princetonstudy on communication collaboration, Duke  

Students don't want to be text messaged by their professors 

mLearning Assessment 

Teacher perspective not instructional designer or technologist * Assessment: Course objectives: how can I make them more effective with mobile learning (not just tech looking for a solution)

• Pedagogy: mLeanring can support: exploration observation social learning evidence based and experiential learning
• Technology: Application of tech Lots of research international education 

Types of Research

• Pedagogical: Vavoula G & Sharples M. (2008) Challenges in Evaluatnig Mobile learning (systematic, life cycle approach) A 3 level approach
• More empirical data driven research (pro and con on mobile learning; still incomplete); primarily distance education
• Not research but institutional examples of commitment and pilot testing The Pedagogical Perspectives of MobileLearning Not just pre and post tests Flashcard programs: Anki, iFlipr, etc.