Flexible learning with flexible devices: opening up opportunities

I am going to mLearn2011 conference to present my research study of students’ exploration and use of previously unexplored low-spec sub US$100 open-source mobile devices for learning programming. The study was conducted over a period of fourteen weeks in University of West London, UK with the postgraduate students studying Mobile Application Development (MAD) module which is a part of the MSc Network and Mobile Computing course. 

Students used the Wikireader, a handheld reading device and Nanonote, a lightweight pocket computer, developed using a copyleft approach. In this study, mixed methods research methodology was used and data analysis was guided by the Framework for the Rational Analysis of MobileEducation (FRAME) model. From the results of our evaluations, we were not able to ascertain whether or not these devices improved learning programming. However, the findings indicate these open-source devices have potential to enhance motivation to learn programming without being restricted to the limited practical sessions in the university lab and also facilitate offline reading.

The aim of this study was not to identify and measure the impact on learning embedded programming and also not meant for generalising our findings to a larger population due to small number of students participation in a short period of the study. Therefore, the findings of this study should be used with caution to inform other programming education related studies. As this study mainly focused on the device usage, the results provide indications on students’ perceptions towards the effectiveness of open-source platforms for student support and the findings could also be useful to support the adoption of offline mobile learning model to provide an access to resources and support learning.  

Mobile Learning Model (Shrestha, et al, 2010, p.341)

Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. Poster: "Flexible learning with flexible devices: opening up opportunities", mLearn 2011, October 2011, Beijing The Conference Proceedings

The English Language Teaching & Learning Challenges in Public Schools of Nepal

In the context of developing regions, despite the decreasing cost of ICT infrastructure, supporting education with conventional e-learning technologies using standard paradigms is often regarded as short-sighted approach. Thus, researchers are increasing the focus on relatively cheaper and sustainable mobile technologies to support education. However, before implementing the technology enhanced learning solution, it is crucial to take account of the existing teaching and learning practices and design solution based on the distinct understandings of local context to fully incorporate technology in the existing educational process. Recently, an exploratory study was carried out to identify the challenges of teaching and learning English in the government schools that use traditional teaching practices in Nepal. A teacher's diary study method was used to understand the background and the paper highlights existing pedagogical, technological, social, cultural and political issues that might be useful for guiding the technological intervention in public schools where one of the current and the urgent requirements is to provide an access to digital contents.

(Published) Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "The English Language Teaching and Learning Challenges in Public Schools of Nepal: Teacher's Diary Study", IFIP WG 9.4 Conference, May 2011, Kathmandu, Nepal 

Download the conference proceedings to read the full paper. 

Picture & summary of the 2011 IFIP WG9.4 Conference.

Exploring Open Platforms for Mobile Learning

The mobile technology field is rapidly expanding and the focus on how it can be incorporated to support learning is also growing. However, the barriers to inclusion of information communication technologies in the public schools of Nepal are still significant and the widespread access to digital content remains a key obstacle. Nepal has a poor communication infrastructure and where available, telecommunication and electricity are poorly maintained or too costly to use.
The aim of my exploratory research study is to highlight how an offline mobile learning solution may address some of the technical challenges to support one of the current and most urgent requirements to provide an access to digital content. The study investigated the deployment of previously unexplored low-spec sub US $100 open-source mobile devices (Nanonote and Wikireader) to facilitate English language learning and address the knowledge requirements of teachers in government funded public schools of Nepal.

Ben Nanonote 3.0” color TFT display, 336 MHz processor & 2GB of flash memory; an ultra small form factor Copyleft device by Qi Hardware http://sharism.cc/

Wikireader - Handheld offline reading device by Openmoko. Runs up to 12 months on two AAA batteries. http://www.thewikireader.com/

Considering the context and culture of Nepal, my research aim was to develop a socio-technical– an offline mobile learning solution using a low-spec open source mobile technology. The study was carried out in four stages.

I) Before implementing the technology enhanced learning solution, it is crucial to take account of the existing teaching and learning practices and design solution based on the distinct understandings of local context to fully incorporate technology in the existing educational process. Recently, an exploratory study was conducted using teachers’ diary study method, which helped to understand the background and highlight the existing pedagogical, technological, social and cultural issues – that are useful for guiding the technological intervention in public schools of Nepal where one of the current and the urgent requirements is to provide an access to digital contents. The qualitative study was conducted in eight public schools using a pre-questionnaire and 2 weeks long English teachers’ diary.

English teaching in a public school of Nepal for year 10.

 II) A pilot study was conducted to explore the use of open-source platforms, customisation of graphical user interface, its usability and how it may be used for supporting teaching and learning. Even though this exploratory study aimed at supporting teaching and learning programming in Higher Education, it focused on better understanding the use offline mobile technologies, and on the device usability. The results provided indications on users’ perceptions towards the effectiveness of open-source platforms for supporting teaching and learning and the findings could be useful to support the adoption of offline mobile learning model to provide an access to resources and support learning. The findings indicate these open-source devices have potential to facilitate offline reading and it can enhance motivation to learning. 

  

III) With the overall deeper understanding of ways of teaching and learning, needs and concerns in public schools of Nepal, further studies were conducted in Nepal. As private schools are generally believed to be better than public schools, an exploratory study was recently completed which involved 20 English teachers from 10 private schools within the same district. A further study was conducted in 8 public schools from 4 different districts that use XO laptops and supported by Open Learning Exchange Nepal (http://www.olenepal.org/). The study identified the benefits and challenges of using ICT in poor schools and investigated how the use of ICT may be helping to solve some of the concerns identified from the earlier study. These studies also helped to identify the type of digital resources needed to support English learning in public schools of Nepal. 

A computer lab in a private school.

A public school that uses XO laptop supported by OLE Nepal.

IV) Then, based on the findings from these studies, the use of low-spec and sub US $100 open-source Nanonote and Wikireader devices were explored to deliver learning resources in five schools. The evaluation adopted an approach recommended by Sharples, which is to address usability (will it work?), effectiveness (is it enhancing learning?) and satisfaction (is it liked?). For the evaluation purpose, selection of the research methods for this study was adapted from the earlier studies of adoption of mobile technology for learning by Corlett et al. and Waycott. 

All ready to be used in schools of Nepal by English teachers.

 

I'm still in the process of analysing, writing and publishing the data that I've collected so far. Due to exploratory nature of this research, data analysis has been an iterative and reflective process throughout the project and the data is being examined in relation to the Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education (FRAME) model.

The Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education (FRAME) model describes mobile learning as a process resulting from the convergence of mobile technologies, human learning capacities, and social interaction.

This study will also highlight the development challenges faced working with a sub US$100 device including usability issues and the lack of a standard graphical user interface. Overall this study will showcase alternative open hardware solutions to more restrictive proprietary solutions which are currently dominating the mobile landscape.

Some of the related publications so far:

• Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. Poster: "Open-source Platform: Exploring the Opportunities for Offline Mobile Learning", Mobile HCI 2011, August 2011, Stockholm.
• Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "The English Language Teaching and Learning Challenges in Public Schools of Nepal: Teacher's Diary Study", IFIP WG 9.4 Conference, May 2011, Kathmandu, Nepal.
• Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Mobile learning and low-cost hardware for ICT4D: what's right and what's copyleft?", Special Issue - IEEE Multidisciplinary Engineering Education Magazine (MEEM), 2011.
• Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. Poster: "Flexible learning with flexible devices: opening up opportunities", mLearn 2011, October 2011, Beijing.
• Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Offline Mobile Learning With Copyleft Hardware: A Pilot Study", Mobile Learning: Crossing Boundaries in Convergent Environments Conference, Bremen, Germany.
• Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Sustainable Mobile Learning: Open & Offline",mLearn 2010, 9th World Conference Mobile & Contextual Learning, October 2010, Malta. 
• Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Offline Mobile Learning: Open Platform, Wikireader & ICTD", Mobile HCI 2010 Workshop, Mobile HCI and Technical ICTD: A Methodological Perspective. September 2010, Lisboa, Portugal.
• Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Offline Mobile Learning: Open Platforms for ICT4D", Doctoral Consortium, The 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, July 5-7, 2010, Sousse, Tunisia.
• Shrestha, S., Moore, J., Abdelnour-Nocera, J. "Offline Mobile Learning for ICT4D", IADIS International Conference Mobile Learning 2010, March 2010, Porto, Portugal.

Nepal: the great digital divide

Mobile cellular growth is slowing worldwide. In developed countries, the mobile market is reaching saturation levels with an average 116 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants at the end of 2010 and a marginal growth of 1.6% from 2009-2010. But the mobile penetration in developing countries is huge. The developing world is increasing its share of mobile subscriptions from 53% of total mobile subscriptions at the end of 2005 to 73% at the end of 2010.

In the context of Nepal, compared to fixed telephone subscriptions (2.81), mobile subscriptions (30.69) is relatively very high and expected to grow rapidly. But Internet users are still very low, due to lack of access to computers and the Internet. Where they do have the Internet (mostly in urban areas), it is expensive, unreliable and has a low bandwidth.

Nepal is a mountainous country where most of the countryside is remote  and about 86 percent of population lives in rural areas and dependent on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood and availability of electricity is limited to about 18 percent of the total population, while the rural population has just about 5 percent. In Africa, an estimated 90% of the rural population remain without electricity.

The disparity in access to ICTs between the world's richest and poorest countries,  the difference in people's chance of getting training and skills that will enable them to use ICTs effectively - the Digital Divide is evident. While more than 94% of people in Norway can access the web, a mere 0.5% in Ethopia do. Even though number of countries, including Estonia, Finland and Spain have declared access to the Internet as a legal right for citizens and 71% of the population in developed countries are online while only 21% of the population in developing countries are connected.

The access to technology is crucial. 'A global explosion in the use of mobile phones with over 5 billion subscriptions', 'double Internet users since 2005..': these are definitely some of many encouraging facts. The technology however needs to be affordable, sustainable and scalable. In Nepal, the financial, social, geographical, political and infrastructural challenges are greater and even though there are opportunities to implement technological interventions, impact is hard to achieve.

Internet Users per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
   %     0.20  0.24   0.31   0.38    0.45     0.80   1.14   1.41    1.73   1.97   6.78

Fixed Internet subscriptions per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
    %      0.05     0.06     0.08     0.10      0.11     0.16     0.22     0.28        -              -          -

Fixed Broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
    %   -         0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00    0.00   0.00   0.04   0.03   0.05    0.38

Fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
     % 1.09     1.19     1.28  1.42   1.56   1.78     2.20   2.47   2.79  2.76  2.81

Mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants
Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
   %  0.04     0.07     0.09  0.31   0.44    0.83    4.16  11.52  14.53   19.02   30.69


(Source: ITU and Upgrading Development: Can technology alleviate poverty?)

Mobile Learning: lots of 'Now' and the glimpse of the 'Future' 2011

"A Practitioner Symposium presented by The West London Lifelong Learning Network & The College of North West London, 28th September 2011." This FREE event focused on Mobile Learning in Further and Higher Education and most of the attendees were from London colleges. (#MobileLearn2011) This event took place at the College of North West London, Dudden Hill Lane, London, NW10 2XD.John Cook (@johnnigelcook) from London Met discussed the challenges of promoting active and deep learning with mobiles. Slides found here. The focus of this talk was on the reuse of the context of one subject (urban education) in another (language learning) through a reconfiguration of the required scripts/information within the mobile device mediated augmented space for learning. Later, Carl Smith showed some example videos of augmented reality, work done by his colleagues and others.
Steve Boneham from JISC Netskills and Doug Belshaw (JISC infoNet) presented on 'Implementing Mobile Learning in Your Institution' (slides found here) and explained the rationale for institutional mobile learning and share some examples of good practice from the infoKit.
One of the holy grails for mobile learning researchers is to come up with models and categorisations that enable widespread acceptance and uptake of mobile learning; models that can be contextualised but serve as an accepted framework. These range from the very general - for example, “‘permanently online’, ‘frequently online’ and offline’” (Shrestha, et al, 2010, p.341), conceiving of the mobile phone as a ‘terminal’ (Ford & Leinonen, 2010, p.196-7), or the detailed: (source found here)

The most engaging and interesting talk by John Traxler (@johntraxler) explored the looming crisis of identity and direction for the mobile learning research community. The mobile learning research community is about ten years old. According Traxler, the community is now at a tipping point, a vindication, a culmination, when the work of researchers, practitioners and activists will bear fruit, when we will bring in the harvest, when we will finally address scale, sustainability, equity, blending and embedding. The community has however worked largely within institutional contexts, positioned at the vanguard of technology enhanced learning, buying into the rhetoric of 'innovation' and working from the top down, working mainly in small-scale, fixed-term subsidised projects staffed by enthusiasts. These developments took place when technology was scarce, difficult and expensive; now technology is ubiquitous, cheap and reliable and what we will see in the next ten years will not be a continuation of the trajectory defined by the previous ten years.
Later, I (@sunnysujan) went out for a Turkish meal in Baker Street with John Moore (@jptmoore), Dough (@dajbelshaw), Julie Usher, Nick Dennis and Shirley. After the meal, John and I went out for a few beers.