Elliott Masie’s E-Learning 2009 Conference
This conference of e-Learning practitioners started on Sunday, November 8 and ended on Wednesday, November 11. The following is my recollection of the various presentations made by guests that I attended.
Sunday afternoon: Mobile Learning workshop by Judy Brown:
Mobile learning is what happens across locations, takes advantage of electronic learning technologies. Most of the users of these technology/styles include medical workers, those individuals wishing to learn another language or culture. Mobile learning is very different from e-Learning in that education is more personalized and highly portable. With mobile learning comes shorter educational content, compact educational sessions but with maybe more modules.
Current delivery methods now being used include smartphones, telephones, netbooks, electronic readers and tablet P.C.s. According to Ray Kutzweil, mobile learning represents a possible “gateway to all human knowledge”. Due to the lack of competitive advantage, mobile education/learning is not shared across educational/training industries.
Design considerations involve mobile learning technologies/techniques involves the technology base used (smartphone type, netbook or others). In designing for the mobile educational format, it is suggested to : 1.) forget what you think you know about mobile learning, 2.) Believe what you see and not what you read, 3.) Don’t start with perceived constraints, 4.) Focus on content, educational goals and needs, 5.) Realize that you cannot support everything using the mobile structure, 6.) Create content don’t convert it and 7.) Keep it simple. There are many existing mobile device apps that can be used in any mobile educational environment – which is where the creativity comes in to play.
In regards to the iPhone, $1b in iPhone sales to date, 100K number of apps, $35K to develop each app, $12K return revenue on iPhone apps. Seems the corporations are not valuing app development but “hackers” sure are. Tests show that one app may have a user time of around 5 minutes each session. Apps are now used to purchase stuff which may relate to how personally compelling they have become. Presently, museums use a portable device that is programmed to play a narrative at a specific station in the museum. Mobile learning systems could also take advantage of the same ideas to teach about specific topics such as architecture, medicine, language and more. Interactivity with bar-code technology (1d and 2d types) can facilitate this. Power being a major consideration with mobile technology, battery life is now able to last all day. Certain types of clothing now comes with solar panels for the charging of mobile device batteries. Other future mobile technologies could involve a type of “wind-up” power similar to emergency radios to quickly re-charge mobile device batteries.
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