The end of the semester is here and the journey through Second Life has been very interesting. This research project has helped me to formulate questions for thesis I might want to take up in the next semester.
Posted below is the final draft of my research project. The topic has everyone knows was- How to use cellphone for education. The pilot study helped to understand what students expect from their cellphone and services such as Twitter helped to put my project in the right context. I hope to continue working on this project in future.
I am not sure if the excel charts will be visible clearly and if the formating stays the right way. Hopefully it will!
INTRODUCTION
Past few years have seen proliferation of cellphones in almost every aspect of living. The personal nature of the mobile phone, together with its constant presence on or about the user’s person, the types of communication it enables and its importance to teenage identity and friendships (Ling and Yttri 1999; Eldridge and Grinter 2001) all support the belief that its popularity is not just a short-term fad. The role of phone calls and messaging in friendship rituals such as gift giving and sharing (Taylor and Harper 2002; Bauman 2003) suggests the mobile phone has potential as a collaborative learning platform. (1)
Cellphones are extremely popular in the 18 to 25 years demographic which is also involved in college studies. This demographic is also increasingly getting involved in test messaging and using cellphones to share and network with their friends and family. The rationale for the study is to discover alternate uses of cellular technology in undergraduate and graduate college students in America. This research project aims to find out the willingness of the students to use cell phones and its services such as text messaging for class room purposes. Some of the questions that the study would address are as follows;
- How do the young adults engage with their cellphones
- Are young adults willing to use their cellphones for learning
- What is their perception, attitude and expectation from cellphone in the education medium
- Which existing services of the cellphones can be used to engage young adults in learning purposes
- Are there any existing services that can be used for cellphone based learning
LITERATURE REVIEW
The term Mobile learning sets the conversation for this research. The idea of mobile learning is not just empowering cellphone for education but also emancipating the process of learning from the four walls of the classroom and to make it accessible for easy sharing. The idea is to have access anywhere and anytime. This freedom helps students share, connect and learn together without being confined to their classroom and computers.
One technology that comes close to breaking away from the four walls is a service called Twitter. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service. Users can send short 140 character long text-based posts (known as tweets) allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.
Applications such as Twitter can be used between educators and students to have a real time discussion on courses. Students can post their views on subjects and comment on each other’s posts. Currently, Twitter is being used in several universities, research centers and libraries.
David Parry, assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas used Twitter for his class. On his blog, he gives tips on how Twitter can be used for education purposes. These were- (3)
§ Class Chatter- conversations started in the class continue outside the class.
§ Classroom community- develops a sense of community and bonding within the classmates.
§ Get a sense of the world: gives a sense of the world, its happening and what other people are twittering about.
§ Track a world: you can subscribe to a word and receive posts every time some one uses it.
§ Track a conference: receives updates of conferences and events which you would participate.
§ Instant Feedback: queries can be sorted in short time.
§ Follow a professional
§ Follow a famous person
§ Public note pad
§ Writing assignments
Since 2000, several research projects have been undertaken to gauge the market segmentation for cellphones and the habits of its users. All the projects reflect a common result- an increasing usage of cellphones in all its segments. The M-Learning project supported by the European Commission’s Information Society Technologies programme and coordinated by Learning and Skills Development Agency, UK provides significant source of information for this research.
In October 2001, the M-Learning project was launched, aimed at capturing the interest of young adults in age group 16 to 24, assisting them in the development of live long learning objectives. The learning content included information and activities designed to develop their literacy and numeracy skills.
M-learning infrastructure includes a Learning Management System which, together with the microportal interface layer under development, will facilitate access to m-learning materials and services from a variety of mobile devices plus web and TV access. For interfacing with devices with minimum multimedia functionality, and for the benefit of learners with sensory difficulties, m-learning is developing speech-to-text, text-to-speech and SMS facilities. Support for collaborative learning and peer-to-peer interaction is also being developed. Development of the microportal layer is an iterative process informed by work with groups of young adults. (2)
Mobile Learning and social inclusion: focusing on learners and learning by Jill Attewell and Carol Savill-Smith gives an overview of what the project is about, its findings and its development. It addresses the question of whether the use of cellular technologies in the hands of young adults can engage them in activities that assist them in learning and help improve literacy.
Participatory design based on Learner-centred Design (LCD) is also one of the engaging terms for this research. The term has been borrowed from an article by Karin Danielsson, Ulf Hedestig, Maria Juslin and Carl Johan Orre titiled, ‘Participatory design in the development of mobile learning environments.’ They draw attention to design environments based on Learner-centred design (LCD) model rather than user-centred design (UCD).
The UCD model is based on the assumption that the users possess some expertise within the existing design, study or research. They now require tools to further support their work, or complement the existing set of skills. The learner-centred design model on the other hand is based on the assumption that learners (in this case young adults) do not share an understanding of the activities, terminology and so forth and so have to be trained for the skills. The authors explain that one of the approaches LCD is to use scenarios to encourage learners’ participation and to explore and explain their behavior. (4)
RECENT COVERAGE
In December 2007, Nielson released the findings of an in-depth study on the mobile media and cross media behavior of U.S. “tweens” (ages 8-12). The report, “Kids on the Go: Mobile Usage by U.S. Teens and Tweens,” was conducted by Nielsen Mobile and BASES, two services of Nielsen. It also provides insights on teen and tween use of specific content brands, genre preferences, overall use of leisure time and demographic profiles. The report estimates that:
§ 35% of tweens own a mobile phone.
- 20% of tweens have used text messaging.
- 21% of tweens have used ring & answer tones
Young mobile users are also turning to their phones for in-home entertainment:
- 58% of tweens who download or watch TV on their phone do so at home;
- 64% of tweens who download or play music on their phone do so at home;
- 56% of tweens who access the Internet on their phone do so at home. (5)
The interest of tweens in cellphones is crucial because this is the demographic that moves towards the demographic for this research. The tweens adjustability to the cellphone is an advantage when they move to the demographic for this research.
New York Times on March 9, 2008 published an article, Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old (JK) (6). According to the article, increasingly high school students and young adults are engaging in text messaging to communicate with each other. Although the Nielson study and the New York Times article do not directly address the issue of cellphones for education, the trends they report reinforce some of the findings of the Nielson research.
According to a Disney Mobile Cell and Tell survey conducted by Harris Interactive in 2007, teen and tween cell phone use in the summer jumps to more than 3 hours and 45 minutes a day, an increase of more than an hour a day as compared with a normal school day. * More than 1500 cellphone users from 10 -17 years of age were surveyed to find gather information about their cellphone habits. An interesting finding of this survey is that 65% teens admitted using cellphones during school hours and 58% teens admitted using text messaging to communication during school hours. (7)
These three articles reinforce the fact that cellphone usage in America amongst teens and young adults is increasing and extremely active.
METHODOLOGY
The research would involve four steps methodologies to assess and reassess gathered information and to gather new information.
1) Questionnaire: the first stage involves questionnaires. The purpose is to gather information about the demographics, their habits, preferences, tastes, modes, relationship with their cellphones and expectations.
2) Interviews: Interviews with parents, teens, young adults, teachers, psychologists and sociologists would add perspectives to the topic. Interviews with the parents will help understanding of parent’s views on cellphones in general and also to determine their acceptance of new technologies in the education system. Teens and young adults being the target demographics with their personal stories add qualitative insights to the research. They being the learners, their interviews will help understand better their design preference, expectations from such a technology and any other additional information about their use of cellphones as a communications tool.
3) Focus groups: Designs can be tested on focus groups and their reaction to it can help alter the designs to suit better the learners. Also, they would be a key to understanding whether or not the design is serving its purpose of teaching in reality.
4) Performance Research through personas and scenarios: Personas will help to understand the learners better. They will also give clues to how learners would react to a particular situation using cellphones or otherwise. Findings from this research can be retested by focus groups and interviews.
PILOT STUDIES
To understand the willingness of the target age group to use cell phones as a learning tool, an online questionnaire was created. This questionnaire was filled by age group 18-25 and was aimed to understand their current usage of cell phone. A range of quantitative and qualitative questions provided insights on how cell phones are perceived by the target age group. Some of the questions asked were as follows:
- Is cell phone currently used to share learning tips?
- How can cell phone be used for learning?
- Would you like to use cell phone for education?
The questionnaire was divided in three parts-
- You and Your Cell Phone: This part aimed too gather information on the learner’s age, education qualification and cell phone characteristics.
- You and Text Messaging: This part was based on text messaging habit of the learners. This part also introduced the concept of learning on cell phone and assessed learner’s willingness to such a use.
- Cell Phone Games: Insights on cell phone gaming habits of the learners was intended to gauge learner’s attitudes towards games.
The study is based on the hypothesis that text messaging can be exploited as a tool to engage learners with learning. Text messaging is available with every cell phone and therefore no additional costs need to be incurred to make it available to all.
Data analysis revealed that learner’s use of text messaging was very high. Figure 1 illustrates this:
Figure 1.
Of this high usage (figure 2), it was found that learners occasional engaged in course tip sharing using cell phone.
Figure 2
However, learner’s willingness to use cell phone for learning was at an all time low.
Figure 3
This mix of results helped to shape the further course of study. Although, learners are not currently willing to use cell phone for learning, some of them have exhibited such a use using cell phone. When they were asked to verbalize how they thought, cell phones could be used for education, popular responses included use of text messaging to share tips and take class quizzes. Some learners showed interest in using cell phones for uses such – texting links, phone chats/discussion section, recording lectures or transmitting lecture live through cellphone.
The survey findings reflected conflicts within the students. While several students did not want to use cell phone as an educational tool, they responded with suggestions as to how cellphone can be used for education tool. Few of them were already using cell phone in classroom context but seemed to be unaware or not accepting of the idea of using cellphone for education.
This survey was the first stage of the different stages of research methodologies this project plans to use. The second round continues to use survey to assess student responses in depth to text messaging and specifically to applications like Twitter.
Services such as Twitter are altering the ways technology can be used in a classroom. The second round also includes observational studies. Students will be asked to use Twitter and their habits will be studied. They would then be invited to focus group to assess and understand their interaction with the medium. In the last stage, cellphone would be introduced to a course scenario to understand the real time usage of its services in the classroom.
The pilot study has laid down the foundation of this research project. Student’s readiness to try new mediums in their social networks can be encouraged and influenced in a way that the students can be made interested in using these mediums in academia. In this way, the project intends to find answers to the questions it proposed at the beginning and thus make an attempt to integrate cellular technology in more meaning medium like education.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) Learning With Mobile Research and Development, published by LSDA 2004
2) Internet- http://www.mlearning.org/archive/background.shtml
3) Internet- http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/
4) Danielsson, Hedestig et al; Participatory design in the development of mobile learning environments; LSDA 2004
5) Nielson News Release; December 3, 2007
6) ‘New York Times.’ March 9, 2008.
7) Internet- cellular-news; July 11th, 2007. <http://www.cellularnews.com/story/24858.php>
