Learner expectation as a factor of mobile learning

iPads in lectures, by Mike Cogh on Flickr

The JISC Mobile Learning Infokit quotes NUS research: “the percentage of students who feel that ICT usage has enhanced their experience of studying has actually decreased, from 46% in 2009 to 42% in 2010,” (NUS, 2010) and goes on to suggest that students’ dissatisfaction with technology in education might largely originate in the disconnect between what the institution provides and what they themselves own. (JISC, 2011)

According to the Horizon 2011 report, internet-capable mobile devices will outnumber computers within the following year, and by 2015, 80% of people accessing the Internet will be doing so from mobile devices. (NewMediaConsortium, 2011)

Most universities employ a VLE or LMS, and by policy it is this designed-for-desktop environment through which learning material is distributed; any other channel is considered complementary. While the practical need to do this is clear, it is also clear that this policy, like every other, has a sell-by date. So far, I do not have evidence nor even the impression that students are demanding that their learning material be made available on mobile devices. It may be that no one is really asking them, or that students are not yet thinking of their own mobile devices as agents for learning, or that I haven’t looked hard enough yet. However, what is beyond dispute is that the numbers of students owning more, and more powerful, mobile devices. is increasing. In the second half of 2012, a study revealed that 51% ofpeople in the UK own a smartphone. (ThePaypers, 2012) I do wonder how long students who have never experienced student life without a smartphone or tablet, and who are paying exponentially more in fees than their predecessors, will accept that they cannot access their material on their own device of choice, especially if that device is one which fits seamlessly into most other areas of their lives.

Here at University of Leicester where we use Blackboard as our VLE, the Blackboard Mobile Learn app and our university-contextualised LeicesterUni app were launched this past autumn. The launch was quiet, and yet, over 7000 unique downloads of the Blackboard app have been registered, and these numbers continue to grow. In the two weeks up to 21st February 2013, for example, downloads to iOS devices have increased 3.6%, downloads to Android devices have increased 2.9%, and downloads to Blackberry have increased 0.9%. Educational sector stakeholders need to both engage with each other and keep an eye on such statistics in order to relevantly address the changing requirements of mobile learning.

JISC. (2011). Mobile Learning infokit / Home. Retrieved August 22, 2012, from https://mobilelearninginfokit.pbworks.com/w/page/41122430/Home
NewMediaConsortium. (2011). 2011 Horizon Report. Horizon Report. Retrieved February 22, 2013, from http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/2011-horizon-report
NUS. (2010). NUS/HSBC Student Experience Report: Teaching and Learning. Student Experience Report. Retrieved February 22, 2013, from http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/news/article/6010/1438/
ThePaypers. (2012). The Paypers. Insights in payments. Retrieved January 3, 2013, from http://www.thepaypers.com/news/mobile-payments/smartphone-adoption-in-uk-reaches-51-students-lead-the-way/747745-16

Terese Bird
Learning Technologist, Institute of Learning Innovation, University of Leicester

DIY Multimedia Ebooks for Distance Students

Our colleague Phil Wood of the University of Leicester School of Education has recently launched a new distance masters program in which students are furnished with iPads. The iPads are not preinstalled with anything. (I don’t even know if it’s possible to do that). Phil wrote the course material first and released it on our university VLE Blackboard. Then he turned his attention to formatting the material for the iPad and decided to use iBooks Author. iBooks Author is for Macs only and is free if you have the latest version of the Mac OS. Phil decided to use this because it is easy to use, offers lovely templates and easily accommodates multimedia such as video and podcasts.

Phil demonstrated his DIY ebook for delegates from the Open University of China at a session 23rd of November, 2012, at Beyond Distance, University of Leicester

Phil reported it was not very difficult to cut and paste the already written material into iBooks Author; it required about 10 hours to do 101 pages. The difficulty was that once he imported videos and podcasts, the ebook was over 500 MB in size. The problem then was how to transfer this document onto the students’ iPads in remote locations. For some reason even smaller portions of the book could not be transferred through Blackboard. I need to get to the bottom of the technical reasons for that.

In the end the best option was to use iTunes U Course Manager. This is possible to use even though our university is not yet launched our iTunes U channel. Phil created a new course using Safari on his computer; all he needed was his own Apple ID. For the Course Material, he uploaded his new ebook.

Phil emailed me the link so I could test it; I was the first to enrol on his new course. I selected the ebook to download; it took about 10 minutes to download it onto my iPad 1, while I was sitting in my kitchen at 9.30pm, using Virgin broadband. At first I could read everything but not view the multimedia; that was because I had not upgraded to the latest iBooks. So I upgraded, and everything played perfectly. Phil emailed his students with the private link to his course; when I spoke to him a day or two later, Phil reported that roughly one-third to one-half of the students had already enrolled in the course to access the ebook, and no problems had yet been reported. These students are located all around the world.

iBooks Author saves in the formats .ibooks (for the Apple iBooks app), .pdf and text.

If and when I learn whether students experience issues, I will blog about it here.

Terese Bird, Learning Technologist and SCORE Research Fellow, University of Leicester