Patient communication is enabled via SMS,
allowing a patient community to share
valuable insights and experiences.
No evaluation is currently available.
3.6 LEARNING AND TEACHING
SUPPORT
The following examples demonstrate how
mobile devices can be used to support
learning-related activities for students,
teachers and administrators.
3.6.1 Helping university students
organise their own learning
Researchers at the University of
Birmingham, UK, developed and trialled a
mobile learning organiser, based on a
wirelessly-enabled Pocket PC, with
Masters level students in 2002-2003, to
determine the key tools necessary for
such a learning device (Holme and
Sharples 2002; Sharples et al 2003;
Corlett et al 2004).
The Student Learning Organiser is an
integrated suite of software tools
developed at the University of Birmingham.
The ‘Time Manager’ tool included the
ability to create, delete and view timetable
events and deadlines, while the ‘Course
Manager’ tool allowed students to
wirelessly download course material
packages, created by a complementary
desktop tool, in Microsoft Reader format.
A one-year trial was conducted with 17
MSc students in the Department of
Electronic, Electrical and Computer
Engineering. Each student was given a
Compaq iPAQ 3760 Pocket PC 2002 handheld
with 64MB of memory. As devices
with integrated wireless capabilities were
not available at the time, it was necessary
to provide each student with an expansion
sleeve and an 802.11b wireless network
card. In addition to the Student Learning
Organiser tools, the students had access
to cut-down versions of Microsoft Word,
Excel, Outlook, Internet Explorer and
Media Player, e-mail, instant messaging
and two concept mapping
tools. The students were encouraged to
use the hand-helds for their personal
activities and to install additional software
as they wished.
Results were collected via questionnaires,
focus groups, video recordings and log
books. No single tool stood out as a ‘killer
app’ that significantly changed students’
learning or personal organisation.
Communication tools and timetabling
features were consistently rated by the
students to be the most useful, while the
course content and concept mapping tools
showed a trend of decreasing usefulness
over time. Little additional software was
installed, with the main reasons being that
students saw the value of the hand-helds
being in the time management of
e-mail/messaging applications provided,
and that students were reluctant to invest
time and money in personalising a device
they had to return at the end of the year.
Significant usability issues were
encountered. The students found the
hand-held, expansion sleeve and wireless
card too large and heavy for comfortable
use, the 64MB memory size was not
sufficient for their data storage
requirements, and that not recharging the
hand-held regularly could cause the entire
memory of the device to be cleared
(including any stored data). Apart from issues with the device itself, the main
reported limitation was the loss of wireless
connectivity outside the department.
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Institutional support issues were also
considerable. In addition to not having
standardised provision of content and
course dates by all lecturers, timetable
information was not provided consistently.
The hand-held became another mode of
communicating information between
students and departments, making it more
difficult to find relevant information quickly.
The students also felt that further training
sessions and integration with other
departmental systems would be beneficial.
While this study was not designed to
gather quantitative results into specific
learning gains, it did show that the
students thought the technology to be
useful, even though it did not revolutionise
or improve their learning significantly.
3.6.2 Support for teachers
and administrators
A DfES-sponsored hand-held computing
pilot was conducted in 2002-2003 with 150
teachers at 30 schools (Perry 2003). The
foci of the project were managing teachers’
workloads and supporting teaching and
learning. A number of features of mobile
technologies met with universal approval.
These included pragmatic features such as
the small size and longer battery life than
laptops. The storage capacity of PDAs was
generally rated as highly favourable, along
with ease of synchronising data with other
devices. The relatively low price of PDAs
was also cited.
As headteachers and senior managers
most closely match the mobile
professional profile for which hand-helds
were designed, they were thus in the best
position to experience immediate benefits.
This group of users found the hand-helds
amazingly efficient at ensuring contact
lists, diaries and meeting arrangements
were up-to-date, and were able to employ
the facilities for rapid accrual and
reporting of data to address truancy
control problems. Classroom teachers
were also able to benefit from the handhelds’
data administration capabilities to
help record attendance and marks, and
also help organise their lesson plans.
Though most users were able to benefit
from the hand-helds, some were reluctant
to adopt the new ways of working afforded
by them. In addition to dissatisfaction with
the small screens, volatile storage (some
types of PDA lose their stored data when
their batteries run out of charge), and a
concern about the ruggedness of the
design, training issues were frequently
cited as an inhibiter to progress.
3.6.3 SMS supports computing
students at risk
Blended learning technologies were used
to support HND computing students at the
University of Wolverhampton during the
2002-2003 academic year (Riordan and
Traxler 2003; Traxler and Riordan 2003).
The objectives of this project were to
develop, deliver and evaluate blending
learning opportunities that exploited SMS,
WAP and VLE technologies. Initial research
indicated that students used SMS text
messaging promptly and effectively, and
that they would prefer to receive
noticeboard information such as room
changes, appointments, feedback and
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head teachers
and senior
managers found
the hand-helds
amazingly
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