MOBILE LEARNING AND RESOURCE / MOBILE APPS MANAGEMENT

MOBILE LEARNING AND RESOURCE / MOBILE APPS MANAGEMENT

 Completing a PLE MOOC course and taking the chance that the 2014 UNESCO Mobile Learning weekin Paris (France) and it’s about to start another edition of the 2014 Mobile World Congress , even more after launching the MSchool programme, I have chosen this first article in my blog to get started. I really hope to improve some part asap.

In my K-12 FL lessons, I started taking a survey to evaluate some of the enigmas in the current IT world that could be useful for a better teaching and learning experience. Last year’s survey, to 40 K-12 students was interesting and below you can see some data related.

I have to mention that, comparing the Technology Outlook for the Iberoamerican Tertiary Education2012-2017 , published  by the NMC (New Media Consortium) and the Elearning center in the UOC, the immediate priorities for implementation were mostly already covered: use of applications, cloud computing, collaborative environments, open content and social readings were mostly generalized thanks to what many schools are already using, that is the Moodle environment and, combining different types for learning and assessment.

 Related to this year’s survey, it was extremely clear from the very beginning that most of them didn’t turn the phone off as well as the countless times they watch the phone because most of them didn't have a watch on their wrists. The excess using whatsapp confirmed the main use of the cellphone for this tool as well as to be connected to a social network. 

Last year's survey was not overwhelming but it showed an increase, taking into account that the fact that the app was for free was one of the main reasons. From that moment, I decided to use and make some explicit references on how to use the phone for educational purposes.  This year's survey (2014), the number of questions were higher and were focused on more concrete data, such as the use of apps and their limitations.

Although it seems that K12 students turned their cellphones more than expected, specially at night, and it would be interesting to see what the effects of sleeping less are, the same questions about owning a smartphone, its usage during the day, the operative system and the use of whatsapp confirmed to be on the up.

An extra data confirmed messages and free chat as the main use in most of the students and apps downloading reached 100% of them. But, there's still being a critical point by taking the downloads just from free apps, partly understood because most of them were still underage.

The knowledge of apps focused mainly in free chats, social networks, photo retouching apps and the use of dictionaries, partly influenced by the reference we did in the FL class. This aspect will be later analysed.

Some future usage that the students confessed dealt with the use of online banking, online shopping, using the GPS service, agenda, job searching and, although most of the students just focused on the free chatting service, the limitation of hardware in their phones was a key point that prevented them from downloading more data or apps. To make it worse, some students deleted for instance the dictionary app to increase some space for photo or video in their phones.

Data transfer to the computer seemed common although the students were not specifically asked when and how they did it, but I tend to think that that usage was not regular but at random.

This year, I was especially interested in the limitation criteria to use some apps, and those main aspects were the free service and the description of the app; something that was already commented in class. 

The answer to the question: Is the smartphone a regular device to use in class or in formal contexts?, as  FL teacher, my answer is 'No'. Currently and due to the variety of models, memories and data plans from phone providers, we can talk about using the phone in non-formal contexts. In fact, if we have a look at this infographic by the Xtec, developed by the Education technology network in Catalonia (Spain) and we set our eyes in the methodological approach and the digital competences, we can see that the contents fit in what I am saying, this is an informal context and equally shared, in a more personalized and natural way, not only in any educational stage but in life. In these environments, the smartphone can be really helpful and something to begin with. In the following lines, I'll try to be more specific about its usage for different reasons, mainly addressed to the FL learning and teaching. The main motives would be:

- Looking up a bilingual / monolingual dictionary or a dictionary app using online data.
- The use of the internet to look u in informal contexts.
- The increase of apps related to this type of teaching as well as the consolidation of some needs and priorities before downloading some apps.
- Visualizing short clips that can include captions in original version or in a 2nd language.

When selecting apps for downloading, there are some aspects to highlight:
1) Reading the description of the app, where it is necessary to mention the size of the app, to read the comments and specify if the app requires the use of the internet for data downloading.
2) Don't let yourself to be influenced by the first app at the very top of the page, as those have achieved that place by investing some money of their promotion in the search engine and this doesn't guarantee to be the best.

      3) It is important to see if there is any content to download or that can be done offline, when the                apps is fully downloaded.

With all this data, the students were able to filter some apps and try to download on their phones the best for them according to some criteria.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and  see you soon!