Filed under: Mobile Learning, m-Learning, mobile landscape, mobile technology, mobile user experience, us mobile learning | Tags: Augmented Reality, e-learning, m-Learning, m-learning effectiveness, mobile augmented reality, mobile design, mobile device, Mobile Learning, mobile learning pedagogy, mobile technology, mobile user, mobile user experience, us mobile learning
The integration of innovative technology in learning has always been a goal of educators. In the past two decades, we’ve seen advances in learning technology that allow learners to connect to powerful learning systems and sources of information that were previously unavailable. However, most recent technologies have forced the learner to learn through computer-generated reality or “virtual reality”. We have been unable to incorporate the physical world around the learner. But recent advancements are truly allowing learners to get the best of both worlds by mixing the physical world with the virtual world. This combination of the real world with the virtual world is known as “Augmented Reality”.
Wikipedia defines Augmented Reality as:
[Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time. The term is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, a employee of Boeing at the time[1].
At present, most AR research is concerned with the use of live video imagery which is digitally processed and “augmented” by the addition of computer-generated graphics. Advanced research includes the use of motion-tracking data, fiducial markers recognition using machine vision, and the construction of controlled environments containing any number of sensors and actuators.]
The combination of the real physical world and the virtual world offers many possibilities for mobile learning. Students can now use their mobile device as an interface to the virtual world while walking through the real world. A new “Mobile Augmented Reality Browser” called Layar captures the real world through the mobile device’s video capture capability and provides information about the objects through real-time searches and connections to social networks. For a demo, check out this video. Some of the most interesting examples of augmented reality use a camera mounted on an individual’s computer to capture the individual’s movements in the real world. Movements are then mapped to a simulated environment projected on a computer screen. With the use of the camera, learners can travel through and interact with several different aspects of the virtual environment. For example, a learner could walk through a virtual layout of a new building to acclimate themselves to that environment before the building is even built. A learner could also use hand gestures to move objects in the virtual space.
We may first see widespread use of modern augmented reality technology in the gaming world. Microsoft’s Project Natal for the XBox Platform is attempting to remove the controller from game play by capturing the motion of the person playing the game through an innovative camera setup. The motion capture allows the gamer to interact with the virtual world that exists in the game. Gamers will be able to jump on their living room floor at home and watch their character jump in real time on the screen.
This type of technology is not limited to the world of games however. GE recently launched a website to teach customers about its’ efforts in alternative energy. The experience starts when a user simply prints a PDF with a thick-bordered rectangle in the center of the page. The real power of the augmented reality shows when the user holds the printed paper up to the computer’s camera and the web site launches a 3D animation within the printed rectangle. Looking at the computer screen, it appears as though the user is holding the 3D animation in hand. Users can move the paper back and forth to change the perspective of the 3D objects on the screen. This technology is available to learners now. Developers can start by leveraging the Flash Art (FlArt) toolkit. This technology is really exciting for me, as it’s Flash based and therefore available now. This will eventually make it’s way to the mobile environment, possibly in the next version of mobile Flash (currently called Flash-Lite), which is supposed to mimic the current desktop Flash experience as much as possible.
The prospects for the integration of augmented reality with other e-Learning technologies could bring an entirely new paradigm within the e-Learning community. We could begin to see a flood of new augmented reality based-training environments without the learner ever leaving their place of work.
Like many technologies, augmented reality can be layered with other technologies like social networks, global positioning systems and search technologies, to provide an extremely rich interactive experience for a learner without that learner ever needing to type on a keyboard or use a mouse. And mobile touch interfaces like those on the iPhone, Palm Pre, Storm, etc. are in some ways ahead of the game, because users are already used to manipulating objects with their hands. Blending this new augmented reality technology into those interfaces should be fairly seamless for learners. And since people do most of their travel through the real world accompanied by their trusty mobile devices, augmented reality is a natural fit for us while we are traversing the real world.
Augmented reality will certainly be making its’ way to your pocket in many forms. The advancements in augmented reality and other technologies hold prospects for a richer and more meaningful training experience in the months and years to come.
Filed under: m-Learning
In several of my posts, I mention the advantages to mobile technology and how we can use the differences between mobile tech and other information technology for our advantage.
People often comment on the limitations of mobile technology and forget about the new capabilities that mobile tech offers. Here’s a list of things I hear often from people when I talk about mobile learning and how we can use mobile technology for learning:
- “but the screen is so small, you’re never going to want to take a full course on a mobile device”
- “but the keyboard is tiny, I can’t write more than a sentence or two”
- “the processors on those things are too slow, I need a real machine to do my work [or participate in training]“
- “my connection is slow, it takes too long to download information, and then it’s hard to read on a small screen”
I understand all of these concerns, they are valid… IF we simply try to shove current e-learning technology onto mobile devices. However, people in the learning and training community too often fail to recognize the advantages offered by mobile devices and the specialized technology that exists only on mobile devices. Mobile devices have such specialized technology as:
- video cameras
- still picture cameras
- accelerometers (iPhone, Android and other device OS’s offer these)
- compass
- audio recorders
- GPS
- touch interfaces
Finally, some organizations are beginning to leverage the benefits of mobile rather than highlighting the limitations. After all, the limitations are only limitations when compared to the desktop and laptop cousins, not when looked at on their own.
An example of the use of mobile technology advantages comes from Google, who just created a mobile planetarium. Mobile users can take their Android based devices and point it at the sky, where the accelerometer and built in compass image the sky and tell the user about astrological formations.
Link to Android mobile planetarium: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/05/sky-map-for-android-mobile-planetarium.html
Filed under: m-Learning
Google is now offering a barcode reader on the Android Mobile Platform, which in itself is not a big triumph for mobile learning, but it’s just the latest company to offer the capability as part of it’s mobile platform. Apple has a barcode reading app for the iPhone and you can purchase barcode or QR code (similar to barcodes) readers for almost all popular mobile platforms.
The barcode and QR code reading software is made available in the hopes consumers will use it to research, compare and price products. But as designers and developers of mobile learning, we can use barcodes to aid students in finding information, and there are countless other uses for barcodes and QR codes.
- You could place barcodes on items in the physical world, which would guide learners through an immersive simulation or guided tour
- Libraries could provide QR codes on the cover of all books which could link to executive summaries or abstracts of learning material
- Barcodes could link to museum information and launch a multimedia experience on the device
- Employees or student name tags could contain QR codes which link to information about that person
- Finally, my favorite, a person could annotate an experience based on the event identified by the QR code or bar code and that annotation could include pictures, audio and video from the event (all captured with the mobile device of course)
I’m sure you can think of plenty of uses for the QR/Barcode in mobile learning. Coding software is fairly simple and easy to implement. Below are links to some QRCode and Barcode applications for you to take a look at.
Note: this first link is extremely easy to use and you can start using QR codes today!
Here’s a QR Cod link to my blog and you can try it out on your device.
QR Code reader for Windows Mobile devices: http://www.pocketpcfreeware.mobi/download-quickmark-v3-3-barcode-reader.html
Free QR code generator: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
Wikipedia entry on barcodes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode
Wikipedia entry on QR codes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code
Free online barcode generator: http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/
Filed under: m-Learning
I continue to read through “Mobile Learning Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training” edited by Mohamed Ally – Athabasca University in Canada. I’m trying to find the sections in the book that relate directly to design and implementation of mobile learning products and this book has a wealth of knowledge to help designers do just that.
Chapter 8, “Design and Development of Multimedia Learning Object for Mobile Phones” discusses a project where a reusable learning object for e-learning was redesigned for mobile consumption. The project went through several iterations to refine the design and they tackled many of the challenges of mobile design, while exploiting some of the opportunities inherent with mobility. Here are some highlights of the chapter, along with my commentary, based on my experiences in designing and developing mobile learning products.
The authors take on reusable learning objects (RLOs): “Internally cohesive means the RLO meets a single learning objective and decoupled means that it has no link-outs to external resources.” - The authors note that their approach is partially from “the notion of decoupling and cohesion”, Boyle (2003).
The RLO is made up of the following pieces, and shows a learner how to properly create a book reference for a paper or report:
- A step by step tutorial
- Reference checklist
- Final reference list, showing the final product (a refernce as it should appear in a paper or report)
- A set of activities to test the learner’s knowledge on how to create a reference, activity 1 is a set of multiple choice questions and activity 2 requires the learner to assemble a reference from a set of reference components
Design Decisions for the move to mobile:
- Designers found that navigation within the content required a different decisions given the device’s 5 way key navigation (left, right, up, down, selelct) and the two soft keys, many mobile phones have this kind of navigation. Designers had to tackle the problem of navigation within the content, i.e. advancing from one slide to the next and within each slide if the content required interaction.
- Designers found that using audio instead of text for some of the content was preferred by learners and reduced the congestion on the screen, this approach is consistent with recent research in cognitive load theory.
- The designers also recognized that mobile reusable learning objects should be relatively short and byte-sized, this is consistent with most research on mobile learning, which shows that mobile learners are often mobile for relatively short periods of time and prefer to consume content that conforms to those short periods of time.
- Strong contrasting colors needed to be used to improve readability especially when learners have their mobile device outdoors.
- Designers had to spread the content of the learning object itself across several screens to avoid overcrowding, this along with the move to audio for some of the text, improved spacing and presentation on each screen
- Screen to screen navigation was moved to a one-handed model (students can hold the mobile device in one hand and do all navigation tasks), the left and right buttons in the five way navigation were used to advance and go back. The authors cite that “all mobile navigation is linear, (Ulm 2005)”, however I think that may just be the result of experiences with earlier less capable devices. I think touch screen, web friendly devices will eventually lead to deeper navigation in learning objects where appropriate.
The authors also noted that they made an effort to make access to resources easier for students experiencing “dead time” (characterized as travel time or time when access to the web is unavailable). I think the effort to maximize dead time is crucial, since we are quick to pull out our mobile devices during that time. Making dead time productive supports learners and makes them feel an added sense of worth during times that can normally feel wasted.
Some of the navigation design issues noted by the authors may not be applicable to touch screen devices where the navigation is a bit more free form, the user’s finger is similar to a mouse on a desktop computer. However, the thought that went into the overall design of the learning object itslef is relevant to anyone who may be developing a mobile learning object.
Filed under: m-Learning
This is kind of a short post, but In an earlier post, I asked the question “Are Apps the future of Mobile Learning?”. Well Judy Breck added another layer to this over at Golden Swamps in her list of 7 suggestions she’s offering to mobile designers. Judy opines on the value of apps as the mobile learning space matures in her 2nd suggestion.
“2. Don’t make long haul commitments inside of walled gardens. An app is a potted plant. Realize the app will either one day move into the internet or it will eventually be euthanized like Encarta.”
I think all of Judy’s suggestions are worth considering, and she brings a lot of experience to the table. But all of the buzz surrounding apps gets me thinking that maybe they are a little more likely to stick around in one shape or another when it comes to mobile learning. The downloaded app provides a more tangible and personal object for the learner than the cloud-based “go to the mothership” application. The mobile culture is very personal and the things in it are very personal. People personalize their devices with cases, ring tones, themes, and of course… apps. Those apps are something they own and something they like to show their friends. Apps are cool and people can share and share about them. Keeping some of that personality will endear your learners to your content and they might even find your learning content cool. Mixing the power and collaboration of the cloud with the personality of the app might really go a long way in making learners excited about mobile learning.
You should take a look at all of Judy’s suggestions here.
