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Honey I blew up the planet

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Bryan Patten, Inmaculada Arnedillo Sánchez, Niamh McGreen, Michelle Clarke,

Emma Brennan & Brendan Tangney

Center for Research in IT in Education

tangney@tcd.ie

www.cs.tcd.ie/crite/mobile/

Designing collaborative, constructionist and contextual applications for handheld devices

The University of DublinTrinity College

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The handhelds are coming…..

“It is inevitable that every student will have a portable wireless device. …….…………. Ubiquitous computing will be a widespread force in schools by the end of

the decade or sooner.” Bull et al. [1] (National Technology Leadership Summit)

“Handheld devices are emerging as one of the most promising technologies for supporting learning and particularly collaborative learning scenarios.”

Hoppe et al [2]

Handheld computers may become an increasingly compelling choice of technology for classrooms

(Roschelle [4], Soloway et al [5], Tinker & Krajcik [6]).

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BUT

“’Pedagogical applications’ are often led down the wrong road by complex views of technology and simplistic views of social practices,” Roschelle [4].

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Functionality Frameworkwww.cs.tcd.ie/crite/mobile/FF/

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Pedagogical Underpinnings

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What works well

Collaboration. “The mobility of these devices also opens up the potential for inter-group collaboration. Children can walk around, maintaining the flexibility of interacting with many other children, rather than limiting their collaboration to those on the computer beside them” Danesh et al [7].

Contextual. It is widely recognised that physical contextualisation of learning, through field trips and similar methods is beneficial to the learner. This type of contextualisation provides the learner with hands-on, real world experiences, promotes positive attitudes to the learning topic and motivation towards the subject (Michie [8]). Because the learning takes place in rich physical environments, filled with real world objects and connections, the presented concepts/ideas are meaningfully contextualised, Falk [9].

Constructionist. “Flexible access to technology will provide tools to help children construct knowledge throughout their daily activities”, Inkpen [3]

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Keep It Simple (Stupid)

KISS. What works well is “simple, well-honed technology, and rich pedagogically developed social practices” Roschelle [4].

Be innovative with the technology!

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Our Applications Collaborative, Constructionist and Contextual

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Map IT – Collaborative (contextual)

Mapping Challenge is an interactive game that leads a group of learners through a collaborative task, which requires the learners to visit locations in an urban area and find selected symbols (public signs).

Hardware: 2+ PDAs with wireless internet access.

Software: Web Browser, CE Paint, Internet Relay Chat.

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SortIT Collaborative, Constructionist

SortIT is an interactive tool that encourages learners to collaboratively construct their own understanding of ‘sorting algorithms’.

For any non-trivial data set the sorting is best done by collaboration.

Aided by a number of logging functions, learners can then make a record of the sequence of instructions they used to sort the set.

Originally designed for Computer Science classes but equally applicable to any “classification” problem.

Hardware: 2+ PDAs with IR Functionality.

Software: SortIT.

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uDrumSteps – Constructionist (collaborative)

uDrumSteps, a mobile version of DrumSteps a novel software tool for percussion composition. Based firmly on the constructionist theory that learning occurs “especially well when the learner is engaged in constructing something for others to see” (Papert [10]), uDrumSteps enables learners to create, manipulate, edit and save original pieces of percussion music through an intuitive interface.

Hardware: 2+ PDAs with IR Functionality.

Software: uDrumSteps.

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Moodle minus minus – Collaborative, contextual, constructionist

Moodle is an open source course management system (CMS), that has a strong grounding in social constuctionist pedagogy. We are currently updating appropriate ‘modules’ in moodle for using on handheld devices – PDAs, XDAs, 3G and 2G mobile phones. Current status: Txting to Moodle, Moodle on PDA & Location Aware Moodle - Completed.

Sample application. A Moodle populated with information about TCD for incomming staff members.

Hardware: Handheld devices with Internet Connection or SMS functionality. Bluetooth for location awareness.

Software: Web Browser.

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Txt IT - Collaborative, contextual

Making use of the pervasive nature of standard mobile phones – this application uses text messaging to enable “Out of band” communication between the pupils and lecturer during, and after, class.

Hardware: Mobile phones with SMS functionality.

Software: TxtIT.

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Digital Narrative – Constructivist, contextual, collaborative

Using XDA smartphones, learners collected images and sounds in various contexts to create their own film. Using phoneblogs to store and upload their media, they then used desktop applications to edit the final product.

Hardware: XDA smartphones with camera, microphone and MMS Functionality.

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References

[1] Bull G, Bull G, Garofalo J & Harris J, Grand Challenges: Preparing for the Technological Tipping Point. May 2002, Learning and Leading with Technology.

[2] Hoppe H.U., Joiner R., Milrad M. & Sharples M., Guest editorial: Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education. September 2003, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.

[3] Inkpen K., Designing Handheld Technologies for Kids. May 1999, Personal Technologies Journal.

[4] Roschelle J., Unlocking the learning value of wireless mobile devices. September 2003, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.

[5] Soloway E., Norris C., Blumenfeld P., Fishman B.J., Krajcik J. & Marx R., Devices are Ready-at-Hand. April 2001, Communications of the ACM.

[6] Tinker R. & Krajcik J. (eds.) (2001) Portable Technologies: Science Learning in Context. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.

[7] Danesh A, Inkpen KM, Lau F, Shu K and Booth KS, Geney: Designing a collaborative activity for the Palm handheld computer. Presented at ACM Computer Human Interaction Conference 2001, Seattle, WA, 2001.

[8] Michie M, Factors influencing secondary science teachers to organise and conduct field trips. 1998 Australian Science Teacher's Journal. Journal 44 (4)

[9] Falk J., Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning : Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning. 2000, AltaMira Press

[10] Papert, S. The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer. 1993, New York, Basic Books.