Mobiles Enhancing Learning and Support
This project set out to investigate the issues in an institution wide implementation of SMS-based technology to support teaching and learning activities in the University of Wolverhampton. There had been no large-scale studies reported on the institution wide use of SMS, nor on the use of SMS for formative assessment and feedback with university learners, nor for the use of SMS for collaborative discursive learning tasks.
Executive Summary
To be able to achieve this three aspects of technical work were accomplished. The design and creation of software tools and a server set up to render such texts. The automatic use of this system of students’ mobile phone numbers held on our student management system (eVision) and the creation of a user interface bringing these two together.
The project used an expert user group to design the SMS tools for learning and teaching activity. It created three types of SMS message. These were: one way (staff -> learner) communication, formative assessment with feedback, and a collaborative learning discursive tool. The formative assessment tools included three types of questions; True / False, multiple choice and free text response. This group also designed the parameters of use for the system with students.
Following bespoke staff development, the tools were used by 27 staff interacting with 938 different students and a total of 11,522 texts were sent. 310 quizzes and 114 conferences were set up. A full multimedia rich overview of the system in action can be found at the project web site. The project used questionnaires and focus groups of staff and student users, plus data from server logs to inform its outputs.
The project has produced the open source software to implement such SMS learning and teaching interactions. In addition, it has produced four reports on (i) the issues surrounding implementation of SMS within a large institution and a set of recommendations for effective implementation, (ii) the staff development needs to utilise SMS for administrative and learning activity, (iii) a summary paper on learner experiences of SMS based learning and teaching using the data gathered from students who participated, and (iv) a summary paper on the learner experience of the use of SMS for administrative purposes. These reports are on the project web site.
The main conclusion of this project is that universities and their students will benefit from institutional wide use of communication via SMS and that the use of SMS for specifically learning and teaching activity shows great promise, but needs further use and investigation.