JISC

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This project investigated how the use of Pocket PCs supported the learning of a group of students whilst they were in their work-based settings.

Executive Summary

The students involved in the project were: Foundation Degree in Educational Studies - five 3rd Years, five 2nd Years and ten 1st Years. Another cohort of five 3rd year students became involved half way through the project from the Foundation Degree in Families, Parenting and Communities. All cohorts were worked based learners with class contact of 4 hours per week.

The aim of the project was to address two challenges facing this group of learners:

1. The ability to record instances in the busy classroom settings that could contribute towards the development of their portfolio of evidence and promote reflection on their practice
2. To provide opportunities for the learners to learn in many different spaces by offering a VLE (Moodle), which could be accessible from the Pocket PCs, on a PC or laptop at home or in the workplace

Findings

5 major factors shape use of the PDA. They are the competence of the learner; the nature of professional practice learners belong to; the pedagogy underpinning the teaching and learning processes; the environmental conditions where the PDA is used and the quality of output from the PDA.

6 main user types emerged. These are confident users of PDA, progressive but less confident users, self-sufficient users who have access to alternative technologies, the techno-stressed who find use of IT mentally demanding and the traditionalist who prefer learning without technology and the white flagger go gives up use of the PDA when they encounter problems.

The PDA was used mainly by the TAs as an information gathering and evidenced based learning tool.

Constraints with the use of equipment resulted in additional work to eliminate barriers to device use included overcoming of ethical issues of capturing images, sound and video in an early years setting, ongoing technical support via a number of means and anxieties regarding loss or damage of equipment.

Evidence found the devices were used within smaller groups (up to 6 pupils). Capturing data in larger groups created issues with sound quality with back ground noise and interference.

Found to be of value to disabled student through ease of access and size.

Evidence found that a more “structured” and directed approach of device usage impacted on the learning process and student experience.

Evidence showed that formative assessment offered through the reflective journal and E-Tutorial chat room helped towards motivation, impacting on retention and achievement.

The following issues were identified as significantly impacting on the success of mobile and work-based learning:

• Structured versus flexible learning design approaches towards portfolio development
• Delivery learning support across different context and learning environments
• Technical standards for integrating PDAs into institutional VLEs

Achievements

Outputs from the project

1. Development of a course site offering tools including a reflective journal, on-line tutorial chat room, discussion forums, online formative and summative feedback, ability to self assess study skills and ICT skills through surveys which then informed the tutor of any additional support needs, increasing opportunities for learners to liaise and collaborate with their peers and tutors, improved access to resources and information, facility to upload still images, video clips or sound in support of written work submitted online. See a Captivate demonstration
2. A pedagogical framework for work-based mobile learning which will continue to influence the institution and the sector and is already in use in a new project (Duckling).
3. A number of developments on Moodle that can be shared across the HE provision at Leicester College (HELLO project) and the wider community, including an E-Tutorial Chat Room and Reflective Journal.
4. Learner produced audio and video clips using PDAs. See examples 
5. Learner generated online reflective, multi media evidence-based journals for personalised learning
6. Teacher driven E-tutorial service as part of formative feedback to students (example shown on Page 16)
7. Extensive dissemination and interest across the e-learning and mobile learning communities which has resulted in 3 papers to date and many presentations
8. Technical Issues Wiki highlighting issues with the mobile devices and Moodle
9. Narrative on Lessons Learnt
10. Shared resources generated to support practitioners and users of the technology, including Adobe Captivate animations, handouts and webpages
11. A public facing project Moodle site on which to share information to the wider community
12. Technical Help Forum developed to support the learners with the use of the technology – which will now be replicated across the HE provision as part of the HELLO project

Outcomes of the project

1. An understanding from practitioners for a need to identify uses of the technology in their classroom and workbased learning settings and to 'guide' students
2. Using the technology to capture visual and auditory evidence enabled students to put into context their written work, adding to existing lesson observations in the workplace
3. Additional support offered through online E-Tutorial, discussion forums and through the reflective journal
4. Ability to intervene with appropriate support for the students as a result of them carrying out a study skills self assessment
5. Work place evidence and moments captured on the mobile devices, allowing students to reflect back on their practice and to embed the evidence within their portfolio
6. Increased communication tools to assist with students collaborating on joint assignments and presentations
7. Increased communication tools to assist the tutor in communicating with cohorts or whole course
8. Opportunities to try out the mobile devices in other work based settings
9. Bringing the early years classrooms into the FE classroom enabling students to carry out discussions with real-life examples which were shared via a student VLE site as well as in the classroom

Recommendations

Engaging Staff in using the VLE

• Engage students and staff by delivering a thorough induction into the technology when a cohort starts
• Provide access to technological support through face to face contact, telephone, email and via a Technical Help Forum
• Develop the VLE site for the lecturer, empowering them through staff training to continue what has been put in place
• Consider ethical issues of using something that captures still, video and sound – particularly in the early years setting
• Provide insurance and/or assurance for equipment that is broken, lost or not returned. Do not hinder the use by learners owing to their anxieties about using the equipment, make it clear who is liable institution or individual? Consider the cost of replacement device rather than the cost of an insurance policy and potential claims

Recommendations for integrating PDA with a VLE

• Seamless infrastructure is key to facilitate cross institutional integration
• The PDA can serve as a pull/push device of data gathering and transmission
• Communication applications e.g. wireless and email applications are important for data transmission and also for collaborative learning across space
• Personal computers are essential for data processing and manipulation
• VLEs should make provision for different formats of user generated objects e.g. picture, video, audio and text
• VLEs can serve as the student personal home page for managing their mobile learning activities

Summary of recommendations

• Mobile devices have a place in a flexible learning environment Individual confidence and competence is crucial for engaging with mobile devices
• Better use of the technology may be as a result of encouraging learners to use their own devices
• The pedagogy underpinning learning design and delivery is important to successful mobile learning
• Context sensitive learning support is very important for learning across contexts
• The Pocket PC is good as an active device to capture spontaneous moments but not so good for accessing pre-prepared activity and resources which are better delivered through an institutional VLE
• Consideration needs to be given to the ethical dimensions of mobile learning

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