Portland/CreativeMornings – Aaron James Draplin from CreativeMornings/Portland on Vimeo.
presentation
In my talk today at Bath Spa I set out to touch on key aspects of mobile learning, what is mobile learning and why we might be taking the time to care. Below are my supporting notes:
What is mobile learning
- If you read nothing else, the JISC Mobile Learning infokit is a great body of work to get you started
- It isn’t just about wheeling out devices, it is about seeking ways to enhance our teaching and learning by taking advantage of the opportunity and constraints
- Mobility of people with devices opens new doors
- Context is king
- There are 100s of devices (demo’ed 3 tablets) and there can be social pressure on students to get the devices everybody else has
- Mobile learning is leading to transformation in the classroom AND institutions are having to address this. Many institutions are are starting to address this with steering groups, research and initiatives such as “mobile clinics“.
Why Mobile learning?
- Mobile learning isn’t one thing but many different interwoven ideas and approached. The ‘Visitors & Residents’ principle is worth knowing about
- According to the Horizon Report 2011 (and watching students/staff on site) mobile is upon us.
- The HEA have a great collection of case studies from across the sector in Making mobile learning work: case studies of practice
- The web has matured and works well across platforms, the ibis reader for ebooks is one such example
Further signposts
- Book/free online – Weller, M (2011), The Digital Scholar, Bloomsbury Academic – chapter 14
- Ewan McIntosh blog posts tagged ‘mobile’
- LukeW has written extensively about designing for mobile first.
- JISC Mobile Learning programmes and activity
I recently delivered 3 one-hour sessions to small groups of library types on the subject of all things ebook at the University of Bristol.
The University of Bristol has around 5,000 ebooks at the moment. Enough of a critical mass to get my interest in ebooks in the institution. John Hargreaves, Assistant Subject Librarian for Law kindly organised the 3 sessions which I was using to see what the problems are from the other side of the issue desk whilst giving them a brain dump of what I see as the opportunities and constraints.
Being the book reading type that I am, I was keen to wade in with using ebooks – that was until I actually tried to find and use any of them (more of that in future posts).
Problem #1 By using the library catalogue, ebooks as a “type of resource” are not easily surfaced without using an advanced search, which I believe is a huge barrier to “discovering” ebooks. I doubt very many people use the advanced search as the first port of call. My mental model is that I do a search and all results are shown, regardless of the ‘type of resource’ be that print books, journals, CD-ROM or ebook.
I came to each session armed with 1 print book and various ebook reading capable devices as to my surprise the library doesn’t have any staff ebook devices, each loaded with the same ebook:
- Amazon Kindle 1st Gen
- Sony ebook reader Touch Edition PRS-650 *
- Desktop Windows computer
- Apple iphone 1st Gen
- Android Tablet *
* Thanks for the lend Mr Gray
#Problem 2: The libraries do not have the kit that they require – using ebooks from the other side of the issue desk is both theory and practice and in order to help folks with trouble they need to use the devices themselves.
After briefly explaining about the common ebook formats (EPUB, PDF, mobi) we had a play with each device using the “Responsive Web Design” ebook. The above list shows the most liked (kindle as best) down to the least user-friendly (pressure-sensitive tablet).
The test ebook also makes use of video which displays on devices that support EPUB3 video and this showcased why the ebook version may have an advantage over the print version.
Opportunity #1 Next I showed the ibis reader which I only have glowing things to say about it. I wonder if the platform could be integrated someday into the University system and act as the official ebook reader for desktop and mobile.
Then we tried a University ebook and things got really depressing.
We used the search keyword ‘china’ to find our guinea pig ebook.
It appears that the major education publishers ship ebooks using Adobe PDF as the ebook format of choice. Clearly this is to make use of the Digital Rights Management (DRM) but has the nasty side affect that none of the ebooks will run on a ebook reader such as the Kindle… thats right, ebooks that do not run on the most popular ebook reader device. So I think it isnt too much of a leap to connect the dots that access to ebooks and use on devices are two of the major barriers to ebook uptake. I sent an email to one of the major publishers to ask them about this but am yet to get a response.
We were all in shock. Say it slowly – “ebooks that do not work on ebook readers, are probably not ebooks”.
If you work in a library, what are the issues here and how to do you work with such barriers?
I hope to wade into lots more ebook stuff in coming months.
UPDATE 10th Jan 2012
The fantastic Ibis Reader has been acquired and so it is watch this space as to the future of the platform as I know it.
Today I had the opportunity to open the Bath Spa University e-learning staff development day with a 45min tour of the digital City as I see it.
I had a good time and wrote about the session over at the JISC Digital Media blog.
Establishing the digital City limits
View more presentations from Zak Mensah
It was fantastic to be in Plymouth again this year for the 6th Plymouth e-learning Conference. For a full run down check out Steve Wheeler’s blog.
After last years great event I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to be on the steering committee to give my 2p worth of thoughts which made me even keener to attend!
There are a whole bunch of conferences and events and what makes this stand out is twofold: great people and a diverse collection of talks.
The people
From the moment of landing in Plymouth by way of train I met follow #pelc11 gang members old and new which really I cannot stress enough is a highlight for me. Everybody is so open to geeking out whilst still gabbing on about personal interests that it really didn’t feel like work.
New folk who’s blogs, tweets and projects I look forward to include: @t3h_pablohunny, @andyjb, @Marie_S , @CraigTaylor74, @janeseale, @ethinking and @doctrus
As you’d imagine a special shout out goe’s to Steve Wheeler for being an excellent host and helping to bring the event to life.
Talking points
Unlike some events where my ‘stand’ prevents me from attending sessions, I was able to enjoy a talk per session. Highlights include Andy Black’s session on mobile and Matt Lingard’s session on writing for the web.
My session, in the photo above with with Doug Belshaw and went down very well according to the kind comments after the session. We got folk to consider their own uses of mobile which allowed the session to fork between topics nicely. In addition to this session I was chair for a enjoyable session.
I love the people and the chat that happens in and around sessions that you just don’t get at enough conferences so roll on 2012.
Oh and I got to revisit my student days with a Goodbody’s breakfast at stupid O’clock.