Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

1. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning Gwo-Jen Hwang Graduate Institute of Digital Learning and Education National Taiwan University of Science and Technology E-mail: gjhwang.academic@gmail.com http://www.idlslab.net/

2. M-Learning vs. U-Learning • U-Learning • emphasizing “learning can be proceeded at any place and in any time.” • An ideal case of learning • M-Learning • A kind of learning using mobile technologies to facilitate students to learn • emphasizing the use of mobile technologies or the mobility of students in the learning process. • M-learning is a way to achieve the aim of u-learning (via using mobile technologies). Research Issues and Applications of Context-Aware Ubiquitous Learning

3. M-learning/u-learning with sensing technologies • Some researchers have tried to conduct m-learning or u-learning activities with sensing technologies (e.g., GPS, RFID, or QR-codes). • Context-aware ubiquitous learning- the approach that uses mobile, wireless communication and sensing technologies to support real-world learning activities (Hwang, Tsai , & Yang, 2008) Gwo-Jen Hwang*, Chin-Chung Tsai and Stephen J.H. Yang (2008), “Criteria, Strategies and Research Issues of Context-Aware Ubiquitous Learning”, Educational Technology & Society, 11(2), 81-91. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

4. Ubiquitous Learning (anywhere and anytime learning) Broad sense definition Mobile Learning (the use of mobile and wireless communication technologies in learning) Context-Aware U-Learning (Learning with mobile, wireless communications and sensing technologies) More specific definitions of u-learning Gwo-Jen Hwang*, Chin-Chung Tsai and Stephen J.H. Yang (2008), “Criteria, Strategies and Research Issues of Context-Aware Ubiquitous Learning”, Educational Technology & Society, 11(2), 81-91. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

5. Example of a context-aware u-learning environment using RFID The learning system is executed on the server Once the student walks close to a learning target, the RFID reader can receive the information from the corresponding tag. Each student has a mobile device equipped with an RFID reader and wireless communication facility. Target Object 5 Target Object 1 Target Object 2 Target Object 3 Target Object 4 Each learning target (e.g., a plant, a building , or an object) has an RFID tag on it. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

6. Benefits of using sensing technologies (e.g., GPS, QR-code, RFID)- although they are not always necessary • The learning system is able to guide the students in the real world via detecting their locations • The learning system can more actively provide learning supports (e.g., hints, warnings or supplementary materials) to the learners if necessary • Warn the students before something goes wrong in a dangerous chemical experiment Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

7. More parameters can be recorded with the help of sensing technologies • Personal context in the real world: learner’s location, time of arrival, body temperature, heartbeat, blood pressure, etc. • Environmental context : the learning target’s ID and location, the environmental temperature, humidity, air ingredients, and other parameters of the environment around the sensor • The data collected by the students in fields, e.g. PH value of water. • Personal data in the database : learner’s profile and learning portfolio, such as the predefined schedule, starting time of a learning activity, the longest and shortest acceptable time period, place, learning sequences. • Environmental data in the database : equipment in the lab, the rules of using the equipment, the time table of using the lab Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

8. Research Issues of mobile and ubiquitous learning • Proposing new strategies or tools for supporting m-learning or u-learning activities • Developing adaptive or collaborative m-learning or u-learning environments • Investigating students’ real-world learning status from different aspects, such as • learning achievement and problem-solving skills • learning style and cognitive style • cognitive load, learning motivation and attitudes • learning behaviors and learning patterns • Re-examining some well-recognized e-learning issues, such as TAM Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

9. Early applications-Serving as a Tutor for Science Observations The m/u-learning systems serve as a personalized tutor to guide the students to observe a set of learning targets in the real world.

10. Applications in Elementary School Natural Science Courses • In the Natural Science courses of elementary schools in Taiwan • the students need to learn to observe and classify some learning targets (e.g., plants on school campus, butterflies in the ecology garden) • Such abilities (i.e., observation and classification) are important learning objectives of science education. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

11. Traditional “Butterfly and Ecology” learning activity A teacher usually needs to train 10 or more students at the same time. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

12. In such a one-to-many instruction mode: It is difficult to provide personalized instructions or feedback to the students or to record their learning status. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

13. Scenario 1: Butterfly museum Students are guided by the u-learning system to learn to identify different types of butterflies based on the appearances of the butterflies. more than 10 thousands Butterfly samples Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

14. The most significant feature for differentiating the two butterflies Location of the target butterfly What is the name of the butterfly in front of you? Observe and compare the target butterfly with other butterflies based on the feature. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

15. Scenario 2: Butterfly ecology garden • The Butterfly Ecology Garden consists of 25 ecology areas for raising host plants of butterflies. Hui-Chun Chu, Gwo-Jen Hwang*, Shu-Xian Huang and Ting-Ting Wu (2008), “A Knowledge Engineering Approach to Developing E-Libraries for Mobile Learning”, The Electronic Library. 26(3), 303-317. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

16. Each ecology area of butterflies has an RFID tag Reader TAG Learning tasks or supplementary materials The student holds a PDA equipped with an RFID reader Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

17. The students are guided by the learning system to observe the host plants and the butterfly ecology in each target area. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

18. Some preliminary findings in the early studies • Advantages of the u-learning approach • Providing a personalized guide for individual students in the real world • Providing supplementary materials and hints in the right place and at the right time • Motivating the students to learn • To engage students in higher order thinking, more effective learning supports or knowledge construction tools are needed Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

19. Recent applications- Leading in Mindtools for m/u-learning activities

20. Definitions of Mindtools • Jonassen (1999, p9) described Mindtools as “a way of using a computer application program to engage learners in constructive, higher-order, critical thinking about the subjects they are studying.” Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

21. Mindtools used in our studies Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning • Grid-based Mindtool (i.e., repertory grid) • Helping students organize the information for identify and differentiate a set of learning targets based on the features of the targets • Concept maps (a graphical tool) • Helping students identify the relationships between what they have observed in the field and their prior knowledge learned from the textbooks

22. Grid-based Mindtool- Repertory grid Features for identifying the plants. Elements (e.g., names of the plants) • Identify a set of plants in school campus Positive (1) ------- relationship between them --------opposite(5) A 5-scale rating mechanism Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

23. Two stages for providing u-learning supports based on the repertory grid • 1st stage- creating the objective repertory grid by teachers • 2nd stage- using the objective repertory grid to help students develop their repertory grids Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

24. The RG constructed by the student The student is asked to observe the “leaf shape” of “Lalang grass” by asking a question. The Objective RG The learning mission: observing the “leaf shape” of “Lalang grass” and answer the following question. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

25. The RG constructed by the student The student has correctly answered the “leaf shape” of “Lalang grass” to be “long and thin”, and is asked to give more detailed descriptions. Acicular Linear The Objective RG Lance-shaped Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

26. The RG constructed by the student Flat and round The student is asked to observe the leaf shape of “Lalang grass” and has given an incorrect answer. Long and thin The Objective RG The student is asked to observe the leaf shape of “Indian Almond” and compare it with the leaf shape of Lalang grass”. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning Flat and round

27. Experiment Design • Subject unit : “Knowing the plants on school campus” of the Natural Science course • Comparing the u-learning performance of the students who learned with/without the Mindtool Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

28. Comparing u-Mindtool learning with u-Learning • Participants: 61 fifth graders • Control group: 29 students, learned with a conventional tour-based u-learning system that provided location guidance and supplementary materials • Experimental group: 32 students, learned with the Repertory Grid-oriented u-learning approach Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

29. Part of our findings-Learning Achievements The use of Mindtools in u-learning is effective. Table 1. t-test of the pre-test results Table 2.Descriptive data, and ANCOVA of the post-test results Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

30. A follow-up learning activity Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning The students needed to determine the features for identifying the learning targets when developing repertory grids.

31. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning After the field trip, they can share their findings to peers via a knowledge-sharing interface.

32. Concept map-oriented Mindtool for u-learning 2. Go to the field to observe the ecology of butterflies. 1. Develop concept maps in the classroom based on what they have learned from the textbooks. 3. Go back to the classroom to modify their concept maps Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

33. “Idea leuconoe clara” Concept to be modified New concept The students can browse and modify their concept maps via the mobile devices. Take notes for what they have found during the learning activities. Interface for entering Chinese character s Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

34. Experimental results Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning It was found that, with the help of the Mindtools, the students’ learning achievements, motivations and attitudes were significantly improved in comparisons with traditional in-field learning or tour-based u-learning. This implies the importance of providing learning supports for u-learning activities.

35. Context-Aware U-Learning for complex experiment procedures

36. Background and Motivation • Development of a context-aware u-learning system for training the “Single-Crystal X-ray Diffraction” procedure in a Chemistry course. • It is the most effective method for analyzing 3D structure of compound materials. • The learners are graduated or PhD students in chemistry or material departments. • It is time-consuming to train a new researcher (usually 6 months to 1 year) • The operations could be dangerous, and hence the learner requires full-time guidance during the training process Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

37. Location: 1st floor, R 126 Centering and aligning the sample Expert System Give advice or hints based on the context Single Crystal X-ray Diffractometer Context of learner Ubiquitous learning environment Instructing Data transmitting RFID Indexing, data collecting leaner (2) PC (1) (3) Data transmitting Microscope Data processing & Structure determination products – examining, selecting, crystal mounting Temperature meter PC Location: 2nd floor, R 203 Location: 2nd floor, R 204 Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

38. Stage 1: Select a crystal of good quality and suitable size through an optical microscope and mount the crystal on the top of the glass fiber. The expert system guides the learner to complete the procedure and check if the selected crystal is usable. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

39. Stage 2: Analyze the crystal by operating the X-ray diffractometer to find the cell constants within acceptable deviation. This stage is very complex since there are several rules to be followed and various parameters to be considered. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

40. Stage 3: Determine the 3D structure of the crystal-line solid using a special program The outputs of the program include the shape, the exact distance between atoms, and other parameters for describing the structure. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

41. Benefits of the context-aware u-learning approach • based on the responses from 5 researchers who had 6 months experiences and the system logs of 5 new learners Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

42. Other applications of U-Learning

43. U-learning for Local culture courses Temples or ancient buildings. Love our ancient assets, love our local culture. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

44. Learning task 1- observe learning targets Pillar with dragon statue Only the goods for the king can have dragons with five claws on them. The background story of each learning target Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

45. Learning task 2- read the ancient records on the learning targets Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

46. Learning task 3- Search for supplementary materials on the Internet Ancient decorations in the temple Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

47. Learning task 4- touch and feel the material of the learning targets Stone Drum Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

48. U-learning for nursing courses Interview the patient and record her health status. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning Develop several u-learning systems for clinical nursing courses .

49. U-learning activities in a Science park • Learn to operate scientific devices with the help of the u-learning system Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

50. Step1: guide the students to find the target device The device for simulate the sun in winter and summer. Research Issues and Applications of Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning