Youth engaged by m-learning

E.learning Age, Sep 2005 by Naish, Richard

A recent European Union (EU) m-learning project produced some positive results.

The purpose of the project - run in the UK by the Learning Skills Development Agency (LSDA) - was to engage the 16-24 year-old market with m-learning. There are 1.5 billion mobile phones in the world, that amounts to three times the number of PCs. Today's most sophisticated phones have the processing power of a mid-1990's PC (i.e. 400MHz chip and 128MB RAM). According to Jill Attewell, research manager of the LSDA, the aim of the project was to encourage the EU youth market towards education using mobile phones. 216 young people in Sweden, Italy and the UK took part, split evenly male/female. Before the project at least 89 per cent were reported to have literacy or numeracy needs. The standard education system did not appear to suit some of them; 59 had dropped out of education already and a further 19 were at risk of doing so. Some were certainly hard to reach groups; 32 were homeless, nine were travellers and three had been young offenders.

Each sub-group of 20 young people had a mentor to guide them and gather the results. The project used both phone-like Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) (the XDA2) and PDA-like phones (the Sony P800), which are more advanced than this group would normally use. This ensured the research was somewhat future-proof; by the time the research is completed and published technology has a habit of moving on that bit further. Since the research was conducted in mid-2004, the standard 2.5G networks rather than 3G was used. The phones went down well with the target group; one mentor said all his group were familiar with games machines such as Playstations and Gameboys and they likened the XDA2 device to a 'turboed Game Boy'.

The idea of the project was to give young people access to small bits of learning that could be done at the bus stop. However that was sometimes exceeded; one mentor remarked on how focussed and calm they were during the sessions, 'they gave up to two hours of time to the devices when it is normally difficult to focus them for 15 minutes'.

Two activities that most engaged the group were a collaborative learning activity called 'mediaBoard' and driving theory test game. The mediaBoard game involved them going out with their phones, following a map on a website and taking photos and sound clips which could be 'stuck' onto the map for everyone in the group to see. These photos and audio files were sent using Multimedia messaging (MMS). The players had to work collaboratively and could send messages to each other as they did the activity. It was like an online version of the mid-eighties television gameshow Treasure Hunt, with the engaging Anneka Rice and her famous multicoloured tracksuit. Once it was all compiled the groups could edit the final enhanced map on the web page. Attewell commented that the development of mediaBoard was more difficult and time-consuming than originally anticipated, particularly because of the significant differences in MMS handling between service providers.

More information on the game can be found at www.m-learning.org/mediaboard.shtml.

The driving theory test game particularly appealed since many in the 16-24 age group were trying to pass their driving tests. One of the games tested their knowledge of roadsigns by multi-choice questions with feedback. An interactive game taught them how to calculate the stopping distance of their car, in a simple step-by-step way, as well as appealing to the youth market with suitable imagery. Both games can be seen at http://learn.m-learning.net/iframejage.htm.

The results were positive in that 15 per cent of the mentors increased their perception of the individuals' literacy and numeracy skills. Since this was a perception measure, rather than a pre- and post-test measure, this may have partly been due to the mentor better appreciating the young people's skill rather than just an increase in their skills. The learners were enthusiastic about mobile learning and 62 per cent reported that they were keener to take part in future learning after trying mobile learning. It was notable that the preference for this future learning was for laptop/PC/mobile learning with their friends/people their own age, rather than at college on a traditional course.

There were also confidence-building side effects of this project. Firstly, some people in the group became unofficial technical support to the group, boosting their self-esteem. And secondly all the learners felt very honoured to be trusted with such an expensive bit of kit, since they said people rarely trusted them. This trust boosted their self-esteem. And the trust was not misplaced; of the 216 phones that were lent to the groups, only 6 were stolen and 2 damaged during the 3-7 week trial. And as for misuse of the phones, there were some cases of excessive use for non-project activities, but after a temporary block and a warning, this behaviour improved. It is arguable that similar or even greater loss/damage/abuse would have occurred with a more socially-advantaged group.