M-learning. Can Mobagogy promote Higher Order Thinking Skills

    

All Images and graphs under Creative Common Licence. (Google Images/Options/Advanced Search/Usage Rights/Free to use or share even commercially). 

    Mobile literacy in the last decade has given rise to new terms such as "Mobagogy" and M-learning. In the following lines, I will attempt to illustrate how technology in its simplest form promotes Higher Order Thinking Skills (a.k.a HOTS) whilst managing to maintain the teacher as the central "pillar" in a "community connective" approach into Second Language Acquisition. And as we shall see "it's all about asking the right question at the right time".  

Modern Problematic 

    Can we really claim that: "when used  individually,  mobile apps  tick all of the boxes"? Well,  in a nutshell, it depends. The limitations are quite clear when it comes to using such   technologies and the factors  that  influence  output  are  mainly  located  in  the very  nature  of  mobile  devices which are considered as inherently disruptive, especially in education.

    So the question would be "why even bother!". To give an answer to such a question would involve referring to an old army saying. As a former officer in the Hellenic Armed Forces, I can distinctly remember my superior officers' response to any complain regarding resources."We fight with what we have and not with what we would like to have".  In an attempt to "adapt an overcome", I started experimenting with Mobile Learning that uses salient instruction giving, it's relevant, it's authentic, it builds rapport by providing an individual approach, it motivates and engages, it practises all four skills, it's multi-modal, it's portable and most of all it is 100% freely accessible by all students at any given time. 

    The next step involved finding "app tools" which manage to incorporate these parameters, keeping the 'instruction giving' short, simple and salient, with a clear purpose to activate learners Higher Order Thinking Skills and with the precondition of not being "disruptive".  However, after having reviewed all of the aforementioned podcasting and vodacsting tools in my previous blog post, I asked myself to what extend I could do any better! And after having reviewed a vast array of apps, I quickly came to the conclusion that "simple is indeed better".

    Whatsapp Messenger and Viber are two of the most famous instant messaging applications that all learners have installed on their mobile phones. However, the thing that most of us don't know or haven't yet realized is, that these apps have advanced capabilities which include:

1.The ability to send audio, video and pictures with narratives and live links,

2.Advanced dashboard choices which include the creation of "discussion and mailing/receiving groups", blocking and visibility preferences.

3.The ability to embed materials in social media and blogs and much much more and last but not least

4.Perhaps, the best feature by far is that these apps can be installed on your laptop/PC as well. This means that teachers can use a full desktop keyboard to boost productivity/speed and convenience in messaging the various classes/individual students. In this way, these apps function exactly as an advanced email service would in a formal institute setting, without however intimidating or demotivating learners. 

Making things simpler. M-learning through Viber and Messenger.

    So, in an attempt to "activate schemata" I will illustrate how these 2 applications-with minimum fuzz-can be used by teachers to:

1. Provide individualized feedback. (using  Viber's Push-to-Talk  and WhatsApp Voice Messaging )

    "Hi Jonathan. I really enjoyed reading your essay.Well done. Keep up the good work. Please "click" on this audio file to receive a step-by-step correction of the composition you submitted on the 03/02/2015". 

    On the positive side we can see the potential applications that in some circumstances simulate podcasting and vodcasting. On the downside, the recordings on Viber only last for 30 seconds something that doesn't apply with WhatsApp Messenger that has an amazing interface. (click on the link to watch the video tutorial) However, Viber's disadvantage, can easily be turned into an advantage by making small recordings and braking down the analysis in 4 categories : 

A. Task achievement

B. Coherence and cohesion

C.  Lexical resource

D. Grammatical range and accuracy

2. Serve as a reminder for homework or deadline for submission.

    "Greetings class. Please don't forget to read the text on page 15 on 'Biodiversity and Industrial Revolution'. Do not spend more than 10 minutes reading it. Skim for dates, names, places and other basic info/arguments that "stand out" in the text. See you in class tomorrow. or

   "Greetings class. just a reminder that your assignment on 'Biodiversity and Industrial Revolution' is due next week on the 04/03/2015. I can't wait to receive your papers and see your ideas on the videos we saw last week on that subject.

3. Serve as a review of the weeks learning outcomes and a brief outlook for the next week that might motivate learners.

    "Greetings class.This week has been amazing. We had the chance to...... "or

    "Greetings class. This week we'll be exploring 'student life in British Universities'. If you want to take a quick look and get a head start please click on the link and watch the video. On Monday we'll start the day with a discussion on that video, so I strongly advise you to take 5 minutes and watch it".
   

4. Introduce mini-lessons 

   "Greetings Team this is our: 'idiom of the day', or 'word of the day' or 'quiz of the day'. Try and make a full sentence using this 'idom/word' of the day"

5. Introduce Flipped-classroom applications.

    "Hi Team. Please take 3 minutes to watch this video by clicking on the link, then log into 'Tricider' and give your opinion of a few basic arguments on the subject" or

   "Hi Team. Please take 30 seconds to watch this funny video, then click on this link to Google docs/log into out classroom blog and try and guess what happens next. Write as many possible scenarios as you want".
     As with the voice recorded messages, video messages are limited to 3 minutes so this must be kept in mind when designing a flipped-classroom activity.

6. Introduce Lower Order Thinking Skills of Knowledge (Describing).

    "Hi team. Your next mission is to take a picture or a video using your Viber app on your mobile phone (just press the '+' sign on the bottom left corner of your Viber app and choose the 'camera' or 'video' option. Then post it in the 'group discussion' and write a short description about it and why you chose to take this picture/video" or

    "Hi team. Your next mission is to post a picture of yourselves and tell us a few things about where you live, your family, hobbies, where you live, 2 likes and 2 dislikes".

7. Tasked Based or Project Based approaches into teaching that promote both 'LOTS' such as 'defining' and 'outlining' and  HOTS such as 'Evaluating' and 'Creating'.  

    "Hi Team. Please 'click' on the link and watch the video. Use the 'group chat' function on Viber and write: 

a) A full sentence depicting the idea or 

b) Write a story that takes place in this picture (a picture of a ship leaving a port) or

c) Outline the main arguments that derive from this video or

d) Do you agree with the action taken by the main character. Would you do the same? Why/Why not?

e) What are the possible implications for this discovery in science (a video about a breakthrough). Are there any disadvantages?

f) Test how quick you are.Watch the video only once. Try and jot down: Who, what, where, when and why. Try not to cheat! Have fun and see you in class 

or alternatively, 

    "Hi Team, please 'click' on the file and listen to my step by step instructions. Complete the tasks before you attend class tomorrow. Lets see how many of you will complete this challenge . Good luck agents. See you in class next week".

Underpinning the theory  

    Although there is considerable debate as to what exactly mobile learning really entails (Hockly N. 2015) , there seems to be a wide spread consensus around the notion that Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) has contributed towards making the transition from Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) to Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL). And although there is a sizeable amount of research around the use of these app-tools the area surrounding students and teacher perception towards them remains considerably under researched (S. Schuck, P. Aubusson, M. Kearney, K. Burden 2010 & N. Hockly 2013 & G. Dudeney, N. Hockly 2012 & M. Kearneya, S. Schucka, K. Burdenb and P. Aubussona 2012).
    Many of these studies point out that apps are proven to be extremely effective tools when used in informal settings mainly because they promote learner and teacher autonomy. Even more so, these studies prove that these tools create an ideal environment that fosters interactivity, collaborative and ubiquitous learning practices with the only precondition being that students are familiar with the affordances of the device used. (Ibid)
   So placing aside whether M-learning refers to "student mobility" (Kukulska-Hulme, A. 2009 & Traxler, J. 2009) or to the "portability/mobility of the devices" themselves (ibid), the implications for educators seem to be endless. With the British Council being the pioneer in this field, 2009 saw the rise of both stand alone and course-book related apps (with the latest version being Augmented reality Apps such as Aurasma, Google Goggles, Wikitube AR, Layar and others).

Mobagogy before, during and after classroom teaching

   As with any piece of technology, m-learning can either be used as a "means to an end", sticking to its strict - static - orientation of pre-packaged (specific content) learning app/tool form, which assists learners, improves their linguistic skills or it can assume its full potential as a tool that enhances learner abilities, efforts and autonomy in producing the target language (Hockly N, 2013). Having in mind the later choice, researchers in their efforts to design learning activities that would otherwise be impossible to carry out without the use of a mobile device, developed the SAMR model (Puentedura, R. 2010).
   In the following lines, I will try and demonstrate how this model is used as a basic taxonomy for when designing course curricula that include the use of mobile devices. This "guide" provides a linear representation of using mobile technology for either the purpose of 'enhancing language learning' or to 'completely transform' the language acquisition process into meeting the standards provided by the HOTS model initially provided by Bloom. More specifically, I will demonstrate that "using mobile technology for substitution or augmentation purposes" simply enhances language learning while "using it for modification or redefinition purposes" completely and utterly transforms language acquisition as we know it.

Putting theory into practice. Mixing & matching mobile apps to enhance teacher/learner autonomy using the SAMR paradigm.

'S' for Substitution:  "technology acts as a tool substitute, with no functional change" 

  Perhaps one of the best FREE English dictionary apps for Android s—with over 2,000,000 definitions and synonyms from Dictionary.com & Thesaurus.com! Able to work OFFLINE. It also incorporates daily content including Word of the Day, blog & slideshows. The advanced Learner’s Dictionary provides additional context with audio pronunciations, idioms & phrases, word origin & history, voice search, favourite words,search history,spelling suggestions, IPA and phonetic pronunciations, commonly looked-up words mapped to specific locations, medical, legal & financial content, abbreviations, acronyms & slang content,word of the Day home screen widget,compatible with tablet devices

'A' for  Augmentation "technology acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional improvement"
                                        

Grammar Jammers contains 'catchy' animated songs and rhymes that make English language exciting! Grammar Jammers animations introduce learning grammar usage and mechanics in the most fun way. Each animation unlocks a quiz. By answering all the quiz questions for all the Grammar Jammers topics users unlock an interactive reward.

For a quick guide on how 'Grammar Jammers' works please watch the following YouTube video provided by the developing team.  

'M' for Modifications: "technology allows for significant task redesign"  

Edmodo is a "social learning platform" website for teachers, students, and parents. It is marketed as the Facebook for schools.

Using this mobile app, teachers can invite students into private groups that can be used for online classroom discussions, but in a format that keeps the teacher firmly in control. Teachers give students a class signup code, which can be deactivated once all students have signed up, and students in turn are encouraged to share the code with their parents, allowing them to monitor their own child's activity. As an invitation-only social network, Edmodo is meant to mirror a secure offline classroom that intruders cannot access, with rules of decorum enforced by software. For example, students are not allowed to pass private messages to other students in class. They can post only to the group or the teacher, and group messages can be moderated by the teacher.





'R' for Redefinition: "technology allows for the creation of new tasks previously inconceivable".

    Aurasma is an augmented reality. The real epitome comes with a function that lets you create and share your own augmented reality experiences! Amongst its many functions I noticed the following: 

Tagged images, objects and landmarks come to life with extra interactive digital content, such as video, animations, and 3D.

Magazines, posters, books, apparel, product packaging that have the logo 'A' come to life ! 

It incorporates a smart browse button-function that enables you to find the latest and most popular Augmented Reality sites.  

Users can follow a simple step-by-step creation wizard within the app to make their own Augmented Reality (AR) files and share them with friends and other Aurasma users.

Last but not least, users can build AR files using their own photos and videos, or alternatively, select from thousands of digital animations available on the platform. Most popular user-generated AR files include adding 3D dinosaurs to your street, sending a video message on a greetings card, leaving hidden clues in a treasure hunt, or adding information to classroom materials.

For a quick guide on how 'Aurasma' works please watch the following YouTube video provided by the developing team.  

A selection of Bibliography on M-learning 

1. Kukulska-Hulme, A. 2009. ‘Will mobile learning change language learning?’ ReCALL 21/2: 157–65. 

2. Traxler, J. 2009. ‘Learning in a mobile age’. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning 1/1: 1–12.

3.Puentedura, R. 2010. ‘SAMR and TPCK: intro to advanced practice’. Available at http://goo.gl/78UJn

4. Hockly, N. 2013.'Mobile Learning.Technology for the language teacher' ELT Journal Oxford University Press Volume 67/1 January 2013 

5. Xiao-Bien Chen. Tablets for informal language learning: Student usage and attitudes.Language Learning & Technology 2013, Volume 17, Number 1 pp. 20–36

6. Kearneya, M, Schucka S, Burdenb K and Aubussona P. Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective. Research in Learning Technology Vol. 20, 2012

7. S. Schuck, P. Aubusson, M. Kearne. MOBAGOGY- Mobile Learning for a higher education community. IADIS International Conference Mobile Learning 2010 Copyright 2010 

IADIS Press 

All links to free articles and journals under Creative Commons Licence 

Mobile Learning and the Disruption of Education by David Thornburg, PhD is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at http://www.tcse-k12.org/pages/disruptive.pdf.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.tcse-k12.org/pages/disruptive.pdf.

Disruptive Devices: Mobile Technology for Conversational Learning by Mike Sharples is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at http://www.eee.bham.ac.uk/sharplem/Papers/ijceell.pdf.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.eee.bham.ac.uk/sharplem/Papers/ijceell.pdf.