Learning Lab: learning using mobile devices

The learning lab initiatives has experimented with mobile technologies to create an engaging learning environment for students. The experiments has indicated that mobile devices is a scalable technology assisted learning alternative to address the gaps in mainstreaming teaching

Though over 4 million Indian youth at any given time are working or being educated in the IT sector, it contrasts to the nearly 50% out-of-school dropouts from primary education. The Learning Lab is an innovative project on Mobile ICT led learning and delivery of educational content. The paper examines the key challenges faced in the delivery of education and the role that ICTs especially mobile ICTs can play to ameliorate the problems.

The challenges in education
Children in India have almost 100% access to primary school education. Enrolment figures have also risen steadily over the past decade due to expansion of schools and provision of mid-day meals. However, these positive statistics are in sharp contrast to indicators of low scholastic achievement; numerous studies have revealed student’s inability to secure even a basic competence in literacy, oral expression, numeracy and problem solving, even years after attending school. A number of factors are responsible for this low academic achievement in developing countries like India.

Most government schools lack basic amenities like electricity, drinking water and toilets, proper furniture, playgrounds or adequate lighting and ventilation in classrooms. This makes introduction of relatively advanced teaching aids such as ICTs in such a setting quite unrealistic. Retaining students is an uphill task due to high teacher absenteeism, lack of adequate number of staff and low teacher motivation. There is also a lack of adequate training for teachers. Educational surveys have revealed that teaching activities are often limited to reading from textbooks, keeping children busy with written exercises, making them read aloud or memorise passages leading to students’ poor performance.

Mobile device based learning - the Learning Lab initiative
The Learning Lab initiative seeks to evolve a set of guiding principles for the implementation and use of Mobile ICTs, keeping in mind the educational challenges unique to the subcontinent. Our longstanding expertise in the ICT domain has also been valuable in our efforts to envision a range of possible use cases, applications and services for mobile devices, which are described below:

Student-teacher centric learning scenarios
Studies show that the use of handhelds in the classroom enables learners to transition from an occasional, supplemental use of technology associated with computer labs, to a frequent and The learning lab initiatives has experimented with mobile technologies to create an engaging learning environment for students. The experiments has indicated that mobile devices is a scalable technology assisted learning alternative to address the gaps in mainstreaming teaching spontaneous use of devices to enhance learning. For instance, graphing calculators and ‘probe ware’ have been found to be especially valuable in field settings when students wish to collect data and visualise it in real time. On the other hand, the desktop functions as a data aggregator and is most useful when students need to analyse data in detail.

Teachers may also choose to use the mobile-2-desktop synching function to compare and visually represent the findings of the class as a whole. Over time the desktop may come to function as a repository of knowledge for use by school and community members.

One can imagine several other educational activities using handhelds to enhance learning anytime and anywhere. For instance, students with a camera enabled mobile phone can annotate their everyday biology assignments with pictures of local flora and fauna. Else they may choose to make field notes and share short messages amongst peers using SMS. Handhelds can also come to function as a ubiquitous educational resource, if graphing tools, language dictionaries, logarithmic tables, historical and geographical factoids are bundled along with the device. These functionalities are exciting as they can create opportunity spaces for self-directed learning among students.

Research has shown that Mobile Devices can foster participatory approach to learning. For example, the use of GPS in a mobile form for mapping can enable students to interpret their neighbourhood and community resources in a new way. Creating such personally meaningful maps may also enhance their conceptual understanding of topics such as social science and geography.

Infrastructure-centric learning scenarios
The inclusion of the mobile device can prove to be most effective only when it leverages pre-existing technological and community based resources. Moreover, it is important to understand that the Learning Lab project is unique in that it does not adopt a technologically deterministic approach, rather it strives to let user needs and contextual factors shape the choice of technology.

Community-centric scenarios
Handhelds have the potential of improving administrative processes and allow parents or other stakeholders to be involved in their child’s education in a more proactive manner. Mobile Devices could be used by supervisory authorities to record data pertaining to individual school performance during field visits. Aggregating this data on a desktop resource can automate and ease the laborious process of evaluating school performance and aid policy making and educational planning.

Field research: strategies and activities
Field research for the Learning Lab Initiative is currently in progress in Bangalore city in India. Our research methodology comprises of the following components: Identification of field locations Initial stage of the field research involved identifying appropriate local government schools in urban and peri-urban areas based on openness to experimentation with technology, availability of basic instructional facilities and amenities such as electricity and water.

Selecting field recruits
The next stage involved selecting field recruits in these schools from a group of boys and girls between 13-15 year. As a part of selection, groups of students were administered a lateral thinking questionnaire, which aimed at bringing out their modes of expressivities. Apart from this assignment specific recruitment tools were also employed.

Implementing educational assignments
The selected students were involved in a set of activity-based learning assignments, curricular as well as non-curricular, designed in consultation with an educator and other external evaluators. Through these activities, students were encouraged to move out of the classroom and bring into play new ways of exploring and understanding their environment, and visualising this new knowledge. The student recruits were provided device instructional support for the use of an array of mobile devices ranging from GPS devices to rich media capable mobile phones.

Assignment I: curricular learning outside the classroom Students were divided into groups, given a camera enabled mobile phone and asked to randomly select a problem statement out of a set of four based on math and science. Students were able to iteratively refine their photo capturing skills upon receiving feedback from their peers or by looking at the image in the phone. Finally, students collated their group project onto a desktop computer and shared findings with peers. Students were able to make a number of creative associations between the assignment and their environment. For example, students captured the images of ‘roads, signboards, a celebrity poster’ as examples of communication devices.

Assignment II: exploring locative media The second assignment consisted of a series of non-curricular activities. In order to gain insight into students’ attitudes and approaches to visual expression, they were asked to draw in response to a variety of questions such as, ‘What are the places you would show me in Bangalore? Which is you favourite festival? Present your idea of ‘personal space’ through a drawing’

Many of the drawings made by children were interpreted as being aspirational in nature. Following this, selected boys and girls were given tasks that differed in their degree of complexity and extent of technology usage. Individual task assigned included using paper and pen to draw the way from home to school and using GPS to do the same. Students were then asked to sync this GPS data onto a digital map of Bangalore with a desktop computer and textually annotate landmarks on the digital map. Several other assignments were given to the students that involved the use of digital camera. The ‘affective’ maps that synthesized photographs and individual GPS tracks overlaid on digital maps were uploaded onto an internal website.

Future directions

Our engagement with research subjects was documented orally, through still photographs and video. An analysis of these various kinds of data revealed that children were keenly interested and perceived definite value in the research tasks they engaged with.

Researchers also noted that students demonstrated a progressive level of comfort with devices. They were able to navigate device interfaces and comprehend concepts such as GPS successfully. In light of this we hope that students will be able to use advanced features with an increased degree of confidence and intuition.

Due to the model of iterative engagement, students were given a chance to work on small experiments before progressing to more complicated tasks. During this course of interaction, students took greater initiative in planning and structuring activities and were able to devise creative strategies for the completion of projects. Their ability to collaborate productively and communicate within a group was also enhanced. These observations lead us to hope that students will continue to use such ‘self directed’ and ‘participatory’ approaches for learning even in the later stages of research.

However, the key outcome of the research was that students were able to make connections between textbook based information and the world around them in new ways. These positive feelings are echoed in the words of a student who said “I wish all my classes were as exciting, and then I would never be caught dozing in class…”

In the next phases of research we seek to test the feasibility of distributing educational lessons over the mobile phone. We will also seek to better understand the notion of play and gaming practices in order to develop new edutainment applications for handhelds.