Learnlets

Secondary

Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

School of the Ether

29 July 2010 by Clark 1 Comment

Many years ago, Australia reached their farflung learners via the School of the Air.   While they’ve now moved to internet technologies,this post on the mobile talks at the eLearning Africa conference reactivated and extended some thoughts.

In the course of   interviews for the mobile book, Bob Sanregret of Hot Lava (now part of Outstart) mentioned some work they were involved in preloading safe sex information on mobile phones for sale.   This idea is intriguing, because it avoids download issues and data plans, but still ensures that the opportunity is there for elearning content.   And, the content does not have to be voluminous, but instead the smaller and more focused the better.

I’ve been sensitized to international mobile issues from a variety of channels. I had the pleasure to meet Inge de Waard, has been active in using mobile learning in developing countries, and served as a reviewer on a draft of the mobile book.   I have been contacted about using mobile learning to support health learning in Arab countries and India.   I was asked about the killer mobile application for a high-speed network in Taiwan as well.   I’ve also heard the stories of empowerment that come from eliminating the middleman in grain sales in India.   All told, there are considerable issues in distribution of devices, and the cost of and uptake of data services, in many locales.

The interesting issue in the post is how to use mobile devices to support learning. One of my points, and I’ll point to David Metcalf’s book mLearning as the progenitor of the idea that mLearning is really about augmentation: augmentation of formal learning and augmentation of performance.   While it might be feasible to deliver a small full course (a learnlet :) on a smartphone, trying to do so on a regular cellphone would be problematic.   Delivering adequate learning resources could be difficult. Instead, the question would more likely be about how to blend mobile devices and any other resources, and what those resources could be.

Looking at the device side, internet access is dicey. I think it was Bob who told me that there hasn’t been a cellphone sold in the US in the past 2 years that doesn’t have a browser built into it (and I remember an earlier stat that 75% had them, and 75% of owners didn’t know they   had them).   However, data services might not be practical for either availability or cost issues.   What is available, reliably, is voice and SMS (text messages). This, then, becomes the channel.

The reason I was reminded of the School of the Air is that they augmented correspondence materials with shortwave radio.   What could be done, then, is to augment print materials with voice. However, the quantity of learners in remote Australian areas was small, and I think the developing world has a larger scale of need.   This suggests programmatic solutions, whether voice or SMS.   Text might be simpler in a response format, though voice could work through the keypad as well.

The problem, of course, would be the distribution of materials. One of the interesting mentions in the post is how they’re using radio to deliver content, and then other technologies to support conversation. This is an intriguing intermediate, and of course television could be used if feasible, as could mail delivery of magazines or texts.   There’s another possibility, too.

Models for intelligent delivery

If learning is meaningful activity resourced with content and scaffolded with reflection, then maybe there’s a simplification.   Typically, we create artificial activities and supplement with rich resources since the learning activity isn’t contextually valid.   Perhaps if we could use the learner’s own environment as a source of activity we could use streamlined resource materials.   That’s the type of model I talked about in an article (PDF) a number of years ago, where I suggested we could identify the learner’s context, learning goals, and available content as a basis for intervention.

The idea is that rules governing the matching (by categorically, semantically, not hand-wired, ideally) of learner to content can create a custom learning experience.   While ideally there would be some social network as part of this (and using distance technologies like voice and SMS can accomplish this, as the article recounted at least in the case of SMS), we can create a successful learning experience for an individual.

I admit I’m not certain about having appropriate activities for individual standard K12 learning, but it’s a goal, and then we can approximate with content and designed activities.   It’s a step towards the goal I’m trying to find about taking an architecture like the diagram, and finding a flexible and powerful pedagogy that can distribute learning across our activity and life.

Comments

  1. Jennifer says

    30 July 2010 at 2:33 AM

    Thank you for this post! School of the air is truly amazing and inspirational and is one of the longest running examples of ‘eLearning’. What I love about them the post is over the years (they started in 1945), the teachers always used the techonology available to them in ways other than originally intended. My kind of Learning Specialists!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Clark Quinn

The Company

Search

Feedblitz (email) signup

Never miss a post
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

Pages

  • About Learnlets and Quinnovation

The Serious eLearning Manifesto

Manifesto badge

Categories

  • design
  • games
  • meta-learning
  • mindmap
  • mobile
  • social
  • strategy
  • technology
  • Uncategorized
  • virtual worlds

Blogroll

  • Charles Jennings
  • Christy Tucker
  • Connie Malamed
  • Dave's Whiteboard
  • Donald Clark's Plan B
  • Donald Taylor
  • Harold Jarche
  • Julie Dirksen
  • Kevin Thorn
  • Mark Britz
  • Mirjam Neelen & Paul Kirschner
  • Stephen Downes' Half an Hour

License

Previous Posts

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006

Amazon Affiliate

Required to announce that, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Mostly book links. Full disclosure.