I was looking for resources for a potential mobile workshop and came across the slides below from Judy Brown.
There were some resources I wasn’t aware of and others so good I thought it would be useful to extract these here:
- Judy’s existing list of authoring tools, polls and quizzes, and miscellaneous tools services – published Jan ‘09 but still relevant
- Mobile Learning Engine (MLE) for Moodle – “MLE-Moodle is a plugin for Moodle, which adds mLearning functionality to this open-source eLearning system. The mobile learning area can be accessed with the mobile phone browser or with a special mobile phone application, which is designed for mobile Learning.”
- Opera Online Mobile simulator
- mobiReady mobile site testing tool
- Educate iPhone/iPod Touch App – Calendar/timetabling, attendance and grade marking database, stopwatch, voice recorder, images, reference area, link to Moodle
Ever wondered what devices students are carrying around with them? On last site which might give you an indication is GetJar.com’s mobile market share stats. According to GetJar data Nokia and Sony-Ericsson have almost 60% market share, Nokia having three different models of phone is the top 5. More information on how these stats are derived is here.
| Manufactures | Market Share |
| Nokia | 28.96% |
| Sony-Ericsson | 28.5% |
| Samsung | 13.98% |
| LG | 8.4% |
| INQ | 4.13% |
UK Manufacture market share December 2009
| Devices | Market Share |
| Nokia E71 | 6.23% |
| Nokia N95 | 4.76% |
| LG KU990 Viewty | 4.23% |
| Nokia E63 | 3.05% |
| Samsung GT S5600 Preston/Hailey | 2.84% |
| Total market share | 21.11% |
UK Device market share December 2009
If you would like to see an example of an institution embracing mobile technology, Judy highlights Abilene Christian University’s ACU mobile site. Using this and a number of applications specifically developed for iPhone/iTouch ACU students have access to a range of tools and resources including learning content, classroom communication (including a virtual EVS/clicker), ebooks, podcasts, notetaking tools, and gradebooks.
If you are wondering why ACU are only catering for one platform they gave out free iPhones and Ipod Touches. Some might see this as a marketing gimmick but if you start looking at the University’s Vision for Mobile Learning, it looks like they are embarking on a very serious endeavour. In particularly I liked this statement:
It’s not about technology; it’s about communication. It’s not about control; it’s about convergence. Social learning theory tells us that humans learn best in community – when they feel connected to others. And community forms when people explore and collaborate together, connecting their experiences – convergence. Any technological solution aimed at increased learning must enhance communication and convergence. If it doesn’t, it’s likely to be pedagogically irrelevant. ACU Convergence and the 21st-Century Classroom