Transcript Digital Reading Room: Present & Future

Mobile Design: Interactive Multimedia to Support
Learning and Teaching
Athabasca University Mobile
Learning Project Team
M-Libraries Conference 2009
Today’s Presentation
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Introduction – Athabasca University
Mobile learning content design
AU mobile learning projects and
technologies
Demo of multimedia mobile learning
modules
Hands-on with interactive exercise
Generate mobile learning content
Discussion
Athabasca
University
http://www.athabascau.ca
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Canada’s Open University
Location: Athabasca, Alberta, Canada
Mandate: Remove barriers for students
Over 37,000 students, 700 courses and
90 graduate and undergraduate programs
Doctoral, Masters, Bachelors, diploma and
certificate levels
Students from Canada and 84 countries
worldwide
Student Profile
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Average age 29
Two-thirds women
60% of our program students are
employed full-time while studying
36% undergraduates are visiting
students
About AU: Athabasca River
About AU: Campus
Mission Statement
“Athabasca University is dedicated to
the removal of barriers that restrict
access to, and success in,
university-level studies and to
increasing equality of educational
opportunity for adult learners
worldwide.”
http://www.athabascau.ca/
What is mobile learning?
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Use of mobile devices such as
mobile phones, handhelds, PDAs,
iPhone 3G, etc. to facilitate learning
and access to electronic learning
resources.
Why Support Mobile Learning at
AU?
Remove barrier to learning
 Access from remote locations
 Students can learn from
anywhere and at anytime
 Many learners already have
mobile devices
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Why Support Mobile Learning at
AU? (cont’d)
Cater to different learning styles
 Learning is more learner-centered
 Affordability and portability
 Novelty of gadget and display
 Learning materials are easy to
update and deliver
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Mobile Learning Content Design
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Content must be organized so that
learners can access the content
from anywhere and at anytime.
The intelligence of the mobile
learning system must be able to
format the mobile content for
specific mobile devices.
Guidelines for Developing Mobile
Content
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Break content into small chunks
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Design as learning objects
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Store in repositories for easy access
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Metatag for retrieval, discovery and
reuse
AU Mobile Learning Projects &
Technologies
Mobile Library Project
 provide
learners with access
to the library services and
learning resources using
mobile devices
Special Features
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Auto-detect and reformat
Learning object reuse
Easy web maintain/update
Multimedia file support
Ipodcasting
Wireless library catalogue
Search
Mobile content conversion on the fly
M-library Design/Technology
Project Outcomes
Recipient of the Canadian
Library Association Research &
Development Award 2007
 DRR Model adopted by BC
Thompson Rivers University
 Mobile model adopted by UK
Open University
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Mobile Content Projects
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Mobile ESL Project
 Develop and test innovative approaches to ESL
learning using mobile devices and a variety of
testing and practice methods (CBC News)
Mobile Workplace English Project
 Design to improve worker’s workplace
communication skills and literacy using Apple
iPhone
iPhone App project
 Design to facilitate iPhone access to AU Press Ejournals and E-books
Mobile Friendly library resources project
 Study the mobile-friendliness of E-Journals
Mobile-friendly KM System
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What is KMS?
What is MKMS?
Why Athabasca University Library
needs a MKMS?
How to implement MKMS
What does MKMS have?
Mobile-friendly KM System
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What is KMS?
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Knowledge Management System
What is MKMS?
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Mobile-friendly Knowledge Management
System
Mobile-friendly KM System
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AU library develops a MKMS
Why do we need a MKMS?
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Existing KMSs have disadvantages
Knowledge sharing
Knowledge accessible anytime
anywhere
Mobile-friendly KM System
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Implementation
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PHP
Zend Framework
MySQL database
Multiple languages support
Mobile-friendly KM System
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Features
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Two views: Admin view and Learners
view
Manage content through desktop
computers or mobile devices: create,
delete, organize, and publish/unpublish, etc
Describe entries using metadata
Mobile-friendly KM System
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Future work
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Authentication and Authorization
Quiz (multi-choice questions)
Searching capacity
OAI-compatible
Mobile Device Automatic Detector
A component in Personalized and
Adaptive M-learning Framework and
Mobile Knowledge Management System
Mobile Device Automatic Detector
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Why do we need it
Capabilities of a mobile device decide what
kind of the content it can display correctly
and what context it can process properly
MKMS or other Mobile based LMS, like
Personalized Adaptive m-learning System
needs to know device capabilities before
preparing and transporting the suitable
learning contents to mobile clients
Mobile Device Automatic Detector
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What are our approaches to solve these
issues
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design and develop a software API to detect the
device information in details. Such information
includes the device type, device type name (e.g.
HTC, Samsung, iPhone, etc.), device OS, screen
resolution, image type supported, etc.
establish a device profile repository to store
mobile device specifications
generate device profile ontology and output
RDFS or OWL
provide mobile profile retrieving services that
can be consumed easily by other applications
Mobile Device Automatic Detector
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What will be covered in our design
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Service Oriented Architecture
XML format data exchanging between
server and mobile client
XSL selection dependent on mobile
device profile
Multi-language support
Multi-platform support
Mobile Device Automatic Detector
System architecture
Mobile Device Automatic Detector
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Evaluation
4 Devices
IPHONE
Mobile Device Automatic Detector
-- Device Profile (Sample)
<rdf:RDF>
<rdf:Description rdf:ID="Profile">
<prf:component>
<rdf:Description rdf:ID="HardwarePlatform">
<rdf:type
rdf:resource="http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/profiles/UAPROF/ccppschema20021212#HardwarePlatform"/>
<prf:Model>Polaris</prf:Model>
<prf:Vendor>High Tech Computer Corporation</prf:Vendor>
<prf:BitsPerPixel>16</prf:BitsPerPixel>
<prf:ColorCapable>Yes</prf:ColorCapable>
<prf:ScreenSize>240x320</prf:ScreenSize>
<prf:ImageCapable>Yes</prf:ImageCapable>
<prf:PixelAspectRatio>1x1</prf:PixelAspectRatio>
<prf:ScreenSizeChar>16x36</prf:ScreenSizeChar>
<prf:StandardFontProportional>Yes</prf:StandardFontProportional>
<prf:SoundOutputCapable>Yes</prf:SoundOutputCapable>
<prf:TextInputCapable>Yes</prf:TextInputCapable>
<prf:VoiceInputCapable>Yes</prf:VoiceInputCapable>
<prf:InputCharSet>
<rdf:Bag>
<rdf:li>US-ASCII</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>UTF-8</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>UTF-16</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>ISO-10646-UCS-2</rdf:li>
</rdf:Bag>
</prf:InputCharSet>
Workplace English
Stanza and the Digitization Portal
Stanza Code
Hands-on with WPEAU Pronunciation
Practice
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Canadian Phonetic Alphabet
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Consonants
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Dialogues
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Exercise 87.1
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Watch “b” animation and listen to “bandage”
Watch and listen to the comic, answer questions
Minimal pairs
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89 “R” vs. “L”
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Watch “right” vs. “light”
Listen to any tongue twister, answer minimal
pairs and listening pyramid
Break
Generate Mobile Learning Content
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DRR
Mobile Knowledge Management
System
Others
Discussion and Feedback
The Mobile Benefit
“You decide where
class is and when
class starts.”
Further Information
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Website:
Mobile Library:
http://library.athabascau.ca/
Mobile ESL
http://eslau.ca
Mobile Workplace English
http://wpeau.ca
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Publications:
Ally, M. (2009). Mobile Learning: Transforming the
Delivery of Education and Training. AU Press.