Ubiquitous learning website: Scaffold learners by mobile devices with information-aware techniques

Abstract

The portability and immediate communication properties of mobile devices influence the learning processes in interacting with peers, accessing resources and transferring data. For example, the short message and browsing functions in a cell phone provide users with timely and adaptive information access. Although many studies of mobile learning indicate the pedagogical potential of mobile devices, the screen size, computational power, battery capacity, input interfaces, and network bandwidth are too restricted to develop acceptable functionality for the entire learning processes in a handheld device. Therefore, mobile devices can be adopted to fill the gap between Web-based learning and ubiquitous mobile learning. This study first creates a website, providing functions enabling learning to take place anytime and anywhere with any available learning device, for ubiquitous learning according to various properties of mobile devices. Nowadays, learners’ behaviors on a website can be recorded as learning portfolios and analyzed for behavioral diagnosis or instructional planning. A student model is then built according to the analytical results of learning portfolios and a concept map of the learning domain. Based on the student model and learners’ available learning devices, three modules are developed to build a ubiquitous learning environment to enhance learning performance via learning status awareness, schedule reminders and mentor recommendation. Finally, an experiment is conducted with 54 college students after implementation of the ubiquitous learning website. Experimental results indicate that the proposed system can enhance three learning performance indicators, namely academic performance, task accomplishment rates, and learning goals achievement rates.

Introduction

Mobile devices can facilitate human interaction and access to information resources anytime and anywhere. Mobile devices, such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), are widely used in daily life for various purposes. Many mobile applications to help commercial services have also been developed for mobile devices. These devices can be adopted to access Internet resources without time or place constraints. Applications in mobile devices can facilitate learning very well with proper design. However, mobile devices for learning are limited by screen size, computational power, battery capacity, input interface and network bandwidth. Mobile device applications must occasionally connect to a remote server to increase the efficiency and usability of a function.

Many mobile applications have been developed to aid working, traveling, tour guiding and learning. According to Mari (2000), the purpose of many mobile applications is to obtain context-aware information for personal help. For instance, Want, Hopper, Falcao, and Gibbons (1992) developed an active badge location system as an office tool to help locate a member’s location by IR sensor. The telephone receptionist could find out a person’s location, and direct the call to appropriate phone. Want’s research group also presented a ParcTab system, i.e., a palm-sized computer with wireless functionality. Each office room had a transceiver to find the user’s location in the office, and the system would find the most convenient local resource for use with the device. Several researchers have also applied the wireless communication and mobile computing devices to improve field learning or group collaboration. For example, Roy Pea studied how wireless handheld devices can be adopted to improve networks efficiency, aggregate coherently across all students, and help conduct a class (Roschelle & Pea, 2002). Additionally, the use of mobile devices in the field for scientific data collection, nature observation and data analysis has been investigated (Rieger and Gay, 1997, Soloway et al., 1999, Staudt and Hsi, 1999). Moreover, experience of mobile learning in field study indicates requirements of ubiquitous learning concepts and applications (Chang, Sheu, & Chan, 2003). A ubiquitous learning environment allows students to learn with a PDA, WebPad, Tablet PC or laptop, in indoor, outdoor, individual, and group situations.

Although those studies indicate significant support for mobile learning, few researchers have discussed ways of integrating mobile devices with web-based learning systems to cover most learning processes by generating a ubiquitous learning environment. Although Mark Weiser, the forerunner of ubiquitous computing, showed that the development of ubiquitous computing is not very mature, he has stated that human–computer interaction would be more natural in a ubiquitous computing environment than in current computer environments (Weiser, 1993). From the reality perspective, building a ubiquitous learning environment requires a “ubiquitous” learning device accessible by every learner all times. Consequently, a cell phone is the only candidate among various mobile devices, such as a PDA, tablet PC or laptop.

The analysis of content in 388 SMS (short message service) messages for a mobile learning experiment over five weeks shows that SMS messages are helpful for activities relating to information, supervision and feedback (Seppälä & Alamäki, 2003). Another framework for context-aware computing categorizes activities as information, communication and creation (Anhalt et al., 2001). Furthermore, “context discovery” is one of the main features of a general mobile learning architecture (Trifonova & Ronchetti, 2004). Hence, this study integrates those frameworks from the perspective of learning context awareness as information awareness, schedule awareness (supervising + communication), and interaction awareness (feedback + creation). In other words, the proposed ubiquitous learning environment scaffolds learners via activities for information perception, scheduling and interaction.

The theoretical framework for the study mainly refers to activity–attention framework proposed by Anhalt et al. (2001). In that framework, the Distraction Matrix is proposed to discuss the spatial and temporal aspects of context-awareness applications because most context-aware applications fall into two categories of location-based and schedule-based services. Although context awareness, which is a term from computer science, indicates for devices to have information about the circumstances under which they operate and can react accordingly, this study transforms context into specified learning circumstances. Hence, a learner can know why he/she should be doing a learning task, what a learning community is doing, when a learning task should be done, and where a learning partner could be found. However, the two dimensions of Distraction Matrix are not enough to represent issues in a learning context-awareness application. Hence, the third dimension of learning status awareness is added to accomplish the theoretical framework. Furthermore, we should design some meaningful activities for each dimension as exemplars to demonstrate how to take the advantages of learning context awareness under a ubiquitous computing environment.

To construct a ubiquitous learning environment, three representative modules, representing each activity, were developed to promote awareness of learning contexts by integrating a cell phone and learning website. The first module, called Learning Status Awareness, considers a cell phone as an instant message transceiver affecting students’ learning behaviors. The analytical results of the student model indicate that proper instructions and notifications can be transmitted to students by SMS communication. The cell phone with WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) functionality allows students to interact instantaneously with the system. The second module, called Schedule Reminder, enables learners to remain aware of a teacher’s instructional plans and their own learning schedule. The third module, called Mentor Arrangement, acts as a mediator in peer consultation and discussion through cell phone communication. In summary, the three modules can keep learners on task when they only have a cell phone available for interaction with the learning website.

To create the ubiquitous learning environment, this study presented a system enabling students to learn by a Desktop PC, laptop, PDA or cell phone. Students can undertake online learning by using any one of these learning devices to interact with the Web-based learning system. Based on the student model, the information notification mechanism transmits instant learning material to learners to increase their awareness of learning contexts. Students can immediately interact with the learning system with just-in-hand learning devices and perform relevant learning activities. Wireless communication can thus bridge students, teachers and the web-based learning system. Hence, a teacher can send instant messages to students to influence their learning. Students can immediately follow these instructions to undertake learning activities on various learning devices. Students can use the ubiquitous learning website to access resources and improve their learning outcomes. The system can also recommend peer mentors for students, who can consult with them via voice communication.

Table 1 shows the research assumptions based on the theoretical framework of this study. The first column lists selected learning performance indicators to be measured. The second column explains the reasons for every indicator to promote learning context awareness. The third column shows the developed modules for every useful SMS-based learning activity on the ubiquitous learning website. After these modules were implemented, an experiment was conducted to determine their effect on learning performance indicators. This work is organized as follows. The introduction is followed by a system overview section, which includes subsections describing the architecture for each module. The experimental results of the three modules are then presented. Finally, conclusions are drawn.