The document summarizes a one day seminar that explored how social media and mobile devices can be used to design augmented contexts for learning. It provided examples of past projects that used mobile tours to enhance field trips in various subjects. Attendees heard about how these mobile tours promoted active, location-based learning by giving varied perspectives and collaborative tasks. Studies indicated the tours engaged students more and helped learning by providing historical and spatial context. The presentation concluded mobile technologies have potential to transform learning when designed carefully as augmented contexts.

1. One Day Seminar at CLTT
University of British Columbia –
Vancouver (CA) – April 16, 2012
Can social media and mobile devices be used
to design transformative, augmented
contexts for learning?
#somobnet #lmlg
(1 of 6 guiding principles http://slidesha.re/GYYP7X)
John Cook
Learning Technology Resarch Institute
London Metropolitan University
Papers online: http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/john-cook6/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnnigelcook
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/johnnigelcook
Academia.edu http://londonmet.academia.edu/JohnCook/About

2. Introduction
• The LTRI has successfully explored how the
use of physical space could be augmented
using mobile devices so as to mediate active
and reflective learning in field trips in such
diverse contexts as
– landscape architecture (Cook, 2010),
– urban planning, second-language learning (Smith,
Bradley, Cook, & Pratt-Adams, 2011),
– and marketing.

3. • Designed carefully, new digital media can
promote active learning that has the effect of
promoting
– location-based time travel
– where perception and attention are scaffolded to
provide
– collaborative focus for learning that is not possible
with other media.

4. Back to the future
www.ukzn.ac.za/cae/pfi/sqd/lev.htm

5. • We claim that the mobile tours we have
designed and tested appear to be acting as
part of what Vygotsky calls
– the ‘more capable peer’
– and are assisting the learners as they move
through stages in a Zone of Proximal
Development.

6. • This work is being extended by project and
post-graduate work in the LTRI.
• Carl Smith is exploring the following question
in his PhD thesis:
– what potential does the use of mixed reality
environments have for supporting informal,
professional, work-based learning?
• New EC funded projects

7. • This remainder of talk will provide a mainly
visual overview of the above work from a
practice and practical point of view.

8. Landscape architecture at Cistercian abbey
(Fountains Yorkshire, North England)

10. Link

11. Task

12. “The ability to be in a particular position but get a
variety of views/different visual perspective was a
very useful opportunity. The whole thing also got
everyone talking in a way I hadn't experienced on
field trips to Fountains before.”

13. Urban planning

14. Task
• Some examples of the varied learning activities involved in the application
include a section where the user is asked to examine both the physical
architecture and the virtual architecture in the same physical location. The
virtual architecture in this instance includes areas which are not available
to view on the day of the tour and visualizations of the building as it was
in the late 19th century. The user is then asked to examine what the
building was originally used for when it was established in 1870. The user
also has the opportunity to listen to the oral history of a former pupil at
the school and adopt their point of view whilst in the same physical space
where the events took place. The user can reinvest the insight gained back
into the context and augment the space.

16. In another section the user is asked to look at a newsreel of a religious
procession from the 1930s that was filmed in Eden Grove whilst they
are standing in the same location where the film was shot. The
students can reflect on the significance of religion (in this case Roman
Catholicism) on the locale and its influence on schooling.
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/the-month-of-mary/query/Catholics

17. “The information given was underlined by the
'experience' of the area and therefore given context
in both past and present.”

18. “it was triggering my own thoughts and I was
getting to think for myself about the area and
the buildings.”

19. Tutor comments
• The tutor, who was interviewed after the tours had taken place, believes
that there are lots of benefits to the Urban Education mobile tour and
that it can provide more effective learning experiences and opportunities
to utilise new and different pedagogies.
• Points made include that students move from being passive to active
learners, they can take more control over their learning, and they can be
engaged in more productive pedagogical approaches, such as small group
work and investigative problem-based learning.
• The mobile tour can be more focused, but at the same time provide a
multi-tasked and multimedia experience that allows students to get below
the surface of the tasks.
• He also feels that the mobile technologies employed excited and intrigued
the students, and helped them to become more engaged in the tour.

20. My question at the start was this:
Can social media and mobile devices be used to design
transformative, augmented contexts for learning?
• I think the answer is yes!
• But am happy to debate …
• Thank you

21. References
• Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Phones as Mediating Tools Within Augmented
Contexts for Development. International Journal of Mobile and Blended
Learning, 1-10. Retrieved from http://www.igi-
global.com/journal/international-journal-mobile-blended-learning/1115
• Smith, C., Bradley, C., Cook, J., & Pratt-Adams, S. (2011). Designing for
Active Learning: Putting Learning into Context with Mobile Devices. In A.
D. Olofsson & J. O. Lindberg (Eds.), Informed Design of Educational
Technologies in Higher Education: Enhanced Learning and Teaching.
doi:10.4018/978-1-61350-080-4.ch016