How can mobile learning be made massive and sustainable

1. Mike Sharples
Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University, UK
Keynote Talk mLearn 2014 conference, Istanbul, Turkey
Massive and sustainable
Two challenges for mobile learning

2. Some educational methods
degrade with scale
e.g. personal tutoring,
sports coaching
Some educational methods are
impervious to scale
e.g. lecturing
Which educational methods
improve with scale?
SCALING LEARNING

3. For some networked systems the value of
a product or service increases with the
number of people using it
Metcalfe, R.M.: It’s all in your head. Forbes, 20th April, 2007.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0507/052.html
METCALFE’S LAW
The telephone system becomes more
valuable to users as more people are
connected

4. People are not just nodes in networks
Network information should be relevant
Need to develop effective massive scale
networks for learning
PERSONAL NETWORKS
Downes, S.: The Personal Network Effect. Blog posting, 4th November 2007.
http://halfanhour.blogspot.co.uk/2007/11/personal-network-effect.html.

5. • FutureLearn
• Company formed by
The Open University
• Launched in October 2013
• 40 partners, 37 universities
• Over 550,000 registered
learners
• Over 1 million course
registrations
• Mobile platform
• Social learning
INNOVATIVE PEDAGOGY AT MASSIVE SCALE
www.futurelearn.com

6. INNOVATIVE PEDAGOGY AT MASSIVE SCALE
(Exploring English example)

7. INNOVATIVE PEDAGOGY AT MASSIVE SCALE
Futurelearn course page (‘Exploring English’ by British Council)

8. • 110,000 learners on the
course
• Comments linked to content
• Over 14,000 learner
comments on a single video
• Half the learners who start the
course contribute to
discussions
• 25% on mobile devices
INNOVATIVE PEDAGOGY AT MASSIVE SCALE
(Exploring English example)

9. MOBILE LEARNING
Scale and sustainability
It’s massive
It’s mobile
It’s learning
Is it sustainable?

10. WORLDWIDE WEB
Scale and sustainability
Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web
in 1991
Over two billion users worldwide in 2014
But … the story is more complicated and
interesting than that

11. WORLDWIDE WEB
1751, First concept
Diderot, Encyclopédie

12. WORLDWIDE WEB
1945, First modern technology concept
Vannevar Bush, Memex

13. WORLDWIDE WEB
1974, First computer implementation
Ted Nelson, Xanadu
hypertext project
“Now the idea is this:
To give you a screen in your home
from which you can see into the
world’s hypertext libraries.
(The fact that the world doesn’t have
any hypertext libraries – yet – is a
minor point)
To give you a screen system that will
offer high-performance computer
graphics and text services at a price
anyone can afford. …
To make you part of a new electronic
literature and art, where you can get
all your questions answered and
nobody will put you down.”

14. WORLDWIDE WEB
in 1991
240 years from first concept
45 years from first modern
technology concept
17 years from first computer
implementation
1991, Massive and sustainable

15. MOBILE LEARNING
in 2014
3000 years from first concept
(handheld clay tablets)
42 years from first technology concept
(Xerox Dynabook)
15 years from first computer
implementation (HandLeR project)
2016, Massive and sustainable?

16. WORLDWIDE WEB
“The Web arose as the answer to an open
challenge, through the swirling together of
influences, ideas, and realizations from many
sides, until, by the wondrous offices of the
human mind, a new concept jelled. It was a
process of accretion, not the linear solving of
one well-defined problem after another.”
Berners-Lee,T.,Fischetti,M.and Dertouzos,M.L. Weaving the Web:The Original
Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor.
HarperInformation, 2000.

17. “Beyond Prototypes: Enabling innovating in technology-enhanced learning”, p. 33
Ted Nelson,
Xanadu, 1974
HyperCard,
1987
Personal computing,
1970s
Constructionist
Learning, 1972
Tim Berners Lee
‘Enquire’, 1980
Worldwide Web, 1991
Identify weak signals

18. “Beyond Prototypes: Enabling innovating in technology-enhanced learning”, p. 33
HandLeR,
1999
MOBIlearn,
2003
Smartphones and tablets
2000s
Seamless learning,
2006
MOOCs, 2010????
Identify weak signals

19. Creative play with materials that are ready
to hand
BRICOLAGE
Lévi-Strauss, 1962

20. Creative play with technology that is ready
to hand
BRICOLAGE
with technology

21. Bricolage for learning at massive
scale?

22. MINECRAFT https://minecraft.net
Virtual dynamic worlds that children can create and share

23. Minecraft
https://minecraft.net

24. Minecraft
https://minecraft.net

25. Scratch
http://scratch.mit.edu/

26. Scratch
http://scratch.mit.edu/

27. BRICOLAGE
with technology
What is the Minecraft or Scratch for
mobile learning?

28. Modern smartphones have
over 15 sensors:
tilt, acceleration, air pressure,
ambient temperature, humidity,
illumination, magnetic field
Can we unlock them for
bricolage?
BRICOLAGE
on mobile devices

30. How can you use a smartphone or tablet to:
- Measure the height of a tree (without maths)
- Find whether birds are scared by city noise?
- Create a weather station (including wind speed)?
- Find which is the fastest lift (elevator) in your
country?
- Learn about rocks / clouds / trees / birds / fashion in
different countries?
BRICOLAGE
on mobile devices

31. BRICOLAGE
on mobile devices
45
o

32. NQUIRE-IT - CITIZEN SCIENCE INQUIRY
www.nquire-it.org

33. NQUIRE-IT -CITIZEN SCIENCE INQUIRY
www.nquire-it.org

34. NQUIRE-IT - CITIZEN SCIENCE INQUIRY
www.nquire-it.org

35. BRICOLAGE
on mobile devices
Share stories about places

36. SHARING STORIES ABOUT PLACESSHARING STORIES ABOUT PLACES
Every location in a country can become a source of stories
Zapp guide - point at a distant landscape
feature and watch, or tell, a story
Software based on a terrain map
implemented on a mobile phone
Meek, S., Priestnall, G., Sharples, M. &
Goulding, J. (2013) Mobile capture of remote
points of interest using line of sight modelling.
Computers and Geosciences, 52, 334-344.

37. BRICOLAGE
on mobile devices
Minecraft and the real world
What if you could create a Minecraft
version of the real world
in the past, present, and future
and design fantasy games that combine
virtual and real worlds

38. MINECRAFT
in the real world

39. MINECRAFT
in the real world - London in Minecraft

40. MINECRAFT
Bricolage in the real world - a world you can sculpt

41. CONNECTING IT ALL TOGETHER
bricolage and mobile learning
“…the swirling
together of
influences, ideas,
and realizations
from many sides,
until, by the
wondrous offices of
the human mind, a
new concept jelled”

42. BRICOLAGE
on mobile devices
Who will connect together the pieces of
mobile learning, as Berners-Lee did to
form the worldwide web?

43. BRICOLAGE
on mobile devices
Social learning + bricolage
=> massive and scalable

44. Mike.Sharples@open.ac.uk