Keynote presentation for Mobile Learning 2020 conference

1. Mike Sharples
Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University
www.mikesharples.org
20 years of mobile learning
What have we learned?
@sharplm

2. Reflections on 20 years of mobile learning
research projects

3. 20 years of mobile learning
Sharples, M. (2000). The Design of Personal Mobile
Technologies for Lifelong Learning. Computers and Education,
34, 177-193

4. Kay, A., & Goldberg, A. (1977). Personal Dynamic
Media. IEEE Computer, 10(3), 31-41.
Xerox PARC Dynabook
Concept for mobile learning device in early 1970s

5. Student project at the University of
Birmingham
Implemented Dynabook concept
with available technology
Supported personal, mobile, lifelong
learning
Designed mockups and working
prototypes
World’s first public demo of a
multimedia smartphone, on BBC TV
Handler 1998-1999
Personal tool for lifelong learning

6. highly portable wherever the user needs to learn;
individual adapting to the learner’s abilities
unobtrusive so the learner can capture situations without the technology
interfering
available anywhere, to enable communication with teachers, experts
and peers;
adaptable to the learner's evolving skills and knowledge;
persistent to manage learning throughout a lifetime
useful for everyday communication, reference, work and learning
intuitive for people with no previous experience of the technology
Handler
Personal tool for lifelong learning
Design aims (Sharples, 2000). Technology for lifelong learning should be:

7. Technology existed (just about)
in 1998 to build usable mobile
learning devices
There is a good alignment of
mobile technology with
personalised lifelong learning
What did we learn?

8. Handheld device (wireless PDA)
Learning organiser software for university
students
Time manager
Course navigator and documents
Communication (email, messenger)
Concept mapping tools
17 Masters students for 1 year (2002-3)
Aims (Corlett et al. 2005):
- discover whether students benefitted from an
integrated mobile learning organiser
- find which tools have most value
- explore patterns of use
Student learning organiser, 2002
Corlett, D., Sharples, M., Chan, T., Bull, S. (2005) Evaluation of a Mobile Learning
Organiser for University Students, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 21,
pp. 162-170.
Holme, O. and Sharples, M. (2002) Implementing a Student Learning Organiser on the
Pocket PC Platform. Proceedings of European Workshop on Mobile and Contextual
Learning, Birmingham, UK, p.41-44.

9. Student Learning Organiser was
occasionally useful, but it didn’t improve
their learning
Wireless connection essential
Students didn’t need a dedicated
learning organiser
They wanted integration with their
current office and social tools
What did we learn?

10. Worldwide European-led project, €7.4 million
funding
24 partner organisations across Europe,
Israel, US, Australia
Developed technology and services for
mobile learning
Focus on learning outside the classroom
Scenarios
Art gallery, First aid, Work-based MBA
course
MOBILearn 2002-2004
Lonsale, P., Baber, C., Sharples, M., Byrne, W., Arvanitis, T.N. & Beale, R. (2004) Context Awareness for MOBIlearn: Creating an engaging learning experience in an art
museum. In J. Attewell and C. Savill-Smith (eds.) Mobile Learning Anytime Everywhere: A Book of Papers from MLEARN 2004. London: Learning and Skills Development
Agency, pp. 115-118.
OMAF systems architecture for MOBIlearn

11. To design an open service-based
architecture for mobile learning that
included:
Content management
Context awareness
Collaboration
Mobile multimedia
Adaptive interface
Demonstrate learning effectiveness in
museums including Uffizi Gallery, Florence
and Nottingham Castle Museum Gallery
MOBIlearn
Research aims:

12. Context and mobile learning
Context is a fundamental construct to understand learning outside the classroom
Learn in context
Learners construct situated knowledge
Learn through context
Learners create educative contexts by interacting
with technology, surroundings, objects, people
Learn about context
Learners explore their location
Learn despite context
Learning continues despite changes to context
Sharples, M. (2015) Making sense of context for mobile learning. In
J. Traxler & A. Kukulska-Hulme (Eds.), Mobile Learning: The Next
Generation. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 140-153.

13. High interaction with context
Low interaction with context
High learner
awareness of
context
Learning
through
context
Learning
about
context
Learning
in
context
Learning
despite
context
Low
awareness
of context

14. It’s the learner that’s mobile
Need for a flexible, modular, blended, system
How learning is interwoven with everyday life
Mobile learning can both complement and
conflict with formal education
Context is constructed by learners through
movement and interaction
Ethical issues: privacy, ownership
What did we learn?

15. How can we make school trips to
museums or heritage centres more
engaging and educative?
Learning through guided inquiry and
crossover learning
Investigation starts in the classroom
guided by the teacher, continues in the
museum and online, then developed and
shared back in the classroom
Students as media makers and curators
MyArtSpace 2005-2007
Connecting learning in classroom and museum

16. Service on mobile phones that automatically sends each
activity (situated presentation, audio recording, photo,
note) to student’s personal web area
Combines
physical space (museum, classroom)
virtual space (online store and gallery)
personal space (mobile phones)
Museum test sites
Urbis (Manchester)
The D-Day Museum (Portsmouth)
The Study Gallery of Modern Art (Poole)
About 3000 children during 2006
MyArtSpace 2005-2007

17. Micro: User experience
Meso: Pedagogy
Macro: Practice
3-level Evaluation
At each level
1. What was supposed to happen
Pre-interviews with stakeholders (teachers,
students, museum educators)
Documents provided to support the experience
2. What actually happened
Observer notes and video capture
Post-experience focus groups
Student content & interaction data
3. Differences between 1 & 2
Reflective interviews with stakeholders
Critical incident analysis

18. Good design: keep it simple
Single button press, automatically sent to personal website
Focus on the learning
Pedagogy-led design
Teacher development
Need to prepare the teachers for a new experience
Get the business model right
Everyone should gain
Who pays: Schools? Museums? Students and parents?
What did we learn?

19. PEDAGOGY
INCLUDING LEARNING PROCESSES
AND OUTCOMES
Pedagogy-led design
Assessing
Browsing
Case-based
Collaborative
Construction
Conversation
Cross-context
Delivered
Embodied
Game-based
Inquiry-driven
Networked
Performative
Problem-solving
Reflective
Simulation

20. Guided active learning that starts
by asking big questions
Personally-meaningful
investigations
Connects learning in classrooms,
home and outdoors
nQuire 2007-2020
Personal inquiry learning in multiple settings
Sharples, M., Scanlon, E., Ainsworth, S., Anastopoulou, S., Collins, T., Crook, C.,
Jones, A., Kerawalla, L., Littleton, K., Mulholland, P. & O’Malley, C. (2015). Personal
Inquiry: Orchestrating Science Investigations Within and Beyond the Classroom.
Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2(2), 308-341.

21. Personal inquiry learning
Students carry out
investigations that
are personally
meaningful and
relevant to their
everyday lives
Use the nQuire
platform to
manage the
inquiry, collect
data and share
results

22. Citizen inquiry
Large-scale inquiry-led investigations into
wellbeing and environment
citizen science
+ collaborative inquiry
learning

23. ‘Explore myself and my world’
Mobile first design
Confidential ‘survey’ missions
Anonymous or registered users
Open ‘social’ missions with discussion
Personalised feedback
Secure data
Consent forms
Publication of findings
Collaboration between OU and BBC
nQuire: an open platform for personal
and citizen inquiry
www.nquire.org.uk

24. Noise map
What kind of noisy environments make studying difficult?
www.nquire.org.uk
‘Social mission’ with audio
data from mobile devices,
shared and discussed

25. Gardenwatch
Citizen investigation of UK
gardens
Partnership of Open
University, BBC, British Trust
for Ornithology
Prime time TV, every
evening for four weeks
240,000 contributions
65% on mobile devices
Mobile learning at massive scale

26. Build and run new nQuire missions

27. Guided personal inquiry is a
powerful pedagogy
Mobile devices as scientific tools
Finding a good ‘big question’ is
difficult
Classroom lesson to share data is
a challenge
Too-personal inquiry (e.g. food
diary)
Citizen inquiry works at big scale
What did we learn?

28. Focus on the mobility of learning, not just the device
Theories of learning for a mobile world
Context created through interaction
How to evaluate learning within and across locations
Importance of teacher development and preparation
How to evaluate at multiple levels, in many locations, for all
stakeholders
How to design and implement mobile learning at big scale
What we know now that we didn’t
know 20 years ago

29. How to integrate mobile learning into the school
curriculum
How to support mobile learning in developing countries
How to support teachers in innovative mobile pedagogy
How to design personal technology for lifelong learning
(objective of the original HandLer project)
What we still don’t know
Four challenges for the future

30. Any questions?