MOBILE LEARNING FOR SPATIAL SCIENCES
D. Burghardt, A. Edwardes, T. Woodtli, R. Weibel
burg@geo.unizh.ch
Mobile learning stresses the
importance of delivering learning facilities everywhere and anytime independent
from restrictions – it “allows teachers to bring out the classroom into the
field” (Armstrong and Bennett, 2005). As such mobile learning offers many
advantages to education in subjects depending on space, ranging from geography and
the earth sciences to archaeology, architecture and history. The research
investigates location based and adaptive learning. In contrast to mobile
learning in general this paradigm restricts and adapts teaching material to the
user context (e.g. location, time, and ability) and raises important research
questions related to the utilisation of cartographic presentations as
communication platform for space related phenomena.
Adaptive learning can be
characterised first of all by the subject of adaptation (what), second through
the user context considered for adaptation (where to) and third the method
applied for the adaptation (how). The subject of adaptation can be the content
of teaching material itself, the degree of complexity as well as the presentation
style. User context has been investigated intensively in the domain of mobile
information systems for the delivery of context-aware mobile services (Nivala
and Sarjakoski, 2003). A rough classification distinguishes between the
characteristics of the user themselves and his or her environment. In this
research the main focus was set on the consideration of users pre-knowledge as
well as the location of the user, which is important for the utilisation of
real world examples (location based learning).
The article starts with a definition
and differentiation of terms such as mobile learning, adaptive learning and
location based learning, which can be seen as increasingly specialised cases of
e-learning. Different learning paradigms such as behaviourism, cognitivism and
constructivism are compared with respect to m-learning. It is shown, that
m-learning has great potential to support the independent formation of
knowledge by exploration (cognitivism, constructivism) overcoming simple
repetition (behaviourism).
The customisation of an m-learning
lesson is then described through a three step process. The first step is the
determination of user context, e.g. pre-knowledge of the user, preferred
learning style or user position. Dependent on the context the adaptation and
selection of teaching content has to be carried out. Finally the adaptation of
content presentation is realised with consideration of preferred presentation
style and output device limitations.
Different methods of adaptation will
be next discussed and illustrated on the basis of an implemented application
example. A comparison is made between interactive (adaptable) and automatic
(adaptive) methods as well as between guided sequential and explorative
non-sequential approaches. The usage of multiple representations for adaptation
is discussed, with an application on error estimation in elevation models. An
evaluation framework from Taylor et al. (2005) is applied to differentiate
between technical and semiotic aspects during development and implementation of
the m-learning lesson. Furthermore the framework will be utilised to show the
potential and limitations of m-learning in comparison with e-learning and
guided excursions.