Mobile Learning

MOBILE LEARNING:
A PRACTICAL GUIDE
This publication was produced with the assistance of

the Leonardo da Vinci programme of the European Commission
2
CONTENTS
Introduction
List of authors
Desmond Keegan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
........................................................................
Part 1
Use of mobile devices in educational administration
Chapter 1
The use of SMS (short messaging system) within educational administration

by Judy Nix, John Russell and Desmond Keegan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13
Part 2
The use of SMS messages in teaching and learning
Chapter 2
SMS quizzes
by Mark Riordan and Joachim Pietsch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
23
Voice messages to students and IVR systems for FAQs

by Renaud Ferly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
28
SMS question-answer system

by Gabor Kismihok . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
32
SMS assignment advice

by Renaud Ferly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
SMS tutoring of desired learning outcomes

by Desmond Keegan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
44
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part 3
The use of mobile technologies for teaching and learning
Chapter 7
Designing courseware for mobile devices

by Aleksander Dye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
51
Podcasting as an mLearning Approach

by Mark Riordan, Hannah Barton, Joachim Pietsch, Philip Penny and John Kavanagh . . . . . . . .
57
J2ME based applications in an mLearning situation

by Bryan Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
61
Using Java-enabled phones and games for learning

by Karl Grabe and Gearid Suilleabhin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
71
The use of Flash Lite and web authoring tools in mobile learning course design
by Fintan Costello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
79
Location and Presence: context in mLearning

by Ray Boland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
92
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Mobile Learning: A Practical Guide
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Developments of mobile communication technology for tutoring

by Katy Graham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
101
Practical considerations when developing course materials for mobile learning

by Aleksander Dye, Bryan Jones and Gabor Kismihok . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
111
Part 4
Goals for mobile learning course development
Chapter 15
Enrolment of mobile students into fee-paying and assessed courses

by Desmond Keegan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
119
Enrolment of mobile students into official and accredited courses

by Torstein Rekkedal, Truls Fagerberg and Aleksander Dye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
124
Chapter 16
Part 5
Examples of successful mobile course development
Chapter 17
Courses on Art Appreciation at Corvinus University

by Mikls Bir Andras Gabor and Gabor Kismihok . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
137
Mobile learning and the Marginalised

by Judy Nix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
142
Courses on the PDA at NKI

by Truls Fagerberg and Aleksander Dye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
147
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Introduction
Desmond Keegan
Mobile learning: a practical guide is a hands-on, how-todo-it guide for education and training institutions who
wish to introduce mobile learning.
Definition
Mobile learning (mLearning) is defined as the provision
of education and training on mobile devices: Personal
Digital Assistants (PDAs), smartphones and mobile
phones.
In defining mobile learning one confronts tensions
between functionality and mobility. There is a
continuum from the point of view of functionality in
the devices used for eLearning and mLearning. This
continuum goes from desktop computers to laptop

computers to PDAs or handhelds or palmtops to
smartphones to mobile phones. There are many,
especially in the United States of America who include
laptop computers in their definition of mobile learning.
I disagree. I feel that in the definition of mobile learning
the focus should be on mobility. Mobile learning should
be restricted to learning on devices which a lady can
carry in her handbag or a gentleman can carry in his
pocket. I, therefore, define mobile learning as
the provision of education and training on
PDAs/palmtops/handhelds, smartphones and
mobile phones.
MOBILITY
FUNCTIONALITY
Computers
Laptop
Computers
E-LEARNING
PDAS
Handheld
Palmtops
Smartphones
Mobile
Phones
M-LEARNING
Figure 1. Functionality and mobility in

a definition of mobile learning
One of the characteristics of mobile learning is that it
uses devices which citizens are used to carrying
everywhere with them, which they regard as friendly and
personal devices, which are cheap and easy to use, which
they use constantly in all walks of life and in a variety of
different settings, except education.
Language), but they were not successful because not

enough people owned one.
Statistics
In July 2005 Ericsson announced that the number

of mobile devices in the world had topped 2 billion for
the first time. They forecast ownership of 3 billion
mobile phones as early as 2010 and this for a world
population of somewhat over 6.5 billion.
The justification of mobile learning comes from the

law of distance education research which states that It
is not technologies with inherent pedagogical qualities
that are successful in distance education, but
technologies that are generally available to citizens.
A typical example is the 12 laser discs of the early
1990s. These laser discs had excellent pedagogical
possibilities and excellent courses were developed for
them especially in the field of ESL (English as a Second
Never in the history of the use of technology in education

has there been a technology that was as available to
citizens as mobile telephony. The statistics are stunning:
It is calculated that in the United Kingdom alone

the number of SMS messages sent annually is
37.000.000.000. These figures are repeated in
most countries of the world.
5
Recent research on audience characteristics published by

the BBC in Britain shows the ubiquity of mobile devices
especially in the 16-24 age group, the university age
group. The BBC research in this group shows that it
characterises a mobile phone as a necessity and not a
luxury (BBC 2004).
Country
Austria
Belgium
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Mobile Phone
Penetration
103%
88%
107%
111%
101%
196%
102%
179%
191%
100%
192%
101%
111%
Penetration of ownership of mobile devices in most

counties in Europe, is now over 100%. These are the
figures:
Country
Mobile Phone
Penetration
196%
196%
107%
107%
102%
106%
171%
199%
185%
144%
194%
113%
108%
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Slovak Rep
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
UK
Fig 2. Data sources: WCIS (World Cellular Information Service) (2006) and Ovum.
Thus it can be taken as a given that all students in all
European further and higher education institutions in
all countries in Europe possess one.
Projects
The European Commission has played an important
role in bringing about the arrival of mobile learning. It
has funded three Leonardo da Vinci projects and two
IST research projects in the field. Here is a brief look at
the work of these projects.
Programme
Project leader
Title
Leonardo da Vinci
Ericsson Education Ireland
From e-learning to m-learning
Leonardo da Vinci
Mobile learning:
The next generation of learning
IST FP5
LSDA UK
The m-learning project
IST FP5
Giunti Ricerca Italy
The MOBILearn project
Leonardo da Vinci
The incorporation of mobile

Learning into mainstream
Education and training
Fig 3. Mobile learning projects funded by the European Commission
Introduction
1. The Leonardo da Vinci From e-learning to

m-learning project, led by Ericsson Education
Ireland, addressed the development of courseware
for mobile phones, smartphones and PDAs.
What was important about this project was that the
main pedagogical problems of developing mobile
learning for PDAs were solved in the project in
which a comfortable didactic environment was
created by using Microsoft Reader Works, providing
each student with Microsoft Reader software to
display the content and which was adjudged highly
satisfactory by surveys of students who had studied a
full course by mobile learning on a PDA. As the
major objection raised against mobile learning is
screen size, it was important that this problem was
solved and by-passed at the outset.
2. The Leonardo da Vinci project Mobile learning: the
next generation of learning led by Ericsson Education
Ireland.
The main activities of this project were to achieve
the production of acceptable courseware for
smartphones in XHTML. Also in this project the
next generation of mobile learning course
development was based on FlashLite. FlashLite is a
toned down version of Flash designed for mobile
devices. This development is motivated by the fact
that there are thousands of developers who have
used Flash to develop eLearning content and that
there is a lot of eLearning content available in Flash,
so that for the first time in the history of
mLearning you can reuse the pedagogical and
technical skills of the developers and the content can
be reused too.
3. The IST project M-Learning was led by the
United Kingdom government Learning and
Skills Development Agency (LSDA). This project
had an important social dimension. It recognised
that there were in the United Kingdom many
16 to 20 year old youths who were unemployed
and had urgent needs for additional training, but
who refused to attend a training centre or college.
They were unemployable and refused to attend
training. They all had, however, a mobile phone
which they used constantly. The project, therefore,
set out to develop courses for them on their mobile
phones in the fields of literacy, numeracy and social
skills.
4. The IST project MOBILearn led by Giunti Ricerca

of Genoa, Italy. This was a very large project led
from Italy and counted a wide range of at least 20
European universities among its members. The
objectives of this project were: the definition of
theoretically-supported and empirically-validated
models for effective learning/teaching/tutoring in a
mobile environment. The project also produced
course materials in the fields of Health Education,
Museum Education and MBAs.
5. The fifth project is called The incorporation of mobile
learning into mainstream education and training.
The thesis of this project is quite different from
that of the previous projects. The thesis is that it is
now time for mobile learning to emerge from its
project status and enter into mainstream education
and training as the related fields of distance
education and e-learning have done before it. For
the first time a mobile learning project is focusing
on the field as a whole and not on the development
of mobile learning for an institution or a group of
institutions.
The trouble with projects is that they tend to collapse
and disappear when the project funding is discontinued.
What usually happens is that the project group is
dispersed, staff contracted in for the project are let go,
other staff discontinue their work and move to other
tasks, the expertise built up by the project group is
dissipated and not maintained. A major goal of this
book, Mobile learning: a practical guide, is to contribute
to the process of mobile learning emerging from its
project status and being incorporated into mainstream
education and training.
Approach of this book

The book proposes a three-tiered approach to mobile
learning:
The use of mobile devices in educational

administration
Development of a series of 5-6 screen mobile

learning academic supports for students
Development of a number of mobile learning course

modules.
The need for using mobile devices in educational

administration seems obvious.
If a lecture, or similar activity, has to be cancelled at

short notice the university or college can communicate
with the student body concerned by the postal services
or by email. This is not an effective means of
communication. The use of SMS (Short Messaging
Service) provides immediate communication with the
students.
which have many advantages over the postal system or

email.
SMS messages can be sent in this way either to the

whole student body, or to students of a faculty, or a
department or a class grouping. Hundreds of thousands
of these administrative SMS messages have been sent out
to students mobile phones by universities throughout
the world.
Part Three deals with the use of a wide range of wireless

technologies, besides SMS messaging, in teaching and
learning. The focus is to demonstrate how these
technologies can be used for educational purposes.
The development of a series of 5-6 screen mobile

learning academic supports for students is the second
tier of the strategy proposed in this book. This is the
sending out of 5-6 screens of academic material to
students PDAs, smartphones or mobile phones. These
academic supports can be course summaries; help with
particularly difficult parts of a course that have caused
difficulty to students in the past; assignment guidance;
examination preparation and so on. Tens of thousands
of these supports have been sent to students phones by
universities around the world.
The final tier of the approach in this book is the
development of course materials for mobile learning.
This is crucial for mobile learning to be incorporated
into mainstream education and training.
Structure of this book

Part One of this book deals with the use of mobile
devices in educational administration. Mobile devices
are presented as important communications devices
Part Two deals with the use of SMS messaging in

teaching and learning. Billions of SMS messages are sent
annually in all countries of the world and the challenge
is to harness this technology for educational purposes.
Part Four deals with the goals of mobile learning which

will enable it to be incorporated into mainstream
education and training.
Part Five gives examples of mobile learning successes,
which demonstrate that mobile learning is already
moving into the mainstream.
Just as the related fields of distance education and elearning have become accepted fields of mainstream
provision, the role ahead of the field of mobile learning
is to become incorporated into mainline education and
training.
References
BBC (2004) Research on audience characteristics
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/marketresearch/
audiencegroup2.shtml
World Cellular Information Services (2006).
Mobile phone penetration in European counties.
www.gii.co.jp/english/ep4209_mn_world_gsm.html
List of authors
Hannah Barton is currently a lecturer in Psychology in
the School of Learning Sciences at the Institute of Art,
Design and Technology in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland. Her
areas of interest are group psychology, collaborative
learning on line and educational psychology.
Mikls Bir is an associate professor at the Department
of Information Systems of Corvinus University of
Budapest with 29 years of software engineering,
university teaching (including professorship in the
USA), and management experience.
Ray Boland graduated with honours from University
College Galway in Information Technology and
Business Studies. He went on to complete an MSc in
Ubiquitous and Multimedia Systems, working in areas
such as Adaptive Personalization, Multi-Agent Systems
and Computer Graphics. At the moment he is working
with Ericsson Education Ireland as a Technical Training
Consultant in the areas of Video Telephony, Location
Based Services and Instant Messaging and Presence
Services.
Fintan Costello works as an eLearning specialist for
Ericsson Education. He is responsible for developing
and supporting eLearning and Mobile Learning content
and services. He also has been involved in Virtual
Classroom Training and Learning Management Services.
Aleksander Dye is a researcher at NKI Distance
Education. He received a Bachelor of Information
Systems from the Norwegian School of Information
Technology in 2003. From 2001-2006 he was employed
as a system developer at NKI Distance Education with a
focus on developing SESAM, the NKI LMS (Learning
Management System) He has been involved in
nationally and internationally funded development
projects at NKI since 2001 in the areas of e- and
mLearning. He has made presentations about mobile
learning and eLearning as well as development of
services for online education.
Truls Fagerberg works as a system developer and
research assistant at NKI Distance Education in the
Department of Research and Development. He has a
masters degree in ICT and Pedagogical Development
from The Danish University of Education in
Copenhagen and NKI Distance Education from 2005,

and a bachelors degree in Information Technology and a
diploma in IT-management from The Polytechnical
College, Oslo, in 2000. He works in the technical
development of NKIs Learning Management System
(LMS), SESAM, which serves nearly 7000 active online
students. He has also worked as an online teacher at
NKI. He has participated in several EU projects,
amongst them From e-learning to m-learning
(2000-2002), M-learning - the next generation of
learning (2003-2005), and the ongoing project
The incorporation of mobile learning into mainstream
education and training (2005-2007).
Renaud Ferly works as a senior consultant in Groupe
SQLi a leading technology integrator in France. For 15
years he has been involved in development, project
management, and business development. He is now part
of the consulting department of SQLI with interest in
both mobile technology and learning solutions.
Andras Gabor is head of the Department of Information
Systems of Corvinus University of Budapest. His main
fields of expertise are system analysis, information
management and intelligent systems.
Karl Grabe has been a lecturer in the Cork Institute of
Technology Computing Department since 1999,
teaching subjects that include Java GUI, Advanced
OOP, Mobile Applications, and Distributed Systems.
His research interests include mLearning and locationaware wireless devices and he also supervises masters
students. Prior to Cork Institute of Technology he
worked as an R&D Software developer in Apple USA
and Cork on projects such as the ROM diagnostics for
the Apple IIGS and Automated Flexible Manufacturing
systems. He also has experience as Software R&D
manager in Apple Computers and Motorola.
Katy Graham graduated from University College
Dublin with a BSc in Psychology and a Higher Diploma
in Computer Science. She has worked in Ericsson
Education since 2000 in the roles of course instructor,
course developer, learning architect and competence
consultant. She has been involved in Ericsson EU
sponsored mobile learning projects within Ericsson
Educcation since 2001. Her current technical
9
involvements are in the Service Layer of telecom

networks. She is currently investigating how new
telecom technologies, such as IP MultiMedia Subsystem
(IMS), may be employed to deliver or manage mobile
learning solutions.
Bryan Jones holds a B Sc in Applied Computing. He is
currently working as a Technical Training Consultant for
Ericsson Education and specialising in enabling
technologies which provision data services and content
for mobile networks.
John Kavanagh has a B.Sc in Computing in
Multimedia Systems from the Dun Laoghaire Institute
of Art, Design and Technology. His background is in
Assistive Technologies and Web Accessibility Guidelines.
His specialisation is in m-Learning solutions, dynamic
content generation and standardisation. He is a Member
of Engineers Ireland.
Desmond Keegan is a former Director General of the
Italian Open University system, Consorzio per
lUniversit a Distanza. He has contributed widely to the
literature of distance education, e-learning and mobile
learning. He is a consultant in distance training with
Ericsson Education Ireland.
Gabor Kismihok is a PhD student at the Department
of Information Systems of Corvinus University of
Budapest writing his thesis about adaptive assessment
technologies in eLearning environments. He is also busy
with various European mLearning and eLearning
research projects.
Judy Nix is EU Projects Manager with Ericsson. She has
a special interest in mobile learning and has managed
two successful projects in this area: Mobile Learning: the
next generation of learning and The incorporation of
mobile learning into mainstream education. She has
worked in Ericsson Education in a number of roles
including Guest Services Manager, Marketing Manager
and Service Delivery Manager.
Gearid Silleabhin has been working in the DEIS
Department for Education Development in the Cork
Institute of Technology Ireland since 1998 where his
main activities include the co-ordination of several EU-
10
sponsored projects relating to e-learning as well as some

mainstream e-learning support and development work
within the institute. He is also a lecturer in e-learning
and media studies. He has published a number of papers
and designed a range of research projects on a range of
themes in e-learning and related fields.
Peter Penny holds a B.Sc. in Psychology Applied to
Information Technology. He is currently a researcher on
the Leonardo da Vinci GATEWAY project - promoted
by Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design &
Technology (IADT).
Joaachim Pietsch is a lecturer at the Institute of Art,
Design and Technology (IADT) in Dun Laoaghaire,
Ireland, with research interests in Cognitive Theory of
Multimedia and e-learning
Torstein Rekkedal is professor of distance education
and Director of R & D at NKI Distance Education,
Norway. He has worked in distance education research
since 1970. He has produced a stream of research
publications in the field of distance education and
online learning. He has chaired the research committees
of the European Association for Distance Learning
(EADL) and the International Council for Open and
Distance Education (ICDE). In 2003 he was conferred
with an honorary doctorate of the British Open
University for his research work in the field. He is
presently chair of the standing committee for quality of
the Norwegian Association for Distance and Flexible
Education.
Mark Riordan is is the Head of the Technology
Department at the Institute of Art, Design and
Technology (IADT). He holds a PhD in Computer
Science from Trinity College Dublin and is a Chartered
Engineer. Prior to joining IADT in 1999 he held a
number of Research and Technology Development
positions in Industry and Academia.
John Russell works as the Internet systems manager for
NKI distance education. His main focus is running the
development team that builds and runs the NKI
distance education web sites, including SESAM, the
LMS of NKI.
PART 1
USE OF MOBILE DEVICES
IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
11
Chapter 1
Mobile learning/SMS (Short Messaging System)
academic administration kit
Judy Nix, John Russell and Desmond Keegan
The context for the use of mobile devices in academic administration is presented. Uses in administration, combating drop-out,
distance education and learning support are described. Implementation strategies both in-house development and the purchase
of a system from an SMS gateway provider are explained.
The context
Never in the history of the use of technology in
education has there been a technology so widely
available to citizens as mobile technology.
One can safely assume that every student in every higher
and further education institution in every European
country possesses a mobile device.
The need
Academic administration
All students enrolled in all higher and further education
institutions today have a frequent need for information
from their institutions about timetable changes,
assessment deadlines, feedback from tutors and other
urgent administrative details. Although nearly all of
these students carry a sophisticated communications
device which they use constantly in all walks of life, isnt
it strange that they do not use it in their education or
training programme?
Equally, all higher and further education institutions
today have a frequent need to provide information to
their students about timetable changes, assessment
deadlines, feedback from tutors and other urgent
administrative details. Although nearly all of their
students carry a sophisticated communications device
which they use constantly in all walks of life, isnt it
strange the institutions do not use them to
communicate?
If a lecture, or similar activity, has to be cancelled at
short notice the university or college can communicate
with the student body concerned by the postal services
or email. These are not always effective means

of communication so many of the students will turn
up for the cancelled lecture and be inconvenienced.
The institutions administration may come in for
criticism.
However, if a lecture, or similar activity, has to be
cancelled at short notice, the university or college
communicates with the student body concerned by SMS
(Short Messaging System), all of the students will receive
and read the message, no-one will turn up, no-one will
be inconvenienced and the institutions administration
will have been successful. SMS messages can be sent in
this way either to the whole student body, or a faculty,
or a department or a class grouping.
Drop-out
Government decisions in a number of European
countries have heightened the importance of the
reduction of the drop out rate in universities and
colleges. In some instances subsidies can be reduced if
the drop-out rate is not reduced. The prevention of
avoidable drop-outs has been an intractable problem in
higher education for years and often costly methods, like
increased counselling and mentoring, have been
introduced to combat the phenomenon.
The University of Ulster in Northern Ireland has had
great success in the use of SMS messaging for the
reduction of student drop-out. It found that sending
SMS messages to students who have been identified as
being at risk, has been a very successful approach for
keeping students in the system and for maintaining the
government per capita grant.
13
The University of Ulster sent out messages to students

of the type Sorry, we missed you today. The university
initially feared that this might be intrusive. On the
contrary the students did not find it intrusive at all. The
students appreciated it and wanted the university to
expand the service to other areas like assignment
deadlines.
The University considers that speed is essential in
dealing with drop-outs: Two weeks and they are gone.
Other methods of dealing with drop-outs have a lead
time of several weeks. The University regards drop-outs
reduction as a duty of care. They feel that a frequent
cause of drop-outs is that Nobody cares. Groups of
4.500 students can be alienating. The personal touch of
a message on a mobile phone can be an answer
(Keegan 2006).
Distance Education
In its faculty of education in 2002, the University of
Pretoria, South Africa, had hundreds of students
enrolled in the equivalent of a Post-Graduate Diploma
in Education by distance education. None of these
students had email or could avail of eLearning but all
had a mobile phone. They were all full-time teachers
employed in rural schools.
The university used mobile phones very successfully in
their paper-based distance education programmes for
university administration, achieving almost immediate
communication by SMS messaging in an area where
email was unavailable and post took 5 to 15 days.
The profile of these students in 2002 was as follows:
The majority live in rural areas
100% are full-time employees (teaching)
0.4% had access to e-mail
99.4% had a mobile phone
Mobile phone support to these rural distance learning

students entailed sending bulk, pre-planned SMSs to:
all students;
students of a specific programme for general

administrative support as well as motivational
support;
specific groups of students extracted from the database for specific administrative support (customised
group SMS); and
14
small group or individual SMSs to specific students

extracted from the data-base on an individual basis
for specific administrative support (Brown 2005).
The advantages and successes were significant:
In response to a reminder for registration for contact

sessions, 58% of the learners registered before the
closing date compared to the normal expected
percentage of below 40%.
In response to a reminder of the contact session

dates, 95% of the learners that registered for the
contact sessions attended.
Learners responded en masse and almost

immediately to information provided in SMSmessages.
If it can be done successfully in rural Africa it can

certainly be done successfully in Europe.
Learning Support and at-risk students
There have been efforts at EU and government level to
encourage a wider participation in the third level
education system by encouraging students from more
diverse backgrounds to attend colleges. One of the
major concerns in the third level education system in
Ireland is the retention of students, an issue that is
extremely important to the Institutes of Technology
nationwide. Over the past number of years, factors such
as the falling number of applicants, a reduction in entry
point requirements, increasing numbers of non-national
students and students with disabilities have combined to
change significantly the profile of students entering the
IT sector. The reduction in the number of students
opting for careers in the Science and Engineering fields
has meant that the issue of student retention has become
paramount for the existence of these courses.
The Department of Engineering in IT Tallaght, in
Dublin, began to address these issues by implementing
an Engineering Learning Support Unit (ELSU) in 2003.
The main aim of this unit was to provide incoming
students on Year 1 full-time Engineering courses with an
extensive range of support services in order to make the
introduction to third level education a smooth process,
thereby improving student participation and retention.
ELSU has been developed to provide a flexible student
driven support network, covering both academic and
non-academic issues, in order to facilitate an improved
learning environment.

Academic administration kit
The main responsibilities of ELSU include:
Providing the necessary resources and infrastructural

supports to support first year students
Early identification of at-risk students
The use of SMS as a means of providing students with

important information was introduced as part of LSU at
the beginning of the academic year 2005/2006. The
main reason for implementing this tool was to allow
students to be continually and quickly informed of any
changes within their courses. Up to this point, email was
predominantly used. However, it was found that email
was not an ideal solution as not all students would check
their college mail accounts on a regular basis and,
therefore, would often not receive information they
needed until it was too late. Furthermore, email was not
appropriate for conveying important information at
short notice.
Student details were obtained from a Microsoft Excel
database and the SMS tool was implemented within
Microsoft Outlook. Any member of the teaching/support
staff could use the tool to send messages to an individual
student, a group of students or the entire list of registered
students in Year 1 Engineering.
Some examples of where the SMS tool has been used in
IT Tallaght include:
Notifying students about changes in their

schedule/timetable
Changes regarding room allocations for lectures
Reminding students of mid-semester exam times,

dates and venues
Reminding students of deadlines for submission of

course work
Notifying students when their test/lab results have

been made available on the department notice
boards
Making students aware of time/date/venue of ELSU

support sessions
Informing students of lecturer absence and/or

cancelled classes
Telling students about important events in the college
The SMS tool as part of Outlook was initially developed

and implemented by a member of the lecturing staff but
the Department of Engineering has decided to invest in
a more sophisticated system for providing information

to students via SMS, as they view it to be an important
part of all courses within the department.
In IT Tallaght the use of SMS messaging has been
viewed as a valuable addition to the academic
environment for its simplicity and effectiveness in
conveying information between staff and students
(OShea 2005).
Implementation strategies
The recommended strategies for universities and colleges
who want to introduce SMS messaging to their
administration are either to develop an in-house
solution or approach an SMS service provider.
1. In-house development
SMS is a mobile phone technology that allows short text
messages to be sent and received on a mobile phone.
Typically messages are 160 characters in length, but this
can be extended by combining a number of messages
together. For example if three messages are combined it
would be possible to send a message slightly shorter than
480 characters long. However this normally means you
would be charged for each message (3 messages in the
example). Support for combining SMS messages varies
from service provider to service provider and this should
be checked if long messages are required.
Mobile operators have a node in their network called an
SMS Service Centre (SMS-C) that handles SMS
message traffic. Typically each mobile operator will allow
Third Party SMS aggregators/service providers to
connect to their SMS-Cs. Such aggregators are likely to
have connections to many different operators or to other
aggregators. Direct connections to an operator SMS-C
are expensive.
Aggregators with direct SMS-C connections will recoup
that cost by providing their own Application Interface
by which other content providers can send SMS
messages. Normally the cost for such a connection to an
aggregator is much less. The bottom line is that it is
much more cost effective to connect to an SMS
aggregator than to a mobile operator SMS-C. Indeed
connecting to an aggregator may give the application
access to a much wider audience. For example,
universities are likely to have international students that
have mobile phones from their home country. It is likely
that a connection to a local Mobile Operators SMS-C
would not allow delivery of SMS messages to such
students.
15
Writing an application that connects to an operator

SMS-C requires specialist knowledge of the SMS
protocols involved. SMS-C protocols such as SMPP
(Short Message Peer to Peer) 3.4 are difficult and
complicated to work with, are difficult to test, require
expensive specialised equipment, expert knowledge and
normally expensive SDKs (Service Development Kits).
Alternatively SMS Content aggregators will usually have
a SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) or HTTP
interface that can be used to develop applications. Such
technologies are normally free to obtain and expert
knowledge is readily available through developer forums
on the internet. In addition content aggregators are
usually very helpful and definitely more accessible than
mobile operators for support questions.
In Summary Advantages of SMS aggregators over
direct operator SMS-C:
Legal requirements SMS SPAM

In the last year or so some very strict rules governing the
sending of unsolicited text messages have been
introduced. Fines of up to 5,000 per message are being
applied.
It is critical that the mobile phone owners permission is
obtained before any SMS messages are sent to their
phone. This can either be in writing where the user signs
an authorization when they register at the college or by
the user sending a registration text message to the
application.
Applications should adhere to the relevant data
protection legislation and register with the local data
protection compliance agency.
Mobile phone users should be able to remove themselves
from the list at any time and access to this removal
process should be immediate and easy to use.
Greatly reduced connection fee and ongoing

monthly rate
Case study
More likely to be able to deliver SMS messages to

international mobile phones
NKI, Bekkestua, Norway, has introduced an in-house

SMS service.
Aggregators normally use standard internet

technologies such as SOAP or HTTP. Mobile
operators normally require telecom specific
protocols such as SMPP 3.4 which are complicated
and expensive to implement.
The setup
A GSM modem terminal in its simplest form is just a
mobile phone that can be connected to a computer.
There are, in fact, a lot of mobile phones on the market
that can do this. However, NKI purchased a specialised
GSM terminal, the Siemens T35i. This sort of terminal
is cheaper than a mobile phone as it does not have a
screen or keyboard. It also has an antenna that can be
placed a good distance (about 5 metres) away from the
terminal. This was a necessity as the terminal was to be
located in an underground server room and the signal
from the GSM network was very weak. Being able to
locate the antenna high up and close to the outer walls
gave a much better signal.
For the purely financial and technical reasons outlined

above it makes a lot of sense to connect directly to an
SMS aggregators SMS gateway.
The following is a typical call flow when sending an
SMS message from a university application to a student.
A university administrator uses the application GUI

to enter an SMS message. The administrator then
selects the distribution list for a particular student
class or can enter a once off mobile number
When the administrator clicks on send message,

the application will build a connection towards the
SMS aggregators SMS gateway.
The SMS gateway will accept the message and

forward it to the mobile operator that the recipient
is with for delivery to their phone.
Some SMS gateways will provide delivery reports

back to the university application when the message
is delivered to the recipient.
16
Connection to the terminal is done via the serial port on

the server. There is a fairly standard set of commands
that are used by GSM terminals. These are a super set of
the original Hayes AT commands for modems. Each
manufacturer can also add custom commands so for
advanced programming the documentation for the
modem may be necessary.
A decision was made to run the server on the LINUX
operating system, but software etc is available for all
major operating systems. LINUX was used as the rest of
the web application stack is on it.

Once the modem is connected up, its time to find
out if it works! The easiest way to do this is by
using a terminal program such as hyper terminal
or Kermit.
With these programs it is possible to send raw code to

the modem and check that every thing is working.
A typical run in Kermit would look something like this.
at+cops?
-- check connection should return service provider

If no service provder check sim code with at+cpin? or use at+cpin=<code>
at+cmgf=1
-- set the modem in text mode
at+cnmi=2,1,0,0,1
--set the modem to listen
at+cmgs=+47xxxxxxx
-- xxx is destination number
at the > type your message end with Ctrl and Z to send
Figure 1: Typical SMS run in Kermit
If all goes well the first message has been sent by the
modem. However, it is not possible to write this sort of
code for each and every message that is sent. Gateway
software is required. There is plenty to choose from. NKI
chose an open source gateway called SMS Server Tools.
SMS Server Tools happens to be available for windows
and flavours of UNIX/LINUX. It requires some set up
work but nothing than an IT professional will struggle
with, in fact its a well-documented setup. Once the
gateway is up and running, SMS messages can be sent
by sending simple text files to the gateway. The text files
contain the text to be sent, along with whom to send the
message to. The gateway also accepts incoming SMS
messages dumping the messages into the file system as a
series of text files.
The text files format is extremely easy to read and to
create with a computer program. NKI used java, as thats
what is used in the rest of the web development.
Conclusion
The whole process of setting up an SMS service is in fact
pretty painless for an IT professional but not something
to be attempted by normal users, then again creating
applications to talk to Clickatel or other online SMS
gateways is not something an average user should
attempt either.
Price wise there is very little difference between the
online SMS providers and running your own gateway.
This is especially true if you are sending a lot of SMS
messages, typically over 100K per year, then it can be
cheaper to get a deal with a local mobile operator.
Another difference is the cost of handling an SMS that
is sent back to the gateway. Online gateways charge for
receiving an SMS; running your own gateway means

there is no charge for receiving an SMS.
The basic function set of an internal SMS gateway is
similar to that of an online gateway but when using your
own gateway it is easier to send things like logos and
ring tones. Having your own gateway will also allow you
to send other advanced content types, basically anything
a phone can send and receive. At the moment most of
the online gateways are offering the ability to send and
receive SMS.
Evaluation
So is having your own modem worth it? The answer as so
often with technology is it depends. If you want a quick
set up with minimum work and maintenance and you are
mainly interested in sending SMS, the online gateways are
your best bet. If you need to receive a lot of SMS
messages or send other forms of content and you have the
staff and infrastructure, then a modem and internal
gateway will offer advantages. In NKIs case we wish to
exploit and experiment with mobile communications and
have the infrastructure and staff that allow us the luxury
of having our own internal gateway
2. Using an SMS service provider
There are numerous SMS service providers in the
market. Well-known providers would include:
Saadian (www.saadian.com)
KAPOW! (www.kapow.co.uk/)
Clickatell (www.clickatell.com)
The use of an SMS service provider will incorporate

these activities:
Create a database, categorising the audience in as

many ways as appropriate
17
Write an application
Create a text message - no more than 160 characters

long
Interrogate the database using a key word
SMPP (Short Message Point to Point Protocol)
Buy a link from a network operator based on the

amount of messages to be sent, the time span for
sending and the cost per message.
SMS gateway providers offer a range of mobile message

distribution and management services. They offer a suite
of messaging services and applications to help
universities and businesses get connected and leverage
the cost savings and efficiencies available through
improved communication.
Services include:
Sending of desktop messages
This is accessible from any internet connected PC, the
service provides a secure web-based account that can be
accessed from anywhere in the world.
Sending of group messages

Group messaging enables one to save time by predefining groups of people that one wants to send
messages to.
This allows alerts and messages to be quickly distributed
to any combination of mobiles, pagers and e-mail.
The system provides the ability to manage recipient lists
through a secure web-account with any changes being
implemented in real-time. The web-account also
provides a message history log including delivery
confirmations.
SMS gateway providers offer a simple, yet powerful and
secure method of generating and distributing messages
to mobile phones.
Most SMS gateway providers use a simple interface for
staff to compose messages similar to the following:
Compose message
To:
A practical interface ensures anyone in the university or

business can have ready access to messaging from the
desktop without specialist knowledge or training.
(insert number/s)
Text: (insert text of message)
User features include:
Sending to any GSM networks (home and abroad)

and sending to any paging network
List
Reset
Send
Sending to e-mail addresses
Receiving immediate confirmation the message has

been accepted
This provides:
Sent message log
Pre-defined message facility for common messages

or templates
Secure messaging from the desktop with no new

software or hardware required.
A feature-rich messaging capability from your

desktop PC.
Figure 2. Template for SMS messaging
Address book facility to select recipients by name
Search facility to compose messages to individuals

meeting a specific criteria
Sending of messages to any combination mobile

phones and email addresses.
Delivery status reporting for SMS messages
Creating and managing group broadcast lists to

combinations of mobile, pager, e-mail
Simple send screen including address book, predefined messages and message character count.
Address book with import and search
Receiving 2-way SMS responses direct to the

desktop
18

Sending of two-way SMS
Sending two-way SMS enables contacts to respond to
text messages via two- way SMS technology.
By providing a simple, effective and low-cost two-way
SMS reply mechanism one can reduce the need for
students or other users to make return telephone calls,
which incur cost and tie-up resources.
Simple the recipient simply replies to the message
Accessible replies are delivered back to the desktop
account from which it was sent
Flexible systems usually provide options to re-direct
the replies to e-mail, mobile, pagers or a secure webbased account.
Logistics
Two funding options
There are two ways in which the use of an SMS service
provider can be accomplished:
1. Major bulk SMS with direct billing per SMS
A very straight forward desktop application is used
to send the SMSs from. One needs to develop an
integration with the main frame to ensure access to
the student database (for mobile phone numbers of
students according to modules and programmes).
2. Sponsored bulk SMS via SMS portal
It is possible to enter into an agreement with a
private provider for sponsorship of SMSs. Within
this contract the institution is entitled to 2,000,000
"free" (sponsored) SMSs each year. These sponsored
SMSs allow the institution to use 80 of the available
160 characters, while the remaining 80 are used by
sponsors for information purposes, for example
(Brown 2005).
A web-based portal with user-friendly front-end is made

available to all academic staff members and selected
administrative departments. The system is also
integrated with the main frame. SMS can be sent in
either of the sponsored or not sponsored categories.
Collecting mobile phone numbers from students
If an institution wishes to use SMS messaging with its
students it will need to collect the students mobile
telephone numbers at the time of registration or reenrolment. These numbers will need to be held in the
institutions database so that mobile messages can be sent
to the whole student body, or to all members of a
faculty, or of a department, or to a class grouping or to
individual students.
Permission in some countries
In certain countries it may be necessary to get the
students permission to send the message. This
permission is best collected when the students mobile
phone numbers are being listed.
References
Brown, T (2005) mLearning: Doing the unthinkable
and reaching the unreachable! Ericsson mobile
learning conference. Dun Laoghaire, 9.9.2005
http://learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2/
the_future_of_mobile.shtml
Keegan, D (2006) The arrival of mobile learning.
ILTA annual conference. Sligo, 25.5.2006
OShea, N (2005) Use of SMS messaging at Institute of
Technology, Tallaght. Institute of Technology
Tallaght, Dublin.
19
PART 2
THE USE OF SMS MESSAGES
IN TEACHING AND LEARNING
21
Chapter 2
SMS Quizzes
Mark Riordan and Joachim Pietsch
This chapter aims to address the topic of quizzes in support of the pedagogical aims of educational courses and in particular
those which are implemented by means of SMS technology. While there may be applications elsewhere in education the main
focus is on university or third-level education. The chapter initially outlines the background to the use of quizzes in education,
it then goes on to look at some examples of quizzes implemented on various courses. Having set the scene for the use of quizzes,
SMS technology is then examined as a technology for implementation and some examples of SMS based Quizzes are examined.
themselves. Increasingly, colleges look to aid

students, particularly, in first year, by providing
supports and intervening if students performance is
slipping. Sometimes measures such as attendance are
used to trigger interventions but quizzes provide an
outputs-focused approach whereby intervention is
related to what the student knows, as opposed to the
crude measure of attendance. In addition, because
they can be frequent and can be used even in the
early weeks of the module, quizzes allow students
with difficulty to be spotted more quickly than with
less frequent larger assessments (Koman 2005, Lian
2003).
The Use of Quizzes in Third Level Education

Quiz based approaches have become popular in
education (particularly university level education) in
recent years. This has been part of a general increase in
the use of technology in education but has been
motivated for a number of very sound reasons:
increasing student engagement traditional talk and

chalk approaches to university teaching often
illustrated with the example of the lecturer talking
down to students and the students obediently
absorbing the masters words are far from the best
practice advocated for university teaching. Instead a
greater level of student engagement in their learning
is to the fore. This has led to many techniques such
as quizzes being used so as to engage students more
in their learning (Catley 2005, Koman 2005, Lian
2003).
tackling plagiarism - time and money pressures on

students along with developments such as the
internet have led to an increasing incidence of
plagiarism being detected at third-level. Hence
lecturers have been keen to validate students work in
plagiarism-prone activities (such as Computer
Programming) against other activities where
plagiarism is less easy e.g. interviews on the content
of an assessment and invigilated continuous
assessments. Quizzes can also have a part to play in
combating plagiarism (Woit and Mason 2000).
monitoring student progress universities now take

more seriously their broader responsibility for
student welfare. In the past university life was often
considered laissez-faire with a students decision to
attend lectures or not entirely a matter for
maintaining student contact particularly with first

year groups, students may have difficulty in making
the transition from the structured world of secondlevel education into the university environment
where more freedom is allowed. This can result in
the drop-out phenomena. While this has been a
feature of university education for many years, it has
become a greater focus for policy makers in recent
years. This has come about for various reasons from
concern over the emotional damage to students,
who may feel a sense of failure even though they left
a course for which they were ill-suited, to concerns
over the fact that universities receive funding to
educate large numbers of students who in reality do
not proceed with the course. Students often respond
well to contact from the university, for instance a
call from a year tutor is often very well received by
students who like the idea that they have contact
with the institution. The requirement to respond to
a quiz may also help in this regard (Traxler and
Riordan 2003).
23
gauging the appropriate pace of presentation class

cohorts differ from year to year and what is the right
pace for one group may be too slow or too fast for
another. Teachers need skills and techniques to
gauge to appropriate pace of material. Several have
used quizzes (Koman 2005, Lian 2003) in order to
get a sense of whether a topic has been grasped
appropriately by a majority of a class. In particular,
given that real-time access to such results is now
possible this can be a highly effective use of quizzes
in education.
coping with massification and reduced resources - the
participation rates of students at third-level have
risen in many countries in recent decades. This has
led to increased class sizes, in many cases at the same
time as resources have often fallen quite markedly.
This leads to difficulties for tutors in dealing with a
large volume of assessments in a timely fashion. This
is particularly crucial as feedback on their work is a
vital learning tool for students. This has led some
educators to deploy techniques such as peer
assessment which uses fellow students to mark each
others assessments. This relies on the principle that
late but high quality assessment is of less formative
value than prompt if imperfect feedback. Others
have tried quizzes in order to achieve the same goal
with promising results (Catley 2005, Koman 2005).
without the stress often associated with cramming

before traditional exams. In addition, he values the
possibilities provided by instant feedback. Using
WebCT functionality, Chapman implemented a quiz as
part of a course on Construction Management in less
than three weeks as a complete beginner. He has, since
this first attempt, implemented quizzes on all the
modules he teaches.
Chapmans approach is to require students to take four
quizzes per module. These can be taken up to three
times each in order to improve ones score. Students
have full access to learning materials while completing
the quizzes. He uses a facility whereby the questions can
be varied a little across the three attempts, so that
students learn method rather than learn off a particular
example.
Catley (2005) provides results of implementing quizzes
in a course on Legal Methods. This was a course where a
large majority (90%) of students passed the subject
either on first or second sitting but the number taking
two sittings to achieve a pass was quite high. He felt this
indicated the fact that the students could (ultimately)
cope with and learn the material but that their
engagement the first time around was not what it could
be.
In addition to the value of quizzes being acknowledged

there are now much greater supports for creating and
assessing quiz results. Virtual Learning Environments
such as WebCT now have sophisticated support for
designing, implementing and assessing quizzes. In some
cases such tools have sophisticated support for analyzing
the results of quizzes also. These systems support the
well-known multiple choice (MCQ) type quizzes but
also other formats such as Multiple Response (MR) and
Matching Type (MT). Chapman (2004) prefers the
latter two forms to MCQs. In particular he cites the
considerable effort associated with developing distractor
answers and the wrong responses for MCQs. More
fundamentally he also feels that it is better that the
students spend their time engaged with the (correct)
course materials rather than dwelling on (incorrect)
distractors.
Catleys approach was to use quizzes so that students

could assess how well they were keeping up with the
course as it progressed. These quizzes were designed so
that students got feedback in addition to an indication
as to whether their answer was correct or not. This
helped students to stay engaged with the course and
avoided the situation where inexperienced students may
feel they are further behind than is actually the case and
then lose heart and possibly stop working. Catley
reported good results in reducing the number of failures
at the first sitting and also improving results overall. In
addition, he notes that in his studies which included
quiz-takers and non quiz-takers (the quizzes were not
compulsory), the quiz-takers were better attenders. He
also points out that this approach is particularly
beneficial in subjects where the knowledge builds
incrementally. This is probably because such subjects are
particularly prone to a students results being damaged
by poor attendance and lack of engagement.
Chapman gives an example of implementing quizzes in

WebCT. He claims that the main benefit of quizzes is to
motivate students engagement with learning resources
Another example is that of Mazur in 1995 as reported

by Koman (2005). Mazur, a professor of Physics, used
automated in-class quizzes every 15 minutes as he
Examples of Quizzes in Education
24
SMS Quizes
presented the class material to his students. His students

had a minute to enter an answer along with a confidence
level via a handheld computer. They then had another
minute to convince their neighbours that they had the
correct answer. After this period they got to make a
revised answer. This process often resulted in up to 40%
more correct answers over the first attempt. Mazur then
displayed the correct answer along with the percentage
who answered correctly. Mazur could then decide to
move on to new material or to spend longer on a topic
which hadnt been fully grasped. In addition to being
able to gauge student learning the process has important
formative aspects.
A similar communication channel has also been
implemented by Scheele et al.(2003) as a support to
lecturing to large classes. The students use handheld PCs
to send responses and answer quizzes during lectures.
The students were enabled to provide anonymous
feedback about the progress and difficulty of the lecture
material which was instantly displayed for the lecturer.
The students had the opportunity to call-in a question
to the lecturer which would appear on the lecturing PC.
Finally, the lecturer could use pre-prepared quizzes
during the lecture to test the knowledge of students
about the subject matter.
These examples illustrate the rich possibilities of quizzes
in education and also the fact that ones initial impression
that they are a superficial approach to learning can miss
some very powerful possibilities. Nonetheless there is the
possibility for more trivial implementations also to take
hold and therefore some caution is warranted. With
regard to the implementation technology and
considering that ownership of handheld PCs is not as
common as that of mobile phones in the student
population, the use of SMS technology to provide a
similar feedback loop is a very feasible proposition. The
next section examines this issue.
Examples of SMS Quizzes in Education

SMS technology has been a huge success over the last 10
years, for instance in January 2006, 3.1 billion text
messages were sent in the UK alone (Text-It 2006).
Further, SMS is particularly well accepted by the age
cohort who make up the bulk of current undergraduate
college classes. This is in part driven by its relative low
cost, its ubiquity and its privacy characteristics e.g. it
allows teenagers in particular to communicate without
parental consent (Davis 2003, Safie 2004). These factors
mean that SMS is the technology which is most widely
accepted by college students and also the

communications technology most readily available to
most college students.
Given the desirability of colleges maintaining contact
with students and the desirability of students
maintaining engagement with their studies, the mobile
phone is often seen as a key technology which can unlock
these issues and ensure that students are well engaged
with their studies. This has led to a number of
implementations, for instance BuzzTXT (2006) provides
exam support in the form of revision and quizzes for the
pupils in Knowsley Education Authority area of the UK.
Pupils subscribe to the revision tips by sending a code to
a number. They can also communicate with tutors and
ask questions about difficult subject areas.
The BBCs Bytesize (2006) offers SMS quizzes for
GCSE revision in Maths, English and Science subjects.
Additional functionality includes WAP-based quizzes
and question banks that are downloaded to the students
phone. Downloadable question banks may be preferable
for learners that want to stay in control of costs as only a
one-time download fee is charged. Such cost
considerations are less of an issue with SMS although
the data transmission possibilities are much reduced.
The Stanford Learning Lab has created a prototype SMS
quiz to aid learning of new vocabulary. The aim of this
project was to provide highly flexible, mobile learning
material that users could access in very short time-spans
ranging from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. The constraints
of the 160 character limit of SMS messages turned out
to be an advantage as it forced the construction of
suitably concise chunks for such short-term learning
opportunities (Stanford University 2005).
The Open University of Malaysia conducted a pilot of
SMS quizzes that had been created by subject matter
experts for three different courses. Post-questionnaire
responses revealed that acceptance and usability of SMS
quizzes was high among the students. 88% of
respondents found that their understanding of the
subject matter had benefited from SMS quizzes, 94%
were able to follow the instructions how to reply to the
SMS correctly and only 24 % of respondents reported
problems with legibility of questions and the small
screen size (Safie 2004).
Lian (2003) reports one example of the use of SMS
quizzes to support large class sizes and to allow for
25
adaptive feedback of material to class sizes. Lian points

out that while quizzes may be implemented using a
number of technologies e.g. dedicated voting equipment,
wireless networks etc., SMS has the clear advantages of
ease of deployment (it is already there in your classroom
by virtue of its ubiquity), stability of service (it is
provided by the established network providers), user
acceptance (in fact users more than accept this
technology, it seems to delight them according to Lian)
and finally there is little capital or maintenance cost.
Lians paper also illustrates that complex problems can be
presented in-class so as to get over the limited screen realestate issues of SMS. SMS is mainly then used as a back
channel to collect the students answers. Should the
choice be made to use SMS for both forward and back
channels, there are a number of technologies and
providers who can aid the server side of the process so
that the administrative overhead of sending bulk SMS
mailings can be handled easily.
The CRITE centre at Trinity College, Dublin (Markett
et al 2004) used SMS messages to allow another way of
interacting between student-student and studentlecturer. This pilot did not use a quiz based approach
but invited the students to contribute questions via SMS
during a lecture. These were received in real-time and
provided a feedback-loop for the lecturers. The lecturer
could then elaborate on areas where students struggled.
Students felt more at ease posing these questions
anonymously. Other SMS messages were sent out
concerning class-room management such as requests for
the lecturer to speak up. Post-questionnaires revealed
that students felt more actively engaged in the learning
process. 50% of respondents felt that the use of SMS
messaging had been affected by the technology in that
they had asked more questions. The sending of
questions via SMS was also used to interrogate peers
during their presentations, as it was seen as less
disruptive (and anonymous) than speaking up.
Therefore, it provided more opportunities for the
students to engage amongst themselves.
In an extension to the pilot the SMS messaging was
integrated with a web-based application that stored SMS
messages and allowed students to discuss each others
responses during and after the class. This type of
application has great potential for peer-assisted learning.
On the negative side, the use of open-ended
conversational questions in SMS messaging imposes a
high cognitive load on the user and diverts attention
26
from the lecture that the student is attending. Secondly

the often mentioned disruptive aspect of mobile
phones also arises. While mobile phone technology can
be used effectively to achieve learning, by its very nature
it also allows students to use it for diversion and
personal communication. From an educational
perspective such outside interference is difficult to
control, yet it diverts the students attention from the act
of learning.
Technology of SMS quizzes.

The distribution of SMS quizzes to students requires the
use of an SMS gateway. These allow the one-to-many
broadcast of bulk SMS messages to mobile phone users.
Such messages can originate from a number of sources
including E-mail and Web-based interfaces. 2-way
messaging is needed when responses are to be collected
as would be the case in most quizzes, unless the
questions are for self-testing or revision. In this
interaction SMS messages are collected for the customer
and retrieved via a web interface, email or harvested for
database integration. Popular services based in the UK
are Xpressms.com (2006) and intellisoftware.co.uk
(2006). These providers make accessible their API which
allows an eLearning developer to integrate the quiz into
the in-house Learning Management System (LMS).
Stand-alone commercial software solutions, such as SMS
studio (Code Segment 2006) enables users to easily
generate, administer and distribute quizzes via SMS.
The mLearning project as reported by Attewell (2005)
has developed a teachers toolkit for the implementation
of SMS based quizzes.
Conclusions
While quizzes have limitations, their value is often
underappreciated, for instance they are often associated
with a rather glib form of assessment based on ill
thought-out multiple choice quizzes. In fact, they can be
quite sophisticated, for instance, with the student being
required to carry out complex calculations offline or to
follow through a complex methodology before entering
an answer in a text box. Of course, in most cases they
should be complemented by other forms of assessment
but they do seem to have a place in the toolkit of the
college lecturer.
There are many examples of quizzes implemented using
a variety of technologies available. Use of SMS in
particular seems to be less frequent. This is probably due
to the fact that most developments to date have been in
the context of desktop based eLearning. Given the
SMS Quizes
positive characteristics of SMS with respect to ubiquity,

cost, reliability and user acceptance this is likely to
change.
There are of course some drawbacks, of these, the most
obvious is the limitation of screen real-estate which
may mean that many educational tasks which can work
in an eLearning context will not port straightforwardly
to an mLearning situation. Quizzes have the potential to
avoid this difficulty, in the main, because the dialogue
with the user is often chunked into relatively short
sentences which can be easily read on a mobile device
and also the answers tend to be terse e.g. selecting a
preferred option or entering minimal text. These factors
should result in increased deployment of SMS-based
quizzes in the coming period.
References
Woit, D. and Mason, D. (2000) Enhancing Students
learning through On-line Quizzes. Proceedings of
SIGCSE 2000.
Chapman N. (2004) Various Ways of Using Online
Testing in a Virtual Learning Environment. The
Brookes eJournal of Learning and Teaching, 1(1), June
2004.
Catley, P. (2005) One Lecturers Experience of Blending
ELearning with Traditional Teaching. The Brookes
eJournal of Learning and Teaching, 1(2), Jan 2005.
Koman, K. (2005) Newton, One-on-One. Harvard
Journal, Summer 1995.
Lian, Y. (2003) Adaptive Teaching for Large Classes.
Proceedings of the International Conference on
Engineering Education, Valencia, July 2003.
Traxler, J. and Riordan, B. (2003) Evaluating the
Effectiveness of Retention Strategies using SMS,
WAP and WWW Student Support. 4th annual
LTSN-ICS Conference, Galway 2003.
XpresSMS (2006) http://www.xpressms.com/
Text-It (2006)
http://www.text.it/mediacentre/sms_figures.cfm
BuzzTXT (2006)
http://www.interactivesolutions.co.uk/portfolio/
buzztxt.htm
Stanford University (2005)
http://sll.stanford.edu/projects/tomprof/
newtomprof/postings/289.html
BBC Bitesize (2006)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/
Scheele, N. et al (2003) The Interactive Lecture A new
Teaching Paradigm based on Ubiquituous
Computing. Praktische Informatik IV, University of
Mannheim
Davis, S. (2003) Observations in classrooms using a
network of handheld devices. Journal of Computer
Assisted Learning, 19.
Safie, N. (2004) The use of Short Messaging System
(SMS) as a supplementary learning tool in Open
University Malaysia (OUM). Proceedings of the 18th
Annual Conference Association of Asian Open
Universities (AAOU) Shanghai, China November
2004
Markett, C. et al (2004) Pls Turn ur Mobile on: Short
Message Service (SMS) Supporting Interactivity in
the Classroom. Proceedings of IADIS Conference on
Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age.
IADIS:Lisbon.
Harper, R. (2003) People Versus Information: the
evolution of mobile technology. MobileHCI 2003,
Udine, Italy.
CodeSegment(2006) http://www.codesegment.com/
Attewell, J. (2005) From Research and Development to
Mobile Learning: Tools for Education and
Training Providers and their Learners. Proceedings
of mLearn 2005, Cape Town South Africa,
http://www.mlearn.org.za/CD/papers/Attewell.pdf.
IntelliSoftware (2006)http://www.intellisoftware.co.uk
27
Chapter 3
Voice message to students who dial a certain number
Renaud Ferly
Mobile users carry their device continually and it is now obvious to everyone that this tool can provide immediate access to
other people. Progressively, the mobile user is broadening his or her use of the device to access information or services with the
same benefits: no delay, immediate answer.
Mainstream education institutions can now provide information services accessible by mobile users and thus meet the
expectations of their students of immediate access to information or services.
This chapter focuses on voice only applications and helps in the setting up such solutions by giving an overview of the key
concepts underlying modern voice services.
Setting up a simple voice enabled solution

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
IVR designates the first generation of systems that allow
telephone input (either touch tones or voice input) and
automatic delivery of pre-recorded voice message.
DTMF
Dual Tone Multifrequency (Touch tones) provides an
input protocol based on tones generated by the
telephone key pad. It is generally used on older IVR
systems (e.g. if you want topress 1).
Figure 1. Interactive Voice Response
Setting up an advanced voice solution

Advanced Voice solutions are based on speech
recognition technologies. They benefit from both
emerging standards and the growing quality of voice
solutions.
28
Voice Portal
The Voice portal (or voice gateway) is the user interface
of the Interactive Voice Response system. It is
responsible for handling the input and delivering the
output to the caller. It works in interaction with a back
end application that can process operations, connect to
Voice message to students

who dial a certain number
databases, and deliver information to the caller. The two
components Voice portal and backend application
form a new generation of voice enabled systems.
Backend application
The backend application is responsible for executing the
processing; it generally retrieves and stores information
in a database. Backend applications are often legacy web
based ones that are enhanced with a voice interface.
Speech Recognition
Speech Recognition software can analyze an audio signal
given to it (the caller speech), compare it to a speech
items database and translate into text items that can be

processed by an application.
Voice XML
Voice XML an extension of XML, standardized by the
W3C. It is an XML based scripting language allowing
interaction between a voice portal and the backend
application.
Text to Speech
Text to speech software generates voice content from
text input. Compared to speech recognition, it executes
the inverse operation.
Figure 2. Text to speech software
Benefits of using a voice portal in an

education institution
Opens the institution through a 24/7 access which

can be profitable to different kinds of students
Gives access to online services without using a

computer, therefore very valuable for
mobile/wireless students.
Allows the automation of basic and repetitive

assistance tasks, information providing and,
therefore, is a good way to help refocus the
administrative or education staff to higher value
tasks.
Most big organisations (banking companies,

telephone operators, television companies, job
services) offer voice portals to their users; it is then
important that the education institution can provide
the same level of service to students.
Target users
Students are the main target and it is interesting to note
that allowing access to voice services via mobiles will be
of benefit not only to students that are on the campus
but to those who spend little or no time on the campus
(distance learning students, parttime students, evening
students).
The organisation staff (teachers and employees) are also
users of the system since some services are dedicated to
provide interaction between students and teachers or
administration.
Potential students are also an important target: some
services can be targeted to people looking for a
university and that need to have immediate and always
available information services on registration fees,
orientation information and so on.
29
What is the link with mobile learning?

Enhanced possibilities for mobile student
The voice portal is independent of the phone network
used; it can be a cellular network, a switched phone
network, or even voice over IP telephony.
By studying the impact of mobile technologies on
mainstream education, we already mentioned the
fact that students are more and more connected
through their mobile phones and devices. Therefore,
providing them with voice enabled services will meet
their expectations by allowing them to interact more
closely and efficiently with the institution from any
location.
Using a mobile phone to get access to content
Retrieving a database content: the FAQ example.
A voice portal can be set up to give access to content
which is another link to mobile learning.
A good example to use here is the FAQ database because
it is typically the type of content that would benefit
from being accessed by voice:
Some questions are frequently asked, for

example inquiries by phone to administrative
staff can represent an important workload
especially in certain time periods (registrations,
exams).
Even if FAQs can be huge, they are generally
organised as medium sized content items and thus
delivering them vocally will not decrease their value
or prevent the student from memorizing parts of
them.
It is rather easy for a speech recognition system to
take the question input and link it to the
appropriate answer.
The design of the system will be exactly the same; the

difference will be on the back end application that will
be a FAQ repository instead of an administrative
application.
It is important to note that the FAQ can deal with
administrative matters as well as learning materials. Thus
deploying a voice enabled system in an education
institution can cover both administrative interaction and
education purposes of the institution with the same
platform.
30
Using voice browsers

Voice browsers are generally considered as solutions that
help disabled people to browse internet web sites.
It is interesting to note that these technologies can also
benefit a broader set of students since a voice browser
could be connected to a voice portal and thus allow a
mobile student to navigate some items of a web site
without having to watch a screen or use a keyboard. An
immediate application is to give access through a phone
number to information delivered on the intranet web
sites of the institution. Clearly, to be voice browsed, the
web content must follow accessibility rules which should
be the case, at least for disabled users.
Voice systems best practices

The design of the voice user interface
The user interface is the key element that will help or
hinder the interaction of the student with the system.
Building a good user interface will therefore have a
positive impact on :
Time : the design focuses on reducing time needed

to perform the more frequent operations
Satisfaction
Costs: reduces telecommunications costs,

and encourages the student to use an automated
voice service rather than call the administrative
staff.
Best practices are widely available and deal with
Organisation of menus (length and order

of items)
Access to help system
Access to human operator
Simplicity of vocabulary
Length of speech items
Memorization considerations
Error handling
How to avoid unnecessary items or content
Choosing the voice characteristics (accent,

languages, male vs. female)
Use accessibility rules for web sites
Voice message to students

who dial a certain number
Conclusion
Among the different types of user interaction that can be
se up on mobile and wireless technologies, voice
applications are especially valuable for a mobile user
because they need limited user interaction and therefore
their use is very straightforward:
They do not need full text input like email or SMS

messaging
The output is delivered without screen reading.
Although this is not dedicated to mobile usage, it is very

valuable for mobile students because the limited need
for user interaction allows an everywhere and hands free
usage (while driving, in public transportation, while
studying in a library).
31
Chapter 4
SMS question answer system
Gabor Kismihok
SMS messages have had great impact on academic support of learning activities. In this chapter a summary is given on the use
of SMS question & answer systems, detailing the benefits for students and for tutors. At the end of the chapter examples are
given of successful implementations.
Introduction
Autonomy in learning
People participating in distance education nowadays
need support in developing skills for individual learning,
which include the following challenges:
Text messages in the academic sector

In the academic sector, text messages are used for two
main purposes:
Administrative issues, regarding the study

programme, which include:
Considering and identifying learning needs and

strategies of students;
General information about the administrative tasks

to complete
Providing support during the learning process,

which is based on individuals learning strategies;
Grade information about exams, assignments, etc.
Continuous feedback and evaluation of the

performance of students;
Financial information about the academic fees and

scholarships
Re-think or re-organise the learning strategy, based

on feedback.
Registration to courses
Academic activities, such as:
Utilization of the communication flow between the

students and the teacher with the help of SMS,
MMS, and Interactive Voice Response IVR
systems (e.g. Q&A session)
Assessment using multiple choice questions and

quizzes
Giving feedback about the deliverables of the course
Instructions about the teaching material, learning

hints and strategies.
To handle these challenges and provide support for

students, a continuous tutoring, monitoring and
assessing activity is essential. The usage of mobile
messaging can support this communication because of
the following reasons:
Easy to use communication channel, as almost all

the students have a mobile phone
Efficient, as the number of undelivered messages in

case of a well maintained phone-number database is
relatively low (compared to conventional official
letters)
Cheap way to reach students, as the cost of a

message is far less than postal costs
Synchronous feedback is possible
Lecturers can have a clear view of the most

important difficulties of students
Fast reorganisation of the learning content, based on

students needs
32
SMS Q&A system

According to Brown (2005), we can talk about an SMS
question-answer system, when students ask questions
via SMS regarding a given pre-selected topic and they
are then answered automatically by the system via a
comprehensive programmed matching system [text
database].
SMS message
Purpose
Result
Dear student: SMS your questions

(1 question per 1 SMS) on the
topic: ECO-SYSTEMIC
APPROACHES to: 0825558888
To provide students the opportunity

to clarify issues and questions
without the high cost of a lengthy
telephone call; to provide
asynchronous learning support; and
to lessen the impact on the call
centre or the facultys telephone
tutoring.
An enhancement of achieving the

desired learning outcomes.
Other successes have not yet been
determined. This needs further
research.
Table 1. An example for a Q&A SMS (Brown, 2005)
Pedagogical considerations
Research, conducted by the Trinity College, Dublin
(Market et al., 2004), shows the importance of
interactive messaging cycles in course communication.
These communication loops, which exist between tutors
and students and also between the students only, help
the participants to explore and understand the
curriculum better. This research identified three guiding
principles:
The interactive loop originates and concludes with

the student
Interactivity can occur irrespective of technology:

involving technology in all, some or none of the
interaction stages
The originating student owns the interaction,

determining if the loop is completed
ICT interfaces are to collect systematically the needs of

the students in given topics.
According to Figure 1, interactions start and conclude
with Student A (Student A can also be a specific group
of students). All these communication loops have two
halves: an initiation (1a and 1b) and a response (2).
Both halves can be supported by ICT, but it is not a
necessity, it always depends on the form of learning
activities. In Message Loop A for example, the response
is not mediated by ICT, which means that the lecturer
has a face to face meeting with the students, where all
the questions are collected by this SMS Q&A system,
but the answers are provided without the help of ICT. In
Message Loop B and C the lecturers (B) and the two
students (C) after-class communication are mediated by
ICT (it is possible to give both synchronous and
asynchronous feedback).
The following figure indicates the various interactive

loops between the course participants. The roles of the
Lecturer
Lecturer
1b
2a
Student B
1b
1b
ICT
Interface
ICT
Interface
ICT
Interface
ICT
Interface
2b
1a
1a
Student A
In-Class
2a
Student A
After Class
ICT
Interface
2b
1a
Student A
After Class
Figure 1. Interactive loops between course participants (Market et al., 2004)
33
This feature can support learning activities of various

student groups, especially the ones, who participate in a
distance learning programme. Depending on the tutor,
this type of SMS communication can be established
between the teacher and:
specific groups of students extracted from the database for specific academic support;
small groups or individuals to support better

understanding.
all students;
students of a specific programme;
The benefits for participants of the communication flow

are detailed below.
Factor
Impact
Advanced accessibility
Both the students and the tutors are accessible through mobile devices, which are
not dependant on time and place.
Feedback
An assessment of the learning content can be based on the student questions and
responses. The weak points and unclear details of lecture notes can be pinpointed.
This can provide important input for a course content reorganisation and also a
good basis for consultation preparation.
Didactic efficiency
The answers based on the questions can be provided in many different ways:
virtual course space detailed background information
IVR explanation of important logical relations
SMS facts
This multi-channel approach helps students not only reading the answers, but also
helps to memorize them, as they get information in various ways.
Student counselling and

learning strategy
The received amount of questions help the tutors to develop personalized counseling
plans for each student, based on the claimed missing or unclear knowledge. This can
modify the predefined learning strategy as well.
Costs
The establishment and maintenance of an SMS Q&A system is much cheaper than
regular post-based Distance Education. In combination with the existing eLearning
implementations this mLearning subsystem costs 20 times less, than ordinary
systems. (Brown, 2005)
Table 2. Benefits for participants
Passing learning content to students or answering their

questions are challenges for the tutor. An interactive text
message based communication system, which is
connected to several other eLearning applications as
well, can support this activity quite efficiently.
The tutor side communication may combine mobile,
voice and text based components as well:
3. MMS, which may also include explanatory images,

with longer text. With this technology, we can also
provide smaller lessons, summaries to the students.
4. Interactive Voice Response In this case the student
receives an SMS with a phone number. After calling
this number, a pre-recorded answer for the question
can be heard.
1. A website, where students can find the detailed

answer to their questions, which were sent to the
tutor;
To make a complete solution, these applications can be

integrated with other mLearning and eLearning
environments:
2. Bulk SMS / individual SMS can be sent to the

student, however the 160 character limit can be very
challenging, when a clearly understandable message
must be formatted;
34
SMS-portal integrated with the LMS/LCMS (e.g.

WebCT). This is a built-in message interface, which
allow the users to send messages to other users
mobile phones.
Mobile blogging (moblogging) this application

allows the user to post a blog from mobile phones
M-assessment (e-assessment on mobile devices).

These tools are capable of assessing and evaluating
the performance of students. It is also possible to
measure and evaluate courses.
Mobile technology combined with collaborative

learning applications (e.g. discussion groups)
enhances the quality of teamwork within student
groups.
Examples and Case Studies

Learning Technologies Research Group, Kingston
University, United Kingdom
It is important to know how successful a mobile
communication channel towards the students can be.
Would they use this form of interaction or deny it
completely? In the research of the Learning Technologies
Research Group at Kingston University researchers
involved 1000 students in an SMS communication
research project, which aimed to investigate the key
success factors and constraints of this technology (Stone
et al. 2002).
The results justified that mobile users are ready to
receive and send information through this channel. It
was also demonstrated that it was possible to take
mobile phone users on a complex journey; i.e. where a
series of interactive SMS exchanges may be required to
achieve completion of a task or goal. However the

facilitators of the messages (e.g. university staff ) should
consider the fact that students think about mobile
communication as a personal interaction and not as data
communication between two electronic devices. It is
advisable to keep the human tone of the messages, as
students take them more seriously than some codes,
generated by a computer.
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
To facilitate interactions in the Trinity case among class
members and in tutorstudent relations, an SMS
Gateway was connected to the internal network of the
service hosting institution in order to handle the
outgoing and incoming messages. The software solution
of the Trinity pilot came from MediaLab Europe (MLE)
and operates with a Nokia Card Phone 1.0 interface
(Market et al., 2004).
The receiving procedure is the following:
1. Students send their SMS-questions to a previously
indicated phone number;
2. The phone number is assigned to a tutor and his
laptop, which is capable of receiving the student
messages directly;
3. The messages are captured by the MLE software and
4. Written into an Excel spreadsheet.
Figure 2. Receiving a message at Trinity College (Market et al., 2004)

With this system, the lecturers at Trinity College
could collect student questions and reflections
during classes in the form of text messages, which
enabled them to modify the structure of the
presentation to provide a deeper explanation about
the unclear points.
University of Pretoria, South Africa

The University of Pretoria has started deploying SMS
based mLearning services in 2002. After the successful
administrative pilot testing the University also started to
develop SMS features for academic functions in 2003.
1725 students of 3 different academic programmes used
the system. After the first successful pilots, a university35
wide task force has been established for implementing

this new technology and an mLearning Management
System has been introduced.
The task force created the framework of the universitywide system, which includes:
the range of functions which should be

implemented as mLearning services (both academic
and administrative)
the general conditions about the usage of mobile

devices for learning (including the SMS)
accurate and correct information providing towards

the users
The task force decided to introduce the following SMS

related services:
bulk SMS and IVR for communicating with the

students
SMS assessment tools (MCQs and Quizzes)
The students accepted and adopted this new

technology quite fast. A great number of learners
responded immediately to the messages from the
university. The cost of the communication has
decreased. Using ordinary methods to reach the students
would have cost 20 times more than bulk messages
(Brown, 2005). The South African experts agree on the
idea that mLearning should be a supporting channel
(not a stand alone solution) of the communication
between the various stakeholders during the learning
process.
Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
In the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
a pilot project has been running for testing students
usage of SMS Q&A. The participants are enrolled
in Electronic transactions and security, a second
year paper of the Bachelor of Business programme.
The online platform used is AUTOnline
a BlackBoard-based environment. The researchers want
to find answers for the following questions (Petrova
2005):
Learners value the pro-active anytime, anyplace

approach which fits in with their life-styles
Learners value the instant feedback, which helps

them to achieve the learning outcomes
Ownership of a higher-quality device will influence

adoption positively.
36
Although the research is not reported to be finished yet,

there are some challenges, which may be worth
mentioning:
Limitations such as text length;
Lack of graphical user interface (SMS);
Establishing interface towards the existing eLearning

tools is important (e.g. LMS).
University of Wolverhampton, United Kingdom

At the University of Wolverhampton several research
projects have been done on mobile learning. One of
the activities was creating, using and evaluating
blended learning activities, which were supported by
mobile text messages, WAP applications and VLEs
(Riordan, Traxler 2003). Text messaging was used to
support problematic students having difficulties in
preparing and passing exams. Without a support they
might have had to be dismissed from their academic
programme. Messages were tailored to each student,
reflecting the learning content in the VLE and WAP
environments. They were also urged to appear in faceto-face consultations, when it was necessary. The
following type of messages were sent out to the students
(Traxler and Riordan 2003):
General reminders about coursework deadlines
Individual feedback on coursework
Revision tips, which were related to teaching

materials.
Individual administrative issues, like fixing

appointments with tutors
Urgent administrative issues, like changing lecture

location
This pilot project was considered to be successful

regarding the acceptance and usability of SMS
messaging in Higher Education. Students got used to
receiving academic text messages on their mobile device,
which was more popular during the test than receiving
and reading e-mails from the university.
University of Sydney, Australia
In 2004 an SMS messaging system for facilitating
classroom experiments was introduced at the School of
Economics and Political Science (Cheung 2004). The
system was used during classroom activities when data
had to be collected from students, about special
microeconomical game-exercises.
Students had to send their responses to a mobile

number. The SMS server collected all the incoming
messages and a background application converted all
data into an excel spreadsheet. This spreadsheet was
already available and usable for demonstration purposes
during the lecture. A personalised evaluation and a
feedback on this basis were sent out to the students
mobile devices.
Language Learning approaches
There are several remarkable approaches in the
world, which use text messaging as a tool in
teaching foreign languages. BBC Worlds Language
Service and BBC Wales offer an SMS service for
their subscribers (Chinnery, 2006). These messages
include grammar and vocabulary revisions. At the Kinjo
Gakuin University, Japan, Thornton and Houser also
made successful experiments in English teaching

(Thornton, Houser 2005). In Japan text messages are a
bit more advanced than in Europe. SMS messages are
substituted by mobile e-mails, which allow the users to
send more than 160 characters in a message, however
the size of the messages doesnt reach the length of a
normal e-mail. The mobile vocabulary courses included
3 messages per day (see an example on figure 3.) for two
weeks.
The mobile e-mail course was quite successful and
efficient. Japanese student who got these messages
performed significantly better on course tests, than
students who received regular e-mails. The study also
suggests that the effect of regular study encouraged by
(mobile) e-mail is more important than the details of the
lessons
Figure 3 Example of vocabulary teaching message (Thorton, Houser, 2005, p. 222)

Despite mobile e-mailing not being a commonly
used service in Europe it is possible to send and
receive longer text messages than an SMS in Europe
as well. MMS messages are very similar to SMS
messages. They are easy to transfer, fast, but the
information content is more advanced. In an MMS
message it is possible to send not only text, which
is longer than 160 characters, but also pictures,
images, which may also help the student to understand
and learn from the content. The disadvantage of the
higher MMS price is vanishing with the continuous
spreading of the 3G mobile networks, which may make
this approach beneficial for both students and
institutions.
Conclusion
As a conclusion, some key points must be summarised
regarding academic communication between the
students and the teacher, using mobile devices.
mLearning should not be a stand alone function

when it comes to communication between the tutor
and the students.
mlearning is enabling fast and cost effective student

access.
SMS and MMS technologies are cheap and

accessible for almost every participant of our society.
(The mobile penetration rates are quite high
everywhere around the world).
37
SMS Q&A despite its limitations is a tool that

works well. On one hand it can indicate student
difficulties about teaching materials, on the other
hand its capable of providing beneficial feedback for
students.
According to pilot projects, which have been conducted

in this field, the quality of the learning experience
improves with the usage of this technology. Using
mobile devices is fun for students and for tutors as well!
References
Brown, T. (2005) M-Learning today. Pretoria:
University of Pretoria
Cheung, S.L. (2004) Fun and games with mobile
phones: SMS messaging in microeconomics
experiments. In Atkinson, R., McBeath, C., JonasDwyer, D. and R. Phillips, R. (Eds), Beyond the
comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE
Conference Perth, 5-8 December 2004, pp. 180183). http://www.ascilite.org.au/
conferences/perth04/procs/cheung.html
Chinnery, G. (2006) Emerging Technologies. Going to
the MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning.
Language Learning & Technology January, 2006,
Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 9-16,
http://llt.msu.edu/vol10num1/emerging/
Markett, C., Sanchez, I., Weber, S and Tangney B.
(2004) Pls Turn Ur Mobile On: Short Message
38
Service (SMS). Proceedings of Supporting

Interactivity in the Classroom conference, Trinity
College Dublin
Materials of the project Mobile Learning: The Next
Generation Of Learning (2003-2005) Leonardo Da
Vinci Programme of the European Commission.
Petrova, K. (2005) Mobile Learning Using SMS: A
Mobile Business Application. Auckland: Auckland
University of Technology
Riordan, B. and Traxler, J. (2003) Supporting
Computing Students at Risk Using Blended
Technologies. Proceedings of the 4th Annual LTNSICS Conference, NUI Galway, pp. 174-175
Stone, A. Briggs, J. and Smith C. (2002) SMS and
Interactivity Some Results from the Field, and its
Implications on Effective Uses of Mobile
Technologies in Education. Proceedings of IEEE
International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile
Technologies in Education, p. 147
Traxler, J. and Riordan, B. (2003) Evaluating the
effectiveness of retention strategies Using SMS,
WAP, and WWW Student Support. Proceedings of
the 4th Annual LTNS-ICS Conference, NUI Galway,
pp. 54-58
Thorton P. and Houser C. (2005) - Using mobile
phones in English education in Japan Journal of
Computer Assisted Learning 21, pp 217228
Chapter 5
Renaud Ferly
Being able to improve the support or the assistance provided to students in each and every moment of their studying activities is
a major issue for mainstream education.
To take a French example, only 59% of students who start studies in the university will be able to achieve them, which is a
worse result than in most European countries (Herbillion 2004).
A previous mLearning project showed in a report that 77% of a student population estimated that using a mobile is an easy
way to provide communication to and from the tutor (Ericsson 2004).
In this chapter we take one of the features offered by mobile devices (SMS messaging) to examine how SMSs can help in
delivering advice to students doing a university or school assignment.
Defining the basic requirements of the

system
The institution must start by considering the important
issues that one has to address in order to design and
build an SMS based assignment advice system.
The features needed to fulfil the educational goals
obviously depend on the specificities of the pedagogical
context involved: the characteristics of a particular
educational context in a particular institution will lead
to a specific set of features (based on the type of
students, the field studied, the learning goals of each
assignment, the difficulties faced by students).
Nevertheless, it is possible to refine the global
requirements by considering some common issues.
Will the assignment advice be broadcast or given through a
bidirectional channel ?
The assignment advice can be given mainly through two
communication models:
A broadcasting model: the advice is sent to the

student or to a group of students by the advice
provider. In this case, there is no solicitation before
the advice is sent.
A query/answer model: during the first step, the
student requests advice from the advice provider;
after analyzing the request, the advice provider sends
the appropriate advice to the student.
Will the advice be delivered automatically or by human

operation?
In a human operated system a human instructor is in
charge of searching, elaborating, and writing the
appropriate advice. There is no difficulty in relating the
student working context to the appropriate advice since
the instructor holds the whole intelligence of the system.
An automated system will be able to examine data that
is given to it (for example: a student question, a list of
completed assignment steps, an assignment result) find
the appropriate answer and then send it back to the
student. The difficulty here will be to design processes
that can be automated, and build them on top of a more
complex software architecture: the Return on
Investment for such a system must be carefully
estimated.
What advice content will the system be based on?
There could be no content at all, and in this case it is
necessary to let the instructor evaluate each advice
request and elaborate the advice; or it can be based on a
course or set of courses that the assignment refers to.
The first step will be to evaluate the advice material that
is available and then decide how to use it with the
different solutions possible:
Structure and build an advice repository
Integrate the advice content into a Learning

Management System
39
Build a links database pointing to external

heterogeneous advice sources (Web sites, online
courseware, online papers)
Let the instructor handle the advice himself or

herself.
The functional components

The request making component
This component allows a student to make a request
concerning the work that was assigned.
The advice delivering component
After taking note of the problems the student is facing,
the system or the instructor will choose the appropriate
advice among all possible answers, or elaborate it.
The advice sending component
This part of the system will route advices to the student
mobile devices.
A natural language based system is obviously easier to

use especially for students, but it is also technically more
difficult to build if the goal is to have a system delivering
advice automatically.
Using a codified language
The student sends an SMS containing codified data
(control keyword) that can be decoded by the advice
providing system. This type of system is frequently used
by SMS service providers that allow a user to interact
with the system by using control keywords (get XXX
stock price).
One important recommendation is to make sure that
this request language will not hinder students to ask for
advice.
Keep it simple: it must be easily memorised by

students
Make sure it is reusable: once the student has

memorised the keywords necessary to request advice,
it is desirable that they could use them again while
requesting support for another assignment.
Therefore, this feature should not be used for a
specific assignment but rather for a type of
assignment or for a process suitable to different
assignments (a methodological process for example).
Taking note of the advice

Using the appropriate device, the student takes note of
the advice and uses it to enhance the learning experience
and achieve the assignment.
The request making component

This component is useful only when the institution
assignment advice system uses a bi directional
communication model (see basics issues mentioned
earlier), that is a system that allows a student to request
advice, before sending back the appropriate answer.
Although we are focusing on SMS, the means used by
the student could also be voice telephone, email, or a
Web based system.
40
Assignment status analysis

The assignment status consists of data provided to the
system. This data allows the system to evaluate the
current advancement of the assignment and relate this
status to the appropriate advice useful to complete the
assignment.
This data can take various forms:
If it is not possible or difficult to figure out a logical

representation of the assignment and the advice
related (for example a literary work). In this case the
student must explain in natural language the
difficulties faced.
A natural language item: in the case where students

are allowed to send the request in natural language.
In an instructor operated system, the analysis is
done by the instructor; while to allow automatic
analysis the use of natural language enabled software
will be necessary.
If the system is not automated : since an instructor

will take note of the request, using natural language
is easier for both parties.
An expression composed of control key word and

data : a specific program can be set up to decode the
expression and evaluate the status of the assignment
for the student
External data conditioning the advice : if the

instructor built the assignment as a process that
should be achieved in a specific time frame he or she
Using natural language

The student just sends by SMS his question to the
assignment advice system; such a system will be
appropriate:
The advice delivering component
could identify milestones and send periodically a

warning message to the students indicating which
milestone they should have reached and provide
them with advice if they did not reach it. This kind
of SMS advice broadcasting is very similar to certain
SMS campaign used in email marketing (some
companies used SMS for motivation campaigns for
people who try to stop smoking for example). Other
external data can also be extracted out of an
information system (lets imagine for example a
multiple choice question answered online by
studentswith the results stored in a database). The
advice providing system could connect to the
database check the non answered questions for a
student, then select and send the appropriate advice
to help the student.
Searching the repository to match the appropriate advice
In the case of a limited and known set of advices it is
much easier to design the system that will implement an
a priori matching.
1st step: the assignment is designed, structured and

when elaborating the assignment, the instructor
connects each part or step or result of the
assignment to the appropriate clues, or suggestions
he or she wants to give the student at each step.
2nd step: the student sends information about his or
her advancement and request advice; the system
evaluates the status of the student and sends the
corresponding advice already linked to that step and
status.
If such a mechanism is not applicable, then the

matching has to be done a posteriori
1st step : the student sends information about his or

her advancement and requests advice
2nd step the system evaluate the status of the

student in the assignment
3rd step: this information is used to make a link to

an appropriate advice repository.
Formatting the advice to allow use of SMS

The most important characteristics of SMS are:
It is a text only technology; of course we can also

consider using MMS, but in this chapter we limit
the study to SMS since it is more generally available
which is a major criterion for mainstream
deployment.
The text structure is limited to approximately 160

characters, again it is possible to split a longer
message into multiple SMSs, but since this presumes
the mobile device has specific features, we do not
consider this possibility here.
So the important issue for the advice providing

component is to make sure that all the available advice
content is "SMS friendly" that is:
Each advice is a text only information
Each advice can fit into 160 characters
If the advice content is SMS compatible, then there will

be no need to work on format issues, because when the
advice is found, it will be included in a file and directly
routed by the SMS gateway to the student mobile.
To overcome the problems of textual advices that can
not be restricted to 160 characters or advices that mix
different information formats (text audio, graphics,
video) the system must use a multichannel strategy.
The SMS channel is used to send access information to
another channel. This second channel is in charge of
delivering the advice to the student. Even in this case the
advantages of using SMS remain: it can reach the
student directly; it is wireless; it is more valuable
especially for the population of teenagers and young
adults.
Sending the advice information

Mobile devices offer different communication channels,
and therefore the system can benefit from each one and
even a mix of different channels.
Sending the advice by SMS
The advice is embedded in the SMS and sent directly to
the student
Sending the advice by SMS and voice
The SMS carries a phone number to access information.
Sending the advice by SMS and data
The SMS carries a URL to an advice resource accessible
online.
Retrieving the advice

SMS message on mobile device
The student uses the SMS reading feature of the device,
and can directly use the advice included in the message.
41
This is the more immediate and simple use of an SMS

based assignment advice system providing it can accept
the already mentioned technical restrictions.
Voice Phone
The student uses the phone number provided in the
SMS message and connects to an IVR system. The
access code allows the voice systems to make the link to
the previous requests made by the student and to the
appropriate advice found by the system.
a specific software solution.

Web site (from computer)
The student connects to the internet with a desktop or
laptop computer and activates the link provided in the
SMS message.
This channel will especially be interesting when the use
of a mobile device is not comfortable enough to take
note of the advice. For example if it consists in a very
important amount of text content, or if it mixes text,
complex graphics, video
This is restricted to
Short or medium length content: the advice should

be memorised by the student at first hearing without
having to listen again. If the advice is too long or
contains complex information (mathematic
formulas for example) that needs multiple readings
or hearings before being fully understood then
another channel is probably more appropriate.
Audio or Text content : It is interesting to note that
even if the advice is text only (has not be converted
to audio) the recent advances in text to speech
solutions allow one to convert on the fly a text
content via audio with a very good level of quality.
Wap site
The student connects to the internet with a mobile
device and activates the link provided in the SMS
message. This channel is suitable for content with
medium sized text and light use of graphics and
multimedia.
When using this solution, one has to be careful since a
WML content can display differently depending of the
mobile devices used. To secure the reading and make the
content accessible on the majority of devices, a
formatting work has to be done that can be delegated to
42
The main drawback is that the process is asynchronous

since the student has to connect to a computer with a
standard screen to user interface (screen, keyboard) in
order to retrieve the advice.
Offline device
Obviously, the SMS instead of offering advice can
redirect the student to offline content, for example a
bibliographic element or paper courseware.
Conclusion
Define precisely the educational goals of the system
Design processes and features that can broaden the

usage of the system among students and teachers
Estimate the cost of the technical solution and

validate its benefits
Build a prototype to test and validate the concept
Benefit from the multichanneling possibilities of

wireless and mobile devices
The following graphic synthesizes how the usage of

multichannel relates to the different types of advice sent
to students.

Figure 1. Usage of multichannel related to advice sent to students
References
Herbillion, M. (2004) Rapport dinformation sur
lenseignement suprieur en Europe. Paris :Assemble
nationale
Ericsson (2004) Report on the use of mobile learning for

training. Leonardo Da Vinci project: From elearning to m-learning.
43
Chapter 6
Desmond Keegan
The value of SMS (Short Messaging System) for academic tutoring is described and underlined. Examples of successful use are
given. The use of SMS in face-to-face lecture halls in Classroom Response Systems (CRS) is detailed.
The use of SMS messaging for the tutoring of desired

learning outcomes is well established as a form of
academic support in mobile learning.
The context for the use of SMS messaging by a lecturer

could be to provide academic support for a course
assignment that the lecturer knows has caused problems
to students in previous years.
There are many examples of its use. These include:
To provide a study tip for a difficult assignment

question that normally gets answered incorrectly by
students
To prepare distance education students for contact

sessions
To provide a hint for a project or a follow-up

assignment
To provide a course summary
To provide revision notes prior ro an examination
To highlight pages or passages in the Study guide

that need special consideration
To provide students with a list of study aims and

objectives
To provide additional material or clarification for a

particularly difficult part of a course.
The desired outcome of this tutoring by SMS is:
An increase in the quality of assignment answers
An increase in the quality of contact session

interaction for distance education students
An increase in learning motivation
An enhancement of learning with deeper

understanding of certain key concepts
More focus in examination preparation
More assistance with difficult parts of a course that

have caused problems to students in previous years
A better overview of course content, aims and

objectives.
44
SMS messages can be used in distance education that

use face-to-face sessions from time to time, to enable the
students to focus on the academic content of the contact
session, to come better prepared for it and more ready to
participate actively in the sessions.
SMS messages are of particular value for academic
assistance at the time of the submission of a course
project or assignment. An experienced lecturer or
teacher can identify difficulties and provide support to
enhance the students assignment grades.
At an appropriate stage in a course it is advantageous to
send to all students an SMS message providing a course
outline or summary as a tutoring aid.
SMS messages as tutoring aids are of particular value in
the lead up to examinations and can list revision topics
or advice on probable exam questions.
SMS messages can be used to draw attention to
particularly important parts of a course or to provide
extra assistance for difficult parts of a course.
Tutoring by the use of SMS messaging can stress the
aims and objectives of the course and contribute greatly
to student motivation.
Above all, SMS tutorial messages are of great value for
students who are having great difficulty in a course, who
are known to be getting poor grades and are in danger of
dropping out.
Basis
The basis for the use of SMS messaging for tutoring
students in academic courses is that SMS messaging is
well established in mobile learning. Tens of thousands of
academic SMS messages have been sent out by
universities to students around the world.
This academic success follows the success of SMS messages
in all walks of life. 500 billion of them are sent annually
around the world. For the United Kingdom alone the
statistics show that 45 million of them are sent daily.
SMS messages have quickly become a major revenue
stream for mobile telephone operators. At an average of
10 cents per message this totals ?50 billion a year, or 100
text messages a year for every person in the world.
Major revenue generators are ordering ringtones,
wallpapers and entering competitions. To this is added
news alerts, sports news, financial information and
downloading logos.
The present generation of university students are expert
texters. They have grown up with texting, use it more
frequently that phoning, and have developed skills in

rapidly reading and replying to text messages from
friends and companies alike.
It can therefore be accepted that all students at all
institutions possess a mobile phone and use it constantly
in all walks of life. The success of SMSs sent for
academic support and tutoring shows how they can be
used in education and training.
Success
All the research evidence we have indicates that students
like receiving academic SMS messages for course
tutoring, want more of it and regard it as a normal usage
of the devices they own.
The University of Pretoria
Tens of thousands of academic SMS tutoring messages
have been sent out by the University of Pretoria, mainly
to its distance education students. All of these students
live in country areas of South Africa and have no access
to email or elearning. A typical SMS would look like
this:
Dear course LPO 402 student: study section

on Assets pp 43-44 in Tutorial Letter before
answering part 1.4 of Assignment 1. This is
also important for your project assignment.
UP (University of Pretoria)
Figure1. Example of academic support by SMS
This initiative has been totally successful and has
brought immediate, personal support to students doing
university degrees and living in country locations
without access to a computer network. The Universitys
statistics show increase in quality of assignment answers
and increase in the quality of interaction at contact
sessions as a result of mobile learning.
Brown (2005) gives a detailed account of the use of
SMS messages for academic support at the University of
Pretoria:
The University of Pretoria started using SMS for
academic learning support in November 2004 in a
module of one of the three paper-based distance
education programmes in the Faculty of Education,
namely ACE: Special Needs Education: Module
LPO402.
The pilot project comprises four categories of

asynchronous academic interventions during the sixmonth cycle of this module from October 2004 to April
2005. The four categories are:
Academic instructional message (regular bulk type

SMS messages).
IVR (interactive voice response) system for FAQs

(students phone in to a FAQ number and receive
answers from the programmed system).
SMS quizzes (MCQs are sent to students and a

simple answer choice is replied via SMS. Answers
and feedback are provided on each quiz).
SMS question-answer system (students ask questions

via SMS regarding a given pre-selected topic and
they are then answered automatically by the system
via a comprehensive programmed matching system
[text database]).
45
Some examples of SMSs sent for academic support are

provided in the table below:
CATEGORY
VOICE RESPONSE
SMS MESSAGE /
PURPOSE
ENVISAGED
OUTCOME
Instruction
LPO 402 student: study

section on Assets p43-44 in
Tutorial Letter 1 before
answering 1.4 of Assign 1.
This is also important for
your Project & Assign 2. UP
To provide a study tip for a

difficult assignment question
that normally gets answered
incorrectly by students; to prepare
students for contact sessions;
and to provide a hint for the
project and follow-up assignment.
An increase in the
quality of assignment
answers; and an increase
in the quality of contact
session interaction.
IVR (Interactive
Voice Response)
SMS message:
LPO 402 student: phone
0825557777 to hear more
about the most import
concept in this module,
the asset-based approach. UP
To provide a personalised feel .

to the automated learning
support. Students can listen to
mini lectures and explanations
in the voice of their teacher.
An increase in learning
motivation as well as an
enhancement of learning
with deeper understanding
of certain key concepts.
It also personalise the
interaction. All these needs
further research to confirm
the anticipated outcomes
Voice message when student

reaches 082555777:
Hello LPO 402 student. We
will now discuss some frequently
asked questions on the asset-based
approach that will enhance your
understanding of this important
concept. Press 1 to hear what
the asset-based approach is.
Press 2 to hear what makes it so
unique. Press 3 to hear why
you should use it.
Further voice responses are
available then at each number
indicated.
Q&A
Dear student: SMS your

questions (1 question per 1 SMS)
on the topic: ECO-SYSTEMIC
APPROACHES to: 0825558888
To provide students the

opportunity to clarify issues and
questions without the high cost
of a lengthy telephone call; to
provide asynchronous learning
support; and to lessen the impact
on the call centre or the facultys
telephone tutoring.
An enhancement of
achieving the desired
learning outcomes. Other
successes have not yet been
determined. This needs
further research.
Quizzes
First SMS message:

1st question: Asset-based
initiatives are clarified in a)
learning guide p14, b) Assets
textbook p14, c) tutorial letter
p5. Reply with a, b, or c & send
To review important content;

to provide tutoring in order to
reach the desired learning
outcomes; and to provide
remedial support on identified
learning shortcomings.
The envisaged outcome is

an improvement in the
quality of assignment
answers and the
achievement of the desired
learning outcomes. Other
46
SMS if reply was correct:

Correct! The asset-based approach
is eco-systemic. Eco-systemic
approaches emphasize
a) interrelatedness,
b) individuality, c) neither.
Press & send
successes have not yet

determined. This needs
further research.
SMS if reply was incorrect:

A needs-based approach
emphasizes individuality and an
asset-based approach emphasizes
interrelatedness. Press C & send
[And it continues so for up
to 5 questions]
Last SMS in quiz:
Correct! You are on your way to
reaching the 2nd and 3rd
outcomes of this unit. Now read
p 15-18 in learning guide.
Good luck! Bye
Table 1: Examples of academic support through bulk SMS (Brown 2005)
It is mportant to note that the limitation of having only
160 characters available (including spaces) for an SMS text
message poses some very interesting challenges when it
comes to the formulation of SMS messages. It is a real
challenge to formulate the correct message that provides
the exact information you want to communicate without
leaving possibilities of misunderstandings or
misinterpretations. One badly formulated SMS can create
lots of chaos with financial and many other implications.
Classroom Response Systems aim to
Motivate students by increasing participation
Provide instant feedback on multiple choice

questions
Provide information to the lecturer on student

learning
Provide information to the lecturer in large lecture

halls where it is difficult to maintain contact with all
the students attending.
SMS messaging in face-to-face education

Side by side with the use of SMS messaging in distance
learning, eLearning and mobile learning comes its use in
face-to-face education on-campus. SMS messaging is
particularly useful in Classroom Response Systems (CRS).
Classroom Response Systems have been available in
various forms since the 1960s. Today they involve
students with proprietary keypads answering multiple
choice questions at various times during a lecture. The
keypads used by the students communicate with the
CRS either by radio frequency or by infra-red receivers.
An aggregate response graph is then displayed on a
projector screen, thus providing instant feedback for the
students, not just on their own answering but also that
of the whole class.
Classroom Response Systems today have 4 problems:
The university has to invest in purchasing the CRS
Students must buy or rent the keypads to participate

in the lectures
In large lecture halls with hundreds of students

present there are considerable logistical issues in
ensuring that each student has a keypad
Students must remember to carry their keypads to

the lecture.
Enhanced interaction and feedback is possible by using

the students SMS-enabled mobile phones instead of
keypads.
47
The use of SMS has these advantages:
allowing students to become more actively involved in

constructing and using knowledge.
Messages are relayed to the lecturers computer

where they are processed and stored
The upfront costs to the university are eliminated
The upfront costs to the students of buying or

renting keypads are eliminated
The following benefits accrue from the use of these

systems: active paticipation during a class or lecture,
peer learning, student satisfaction, student retention,
improved comprehension and attendance.
The students use a familiar technology which they

use constantly outside the lecture room
The following pedagogical benefits are provided
Students can send comments or questions to the

lecturer which provide feedback to the lecturer (this
is not available on standard CRS systems)
Students can receive a customised post-lecture

feedback on their performance by the lecturer (this
is not available on standard CRS systems).
The post-lecture SMS feedback indicates the individual

students performance compared to the mean of the class
as well as indicating specific learning problems to the
student. For high-achieving students this feedback
provides recognition and affirmation. For low achievers
it provides feedback on wrong responses to a particular
part of a course which can then be revised and relearned.
They offer students the opportunity anonymously to

test their own knowledge
They offer rapid feedback to the lecturer on student

knowledge and understanding
They maintain student interest by offering a more

active learning environment
They facilitate peer teaching and learning.
Conclusion
The substitution of SMSs for CRSs, as proposed in this
chapter, is based on the ubiquity of mobile phone
handsets among third level students in Ireland, Austria,
Denmark, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway,
Sweden, the United Kingdom and a growing range of
countries throughout the world.
Benefits
CRS systems or similar systems based on SMS technology
have many advantages for use in large lecture halls. They
permit students to answer questions electronically.
Students get immediate feedback on their responses and
on their peers responses while in the lecture room.
These systems are usually used in a three-step process:
The lecturer poses a multiple choice question that is

important for the subject matter
Students responses are gathered rapidly and

anonymously
A public display of the responses is quickly assembled

and gives feedback on the variations of the groups
responses without disclosing individuals identities.
These systems provide the benefit of anonymity in

formative assessment. This is of importance to lowability students who are usually slow to participate in
the traditional classroom or lecture room as they want to
avoid negative reactions to their answers.
These responses can serve as a springboard for further
discussion. They can serve as a catalyst for creating a
more intuitive, student-centered lecture room, thereby
48
Young people regard the mobile phone as more that a

communication device. The tendency of young people is
to personalise their mobile phone with distinctive
ringtones and screensavers.
The integration of these handsets and of text messaging
into the learning process will involve using technology
with which they are familiar and towards which they have
affinity into their education and training programmes.
The academic use of SMS messaging for academic
tutoring in universities and colleges is well established.
Tens of thousands of them have been sent out and the
reception has been universally favourable. The statistical
evidence that all students of higher and further
education age own a mobile device makes the case for
the introduction of academic tutoring via mobile
learning overwhelming.
References
Brown, T (2005) mLearning: Doing the unthinkable
and reaching the unreachable! Ericsson mobile
learning conference. Dun Laoghaire, 9.9.2005
the_future_of_mobile.shtml
PART 3
THE USE OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES FOR
TEACHING AND LEARNING
Chapter 7
Designing courseware for PDAs and
other mobile devices
Aleksander Dye
This chapter is written with the intent of clarifying some issues involving in designing for small screens and mobile devices.
First the term mobile device is defined, then the mobile devices differences from traditional computer screens are taken into
consideration. We then decide on what to show the mobile users and how to display it on a small screen. The experiences and
recommendations on these issues are based on extended work on the issue of mobile learning as evidenced by EU projects at NKI.
What is a "mobile device"?
Can be used wirelessly
A mobile device in this chapter is considered to have the

following characteristics:
Can be used standing with minimal effort
Is small enough to be held in one hand.
This definition rules out a laptop with wireless

connectivity, which is not to say that it is not a mobile
device as such, but it is not mobile in the way that we
have to design specifically for it. In our definition it is
the mobility and the use of the device when mobile that
is key. For this chapter the definition and guidelines are
for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) or other mobile
devices capable of displaying html or xhtml (from now
on referred to as (x)html) on screen with the same
approximate display size as a PDA (Rekkedal et al.
2005).
well. This leaves little room for actual content, which is

what the users are after.
What should we show our mobile users?

What is the main difference on a mobile
browser?
The main difference which makes designing for a
mobile device a challenge is the size of the screen or
the lack of it. We need to think about how we can utilize
the valuable amount of space available on a display for
an application to provide output that is given to us. We
are faced with a menu that fills most of our screen and if
a page has adverts, that takes up most of the screen as
Keep in mind the fact that a mobile client is usually only

used when the traditional desktop (or laptop) computer
is not accessible. The users that use mobile devices are
usually on the move, they are mobile and go on the web
to do specific tasks. They are not browsing the web, they
are either searching for something specific or they are
doing a defined task. Your mobile user is not at your site
by chance (they could be, but rarely is this the case);
they are at your site to do a specific task.
51
Your mobile user is most likely to be a valuable user, one

of your regular users who also wants to access your site
from somewhere (s)he can not use a more comfortable
sized screen. This is most likely a user who talks about
your site and gives you credit for what you do. Why not
give the user what (s)he wants as well? If it is not needed
remove it. If you have adverts on your site, remove
them from the mobile page, (s)he will come back later to
see the adverts, (s)he is not in a browsing mode at this
time anyway. Keep in mind that the mobile user usually
pays for the amount of data (s)he downloads (in both
time and money), therefore it is wise not to use large or
unnecessary graphics.
How to display the information on a mobile

device
Remember the size of the screen at all time. Hide what
is not useful and clean up the cluttered pages that you
serve to the traditional clients. The 200 pixel menu takes
up a bit of the sidebar of a computer screen, but fills up
most of the mobile clients screens and pushes the
content the users are there for away or into a small
column of unreadable text.
In our courses we have moved the menu to the top and
removed the tables to give the content the full width of
the mobile browser, but we keep the menu on the side
for other clients. This way on a mobile client the menu
is on top and when that is scrolled past the screen is
clean and shows only meaningful content to the user.
is possible to create a design without fixed pixels and

fixed positioning you are mostly there... But how do you
do that?
Designing with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

One of the most important features of style sheets is that
they specify how a document is to be presented on
different media: on the screen, on paper, with a speech
synthesizer, with a braille device, etc. When you remove
style definition from the (x)html and move it into css
(Cascading Style Sheets is a simple mechanism for
adding style) you can control the look and feel of
multiple web pages, in one or more css files that are
independent of the (x)html that is viewed in the
browser.
This way you loosely couple the data from the display
rules and have more control over the layout in different
browsers or devices. The greatest advantage here is (in
my opinion) that for the different devices you can have
different layouts and design elements. This can be solved
by the use of media types in CSS. This is done by the
use of media types. The @media construct allows style
sheet rules for various media in the same style sheet. "A
CSS media type names a set of CSS properties. A user
agent that claims to support a media type by name must
implement all of the properties that apply to that media
type." (W3C-m). An example from W3C is given below
which shows different font layout for the different
medias. Note that the last one sets line-height for both
screen and print:
Design guidelines
Key to remember is the size of the screen which for most
PDAs are 3,5'' large displaying 240x320 pixels (current
display for PDAs sold in Norway June 2006). The most
popular screen resolutions on the web in the world are
(Onestat):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
1024 x 768
800 x 600
1280 x 1024
1152 x 864
1600 x 1200
1280 x 800
1600 x 1024
57.38%
18.23%
14.18%
4.95%
1.67%
1.56%
0.55%
This table gives us a pointer to the fact that screen sizes

are expanding, therefore we should be designing for the
larger screens, right? Wrong! Design for every screen size
that does not compromise the most used screen size! If it
52
Colours and Fonts

There are web safe colours as well as fonts (DftW), these
are easily identified and well known to designers as well
as most tools for creating web pages. The web safe
colours and fonts are the ones that are not operating
system dependent, but displayed in the same manner on
every platform. The colour management system currently
used by Web browser software is based on an 8-bit, 216colour (not 256) palette. (BsC) Netscape fixed this
problem with the 216-colour palette for the web. Today
Designing courseware for PDAs

and other mobile devices
Figure 1: Browser-Safe Colours

most users have their screen set to thousands or millions
of colours, so for the desktop market this is not the same
problem (however, two screens do most of the time show
colours slightly differently based on settings).
The problem is that for the mobile devices it is not as
easy to obtain the same information, some devices
display one font, others another. If you can identify
some commonly used fonts for the mobile devices you
should use them for the CSS. This will limit the choice
in fonts, but this does not have to impact the traditional
design one font set for the desktop browser and
another for the mobile devices. The following is a list of
the most common font combinations for traditional web
design and should also work on most other devices:
Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif

Times New Roman, Times, serif
Courier New, Courier, mono
Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
The use of bold and/or italic is the same as with the

traditional web pages. Do not use them exceedingly, but
to emphasize the message. It is easier to read bold than
italic so we recommend using bold if the word is of
importance to the readers understanding. When we
look at font-size definitions the best way to implement
this is the same as the recommendations for web pages
use percentage and let the user set his or her preferences,
do not set a fixed size, the screen of a mobile device is
small and the web page might be compressed. If the
font-size is set fixed by pixels it will be too small to read
for some users.
Using Illustrations
The problems with illustrations are obvious; the screen
of the device is too small, the download time too long,
not all devices display color. You can either see the full
image and scroll in every direction or the image is too
small to understand. Keep in mind that download time
and cost should be kept low for the users, and if the user
has a device such as a smartphone the memory might be
an issue, but this is rarely the case with a PDA.
For the course designers the important factor to keep in
mind at all times is that it is not the look of the text and
images that are important, but the information that the
design is to illustrate and emphasize, design comes
afterwards. If an image is being used, there should also
be a descriptive text for blind users (they can have the
description read to them) and the same text could be
displayed for the mobile devices.
The problem however is that if the text is not there in
the first place, the cost involved in describing the
illustrations is too large to defend for a small group of
mobile users. The cost of doing so at course creation is
much lower and not only gives the mobile users an
advantage, but also increases the accessibility of the
course to the general public.
Using Flash on the PDA

Development work with Flash on the PDA is interesting
but it is useful to have focus on the readability on all
Flash applications. This is because low readability is
much more noticeable on a small screen. Flash is an
authoring software developed by Macromedia, and is
used for producing vector graphics-based animations.
Flash makes it possible to develop various
programs/features such as navigation interfaces, graphics
illustrations, interactivity in a re-sizable file format that
is small enough to stream across a normal modem
connection.
Flash is very suitable for use on the web due to the
vector graphics ability to adapt and adjust to different
display sizes and screen resolutions and it is designed for
optimized delivery. The important thing to remember is
not to use negative text (white text on a black
background) and to be more focused on the readability
of the color combinations of the background and text.
The choice of font is also important.
It is possible to develop the courseware with the use of
Flash together with audio. This was done by NKI in a
previous project and has given us insight to some of the
challenges in developing for small screens. After
experimenting with the course assignments developed in
Flash, we adapted them to the PDA. The assignments
53
have been adapted and further developed from the

original version intended for use on a large screen to be
used on the PDA with the Internet Explorer and the
Flash player 6 plugin for PDA installed.
Screen format on the PDA

We found that 240 x 270 (width x height) pixels was the
optimal size and filled the screen as much as possible
(see Figure 2: Full size of the "palette" illustrated by the
red color)
Using text in Flash

When we started the development we found that
the text we used in the original assignments was
too small and nearly impossible to read when presented
on the PDA. We started to experiment with different
font types and sizes. By default Flash uses anti-aliasing
on the font and that makes the text a little blurry at the
edges to soften the text. To get the text sharpened and
easy to read on a small screen, we found that we could
use an option in Flash called dynamic text. This
proved better concerning readability and solved our
problem.
In Figure 1 "Browser-safe" colours, the font-size is 12
pixels, but the Flash renderer shows different sizes using
two different methods. We have no good answer as to
why Flash does so, but that is not special to the PDA
since this is how the program itself reacts. Later on, we
also discovered we could keep the font static and use the
options Use Device Fonts in Flash. Flash uses device
fonts to display certain text blocks, so that Flash does
not embed the font for that text. This gave us the same
output results as setting the text to Dynamic but we
had more control over line breaking and text behavior
and it might also increase the file size.
Figure 2: Full size of the "palette"

illustrated by the red color
Figure 3: Different methods with text, verdana 12 pix.

We experienced a lot of difference in behavior with the
same Flash file when using it on a PC versus the PDA.
For instance we had textboxes that showed three lines on
a PDA, but could only show two lines on a PC.
We solved this by adjusting the size of the textboxes
to fit the PDA.
A couple of assignments that use drag and drop
functionality were developed. In computer graphical
54
user interfaces, drag-and-drop is the action of (or

support for the action of ) clicking on a virtual object
and dragging it onto another virtual object. This worked
very well on the PDA, but we experienced the same
issues here regarding text readability. One must also have
in mind that some functions, like onMouseOver,
wouldnt work on the PDA since the PDA is equipped
with a touch screen and a stylus and no mouse like on
the PC.
Designing courseware for PDAs

and other mobile devices
Below are some screens shots from assignments made in Flash (in Norwegian):
Figure 4: Drag and Drop assignment
Figure 5: Drag and Drop assignment
Figure 6: Boat Operators Certificate Game.- If you

make a bad decision, youll get an informative
feedback telling you what you should have done to
avoid an encounter with shallow waters.
Figure 7: Boat Operators Certificate Game.- Take

your boat trough rough waters guided by the
navigation marks and beacons
Video on the PDA

At NKI we tried the use of video on the PDA with small
video clips showing a discussion between two persons in
a learning situation. This has worked very well using the
Windows Media Player and we had no problems with
viewing the files with high quality both on picture and
audio. This is of course also due to high capacity of the
wireless broadband solution. We encountered problems
when trying to stream video directly from the web
browser. Unlike Internet Explorer (IE) for PC, the old
pocket version of IE was not capable of streaming video
directly from the browser or of starting the Windows
Media Player. This meant that one had to copy the URL
into the Media Player and watch the video from the
Media Player. This worked okay, but was a rather
cumbersome method to watch a video.
Figure 6: Screen shot from a video clip

55
Conclusion
References
The mobile devices you are developing for have a small

screen and most of the time the bandwidth is small and
the cost is high. Keep the information as easily accessible
as you can and strip away unnecessary illustrations.
Always keep a textual description of an image for the
users who can not (vision impaired users) or choose not
to (users on a high cost access point who do not display
images) show the images. If you have separation of
content and presentation in mind at course creation, the
cost of adaption to a mobile device, screen reader,
converted to PDF or other format is both easier and
comes at a lower cost. If the courses are already created,
the cost is much higher.
Rekkedal, T., Dye, A., Fagerberg,T., Bredal, S.,

Midtsveen, B. & Russell, J (2005) Design,
Development and Evaluation of Mobile Learning at
NKI Distance Education 2000-2005 (NKI)
If there is only one course to be made available to the

mobile device it will be easier to adapt that course, than
to adapt a technical underlying structure used to display
the content in a context or Learning Management
System (LMS) to do the job. The problem is to know
when the cost of adapting a course or framework/LMS
is worth the time and effort and will give a positive
return on investment. This depends on the size and
complexity of the course and framework/LMS and the
numbers of paying costumers as well as the price being
paid. This is why it is hard to make general
recommendations to adapt a course or the
framework/LMS. The best recommendation I can give is
to have accessibility and separation of content and
presentation in mind when designing courses. This eases
the adaptation to other media in the future.
56
Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/

2005/WD-mobile-bp-20051220/ (6 February
2006)
Onestat.com (Onestat) http://www.onestat.com/
html/aboutus_pressbox38.html (8 February 2006)
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
http://www.w3.org/ (9 February 2006)
Usability first (UF) http://www.usabilityfirst.com/
(15 February 2006)
Designing for the Web (DftW)
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/
designing_for_the_web/ (15 February 2006)
Idedata http://www.idedata.no/ (16 February 2006)
Media types on W3C (W3C-m) http://www.w3.org/
TR/REC-CSS2/media.html (16 February 2006)
"Browser-safe" colours (BsC)
http://www.webstyleguide.com/graphics/safe.html
(16 February 2006)
Chapter 8
Podcasting as an mLearning approach
Mark Riordan, Hannah Barton, Joachim Pietsch, Philip Penny and John Kavanagh
Podcasting technology is outlined and podcasting production is explained. A number of implementations in both education and
elsewhere are described. Some early indications of the implications of educational podcasting on the practice and process of
learning are discussed. Finally some conclusions are drawn.
The Introduction to Podcasting

Podcasting originally and most commonly describes the
ability of users of portable MP3 players to register
interests with a website which will then cause the user of
the MP3 player to receive new or updated MP3 files
reflecting their registered subject of interest. The name
podcasting is derived from the brand name of one of the
suppliers of such equipment but the technique is
entirely supplier independent and in fact can be utilised
from desktop PCs or Macs as much as from mobile
devices. In a desire to avoid using proprietary based
naming conventions the phrase audiocasting is
sometimes used in place of podcasting but it is not
sufficiently common to be used here. Further, the
technology is not in any way restricted to MP3 format
files or indeed to sound files but for simplicity sake we
will refer to MP3 files throughout this chapter but it can
be taken to refer to any appropriate file format.
The podcast update process works in much the same
way that an email client may check for new mail,
instead an MP3 player can be set to check for new
MP3s meeting registered topics of interest, whenever
the unit is docked and thereby connected it to the
internet. In the earliest manifestations, topics of interest
were often related to a particular person who
periodically made audio files available to interested
users. In fact, Podcasting has been described as an audio
blog, where a blog (contraction of web log) is a shared
online multimedia diary which can be read and
commented upon by users. Podcasting first emerged
mainly as an entertainment concept in September 2004
and offered anyone on the Internet a platform for
publishing his or her own radio show. One of the first
shows to be a podcast was the Daily Source Code by
Curry (2006).
Within a short time educators became aware that the

ubiquity of MP3 players among students and the ease of
the download facility would facilitate educational
applications. They were also facilitated by the ease of the
production side of podcasting which can be low in
contrast to the high costs associated with developing
eLearning materials.
Podcasting Production
The production of podcasting involves two primary
phases, publishing and subscribing. The publishing
phase of podcasting consists of a content author:
(a) creating an audio or video file of content, a podcast,
typically in MP3 format;
(b) publishing the podcast file to a web server, with a
specific web address;
(c) announcing the existence of the newly published
podcast file to the world using an RSS (Really
Simple Syndication) feed. Typically, a content
author, or podcaster, will create multiple podcast
files and will publish the podcast files to the web
server as they are created. The RSS feed is a separate
file that maintains a list of the podcast files along
with podcast file information (e.g., author, topic,
date, description), that is updated as each new
podcast file is created and published.
The subscribing phase of podcasting involves the
listener, or viewer:
(a) subscribing to the podcast using a podcatcher or
aggregator (e.g. iTunes), and
(b) automatically downloading to the listeners
computer or MP3 player any new podcast files that
57
appear in the RSS feed. The subscription process

simply involves telling a podcatcher to monitor a
specific RSS feed for any changes and to download,
automatically, any new files that appear in the list of
podcast files within the RSS feed.
The term podcast is sometimes used to refer to the set of
MP3 files on a given topic e.g. the set of daily recordings
of a particular show. In other usage each individual MP3
file, e.g. todays broadcast is referred to as a podcast.
In some cases a more radical approach has been adopted,

Ashraf, a lecturer in microbiology at Bradford University
is reported to have abolished lectures completely and
uses podcasts instead. Learners access the virtual
lectures via MP3 players, mobile phone or by computer.
He has questioned the effectiveness of a didactic lecture
for an hour (BBC News 2006).
The strengths and weaknesses of podcasting
In the more specific educational setting, the concept of

life long learning and the importance of easy access to
learning resources has contributed to the adoption of
Podcasting and other mLearning technologies for
educational uses. Podcasting has emerged as a support in
the area of distance education but also as a support to
traditional lectures. Much research has been done into
the poor attendance at lectures in many courses and
there has been much debate into the actual effectiveness
of lectures as a method of course delivery. Podcasting is
seen as a method of enhancing the effectiveness of the
lecture method.
While a simple innovation in many respects, the ability

to readily provide the spoken words of a lecturer is quite
a powerful development. Podcasting is clearly another
convenient technology to add to the suite of
technologies available to those designing distance
learning courses. It is also potentially of huge value in
the enhancement of traditional courses. For many years
the internet has been used to aid learners to maintain
contact with a series of traditional lectures. The typical
approach is that if a lecture is missed some of the
ancillary learning resources (typically text, diagrams and
images) were made available to learners who missed the
class (e.g. as a powerpoint presentation). What was less
commonly captured, with some exceptions, was the
speech given by the lecturer at the time of the face-toface lecture. While this had been technically feasible for
at least 10 years (e.g. Smeaton and Crimmins 1997)
podcasting has made filling this gap straightforward.
The power and utility of such approaches is significant
for education generally but further advantage has been
derived from this technology in terms of specific
applications such as language learning (Petersen and
Divitini 2005).
Duke University makes lectures and discussions freely

available in podcast format (Kolbitsch and Maurer
2006, Dukecast 2005). In 2004, Duke University gave
all freshmen in certain courses free 20GB ipods
equipped with voice recorders. Some of the pilot courses
included languages; where the Spanish class learners
used ipods to respond to verbal quizzes, submit class
assignments, record audio journals and receive oral
feedback from the instructor. In April 2005, Duke
University expanded the study and use of ipods to all
classes. It was reported that using the technology
actually stimulated innovative and creative thinking by
staff on how to incorporate the technology into
teaching. It also matched some learners preferred
learning styles, for instance the ability to replay the
spoken word or the mere fact that a recording of the
spoken word exists, is of particular benefit to learners
with a preference for an aural learning style.
Another driver for podcasting technology which may

become more important going forward are podcasting of
media other than sound. Photocasting and videocasting
(known as vodcasting) have already emerged in the U.S.
These contribute to the concept of internet social
networking which has seen remarkable growth in the
last two years as can be seen in the growing popularity of
sites such as Friendster, My Space and BeBo. This also
highlights the importance of learner produced podcasts.
For instance, in language learning (Petersen and Divitini
2005, Read 2005) learners may produce podcasts of
their spoken words for their teacher. This back
channel seems less well developed in the literature but
this is likely to change. For instance Read (2005)
highlights the benefits of podcasts in allowing learners
on work placements and other field assignments to
report back to college based lecturers. All of these areas
may in time merge with the application of social
Podcasting Implementations
Podcasts now range from music and cultural programmes
through mainstream entertainment to political/current
affairs. Podcasts can be person-centred or dedicated to
specific topics. Personal podcasts are produced and
published by an individual and focus on the individuals
opinions, whereas podcasts on particular topics can be
created by a small group of users on a specific issue.
58
Podcasting as an mLearning approach
networks in the area of self organizing learner groups,

which can already be seen in the development of on line
learning communities.
Of course digital audio is a long established technology
and therefore podcasting can benefit from developments
which can allow the power and popularity of podcasting
to be enhanced such as Variable Speed Playback (VSP)
(Galbraith 2001). VSP technology allows learners to
adjust the playback speed of digital media content to
suit their learning needs. The playback speed can be
increased by 2.5 times and slowed to 1/3 normal
speaking speed without pausing and without the
chipmunk effect, where the voice becomes
comically distorted. In the same way that such a
technology can stand on the shoulders of past
advances, a disruptive technology such as podcasting can
result in many years of slow advancement being lost or
bypassed. Cebeci and Terkal (2006) sound a note of
warning that the lack of integration at present of
podcasting with advances in learning objects may be a
drawback.
While there are many technical drivers of podcasting
technology and mLearning more widely, it is important
to note that human factors still apply and a purely
technologically driven analysis will be incomplete. In
addition, while there has been huge take-up of
podcasting, there remain a majority of learners
worldwide who have never used one. Hence, any
implementation must be well thought-out from a
learner perspective and must give consideration to the
characteristics of each learner group. Walton, et al
(2005) carried out a literature review on the use of
mobile technologies in distance health education
particularly in the area of Nursing and concluded
that in terms of application of mobile technologies
to health education, the U.S led the U.K. The issues
that contributed to low usage of mobile technologies
in health education for teaching and learning was
due to low awareness by learners of the mobile
technology and likewise of low level of ownership.
The issues of a need for training and electronic security
were also seen as the major limitations in this study.
However, the greatest potential of mobile technologies
as ranked by the learners was immediate access to
learning resources without the necessity of a PC. This
study predated the large-scale adoption of podcasting
since 2004 but clearly each user group needs to be
considered carefully to ensure a successful
implementation.
Nonetheless, while caution may be warranted, there are

some nice HCI features of the podcasting approach,
particularly its ease of use both in production and
consumption phases and in particular the podcast update
process is automated so that one doesnt have to do a
manual check for new content on a potentially poorly
structured and poorly updated website. In addition,
guidelines are beginning to emerge (e.g. University of
Madison 2006) as to how best to design the use of
podcasts in learning applications which will in time help
with the overall usabaility of the podcasting approach.
Conclusions
Podcasting has significant potential to connect learners to
learning contexts at times and places entirely of the
learners choosing. It has little overhead of setup or
configuration and utilises a modality (hearing) which can
be attended to in a large variety of settings and contexts.
It also has the benefits for those who prefer an aural style
of learning. The nature of learners in the modern world
is that they have great demands on their time and
attention and therefore a technology which allows them
to learn when they find the opportunity has the potential
to be of significant benefit. On the production side, the
overhead of recording a spoken lecture to MP3 format is
relatively straightforward and even for those who would
find the setup effort an obstacle, it would be
straightforward for any academic institution to setup a
suitable system to enable even the most technophobe
lecturer to start podcasting. These factors indicate that
podcasting is likely to be here to stay. This however
further underlines the need for proper study of its
effectiveness and limitations as a learning tool.
Such studies would clearly have value given that despite
high profile positive press, experiments such as that at
Duke University still attract some skeptical comment
(see Read 2005) and other concerns such as the
widespread breach of copyright. Nonetheless, such
drawbacks can be overcome and it does seem clear that
podcasting or even more highly usable variants will be a
routine part of education going forward.
References
Curry, A. (2006) http://www.dailysourcecode.com/
Kolbitsch , J. and Maurer, H. ( 2006) . The
Transformation of the Web: How Emerging
Communities Shape the Information we Consume.
Journal of Universal Computer Science, vol.12, no 2,
187 213.
59
BBC News (2006) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/

uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/5013194.stm
(May 26 2006).
Dukecast (2005) - Duke University iPod first year
experience final evaluation report. From
http://cit.dile.edu/pdf/ipod_initiative_04_05.pdf
dukecast.oit.duke.edu.
Walton, G., Childs, S. and Blenkinsopp E.( 2005).
Using mobile technologies to give health students
access to learning resources in the UK community
setting. Health Information and Libraries Journal ,
22,(S2) , pp.51 -65.
Chinnery, G. ( 2006). Emerging Technologies- Going to
the MALL. Mobile Assisted Language Learning.
Language Learning and Technology. Vol. 10,
no.1 , 9 16.
Smeaton. A and Crimmins, F. (1997), Virtual Lectures
for Undergraduate Teaching: Delivery Using
RealAudio and the WWW. Proceedings of
ED-MEDIA/ED-TELECOM, 1997.
Galbraith, J. (2001) Variable Speed Playback of Digitally
Recorded Lectures: Evaluating Learner Feedback,
available at http://www.enounce.com/
education.shtml
60
Petersen, S. and Divitini, M. (2005), Language

Learning: From Individual Learners to
Communities. Proceedings of IEEE International
Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in
Education (WMTE 05)
Ractham, P. and Zhang, X. (2006), Podcasting in
Academia: A New Knowledge Management
Paradigm within Academic Settings. Proceedings
of SIGMIS-CPR 06 Claremont California,
April 2006
University of Madison (2006) Podcasting at
the University of Madison Wisconsin,
http://engage.doit.wisc.edu/podcasting/
teachAndLearn/
Read, B. (2005), Seriously, iPods are Educational.
The Chronicle of Higher Education 51(28)
March 2005.
Cebeci, Z. and Tekdal, M. (2006), Using Podcasts as
Audio learning Objects. Interdisciplinary Journal of
Knowledge and Learning Objects (Vol. 2, 2006)
Chapter 9
J2ME Based Applications in an mLearning
Situation
Bryan Jones
Modern day mobile phone users enjoy a great choice in the variety of services accessible via their mobile phones. The mobile
telecommunications industry is experiencing a transition as mobile phone networks converge with modern day Internet and data
networks. The once limiting factors of network speed and handset capabilities have been surpassed. Mobile handsets have rapidly
caught up with sophisticated mobile computing devices such as PDAs.
The challenge for educators is to embrace mobile technology and establish possible ways to support the learning environment.
Much research is already well underway and studies have illustrated mobile technologys impact on the world of education
Leonardo da Vinci (2004). Device capability and sophistication has greatly increased allowing subscribers to enjoy premium
content and data services on their mobile devices. Java technology has once again reduced the barriers of interoperability and
Java or J2ME is now supported on most handsets. This chapter discusses J2ME architecture, the J2ME operational environment
and profiles a selection of J2ME based applications in an mLearning context.
The Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME)

Java 2 Micro Edition is an edition of Java, which can be
configured for devices which have a physically limited
footprint i.e. device hardware configuration, physical
memory space and processing speed. Devices may or
may not have a network connection. For example a
PDA would not have a connection but a mobile phone
could have a GPRS network connection.
The Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) provides a
robust, flexible environment for applications running on
consumer devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, and
TV set-top boxes, as well as a broad range of embedded
devices. Like its counterparts for the enterprise (J2EE),
desktop (J2SE) and smart card (Java Card)
environments, J2ME includes Java virtual machines and
a set of standard Java APIs defined through the Java
Community Process, by special interest groups whose
members include device manufacturers, software
vendors and service providers.
J2ME delivers the power and benefits of Java technology
to consumer and embedded devices. It includes flexible
user interfaces, a robust security model, a broad range of
built-in network protocols, and extensive support for
networked and offline applications that can be
downloaded dynamically. Applications based on J2ME
specifications are written once for a wide range of

devices, yet exploit each device's native capabilities.
The J2ME Architecture
The J2ME architecture comprises a variety of
configurations, profiles, and optional packages that
implementers and developers can implement to
construct a complete Java runtime environment that
closely fits the requirements of a particular range of
devices and a target market. Each combination is
optimized for the memory, processing power, and I/O
capabilities of a related category of devices. The result is
a common Java platform that takes full advantage of
each type of device to deliver a rich user experience.
Configurations
Configurations comprise a virtual machine and a
minimal set of class libraries. They provide the base
functionality for a particular range of devices that share
similar characteristics, such as network connectivity and
memory footprint. Currently, there are two J2ME
configurations: the Connected Limited Device
Configuration (CLDC) and the Connected Device
Configuration (CDC).
Profiles
To provide a complete runtime environment for a
specific device category, a configuration must be
61
combined with a profile, a set of higher-level APIs that

further define the application life-cycle model, the user
interface, and access to device-specific properties. A
profile supports a narrower category of devices within
the framework of a chosen configuration. A widely
adopted example is to combine CLDC with the Mobile
Information Device Profile (MIDP) to provide a
complete Java application environment for cell phones
and other devices with similar capabilities.
Optional Packages
The J2ME platform can be extended by adding various
optional packages to a technology stack that includes
either CLDC or CDC and an associated profile. Created
to address very specific application requirements,
optional packages offer standard APIs for using both
existing and emerging technologies such as database
connectivity, wireless messaging, multimedia, Bluetooth,
and web services. Because optional packages are
modular, developers can avoid carrying the overhead of
unnecessary functionality by including only the
packages actually required by an application.
Java2 Micro Edition, Connected Limited Device
Configuration (CLDC)
J2ME CLDC (Java2 Micro Edition, Connected Limited
Device Configuration) is an edition of Java aimed at
small resource-constrained mobile devices where the
runtime environment must fit into a few hundred
kilobytes of memory (as compared to the 2.5Mb
required for a typical PersonalJava environment).
Java2 Micro Edition, Mobile Information Device Profile
(MIDP)
MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile) defines a
programming API that has gained wide industry
acceptance and many MIDP compliant mobile phones
are anticipated to come to market. A large number of
applications for this environment are therefore to be
expected. The latest version of MIDP is 2.0. This
includes many new features for mobile devices,
including APIs for media support, game support,
expanded connectivity, push architecture, Over the Air
(OTA) provisioning and end-to-end security.
Information Device Profile, abbreviated MIDP, is
specified more or less for mobile phones and other
similar handheld devices.
Java2 Micro Edition - Kilobyte Virtual Machine (KVM)
The Kilobyte Virtual Machine includes a Java
Application Manager. This is used by devices which do
62
not have a normal user interface to launch native

applications. The K Virtual machines uses libraries,
which can be stored on the device, in our case a phone,
from the beginning. Alternatively, libraries can be
transferred over the network connection in a JAR file.
Java2 Micro Edition Midlets
A MIDlet is a set of classes that are related to each other
following the principles of object oriented
programming. So called MIDlets can be transferred
from an ordinary server to the Java 2 ME enabled
phone. Typically, these MIDlets are between 10
kilobytes and 50 kilobytes
The number of classes is limited since the small devices
cannot cope with a big number of classes, and also, since
the download of big applications simply will take too
much time. Different devices allow of course different
MIDlet sizes. Recommendations from Japanese
operators that have Java services up and running are in
between 30 and 50 kB.
A MIDlet is also an application that is limited though
CLCD/MIDP. This means, limited sets of class libraries,
and thus for example limited networking capabilities.
Also, the storage memory on the device is rather small,
depending on the device. Every MIDlet has some
dedicated space on the phone where no other MIDlet
can access for security.
But a MIDlet can be, despite the restrictions, a very
exciting application. If looking into the development
communities today, everything from networking games
to stock brokers can be found. A MIDlet is basically a
packaged application, which will be transferred over the
air; it can be stored locally on the device, in order to run
it directly to the handset. Once located on the handset it
can be run by the JRE that must be present on the
handset. A MIDlet consists physically of:
A Java Archive:
Analogous to a zip file from the PC environment
with some add-ons, it is a compressed files
consisting of the compiled classes or byte code that
make up the application. The extension is .jar.
Java Application Descriptor:
A simple text file that describes a MIDlet more
accurately (e.g. The jar file name of the MIDlet, the
accurate jar file size, names of MIDlets that are stored
in the jar, etc.) and it also and most importantly
contains the URL to the MIDlet Jar file. This is used
by the application manager on the device.
J2ME Based Applications in an mLearning Situation
J2ME Applications on the handset

Given a developed application and a supported J2ME
environment, for example downloading a Java game,
how exactly do Java applications or MIDlets get to the
phone?
Through a WAP browser, for example, a selection of
MIDlets can be presented to the user. On selection of a
link, the Application Management Software, that is an
important part of a Java enabled phone, will take over
and download the respective jad file.
After evaluating the jad file (Comparing size of

application with possibilities of the phone, finding out if
the application is already on the phone and, if yes,
comparing the versions etc). Assuming a download is
possible and necessary the .jar file with the actual
MIDlet in it is downloaded and stored on the phone.
The KVM is started up and the jar file fed into it and
the application launches.
Figure 1. Provisioning of MIDlets - Example: Game download
What Type of Applications Does J2ME

Enable?
Many people expect to see new types of applications
developed with J2ME. You can argue that the
application categories would remain the same, except for
a few exceptions such as location services and data
applications that integrate with telephony functionality.
The outcome is likely to be applications that are context
sensitive (immediacy, location, personal or professional
use) and are migrating from a character-based interface
(browser-based applications) to a graphical environment,
providing developers and end users with an unmatched
level of flexibility. Just think about the evolution from
DOS or mainframe applications to Windows, MacOS,
or Solaris graphical environment. We still use processors,
spreadsheets, accounting applications like in the good
old days, but because the new generation of applications
takes advantage of a richer graphical environment, the
applications are better and easier to use (Leonardo da
Vinci 2004).
Therefore, expect to see J2ME developers targeting the

same categories of applications they focused on with
WAP, but this time with the user experience compelling
enough for ISVs and system integrators to be able to
charge for them.
As far as adoption of J2ME, the prognostics are rather
good. Evans Data recently conducted a survey among
500 wireless application developers, concluding that
more developers will use Java and J2ME to develop
wireless applications (30%) than native C APIs (Palm
OS, PocketPC, EPOC) or even WAP.
The market that J2ME will penetrate the fastest is the
Japanese market, with Nikkei Market Access forecasting
a penetration rate of 40% this year. NTT DoCoMo,
who started shipping J2ME enabled I-mode phones at
the end of January 2006, has already sold 1 million
units, and they expect the number to increase to
3 million by the end of September. The two other major
63
Japanese wireless operators (KDDI and J-Phone) will

join DoCoMo in the deployment of J2ME enabled
handsets by the end of the summer 2006.
What really matters is the number of handset
manufacturers that are planning to make available J2ME
enabled phones and PDAs, as well as the number of
wireless operators that are endorsing the technology and
putting in place a network infrastructure that will allow
ISVs, content providers and corporations to deploy
J2ME applications and services over their network.
The benefits of Java technology as provided by J2ME in
the wireless arena are many and varied. From its Write
Once Run Anywhere flexibility, to its robust security
features, to its support for off-line processing and local
data storage, to its leverage of any wireless infrastructure,
to its fine-tuned control of data exchange, J2ME is a
natural platform for wireless application development.
BSM Driving Test Quiz

Launched in February 2006 the BSM driving test quiz is
a quiz game containing the real, exact, and complete set
of theory questions in the driving theory test. The
application is a J2ME implementation. The real test
contains 35 questions from a bank of 900. The games
are split into 9 different sets of 100 due to space
restrictions on the mobile device.
The user or subscriber participates by sending a
premium rate SMS costing 1.50, to a SMS shot code
operated for CTAD service and in turn receives the
application with CTAD will sending you 100 questions
(CTAD 2005).
mLearning Applications
Mobile learning is very much in existence today,
although not ubiquitous in deployment. Applications are
now appearing aimed at the standard handset as opposed
to mobile computing devices such as the PDA and smart
phone. The following applications have been selected for
profile based on their target devices, their application
design and layout and also how effective they are.
CTAD BSM Driving Test Quiz
About CTAD
CTAD are a UK based training and consultancy
organisation and for over 25 years, have provided
education, learning and training services in the Skills for
Life domain and focusing on the relationship between
technology and learning. Particular consideration is
given to attendant issues such as inclusion, accessibility,
and the mix or blend of methods and media that can
best contribute to good practice. CTAD provide
consultancy services and develop teaching and learning
resources extending well beyond the basic skills arena.
CTAD are the preferred suppliers to the National
Learning and Skills Council and are approved suppliers
to the DfES, National Learning Network and the
Scottish National Grid for Learning. CTAD have
developed many products for Ufi, Department of
Health, Trades Union Congress, City and Guilds,
Regional Development Agencies, many Local Learning
and Skills Councils, national voluntary organisations
such as Alcohol Concern and the Foyer Federation,
prisons, the Probation Service, and private companies.
64
Figure 2.CTad BSM Driving Test Quiz Screen Shot
e-Libera Mobile Learning Engine (MLE)

About e-Libera
e-Libera are a services and solutions company offering
expertise and software solutions for mobile learning and
mobile information. The e-libera solution represents a
learning application for modern mobile phones. The
goal is to extend computer assisted and multimedia
learning (short: to extend eLearning) with the factor of
mobility and implement it by using mobile phones. The
teacher and the learner can therefore use their mobile
phone for teaching and learning.
e-Libera Mobile Learning Engine (MLE)
The MLE is a computer-aided and multimedia-based
learning application created for mobile phones. The
MLE enables mobile phones as well as some handhelds
with the Java runtime environment to connect to a

platform and access learning units (content) over a client
/ server architecture. The content is written in
eXtensilble Markup Language (XML) and bundled with
the learning content packaging standard, SCORM,
Shareable Content Object Reference Model. The MLE

can be downloaded from http://mobile.elibera.com for
free. It is developed with the Java 2 Micro Edition
(J2ME) and runs therefore on a broad variety of mobile
phones (Lazaridis and Meisenberger 2003).
The available options:
Access to local learning objects
Access to the mobile learning

platform
Change settings
Help
Contact
Figure 3 Start Page Screenshot
Figure 4 Content Layout displaying Text, Graphics and Audio and Video
The Content Creation Software (CCS)

The content creation software facilitates content
creation for the MLE. The CCS is an applet based
authoring tool for writing and editing mobile learning
objects with "what you see is what you get" behaviour.

With the help of wizards you can easily create various
questions tags, include audio and video, make file-cards
for vocabulary and edit metadata.
65
Figure 5 Screenshot of the Content Creation Software
Figure 6 Screenshot of the Content Creation Software
The Mobile Learning Platform (MLP)

The MLP is a J2SE application server for the
administration of learning objects and includes the
content creation software. The MLP is still in the
development phase and will include group management
function and status reports, the possibility to grant user
66
and group rights to certain categories or objects and

view status reports of the learning units and learners.
The mobile learning engine communicates with the
platform.
Figure 7 MLP Communication between the MLE and the MLP

The MLE communicates with the learning-platform
over the open standards HTTP and XML. The learning
objects are created with XML too. This makes the
creation of new learning objects very easy and makes it
possible to create learning objects for nearly every kind
of learning content.
Magic Mundo Xword

About Magic Mundo
Established in 2003, MagicMundo Limited is a Dublinbased company whose primary focus is to provide White
Label Mind Media applications for mobile phones such
as quizzes, crosswords and word puzzles. MagicMundo
is working with a number of companies to provide them
with their own branded content in the MagicMundo
Xword application. These applications are then rolled
out for interaction with their various user groups;
customer bases, new target markets and specialised
media campaigns. MagicMundo believes that the
educational environment sector could utilise the Xword

application for mLearning (Magic Mundo 2005).
Magic Mundo Xword application
The Xword application is a J2ME application, which
can be run on any mobile phone. The application can be
downloaded on to any mobile phone from a website.
Anyone can create the content for the crossword or quiz
very simply using the administrative tool. The
MagicMundo application will enable teachers and
students to create and complete assessments and tests or
to simply use it for revision purposes on a mobile phone.
The Xword administration tool is a Java application for
Microsoft Windows, which runs on the standard desktop
environment. The Xword administration tool enables the
administrator to create the two files (.jad and .jar) which are
downloadable to any type of J2ME or Java enabled mobile
phone. The downloaded Xword file size is around 28KB
Figure 8. Xword Administration Tool \ Application

67
Figure 9. Xword application on the mobile phone
Fernuniversitt - Histobric
The FernUniversitts educational mission is higher
education off campus serving distant students who
prefer to study anywhere and anytime as they are
working professionals, need to take care of their family
or have other reasons to avoid physical classrooms. The
advent of the World Wide Web offered new options to
extend traditional means of distance and campus
education towards online distance learning and blended
learning styles, respectively. Web-based and offline
learning with digital media, briefly: eLearning, provide
new options to involve remote students actively in
(cooperative) learning and research tasks.
The project we report on here (Krmer 2005) and a few
other projects at FernUniversitt set out to investigate
the potential and limitations of mobile devices for
different types of mobile learning applications as a
supplement to the FernUniversitts current e-learning
services. They also aim to explore the acceptance of
different mLearning solutions. From the users side,
mLearning services would increase the students
flexibility in time and location independent learning
options and would allow them to access content and
services on demand. In principle, all educational
services, including:
provision of learning content,
specification, support and management of learning

activities,
maintenance of personal data,
68
tutoring and consulting,
communication and collaboration,
performance of exercises and tests,
access to virtual and physical laboratories (wherever

reasonable) or
access to the university library
could be provided for students on the move.
The idea underlying this research is not to put learning

completely on mobile devices but expand the learning
space to the mobile world, focusing particularly on the
support of spontaneous short learning phases. Look at a
typical scenario for mobile learning:
Peter is preparing himself for the examination in the
course Object-oriented Programming. Unforeseen, he
has to visit an important customer for his company.
Before leaving his office, he had no time to select proper
learning materials to take with him on the journey. But
his eLearning campus provides the possibility to
download typical examination problems on his Palm
PDA or mobile phone and allows him to test his
knowledge against a pool of questions about objectoriented programming.
Fig. 10 illustrates a remote access with a mobile phone.
The question (Frage, in German) to the left asks for
distinguishing characteristics between parallel and
distributed computing and the hint (Hinweis) to the
right refers to the fact that all processors share the same
clock in parallel computing.

Figure 10. Knowledge test with a mobile phone: question (left) and hint (right)
Besides a hint and a correct answer (Antwort) to a
question, a link to related course materials a student
may want to look at spontaneously to get a full grasp of
the topic is alsp provided. Figure 11 depicts an access to
a related section in the course (left), which talks about
the properties and inner working of a semaphore, and an
access to the course glossary, in particular to the entry
for semaphores (right). As modern cell phones offer

megabytes of memory these days and even come with
memory expansion cards, students may want to
download the complete course locally via a Bluetooth or
infrared connection to save connection costs on the
route.
Figure 11. Viewing course material (left) and a glossary entry (right) on a mobile phone
Conclusion
Although still in its infancy in terms of ubiquity, mobile
learning activity has many reference cases to indicate
strong activity in the areas of application development
and educational deployment. The former debate of what
technologies the mobile phone and networks can
support has in many respects been solved; multifaceted
mobile applications are now being developed. The
challenge now faced is what works best and how mobile

learning can be integrated into mainstream education.
Java technology, through J2ME , is strongly positioned
in embracing the mainstream challenge. J2ME
application development is appealing to a large pool of
developers and the technology provides efficient
applications deployed on a variety of independent
platforms.
69
References
Lazaridis, I. and Meisenberger, M. (2005) MLE
Mobile Learning Engine. eLibera: Austria
e-Libera (2006) http://www.elibera.com
CTAD (2005) http://www.ctad.co.uk
Magic Mundo (2005) http://www.magicmundo.com
70
Leonardo da Vinci (2004) From eLearning to

mLearning http://learning.ericsson.net/
mlearning2/index.shtml
Krmer, B. (2005) Mobile Learning: The Next
Generation of Learning - Technical Working Paper.
Hagen:FernUniversitt. http://learning.ericsson.net
/mlearning2/products.shtml
Chapter 10
Karl Grabe and Gearid Silleabhin
This chapter focuses on the opportunities for learning afforded by a standard Java-enabled phone. It begins with a short overview
of special considerations governing the development of learning objects for mobiles before going on to introduce a range of
increasingly sophisticated examples of and ideas for the development of Java-based (m-) learning objects including simple MCQstyle objects, other basic LMS-style features and tools; and a range of innovative game-based objects. The use of Java MIDlets in
conjunction with other devices and technologies are discussed next including the range of life-wide learning opportunities created
through the use of MIDlets with GSM receivers and, in conjunction with Bluetooth-based services, the use of MIDlets to
facilitate cooperative and collaborative learning opportunities. The chapter ends with a discussion of the need for an easy-to-use
authoring tool which would allow ordinary teachers and trainers to leverage for themselves and their students the range of
pedagogical opportunities outlined over the course of this chapter.
Developing Autonomous Learning Objects

for Mobiles Special Considerations
Developing learning objects for a mobile device can be
achieved using several platforms including:
Java MIDlet Using Java Micro Edition
FlashLite From Adobe, a cut-down edition of their

desktop version.
Mobile Devices operation system. Typically

developed in C/C++ for the mobile devices
operating systems for example Symbian, PalmOS,
Windows CE.
Which one is chosen depends on several factors

including ease of development and market penetration of
a particular platform. Most modern phones, for instance,
come with a built-in capacity to run Java MIDlets but
the developer requires experience in Java Object
Orientated programming as well as the code libraries in
Java ME. Note that if a MIDlet is to submit data over
the phone network to a server for processing then
programming experience using the Java Enterprise
Edition libraries (or an equivalent server-side technology)
will also be required. Irrespective of which platform is
used to develop a learning object there are several issues
that must be considered these include the following:
Display Size
A mobile devices display is much smaller that that of a
PC and can vary widely form around 128*96 to in
excess of 320*240. Multiple windows are generally not

possible so if a user wants to, for example, change some
parameter in a game then only the setting screen is
displayed while the user makes any changes. The effect
of the change will only be seen when the setting screen is
quit. When showing graphic images or animations its
best to keep up close and avoid panoramic views as a lot
of detail will be lost on a small screen. When deciding
on images to use low detail cartoon-type artwork can
look better on a small screen and use up less processing
power during rendering.
User Input
The keyboard can be limited to around 18 keys and so
m-learning applications so avoid asking the user to type
in large amounts of text. As mentioned elsewhere some
softkeys are generally provided. Pointing devices vary
from none to a stylus. Typically phones will have a key
pointing arrangement that allows direction control using
Up/Down, Left/Right and Select and this can also be
achieved using the numeric 2/8, 4/6 and 5 for select.
Some phones contain rotary switches that can be used
for pointing or menu navigation.
Battery Power
Mobile devices are battery powered and so the mobile
devices processing power is much lower that than that of
a PC. Use of computationally expensive graphics needs
to be limited. If the mobile device is a phone then some
minimum amount of battery capacity needs to be
conserved for phone calls. For this reason mobile devices
71
typically have backlit screens which are dimmed by the

mobile device to conserve power after a certain interval
of inactivity.
becomes 10000 divided by 3 giving us 3333 instead.

This result could be displayed to the user as 3.333 with
some text string library utilities that are available.
Issues when a program is running

When an m-learning application is launched it cannot
be assumed that it will always stay running nor that a
network connection will always be available. The
application may need to terminate if the user switches
the device off, or if it needs to suspend its operation at
the request of the mobile device as there may be an
incoming phone call. If the application requires network
connectivity, perhaps to post results of a test taken by
the user, then the results will have to be stored locally if
the user has wandered out of phone coverage.
Processor and Memory

Mobile device processors are less powerful that their
desktop PC counterparts and so is memory. A hard disk
in not normally available but many portable devices
allow for memory cards with gigabyte capacities
becoming common.
Connectivity
Mobile devices can come with various wireless
connectivity built in. For phones there is the cellular
network and the software developer can access and
submit content over, for example, a GPRS network. The
code libraries to do this are easily accessible from JME,
Symbian etc. Other forms of wireless connectivity
include Infrared and Bluetooth. Some idea for using this
kind of nearby connectivity for learning are provided
later in this chapter.
Programming Libraries
The programming libraries available to the programmer
are cut-down versions of those used to develop desktop
applications. On some early Java phones it was is not
possible to write program statements involving floating
point arithmetic (so dividing 10 by 3 would result in 3).
If calculations with some precision are required then the
program would have to be written to internally use units
multiplied by a factor of say 1000 so our example
Some Examples of Simple Learning Objects

for a JAVA-enabled phone
Example 1: BBC GCSE Bitesize
The BBC (2006) have developed a GCSE quiz game
that can be used on a mobile device as a thin client
(using WAP) or autonomously where the game is
downloaded as a Java program. Subjects include
Mathematics, Science and English (shown).
Figure 1. BBCs GCSE Bite Size running in WAP

mode. A network is always required to connect with
the server and there are no animated graphics.
Figure 2. Screenshots of BBCs GCSE Bite Size MIDlets in action

The illustration shows BBCs GCSE Byte Size running
in autonomous mode as a Java MIDlet. Note the ability
to display graphics (the last screen is actually animated).
72
Once the game is downloaded no further network is

required so it will work anywhere (Currin 2006).
Example 2: Cork Institute of Technology 3rd Year

Computing Assignment
Graphical User Interfaces is a subject in CITs Honours
Computing degree and part of the subject involves
developing programs on mobile devices. One recent
assignment was an mLearning Java MIDlet game to test
school childrens ability to answer maths questions such
as addition, subtraction etc. The user typically starts off
on level one with addition then, if successful, moves on
to subtraction, multiplication and division. The students

were given rough guidelines as to what the program
should do, for example a random encouraging message
should be displayed for correct answers. Some students
included a cartoon graphic that was initially blank and
with each correct answer another part of the graphic was
revealed. Others asked the user for their name and
gender to personalise the encouraging messages. Some
MIDlet screen shots follow.
Figure 3. MIDlet screen shots

One of the difficulties encountered here had to do
with programming softkeys on mobile phones.
These are keys just at the bottom of the screen that
can be assigned different functionality based on the
current programs context. So if the user is choosing an
item from a list the left softkey could be assigned
Select and the right softkey Back. However it is not
possible from within a MIDlet program to assign a
softkey to a specific command. The reason for this is
that the number of softkeys in mobile devices varies and
some phoned may have a dedicated Select key, so
trying to assign Select to a softkey wouldnt make
sense. MIDlets provide a mechanism where the
programmer creates a prioritised list of commands such
as Select, Back, OK etc and requests the phones
operating system to assign them, based on a particular
phones softkeys. The phones operating system then
makes the decision as to how the softkeys will actually
be assigned with the result that the same MIDlet
running on a different phone will have different softkey
assignments.
Example 3: JAVA MIDlets at Mlaga University
Fernndez-Morales describes the use of Java MIDlets as
part of two actuarial degrees at Mlaga University, to
offer a rang of tools comprising a calendar, a glossary of
terms, MCQs and a limited range of content
(Fernandez-Morales 2003).
Figure 4. Main mathematical functions from

Actuarial degree at Mlaga University
The example illustrates that it is possible to offer learners
as opposed to designers, the designer perspective is
offered at the end of this chapter something akin to the
experience associated with web-based Learning
Management Systems (LMSs) using JAVA MIDlets alone.
It may be argued also that, as with LMSs, the secret is not
in the sophistication of the individual tool most of the
tools of a standard LMS have long been available as standalone, often free, software but in bringing a range of
tools together under the one roof, as it were.
Game-based Learning Objects for the JAVAenabled phone

Probably the most popular not to mention profitable
use of JAVA MIDlets for the mobile phone has been
with regard to downloadable computer games: a JAVA73
compliant phone will typically come with two or three

of these already installed out of the box but users can
then use their mobile's functionality to purchase and
download more.
Vodafone, for example, the worlds largest mobile
telecommunications network company, offer their
customers, via their VodafoneLive Service, the chance to
download games from an increasingly large catalogue of
games, grouped together under categories familiar to
computer gamers such as Sport, Platform, Combat,
Shoot em Up, Strategy/Puzzle etc.
Many of these games, e.g. Prince of Persia from
GameLoft and Call of Duty from Activision, are light
versions of games available on a PC or gaming console,
others are tie-ins with popular films, e.g. Mission
Impossible III, others are versions of familiar co-op
classics like Gauntlet. The file size is usually relatively
low (about 60 to 100 kb) with typical download times
of less than a minute; the charge, in Ireland, per
download at present is usually five or seven euros,
depending on the sophistication of the game. Once
downloaded the games are saved onto the phone and
can be played, offline, whenever the user wants, a great
advantage in terms of cost and convenience over other
live pay-per-use/view services (Hicks 2006).
As noted in the literature many of the key characteristics
of computer games make them ideal tools for the
facilitation of learning. They are, for example, highly
motivating (gaming is a high frequency activity), users
are certainly actively engaged by them and they reward
the acquisition of skills (albeit sometimes in a limited
sense of the word skill); they provide instant feedback
to the user and well-designed games help players to
achieve and maintain flow state, a state of intense
concentration and passionate involvement where
challenges are closely geared to ability
(Csikszentmihalyi, cited in Mitchell and Savil-Smith
2004) a state many educational theorists would regard
as an optimal one for learning. Nor are these advantages
limited to the more complex 3D games of today built to
run on purpose-build consoles or PCs with large
graphics cards.
A number of existing Java-based titles for the mobile
phone could in fact be used in their current form for
educational ends. For example Jamdat Mobile a global
74
wireless publisher who develops games for a range of

wireless platforms including mobile phones, PDAs and
Pocket PCs offers a tycoon-style game (Tycoon style
games have become something of a genre in their own
right in recent years with popular titles for PCs and
consoles including Zoo Tycoon, Roller Coaster Tycoon,
Monopoly Tycoon etc) called Lemonade Tycoon in
which users acquire and test business skills in building a
little stand into a big business.
Figure 5. Screenshots from the Lemonade Tycoon

game from Jamdat (Jamdat Mobile 2006)
Those sceptical of the breath of knowledge and
competence that could be addressed using a game like
this are directed to Prenskys comments regarding the
lessons our children are learning from a similar style PCbased game (Roller Coaster Tycoon):
Players learn how to build and run an enterprise. players
learn how to use an economic simulation with a graphic
interface players learn about the constraints on what
you can and cant do in businessOn the Why, or
strategy level, players learn about the trade-offs that need
to be made in order to run a business successfully
players learn about a business environment what
customers think, how they behave, how to make them
happy or mad (Prensky 2005, 2006).
Even the more traditional arcade-style game can, with
some slight tweaking, become a powerful educational
tool. The screenshot below from Walsh in the Cork
Institute of Technology shows a basic shoot em up style
game used to improve character recognition for students
with literacy issues (users control the spaceship at the
bottom and shoot the letters above in order to create the
word spelt out along the bottom of the screen).
(API). Another user can then browse to Google maps

and view these marked locations complete with the
comments entered earlier.
Figure 6. Game for improving character recognition
Providing Location-based Services to Javaenabled Mobile Phones

Another example of the use of the Java-enabled phone
for m-learning purposes involves its integration with a
GPS receiver. In The Cork Institute of Technologys
Honours Computing degree students are required to do
a software project in their final year. Each student comes
up with their own project proposal and then submits it
to verify if it is suitable as a 4th year project. Students
have been encouraged to investigate and use new
technologies including mobile. To date we have had
several projects involving mobile platforms including an
RSS newsfeed aggregator, and a content management
system for JME.
One student (Lynch 2006) developed a framework that
allows a location-aware mobile phone to post/get data
from a server. In order to enable the phone to be
location aware a Java library was developed by the
student to connect to a Bluetooth GPS receiver from the
phone. The GPS receiver has no user interface and acts
solely under the control of this library. The GPS receiver
outputs serial 'sentences' to the phone over Bluetooth
and includes such information as latitude, longitude,
speed etc. Additional libraries were developed to connect
to the internet via the GPRS cellular network and so the
phone can retrieve or store data on a server from any
location. This latter library interfaces with another code
library developed on a server to complete the locationaware framework. The server side programming was
done using Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) servlets.
To demonstrate the location-aware framework the
student developed a MIDlet that allowed the user to
mark his location, enter comments, and pass this
information back to the server which, in turn, accesses
the Google Maps application programming interface
This last project has great potential for developing

innovative mLearning applications. An example would
be for subjects involving outdoor learning such as
geology or archaeology. An application could be
developed, for example, that requires a student to seek
out and identify certain geological features and then
mark their GPS location on the phone. Results could be
automatically gathered and marked by comparing
what/where a student located a feature against a correct
table of features with their locations stored in terms of
latitude and longitude. This could be further enhanced
by using the phones camera to take pictures of a feature
and have this compared with a stored image of the
correct solution. Image comparisons are not viable on a
phone due to its limited processing power so the images
could be transferred via the GPRS/Internet to a server
application for analysis. Alternatively features could be
accompanied by a simple symbol (like a barcode) that
could be analysed by the phone itself.
JAVA MIDlets and Bluetooth Connectivity

Another example of the way in which the learning
opportunities afforded by a JAVA-enabled phone could
be expanded through integration with other more-orless standard mobile phone features involves the use of
nearby wireless connectivity such as Infared and,
latterly, Bluetooth. Though Bluetooth is primarily
associated with the provision of wireless connectivity
between, for example, a mobile and a hands-free set or,
increasingly, PCs and their various peripheral devices it
can, in association with Java MIDlets, provide some
obvious and beneficial educational applications also. For
example a lecturer could provide basic Java MIDletbased content on the fly, via say a laptop or mobile, to
the students in their classrooms and lecture halls.
Although Bluetooth was designed to allow a device
e.g. the lecturer's PC, the Bluetooth master to connect
to up to seven other devices e.g. student's mobile
phones, the Bluetooth slaves and a class will generally
consist of more than seven students, the Bluetooth
specification allows for the connecting up of two or
more piconets (a network of up to eight devices)
together to form a scatternet, with some devices acting
as a bridge by simultaneously playing the master role in
one piconet and the slave role in another piconet. Part of
the functionality of the MIDlets in this scenario would
be to act as such a bridge as required.
75
The kind of content a lecturer provides might be in the

way of supplementary or illustrative material, it could be
something the students would look at there and then or
use to prepare for a future class or assessment task one
thinks, for example of a list of recommended readings, a
summary of a lecture or a description of a piece of
homework. It might even be that students would be
given a quick multiple choice or other quantitative style
test to take there and then with results either being
provided to them on the go or as part of a formative
assessment process. A lecturers PC could gather student
solutions via Bluetooth and then forward them to a
database accessible to the lecturers office PC.
Alternatively, if the assessment is to be finished after the
lecture, the student could submit a solution OTA (i.e.
over the air, using for example the GPRS network) at a
later time. In either case the lecturer's PC or student's
phone MIDlet could communicate with a server hosting
Apace/Tomcat and running Java servlets specifically
developed to gather, process and save student solutions
in a database, for access by the lecturer at a later date.

Care of course needs to be taken with assessments/exams
students can have their phones connect to each other's
and be tempted to get assistance from other students
nearby using Bluetooth or, further afield, OTA.
The integration of JAVA MIDlets with Bluetooth
connectivity perhaps only comes into its own in the
opportunities it can create for cooperative and
collaborative learning. Mobile phone Bluetooth
applications such as Nokias Sensor (Nokia 2006)
which allow users to create a homepage and provide
access to it and an associated guestbook to other users
with the same application. The Sensor application works
by scanning the area for mobile phones with Bluetooth
activated after which a connection between the two
terminals is established and one user can read the
information posted by the other, send messages and even
exchange files.
Figure 7. Advertisement for Nokia Sensor shows Social Networking opportunities in operation (Nokia Sensor)
The same features could easily be provided by a JAVA
MIDlet, making it necessary for a would-be member of
the same educational network merely to have the same
MIDlet installed as opposed to their all owning a phone
from the same limited range of compatible Nokia phone
models. Such a MIDlet would scan the Bluetooth
network for other devices running the same MIDlet. A
peer-to-peer connection could then be made and the
type of data indicated above exchanged.
Such an application could be easily used, for instance, to
match up learners with similar academic or other
interests to work together on collaborative assignments
or short in-class discussions. Indeed, JAVA could
be used to alert users to other suitable collaborators or
learning buddies in the immediate network according
to shared interests, opinions etc one thinks, for
instance, of a breakout session in a face-to-face
training event where users are asked to choose a topic
76
from a list to discuss with other individuals whove not

just chosen the same topic but work in a cognate area
and have expressed a similar opinion on the matter.
Such groupings could take on a life of their own and
provide the basis for ongoing collaborative activity
outside the classroom and the Bluetooth network in
this case the JAVA-based technology simply
facilitates the creation of the collaborative group or
alternatively groups could continue to change
according to a range of course and contextual factors.
I might, for instance, be a multimedia student
looking for a short-term collaborator with strong
programming skills for a class project, or vica versa, and
I might find one as I walk across campus or, just as
easily, as I wait for the bus to town. The possibilities
once again are legion, even more so when considered in
the light of other Java-based opportunities already
indicted in this chapter.
Conclusions
Over the course of this chapter a number of crucial
educational affordances offered by the Java-enabled
phone have been dealt with, these have included:
The provision of basic auto-corrected MCQ-type

learning objects
A range of other basic LMS-style features such as

calendars, glossaries etc
A range of innovative game-based learning objects
In conjunction with a basic GSM receiver, a range of

life-wide learning opportunities based on the
location-awareness of the two devices together
In conjunction with Bluetooth and a desktop, a

range of content or tools which can be downloaded
on the fly or according to certain criteria to Javaenabled phones
Likewise a range of Bluetooth-based services can be

used to facilitate cooperative and collaborative
learning via basic MIDlets.
All of these innovations referred to however share the

same shortcoming that they are once-offs, created in
a particular context for a single purpose, they cannot be
modified and re-used without access to the source code
and a thorough knowledge of Java ME. In order to
mainstream and substantiate the use of Java MIDlets in
formal education circles what is required is an easy-touse development tool that allows ordinary teachers and
trainers to leverage the benefits of Java in their own
educational contexts. Rather than create a completely
new MIDlet each time a designer wants to offer a new
learning object, a good solution would be to provide the
designer with a framework which would contain the
following modules:
A PC Authoring tool to assist in learning objects

generation
A Learner MIDlets Emulator to see and test the

authoring tool's output
Learner MIDlet(s) to interpret the learning objects

(deployed on the learners phone).
The above framework could be developed by software

engineers but made for the use of ordinary teachers and
trainers with programming ability to produce learning
objects according to their needs. Something of the
characteristics and details of each of these envisaged
modules is provided below. Research and development
work is ongoing in the Cork Institute of Technology

into these components.
Authoring Tool
The authoring tool would be used to generate learning
objects of various types, e.g. quiz-types (e.g. listmatching, basic MCQ etc) , content-types (e.g. short
summaries, glossaries) and game-types (shoot em ups,
Platformers, Tycoon style games etc). The tool would
generate files to be downloaded to the mobile device for
interpretation by the Learner MIDlet(s) in order to run
the quiz or game etc. The files generated by the
authoring tool could be in XML format in conjunction
with other files required e.g. JPEG images. The
Authoring Tool envisaged here is similar to the eLibera
project described in the chapter J2ME Based
Applications in an mLearning Situation but would
accommodate additional learning object types such as
the game-based learning objects as indicated.
Images would of course have to be optimised to the
screen resolution of the target mobile device, there being
little point in sending a high resolution image to a
phone with a low resolution screen the unnecessary
size would only incur extra download costs and use up
the phone's valuable memory resources; similarly if a
phone with a high resolution display receives an image
with too low a resolution then it will look unsatisfactory.
One way around this would be to have the authoring
tool take any images imported by the user and tailor
them to the planned target device(s) while raiseing
similar points to those treated in the section below
regarding an emulator module.
Learner MIDlets Emulator
It would be important for users also to be able to see the
output of the Authoring Tool to validate that it does
what is intended and that there are no surprises when it
is ultimately downloaded to mobile devices of varying
capabilities. Mobile software development environments
such as Borlands JBuilder and Sun's Netbeans use
generic mobile phone emulators to test/debug developed
MIDlets.These emulators adhere to a standard and can
be replaced with emulators of another specific model as
are made available from many mobile phone
manufactures. Typically a software developer can, in this
way, verify a MIDlet for a specific make and model. The
Learner MIDlets Emulator would then adhere to this
standard allowing the teacher or trainer in this case to
swap in an emulator for a specific production phone
when/if desired.
77
Learner MIDlet(s)
In this framework it is suggested that Learner MIDlet/s
would reside on the learner's mobile device and accept
input, in the form of XML and associated files, from the
Authoring tool via download (Bluetooth or over the air).
Ideally a single MIDlet could be developed to interpret
all types of learning objects generated by the Authoring
Tool. However the software design of an MCQ is
considerably different from that of a shoot 'em up and
catering for all content types in a single MIDlet might
prove to be impractical. Such a single MIDlet would
have a large memory foot print which might prevent its
use on many more basic phones with limited memory.
The current version of the eLibera MLE MIDlet, which
handles the subset of learning types mentioned earlier, is
in the order of 250 Kb in size and exceeds some phone's
MIDlet memory size limitations. Phones however with
this kind of limited MIDlet memory size will normally
also have limited graphics ability raising the issue of
where a practical cut-off point might be set as to what
range of phones can be supported by the proposed
framework if all types of learning objects are to be
catered for.
An alternative approach is to use a suite of specialised
MIDlets: one for MCQs, another for shoot em ups, etc.
This approach has the advantage of now including some
very basic phones for certain learning object types that
are not resource-intensive (i.e. do not require good
graphics, are not computationally intensive etc). For
example a 'low end phone' with a small MIDlet memory
capacity may easily run an MCQ MIDlet, whereas it
may not have the resources to run a 2D mLearning
graphics game. However a suite of MIDlets is more
difficult for a user to use they now need to choose the
correct MIDlet for a particular learning object type.
Notwithstanding this point, if the users phone has
limited memory resources then they could manage its
resourses themselves deleting one or more MIDlets to
make room for others and subsequently re-downloading
the deleted MIDlets later.
MIDlets often need to have specific versions configured
specifically for each series type, in the case of eLibera
they currently provide 26 for Sony-Ericsson. This
78
applies also to mobile games there is usually a version

of the game for each phone type. So it is anticipated that
many phone specific versions of the Learning MIDlets
will need to be developed. The user would then
download only that version suitable for their phone.
There are many gaming companies that have systems
that already manage this for users e.g. the Irish company
Selatra (www.selatra.com).
References
Fernndez-Morales, A. (2003), Learning tools for Javaenabled phones: an application for actuarial studies,
in Attewell, J. and Savil-Smith, C. (eds.), Learning
with mobile devices: research and development.
London:LSDA. http://www.mlearning.org/docs/Learning%20with%20Mobile%2
0Devices%20-%20A%20Book%20of%20
Papers%20from%20MLEARN%202003.pdf (19
March 2004).
BBC (2006) GCSE Bytesize Revisions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/mobile/
(20 January 2006)
Jamdat Mobile (2006), Lemonade Tycoon.
http://www.eamobile.com/Web/Catalog/UK/en/ga
me/mobile/ProductDetailOverviewView/product249 (19 May 2006).
Lynch, S. (2006), A Prototype framework to provide
location-based services to mobile phones, Final year
project dissertation, Cork Institute of Technology.
(unpublished)
Mitchell, A. and Savil-Smith, C. (2004), TheUse of
Computer and Video Games for Learning.
London:LSDA. http://www.lsda.org.uk/
files/PDF/1529.pdf (12 Feb 2005).
Nokia, (2006). Nokia sensor: see and be seen,
http://www.nokia.com/sensor
Prensky, M. (2005), What can you learn from a cell
phone? Almost anything!. Innovate 1 (5),
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=arti
cle&id=83 (1 June 2006)
Prensky, M. (2006), Dont bother me Mom Im learning,
Paragon House, USA.
Chapter 11
The use of Flash Lite and web authoring tools in
mobile learning course design
Fintan Costello
This chapter outlines the adaptation of two popular telecommunications courses for delivery on a smartphone. It covers the
design methodology and development platforms used.
Both WCDMA Radio Access Network Overview and Service Layer Overview are telecommunications courses used for training
in the telecommunications industry.
The Device
The test devices used when developing the mLearning materials were the SonyEricsson p900 and p910i smartphone.
A smartphone is a term used to characterize a high
specification wireless handset with additional computer
features typically not associated with standard handsets.
A smart phone could be best described as a high-end
phone with converged PDA features which may include:
Personal information management
LAN connectivity
Graffiti style data entry
Local data transfer between phone set and computers
Remote data transfer between phone set and

computers
Remote control of computers
Remote control of home or business electronic systems
Wireless e-mail, Internet, Web browsing, and fax

Figure 1. The SonyEricsson p910 Smartphone
Handset manufacturers, which at one time only

customized their devices to ensure network
compatibility in different regions, must now
manufacture to meet extensive specification lists on a
handset-by-handset and carrier-by-carrier basis.
Implementing such extensive customization, however, is
a complicated task that is sure to grow increasingly more
difficult as the market matures. Today, handset
manufacturers can choose from an extensive range of
options, ranging in features which include at least three

types of displays, seven screen resolutions, six bit depths,
five camera capture resolutions, four form factor designs,
two application environments, and four high-level
operating systems (Palm OS, Microsoft Windows
Mobile, Symbian, and Linux).
Each handset manufacturer utilizes a variety of different
combinations within its lineup in order to provide a
79
provides a core set of application programming

interfaces (APIs) and technologies that is shared by
all Symbian OS phones. Key industry standards are
supported
unique and compelling experience for the consumer. We

are now extending the user experience to include
education and training materials for mobile learning.
Where an operator, content developer or handset
manufacturer is developing an application the
complexity involved in creating and deploying timesensitive and user-valuable content is extremely high. All
players in the mobile chain, therefore, find themselves in
need of a solution that allows them to quickly develop,
deploy, maintain, and update multiple forms of content
that work across an entire product portfolio and are
adaptable to a variety of demands.
Mobile phone users tend to be quite unforgiving in their
initial assessment of new services. As the mobile telecoms
world migrates towards data services deployed on
networks and handsets, todays users have extremely high
telecoms grade performance expectations with regard to
mobile services and applications. Mobile data service is
not the Internet. Subscribers tend to reject new
applications within two or three trials if this performance
is not met. It is therefore advisable, when creating any
new applications, mobile learning in this example, to give
users the service they want, make it work, make it easy to
use and to make it easy to pay for, so that the subscriber
has a full understanding of exactly how the content or
service is charged for should a charge apply.
The Platform
The P900 platform uses the Symbian operating system.
Symbian OS is the advanced, open, standard operating
system licensed by the world's leading mobile phone
manufacturers. Symbian OS is designed for the specific
requirements of open, advanced, data-enabled 2G, 2.5G
and 3G mobile phones. Symbian OS was planned from
the beginning to be a full operating system in terms of
functionality. Symbian OS is characterized by:
Integrated multimode mobile telephony Symbian

OS integrates the power of computing with mobile
telephony, bringing advanced data services to the
mass market
Open application environment Symbian OS

enables mobile phones to be a platform for
deployment of applications and services (programs
and content) developed in a wide range of languages
and content formats
80
Open standards and interoperability With a

flexible and modular implementation, Symbian OS
Multi-tasking Symbian OS is fully object-oriented

and component-based. It includes a multi-tasking
kernel, middleware for communications, data
management and graphics, the lower levels of the
graphical user interface framework, and application
engines
Flexible user interface design By enabling flexible

graphical user interface design on Symbian OS,
Symbian is fostering innovation and is able to offer
choice for manufacturers, carriers, enterprises and
end-users. Using the same core operating system in
different designs also eases application porting for
third party developers
Robustness Symbian OS maintains instant access to

user data. It ensures the integrity of data, even in the
presence of unreliable communication, and shortage
of resources such as memory, storage and power
At the time of writing, Symbian is at version 9.2.

Version 7.0 was used for both of the courses.
The Delivery Platform for WCDMA RAN Overview
This course was designed to be accessed from an LMS
hosted on a web server. The course content was designed
to be platform independent; it would be equally
accessible on:
A PC or PDA running Internet Explorer, Mozilla

Firefox, Opera or variants
A smartphone such as the SonyEricsson P900

running Opera on Symbian
Opera is a modern browser engine, with similar

functionality as provided in Opera's desktop
products. Opera uses the standard Symbian OS sockets
mechanism, and as such has the ability to browse over
GSM-CSD, GPRS, CDMA, TCP/IP, etc. The engine is
also capable of browsing local files. The engine supports
the following features:
Rendering: HTML 4.01, CSS-1 and CSS-2, and

MHTML
XML: XML 1.0 with support for XHTML 1.0 and

XHTML Basic documents
ECMAScript: support ECMA-262 version 2

standard (and most of version 3).
JavaScript environment: partial DOM and

DHTML
Java: supports downloading and installation of Java

MIDlets
Image formats: gif, animated gif, jpeg and png
Plug-ins support using subset of Netscape plug-in

architecture
FTP downloads
Handling of unknown URL schema. This includes

support to pass "mailto:", "fax:" and "sms:" schemas
to the messaging application
Handling of unknown MIME types: files of types

not natively supported by the browser are passed to
other applications
The Delivery Platform for Service Layer Overview

The course was designed to run on the P900 as
previously. However, based on the lessons learned while
developing the WCDMA course, it was decided to
design the Service Layer Overview course so that it
would have a much smaller footprint.
As a result the course was developed using a different
development tool, Macromedia Flash Lite. The aim was
to develop a shorter course with a higher level of
technical detail and to provide a simpler user interface
and more intuitive interaction. The course module
would be developed as a downloadable module which
would be stored locally on the phone.
WCDMA Radio Access Network Overview

The course provides students with an overview of the
WCDMA Radio Access Network, with all its
components, and functions. This course duration is
suggested as 3 hours, including testing. The course
content consists of four training modules and an end of
course test, presented as a mix of text and still graphics.
All modules have animations in Flash with full voice-over.
Technology and software used
It was decided to develop this course as a succession of
linked XHTML Web-pages that load into a frame
element in a user-interface page. The development tools
- Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Version 1.0 and Opera
7 - and technologies - XHTML 1.0 Transitional and
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Level 2 - were used to
accomplish this. In addition, an image-making tool
(Adobe Photoshop 5.5) was used to design and create
small diagrams for course pages, and JavaScript and

DOM technology facilitated the provision of dynamic
page features.
XHTML 1.0 Transitional
To qualify as valid XHTML, each Web-page document
of the alternative .handheld. site had to obey the
following rules:
1. The document had to have an XML declaration: As
the character encoding of the document was other
than the default UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation
Format-8), the document had to have an XML
declaration.
2. There had to be a DOCTYPE declaration in the
document, with the declaration referencing one of
the three Document Type Definition (DTD) files
for XHTML (strict, transitional or frameset): The
DTD file for XHTML transitional was referenced.
3. The root element of the document had to be .html,
and the html element had to designate the XHTML
namespace: An XML namespace is a collection of
names, identified by a URI reference, which are used
in XML documents as element types and attribute
names.
The document had to have the head, title, and body
structural elements:
A standard document should have the head, title,

and body structural elements.
All elements in the document had to nest properly.
All element and attribute names had to be lowercase.
Every element had to have an end tag, unless

declared in the DTD as EMPTY.
Empty elements had to have an end tag, or the start

tag had to end with />: For example, <br> would
not be valid; but <br></br> or <br /> would. The
empty elements are: area, base, basefont, br, col,
frame, hr, img, input, isindex, link, meta, and
param. If ./>. syntax was used, there had to be a
space before the /> (e.g. <br />).
Attributes could not be minimized: E.g., <td

nowrap> would not be valid; but <td
nowrap="nowrap"> would.
All attribute values had to be quoted.
Certain elements had to have an id attribute as well

as a name attribute: These elements were: a, applet,
form, frame, iframe, img, and map.
81
For attributes with values of an enumerated type,

the values had to be lower case e.g.,
align="CENTER" would not be valid; but
align="center" would.
All script and style elements had to have a type

attribute.
All img and area elements had to have an alt attribute.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) L1 / L2

CSS is a technology for attaching style (fonts, textalignment, background-colors, element-positioning, and
so on) to structured documents (e.g., HTML
documents and XML applications). CSS enables authors
to separate presentation style from document content,
and this simplifies the webpage development process. In
addition, all style rules defining presentation and
formatting throughout a website are contained in a
single CSS file, and design refinements and changes that
effect multiple pages are made in a single stop.
A major benefit of using CSS when developing this
course was that it facilitated the implementation of wellstructured, maintainable XHTML documents. As all
presentation rules were centralized in an external .css
file, the XHTML documents needed only to lay out the
basic structure of each page, and therefore the purpose
of the markup would be clearly understood by anyone
examining and maintaining the code.
JavaScript
JavaScript is a scripting language for creating simple
code to control the behavior of web document objects.
Web-page elements such as tables, table cells, images,
<span> elements and <div> containers are accessible
through corresponding object representations in the
Document Object Model (DOM).
JavaScript functions are used to toggle the visibility of
course user-interface icons and headings. In response to
user clicks, these functions use the DOM to control
objects representing <img> and <span> elements so that
particular icons and headings are shown or hidden.
The JavaScript functions that control the dynamic userinterface of the prototype course are triggered by user
interaction with clickable page elements. After an event
(such as a mouse-click on an anchor, or the loading of
the body section of the document) occurs, the browser
checks whether there is JavaScript code to be called. The
browser will carry out the instructions in the JavaScript
function that is supposed to be called when that
particular event occurs.
Figure 2 shows how different icons (open-folder or
closed-folder icons) and headings appear on the
navigation panel of the course when the user goes from
one lesson to another after clicking a lesson number
(outlined).
Figure 2. The navigation panel of the course displaying different icons and headings after
the user goes from one lesson to another.
The <img> and <span> element objects available to
JavaScript through the DOM provide access to the style
sheet visibility property settings for the elements.
(JavaScript also changes the background-colour settings
for certain table cell elements when the user makes
lesson-section selections).
JavaScript code is included in webpage documents by
placing it between opening and closing <script> tags.
JavaScript is used to write scripts that run client-side on
82
the Web browser. This contrasts with a situation where

code instructions in a webpage document run on the
Web-server before the page is sent to the client.
JavaScript began life as a Netscape scripting language
but as it grew in popularity the other leading browsers
(Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Safari) provided
support for it or .ECMA script (This was a closely
related European Computer Manufacturers Association
standardized specification).
Document Object Model (DOM)

The ability to change the appearance of a Web-page
dynamically with JavaScript is made possible by the
DOM. The DOM originated as a specification to allow
JavaScript scripts and Java programs to be portable
among Web browsers. The W3C DOM is designed to
be a standard, cross-browser Application Programming
Interface (API) to the structure of documents. The
DOM allows scripts to access a Web-page through a
hierarchical structure with the window itself at the
beginning, and breaking down into nodes and child
nodes. A <div> container element with an <img> child
element, for example, would form a parent element
node to child element node link in the abstract view.
Multiple Access Technologies) that appear when the

user clicks Lesson 3.
The DOM can connect any element on a page to a

JavaScript function. To find, for example, an <img>
element in the document with an id attribute value of
diagram1, the following path is used in JavaScript:
The W3C did not fully standardize the DOM until

2001, and older browsers (Netscape 4 and Internet
Explorer 4) implemented their own conflicting DOMs.
However, the majority of modern browsers now support
the W3C DOM.
Figure 3. The section-headings group (bracketed)

that appears when the user selects lesson 3.
window.document.images.diagram1
An easy way to access an object in a document is to pass
the unique name value of the elements id attribute to
the getElementById method of the Document interface:
During development of this course, it was discovered

that the Opera 6.31 browser does not have a complete
W3C DOM implementation. During testing JavaScript
code to change the background style sheet property
setting worked on Opera 7, but not on Opera 6.31.
document.getElementById(diagram1)
JavaScript functions in prototype course pages use the
getElementById approach when changing particular
elements style sheet property settings. The following
code segment was used so that a particular group of
section-headings would appear on the navigation panel
whenever a user chose the corresponding lesson:
while (startHeadingNoNewGroup < startNoNextGroup)
{
document.getElementById ('topic_Sect_Heading'
+startHeadingNoNewGroup).style.visibility = visible;
startHeadingNoNewGroup++;
}
Each of the elements in the group targeted in the
previous code segment is uniquely identified by a
number part in its id attribute value, e.g.
topic_Sect_Heading17. This is why concatenation with
a startHeadingNoNewGroup variable is necessary in
each iteration of the loop.
Figure 3 shows the section-headings group (Section
Objectives, Spectrum and Duplex Techs, and
The differences between the Opera 7 and Opera 6.31

DOM implementations highlighted an important
consideration. JavaScript in pages produced for smartphones / PDAs cannot be guaranteed the level of control
over document objects that a full DOM implementation
would provide. For this course, JavaScript use of the
DOM was simplified and a getElementById approach
was settled on for dynamically changing certain
elements background-color or visibility style sheet
property settings.
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Version 1.0 was used
during coding because it has the following features:
A Site Definition Wizard that allows developers to

specify a root folder where all site development work
(sub-folders and files) is saved to. Once a site is
defined Dreamweaver can automatically update all
pages sharing a common template if changes are
made to the template. A site definition also provides
developers with an efficient, mouse-click means of
inserting pre-defined (in a CSS file) class and id
names to HTML tags.
83
A validator that can be set up to validate against a

particular Markup language specification, e.g.
XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
A facility for previewing the page being coded in

whichever installed browser has been specified for that
purpose in Edit > Preferences > Preview in Browser.
feature to ensure that pixels at the edge of an antialiased shape blend with the Web-pages
background-color.
A Web color palette can be specified for the image (to

use the palette most often used by Web browsers).
Course Design and Development

Adobe Photoshop 5.5
Photoshop provides settings when an image is being
saved in Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) that
enables the developer to produce a lightweight graphic
for improved webpage download time:
Transparent areas from the original Photoshop

image can be included in the GIF Web version (to
produce a GIF with a transparent background).
As well as preserving the full transparency of

background pixels, the developer can use a matting
The prototype course user-interface screen (a Web-page

with an iframe element for loading course material) was
created with a column <div> container that holds all
content.
The user interface page was designed to behave
dynamically. When the user clicks a lesson number on
the navigation panel, the icons and headings displayed
by the panel change, and new material is loaded into the
<iframe> element. Figure 4 illustrates this dynamic
capability.
Figure 4. Example of dynamic changes (changed navigation panel folder icons and headings,
and changed course material) on the user-interface.
84
JavaScript included in the user interface page provides

the dynamic features shown above. The folder icons are
<img> elements, and each heading that JavaScript needs
to control is placed in a separate <span> element.
JavaScript functions in the user-interface page respond
to user interaction by changing style sheet visibility
property settings for different combinations of <img>
and <span> elements.
If the visibility property setting for an element is hidden
then it cannot be seen on-screen, while it is shown when
its visibility property is set to visible. There are a number
of set locations on the navigation panel for displaying
dynamically updating icons or headings.
To provide a different displayed combination of icons

and headings for each lesson in the course, the
JavaScript in the user-interface page allows only one
element from each stacked set to be visible at any time.
This is why, when the user chooses a particular Lesson,
one specific, corresponding icon (either an open-folder
or closed-folder icon) or heading is displayed at each of
the dynamic display locations highlighted in previous
screen-shots. As the JavaScript is used to dynamically
update the navigation panel only one element from each
stack set has its style sheet visibility property set to
visible.
At all times there is one specific icon (either an openfolder or closed-folder icon) or heading displayed at each
location.
The dynamic behaviour of the course user-interface was

achieved by combining the CSS, JavaScript and
XHTML and by manipulating the DOM. This
combination of technologies is known as DHTML
(Dynamic HTML).
All of the icons (either an open-folder or closed-folder

icon) or headings needed for a specific location are
stacked on separate virtual layers above that location.
The elements are placed on separate layers by setting the
style sheet position property to absolute for each
element. The separate layers created in this way act like
transparent sheets stacked on top of one another.
JavaScript updating of the user-interface display when

the user chooses a Lesson also involves loading
corresponding material into the pages iframe. It is a
separate web page (displaying material that corresponds
with the Lesson chosen) that is loaded into the iframe.
The following code is used to load different pages into
the iframe in the user interface page:
It would be possible to create a vertical stack of icons or

headings using transparent sheets placed over one
another if each sheet had a different icon or heading
text. CSS was used to achieve virtual layering of
elements over the course user-interface and each
dynamic display location on the navigation panel has its
own icon or headings set stacked above it.
frames[iFrame_WCDMA_RAN_Overview].location.href
=lesson+currentLessonNo+_Sect+barToActivate+.html;
Figure 5 shows some of the pages that can be loaded
into the user-interface <iframe>.
85
Figure 5. The pages that can be loaded into the <iframe>

In relation to the design of the course material pages
that load into the interface <iframe>, the major
challenge was how to convey ideas diagrammatically in
the limited space available. Concise, uncluttered
diagrams were the aim. Diagram key color codes were
used to avoid having to insert explanatory or labelling
86
text directly into graphics. Sometimes the complexity

and size of a necessary diagram could not be reduced
enough for device screen size. A scaled-down, simplified
image map version with different clickable areas was
used to provide links to separate full-size sub-section
views of the original graphic.
The course material consists of 87 screens displaying

text, audio and graphical content. An interactive help
feature is available by allowing the user to click on a
diagram or graphic for further explanation. A self-paced
questionnaire accompanies the material as a separate
module. Navigation is purposely reduced to forwards
and backwards navigation only.
Technology and software used
When considering this course development compared to
WCDMA RAN Overview, it was decided to develop a
shorter course with a higher level of technical detail as
the subject matter and provide a simpler user interface
and more intuitive interaction. The course module
would be developed in a downloadable module and
stored locally on the phone.
To meet these requirements, the course was developed
using a different development tool, Macromedia Flash
Lite, which is a profile in Macromedia Flash MX
Professional 2004.
Macromedia Flash Lite
Macromedia Flash Lite is the Macromedia Flash profile
developed specifically for Mobile devices. The
Macromedia Flash platform, the foundation upon which
Flash Lite is based, was created to enable content
developers to easily and rapidly deploy content to
mobile devices, from handheld devices to traditional
mobile phones to smartphones. Flash Lite leverages
Flash technology to provide a deeper multimedia
experience and, by means of Over-the-Air (OTA) update
capability, allows for dynamic content creation and
distribution.
Figure 6. This course page is shown loaded into

the user-interface pages <iframe>. Displayed here
is a clickable image map.
Service Layer Overview

Service Layer Overview is delivered as a short
presentation, or Technical Snapshot. The aim of the
snapshot series is to provide an insight to new business
areas, concepts, technologies or hot topics. Technical
snapshots are generally presented as 30 minute
presentations or demonstrations.
Additionally, Flash Lite can perform background

downloading and caching, a feature that helps to reduce
problems generated by wireless network latency issues.
Flash Lite has been deployed by a number of leading
operators, including KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, T-Mobile,
and Vodafone KK, and handset manufacturers,
including Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola
and more. It is also supported in devices such as PDAs,
multi-function devices from iRiver and practically every
interactive television provider.
While Macromedias Flash Player is capable of running
on high-end mobile devices,Flash Lite provides a
smaller, lighter profile for devices with a low hardware
footprint, for example, memory or processor restricted
mass-market mobile devices.
87
Once a device supports the Flash Lite player wireless

operators, content developers, and handset
manufacturers can deploy Flash Lite content across
devices with varying OS, processor, browser, and screen
size configurations. This facilitates the implementation
of a standard user interface across these devices.
Additionally, this standard user interface can be
modified separately from the actual Flash Lite, allowing
for over-the-air updates and dynamic content creation.
ActionScript and Macromedia Flash MX
Professional 2004
Creating Flash Lite content requires Macromedia Flash
MX Professional 2004. Content is created frame by
frame and text, graphics, motion graphics or animation

and sound can all be manipulated to create end-user
content. Each frame is controlled by a timeline.
Further content creation, user interaction and navigation
can be achieved using Action Script. ActionScript is an
object-oriented programming language that is designed
specifically for Web site animation. ActionScript makes it
possible for developers to create onscreen environments
such as games, tutorials, and e-commerce applications
that can respond to user input through the keyboard or
mouse. ActionScript is an event-driven language and
reacts to triggered events such as key press or stylus input
from a mobile device.
Figure 7. Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004

ActionScript was modelled on ECMA (European
Computer Manufacturers Association)-262, an
international standard for JavaScript. In the Flash 5
version, new ActionScript syntax, conventions, and
features were introduced that make it similar to
JavaScript, which in turn makes the language
automatically familiar to most Web developers. Flash 5
also includes a new ActionScript editing environment
that automates editing tasks and reduces development
time. However Action Script for Flash Lite supports
Action Script functionality for Flash version 4.
88
An example of an ActionScript command used in this

course is as follows.
GoToandPlay( );
Availability
Flash 2.
Usage
gotoAndPlay([scene:String,] frame:Object) : Void
Parameters
scene An optional string specifying the name of the scene
to which the playhead is sent.
frame A number representing the frame number, or a
string representing the label of the frame, to which the
playhead is sent.
Returns
Nothing.
Description
Function; sends the playhead to the specified frame in a
scene and plays from that frame. If no scene is specified,
the playhead goes to the specified frame in the current
scene. You can use the scene parameter only on the root
Timeline, not within Timelines for movie clips or other
objects in the document.
Example
In the following example, a document has two scenes:
sceneOne and sceneTwo. Scene one contains a frame
label on Frame 10 called newFrame and two buttons,
myBtn_btn and myOtherBtn_btn. This ActionScript is
placed on Frame 1, Scene 1 of the main Timeline.
stop();
myBtn_btn.onRelease = function(){
gotoAndPlay("newFrame");
};
myOtherBtn_btn.onRelease = function(){
gotoAndPlay("sceneTwo", 1);
};
When the user clicks the buttons, the playhead moves to
the specified location and continues playing.
Managing Graphics in Macromedia Flash MX Professional
Flash is typically used to build up movies and
animations frame by frame. A movie is a collection of
scenes and a scene is a single frame or an animated
sequence of frames. The actual content - static graphics,
motion graphics, text and audio is managed and
formatted within the Flash MX Professional studio.
Graphics used for animation are created in conjunction
with web development tools such as Adobe Photoshop
to optimise graphics format, appearance and file size and

for graphics editing such as color enhancement, fades
and cropping and graphic creation.
It is necessary to obtain a device template for the
handset you are creating content for. Some supported
device templates are included with Flash MX
Professional and are attainable when creating a new file.
Graphics and movie objects, known as symbols in Flash,
are displayed on the stage and can have graphic, button
or movie properties. You can specify the symbol name
and its behavior as a static graphic, a movie or animation
or a button. This brings motion and interaction to your
content. A button requires accompanying action script
code to implement interactivity or event driven actions.
Downloading the Flash Lite player

In the desktop environment web browsers typically
provide plug-in support for the Macromedia flash player
thus enabling web sites to embed appealing flash design
and animation within their pages. The browser support
for the Flash player removes the necessity for the user to
install and configure the Flash players themselves. Thus
Flash content designed for websites can be embedded as
an object in a webpage and viewed once the browser has
a plug-in configured or installed. The Flash player or
plug-in is available as freeware.
For mobile devices however, the Flash Lite player is
licensed per supported device. Device support is
manufacturer specific and only a subset of each
manufacturers device portfolio currently supports the
Flash Lite player. The business model being adopted by
Macromedia is to license the player to handset
manufacturers, making the Flash Lite player available as
a default on any new handsets sold that support Flash
Lite. A number of major handset manufacturers have
announced such licensing agreements with Macromedia.
However at present, although device support exists the
Flash Lite player must be licensed as software to be
installed on the phone. The player is non-transferable
and must be licensed to each device you wish to develop,
test or view content with and is specific to the devices
IMEI number you supply when you purchase the player.
Macromedias response to this current scenario is that
the player is being licensed in the developers domain for
a nominal fee, which is appropriate to R&D efforts for
Flash developers. The aim is not to place the
89
responsibility on mobile phone subscribers to source and

download the Flash Lite player but to have it available as
a feature on a new phone once licensed by the handset
manufacturer. To avail of the Flash Lite player a
subscriber must upgrade their device. Ultimately the
goal for Macromedia is to have its player licensed on all
or the majority of new handsets.
Downloading the Flash Lite player and installing it on a
supported device will enable you to view Flash content
stored locally on the phone. The following procedure
explains downloading the Flash Lite player.
1. It is necessary to decide if your device supports the
Flash Lite player or not.
To view content it is necessary to create a new directory

called Flash within the document directory on your
phones file system. The phones root directory consists
of five sub-directories. Select Document and create the
new sub-directory Flash. All future Flash movie files
(.swf ) must be stored at this location.
The directory structure to stored content is located at
My p910\Phone Memory\Document\Flash. It is from
this location that all Flash Lite content, .swf movie files
are launched by the Flash player. The user can simply
navigate through the phones file system with a stylus in
a similar Graphical User Interface to Microsoft
Windows.
2. Once you have decided your device will support the

Flash Lite player, visit
http://www.macromedia.com/software/Flash Lite
and follow the link to purchase the player.
Distribution of content
3. As the player is licensed per device it is necessary to

provide the IMEI number for the mobile handset
you wish to install the player on. The IMEI number
is short for International Mobile Equipment
Identity, a unique number given to every single
mobile phone, typically found behind the battery.
IMEI numbers of cellular phones connected to a
GSM network are stored in a database (EIR Equipment Identity Register) containing all valid
mobile phone equipment. To retrieve the IMEI
number, type *#06# on the handset and press call to
retrieve the number.
4. It is then possible to download the Flash Lite player

for your phone. The downloaded file will be a .sis
file, which you download to your PC.
Typically content creators would host content for

distribution to users through content servers or portals.
The user can download content to the PC, which is then
loaded on to the handset or directly download content
onto the handset. Further peer-to-peer distribution
would be achieved through mobile messaging and
transmission.
Installing the Flash Lite Player

and Future Content
Once the .sis file has been downloaded to a PC it is
necessary to move the file to the phone for installation.
This is achieved through a memory card, USB docking
station connection, Bluetooth or an Infrared connection
on the phone. Once the file is located on the phone,
you can select the file and begin the installation.
The phone is now configured to support Flash Lite
content and .swf Flash movie files. These files are
available as freeware on galleries and exchanges on the
web or you can create your own content with using the
Flash studio.
90
Considering the compressed file size of Flash Lite movie

files content distribution can be achieved through a
number of distribution media.
From PC to handset, via a USB cradle or docking

station.
From PC to handset, via Bluetooth or infrared
technology.
From PC to handset, via memory card.
From content server / portal via mobile network
download
From handset to handset via Bluetooth or Infrared
technology.
From handset to handset via mobile messaging such
as MMS (Multi-media messaging).
Conclusion
In the case of these two courses, different design styles
were used; this was largely due to the design limitations
of the source material. As neither course was originally
developed for delivery via a smart phone, innovative
solutions were required in adapting the material for a
smaller screen and user interface.
Didactics, navigation and course flow all require
reconsideration when redeveloping existing content. For
example, while both of these courses contain large
blocks of text, this presentation method is not suitable

for a smaller screen. Converting such content into
graphical form, by using Flash Lite for example, is a
good solution to these problems. Supplemental
documents can be offered as part of the course delivery,
outside of viewing course content on a smart phone.
Ultimately modularization and simplification of course
content is the way forward; delivering a customized,
downloadable course from a Learning Management
System with supporting documentation and services.
References
Leetch, G. and Mangina, E. (2004), A Multi-Agent
System to Stream Multimedia to Handheld Devices.
http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/ICCIM
A.2005.6
Symbian (2006) Symbian OS,

www.symbian.com/index.html.
Leonardo da Vinci project (2004) Mobile Learning:
The Next Generation Of Learning.
Learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2.
Jones, B. (2005) Developing Learning Materials for
Smart phones - A Technical Paper.
Learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2/files/workpackage
3/dev_learning_materials_smart_phones.doc.
Smith, S (2004), Producing a Prototype Mobile
Learning Course - A Technical Working Paper.
Learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2/files/
workpackage3/ericsson_technical_workingpaper_
2004_pa2.pdf.
Ericsson (2006) Ericsson Mobility World.
www.ericsson.com/mobilityworld.
91
Chapter 12
Location and Presence: Context in mLearning
Ray Boland
This chapter looks at Mobile Positioning and Presence technologies and how they can be used in a context aware mLearning
application. A description of Mobile Positioning and a number of positioning techniques are given, along with an overview of
the Instant Messaging and Presence Services. Also detailed are two examples of mLearning applications that use mobile
positioning and presence to provide a context sensitive service.
Introduction
As mobile communication veers away from the simple
user experience of voice and text services, and moves
closer toward a full colour, multimedia user experience,
applications run the risk of bombarding users with
complicated interfaces that require all their attention
and skill. Despite the range of new services available on
mobile devices, there is one aspect of the technology
which hasnt changed, and frequently it is this aspect
that application developers overlook: the user. In the
mobile learning environment the most valuable
commodity is not the screen real estate, the bandwidth
available or the processor speed. It is the attention of the
user.
The mLearning application must compete for the users
attention with other mobile devices and the external
environment. In a mobile learning scenario, this
environment can be anywhere from a classroom to a
packed commuter train. The application must,
therefore, be aware of the users needs/goals so that it can
work autonomously rather then simply react to the
users input. Therefore, the key for the application is to
autonomously collect as much implicit information
about the user when his/her attention is focused on their
external environment. This information can then be
used to provide a personalized learning experience
relevant to their needs. Essentially the mLearning
application must become context-aware if it is to survive
(Schilit et al. 1994).
Mobile Application design, be it for mLearning or
otherwise, must take a number of factors into account
(Abowd 1999).
92
User Preferences
The biggest obstacle for mobile computing applications
is the limited user interface. The capability of the user
interface for mobile devices is generally limited in what
can be viewed or entered by the user. Thus applications
cannot rely on laborious keypad information being
entered by the user. Instead the application must try to
infer as much information about the user from their
preferences as possible by modelling their profile from
information already available. This can be done both
explicitly (by asking the user to enter preferences) or
implicitly. Implicit user modelling involves observing
how the user behaves toward the application or the
information they access, and using this modelling data
to gauge their interests or needs (Noble et al. 1997).
Time
Another factor in context-aware application design is the
importance of time in providing the user with a valuable
mLearning experience. Time again can take on many
levels of accuracy hour, minute, etc. Time must be
taken into account for applications that rely on
providing information related to particular events or
appointments. In the mLearning scenario, often the
most up to date information is the most relevant in
this context time has great importance.
The Device Location
Location can be used to infer a number of attributes of
the users context; comparing commuting patterns with
other mLearners allowing to meet up to collaborate,
providing information on available resources in their
proximity, or even informing them of events occurring
in particular areas (Schilit et al. 1993). Location can
have many levels of accuracy, from positioning the user
geographically to being able to gauge if the mobile

device is in hand or stowed away. Location Based
Services (LBSs) provide personalized information for the
user given their location, and this is the focus of this
paper.
Mobile Positioning
Mobile Positioning is the process of geographically
locating Mobile Stations (MS) in a Public Land Mobile
Network (PLMN) by collecting and analysing location
information, calculating the position, and reporting it
for further usage to an application. It is a service layer
technology that allows (LBSs) to access information
automatically about a users context without explicitly

asking them to provide it. Figure 1 shows the
architecture of a Mobile Positioning System (MPS).
Mobile Positioning Systems allow middleware
applications and LBSs that are aware of the mobile
subscribers MSISDN (their phone number) to request
the geographical location of the user within the operator
network. While Mobile Positioning has obvious
commercial applications (Chen and Kotz 1997) there is
also a legal requirement driving the deployment of
accurate positioning techniques in a number of
countries.
Figure 1. Mobile Positioning System

The method by which the mobile subscriber is located
depends on a number of factors:
The implementation of MPS that the operator has

installed
The type of handset the subscriber uses
The type of network the subscriber is connected to

(i.e. 3G or GSM)
The level of accuracy required/allowed for the

locations based service application
Cellular Based Positioning Methods

Cellular Based Positioning Techniques (Technical
Specification Group 2004) use information from the
Cellular Network to decide on the location of the user.
Generally, these methods involve some form of Time of

Arrival (ToA) calculation that takes into account the
location of the cellular base station which the mobile
station is currently connected to.
ATI
Any Time Interrogation (ATI) is the simplest form of
locating a mobile station. ATI can be used in 3G or
GSM, and involves giving the users location as being
the cell in which they are connected. Their position is
given as the geographical location of the Base Station. So
in the example in Figure 2, the handsets position in A is
given as cell which it is connected. In the case of B, an
increased level of accuracy is obtained by using a
directional antenna.
93
Figure 2. ATI Example

CGI+TA
Cell Global Identity + Timing Advance (CGI+TA) takes
ATI to another level of accuracy be using the Timing
Advance value in the GSM network and using it to
define a more accurate inner and out radius. Timing
Advance is the lag period (in milliseconds) between the
start of the time code on the base station and the start of
the data burst from the mobile handset. This lag period
can be directly attributed to the distance of the handset

to the base station and typically equates to 1 millisecond
to 550m, and thus the accuracy of the TA value is equal
to 1100m. So again, using the same examples as Figure
2, in Figure 3 CGI+TA was used to position the
handsets. In each case (i.e. A and B) the accuracy is
increased by using the TA value to estimate their
distance from the base station.
Figure 3. CGI TA
E-CGI
Enhanced Cell Global Identity combines a CGI+TA
with the Mobile Stations signal strength (RX Level)
reports to allow the triangulation of the Mobile Station

in relation to a number of Base Stations.
Figure 4. E-CGI Scenario

94
The users location is returned as a grid number,

whereby each grid can achieve certain signal strength
toward each base station.
Non-Cellular Based Positioning Methods

GPS
Global Positioning System has become the de facto
standard for positioning. Originally designed for
military use by the United States, it now has a number
of commercial applications that range from personal

navigation to asset tracking. GPS is a non-cellular
positioning method as it does not use any actual
information from the cellular network (e.g. the Cell
Global Identity or the TA Value). Instead it calculates
the position of the user based on satellite timing signals
receive from a Global Satellite network of 25 active
satellites orbiting the Earth.
Figure 5. GPS Scenario

Typically in GPS, the GPS receiver picks up the signal
from 4 different satellites. Each signal contains a
timestamp and an identifier for the satellite it came
from. The GPS Receiver has a static almanac file
containing information on the flight path of each
satellite. For each satellite time signal it receives, the
GPS Receiver checks the flight path for that satellite in
the almanac and by comparing a number of satellites it
is possible to gauge its own global position. GPS has an
accuracy of typically 10m however because GPS is a
satellite communications positioning technique it does
not work well in built up urban areas and will not work
indoors. In order for GPS to work the GPS Receiver
must have clear skies above it to be able to reach the
optimum number of satellites.
A-GPS
Assisted-Global Positioning System (A-GPS) is a noncellular based positioning method also; however it does
use the cellular network to transport the satellite
information to the A-GPS Receiver.
Figure 6. Assisted-GPS
95
Figure 6 shows the request flow for A-GPS and the main
system elements used. The GSM network accesses
satellite information from a Reference Receiver, typically
located on a roof top where it is guaranteed good
satellite coverage. The satellite information is relayed
over the operator network via the SMLC (Serving
Mobile Location Centre).
Positioning Accuracy
While A-GPS is the most accurate of all the positioning
techniques, it requires supplementary hardware for both
the network operator and the mobile user, and thus has
yet to become a truly commercially viable positioning
technique. Most of the cellular techniques described can
be deployed quite quickly with minimum impact on the
operator network or the user experience.
Figure 7. Positioning Accuracy
Mobile Positioning obviously does not have a direct

educational value. The users position will not necessarily
make any difference in achieving their educational goals.
It will however help the application model the users
current environment and gather other implicit
information about the user (e.g. how fast they are
travelling). This information can then be used to
personalize the data sent to the user, making it more
accurate and more customized to their needs.
Instant Messaging and Presence

Presence and Instant Messaging are one of the fastest
growing areas in mobile communications. As
communications on a whole move toward all-IP
networks, applications popular on desktop PCs such as
video telephony and instant messaging are now being
96
pushed onto mobile handsets. Applications such as

Instant Messaging and Presence Server (IMPS) allow
presence and instant messaging service between PC
Subscribers and mobile network users.
IMPS
Instant Messaging (IM) is a type of communications
service that enables the creation of a private chat room
with another individual in order to communicate in real
time over the Internet. IM differs from SMS or email in
that not only it is in Real Time but also can be over both
mobile and fixed networks. IM applications are among
the most widely used software over the Public Internet,
with many IM applications providing subscribers with a
single communications end-point (IM, email, video
telephony, file transfer etc).
Figure 8. IMPS 2.1 Solution Architecture

Presence services are often seen as a supplementary
service to IM client applications. A user of an instant
messaging service can employ a presence service to keep
track of the listening status of a set of users or contacts.
Most Presence Services now have some emoticon service
that allows users to imply their mood during chat
sessions.
Presence Services do not have a direct value in an
educational sense but it can however help to derive
implicit information about users contexts by
grouping them into special interests groups. If a user is a
member of a particular special interest group, it is a
relatively simple task for an autonomous application to
model their user profile and perhaps their educational
needs.
mLearning as a Context Sensitive Service

If mLearning is to compete with other Mobile
Applications it must distance itself from the desktop
applications from which its grown out of. To say
mLearning is a combination of Mobile Computing
and eLearning is correct in some ways however there
are certain attributes of an eLearning Application which
will never succeed in mLearning. An eLearning
application is capable of providing the user with vast
amounts of information compared to an mLearning
application.
If mLearning is to succeed in the Mobile Computing
environment it must take into account the context in
which it is being used. The following are two

hypothetical examples of how mobile positioning could
be used in mobile learning.
Context Sensitive mLearning
Before describing a context sensitive mLearning
application, the term context must be defined. Context,
as previously described can be made up of three
elements; User Preferences, Location and Time. The
needs of the user in mLearning are relatively complex:
trying to model them can be a difficult task. The main
limitation on the gathering of User Preferences is the
User Interface. Having the user enter large amounts of
data through a mobile device interface requires patience
and time. The mLearning user must also have some
prior knowledge of their subject in order to retrieve
information that is relevant to their needs. This said,
and given the users attention may be easily distracted
by their external environment, the risk of overloading
the user with information (and thus losing their interest)
is great.
Collaborative Learning
Collaborative Learning is a cooperative effort whereby a
group of users come together to decide on the relevance
of information for themselves and others in their group.
Context therefore, involves maintaining a list of contacts
for the user and using this list to infer information about
the users interests. Put simply Collaborative Learning
follows the general rule if my friends like it, then Ill
like it.
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Using Mobile Positioning and Presence in a

collaborative mLearning application would allow the
derivation of a large amount of User Context
automatically. From the point of view of Positioning, it
is possible to access to the users current location. There
is also the possibility of tracking the user in order to
analyse their regular commuting patterns. If we take two

users of similar educational interests who are taking
part in a similar educational event or mLearning course
the possibility is there to organise meetings between
these users based on their commuting patterns.
Figure 9. mLearning Conference Scenario
Take the scenario (Figure 9) of a large conference. There

are a number of events taking place simultaneously at a
particular venue. User A is a member of a group of
mLearning students interested in WCDMA Radio
Network issues. While at the conference, User A attends
a lecture entitled WCDMA Overview and finds it to be a
good resource for her needs. User A could use her
mLearning application to give the event a good rating
this then could be suggested to other similar users in the
area who may be thinking of attending the same event.
User B is a member of User As group and also attending
the event. Based on User As evaluation, User B receives
notification that the event is taking place again and it
has received good evaluations from his group (i.e. User
A). User B is then provided with relevant information
based on his common interests with his friends and his
location.
98
If we look then at User C, who is not attending the event

but is a member of the same group he could then be
informed of future events from the same presenter or of
similar content, which may be taking place in the near
future.
mLearning Contact Management
Another possible mLearning technique which could be
of benefit to a user is a buddy list for mLearning
purposes. Such a service would involve a user requesting
the location of mLearning Classmates; the user would
then receive a multimedia message (MMS) from the
mLearning Buddy Application detailing the
whereabouts of the users in their group.

Figure 10. mLearning Buddy Application Scenario

In the example above, User A maybe in need of some
help with an assignment. He sends the request to the
mLearning Buddy Application to find someone who can
help him. The mLearning Application replies via MMS
with a map containing the whereabouts of User B & C,
each of whom may have the expertise to help User A
with their query.
Context Sensitive Systems are seen as the way forward

for mobile computing as they can work autonomously
and deliver a personalized service without huge impact
on the users attention. Given its ties to Mobile
Computing mLearning applications must move
toward a context sensitive paradigm in order to deliver a
personalized education service to mobile users based on
their needs or environment.
Conclusion
The key to designing a successful context sensitive
application is to define a context which will take into
account the users interests, their friends interests, and
their location. Crucially, the bulk of this context must
be gathered independently by the application without
distracting the user unnecessarily. Mobile Positioning
Systems enable autonomous gathering of information
on the users location by mobile applications while
Presence Services allow for a central access point for
presence information and contact management for
special interest groups
References
Schilit B., Adams,N. and Want, R. (1994) ContextAware Computing Applications. Proceedings of the
Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and
Applications, IEEE Computer Society
Abowd, G. (1999) Software Engineering Issues for
Ubiquitous Computing. Proceedings of ICSE'99.
Schilit B., Adams, N., Gold, R., Tso, M. and Want, R.
(1993) The PARCTAB Mobile Computing System.
Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Workstation
Operating Systems (WWOS-IV), IEEE Computer
Society
99
Chen G., and Kotz D. (1997) A Survey of ContextAware Mobile Computing Research. Dept. of
Computer Science, Dartmouth College
Noble B., Satyanarayanan M., Narayanan D., Tilton J..,
Flinn J. and Walker K. (1997) Agile ApplicationAware Adaptation for Mobility, Sixteenth ACM
Symposium on Operating Systems Principles
100
Technical Specification Group (2004) Services and

System Aspects Functional stage 2 description of
location services in UMTS 3GPP TS 23.171
V3.11.0 (2004-03), 3rd Generation Partnership
Project.
Chapter 13
The use of mobile communication
technology for tutoring
Katy Graham
This chapter looks at how mobile technology can be used for tutoring in a mobile learning environment. It is divided into three
sections; the first section looks at existing research to determine what the role of a tutor is in a mobile learning environment. We
then ask what tasks a tutor should perform, that is, what a tutor should do to improve the quality of mlearning There is no set
list of these requirements, so general functions are suggested based on existing research and projects. Once these functions have
been identified, the second section examines the mobile enablers available to tutors. The final part of the chapter suggests how
these services can be applied to become effective mobile learning tutoring aids. Finally, an existing mobile learning system is
examined to see how a similar system could be used for tutoring mobile learning.
1. Role of the tutor in mobile learning

Although instructional models exist for distance or
eLearning, a literature review revealed that in the field of
mobile learning, there are not many widely used
pedagogical models or principles that describe the
facilitation of learners learning processes by tutoring
interventions. Trainers and educators need to design
learning materials for the growing use of mobile devices.
However, the design of the materials must be based on
sound learning theories and instructional design
principles (Ally 2004). Clarifying the role of the tutor
and establishing effective methods for supporting
students learning in a mobile environment must be
included in this design. Psychologists gain a working
knowledge of the basic cognitive processes underlying
memory and learning - knowledge that is critical for
promoting optimal learning in any educational setting.
In his paper, Ally discusses the main cognitive learning
theories and concludes that mLearning materials need to
use multimedia strategies that are information-rich
rather than textual strategies. This will result, Ally states,
in developers greater use of visuals, photographs, videos
and audio. Multimedia content is used to a great extent
today in e-learning. The introduction of General Packet
Radio Service (GPRS) gave mobile devices access to the
internet via Wireless Access Protocol (WAP). It also
enabled the evolution of short messages (or SMS) into
picture messaging (also called multimedia messaging or
MMS). Video telephony has more recently become
available and also mobile TV. It would seem like the
convergence of news and entertainment, mobile
networks and the Internet is almost complete. So if

multimedia strategies are to be used more extensively in
mobile learning, the question of how can mobile
multimedia be used effectively to scaffold the learning
progress of mobile learning students must be addressed.
Pedagogical Model for Mobile Tutoring
Ally examines mLearning design models from the
perspective of the learner. It makes sense, therefore, to
examine mLearning from the tutors perspective if
designing a mobile tutoring system. To differentiate
Information Technology (IT, also known as Information
and communication(s) technology or ICT) based
learning from traditional forms of learning, the term
eLearning was coined. Following this, learning in a
mobile context was termed mLearning. A literature
review shows that different terms such as online tutor,
online moderator, e-moderator, distance education
tutor, e-tutor (Denis et al 2004) are used to refer to the
roles of a tutor in eLearning.
In this chapter, the term mTutor is suggested for the
tutor in a mLearning environment. We must define the
tasks that an mTutor must perform to fulfil that role
before designing an mTutoring system. As mentioned
above, there is no widely tried and tested pedagogy that
defines what an mTutor should do. Inventing the phrase
mPedagogy is probably stretching this mobile
vocabulary too far but Googling the word mPedagogy
revealed that it is in use, albeit not very much. The
search retrieved three results, one of which was a paper
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by Silander and Rytknen. In this paper, they proposed

a theoretically constructed pedagogical model for
mTutoring called AEFIRIP. AEFIRIP is based on the
contemporary learning theories and pedagogical models
of eLearning, but it is focused on the characteristics of
mobile learning. This was the basis for the development
of a semi-automatic tool for mobile tutoring. AEFIRIP

is an acronym for the phases of the pedagogical model
designed for facilitating mobile tutoring of learning
taking place in a mobile environment. It stands for
Activation, Externalization, Focusing, Interpretations,
Reflection and Information Processing.
Phase Description of activity

1. Activation
Activating students prior knowledge and cognitive strategies by

context creation or e.g. presenting so called activating Questions
2. Externalization
Externalization of students prior knowledge and thinking models.

Students become aware of their prior knowledge by making it visible
and exposing it to reflection.
3. Focusing
Focusing students perception and cognitive processing in a mobile

learning environment according to the objectives of the learning
situation (e.g. by focusing questions or assignments)
4. Interpretations
Explicit interpretations done by student based on perception and

prior knowledge/cognitive strategies as well as situational factors.
5. Reflection
Reflection of own interpretations and situational factors.
6. Information Processing
Information Processing consist of sub learning processes (cognitive

processes) such as problem solving, classification, comparison,
elaboration etc.
Table 1. Phases of the AEFIRIP pedagogical model for mobile learning and tutoring
What does an mTutor do?

Based on reading articles in this area, some tasks that a
tutor performs are suggested below:
Guiding students throughout knowledge the

building process
Setting exercises
Marking exercises
Attaching handouts to marked assignments
Availability for questioning
Suggesting reading/research areas.
Motivating students
Encouraging debate and reflection through online
discussion (this differs from the email mentality,
which lends itself to providing answers to direct
questions)
Reducing the students perceived isolation
Interfacing between the students and the learning
institution
Synchronous working using videoconferencing
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Asynchronous working through text messaging or

blogs
Collaborative working through shared applications
and workspaces eg. shared whiteboard
Probably there is no single way to tutor in the mobile

environment. It is likely that the tutoring methods
should be context specific, and may need to be adapted
to the students (age, background, environment etc) and
to the nature of the course being taken. The role of the
tutor is not a new one, but traditional educational
models have limited value since they rely on face-to-face
interaction between students and tutor. Nonetheless, in
trying to ascertain what tasks an mTutor must perform,
it is worth examining what is to learn from face-to-face
and online pedagogy. Much in the same way that
eLearning looked to traditional forms of learning for cues
as to how to design a learning methodology, so mobile
learning looks to eLearning to see how its adaptation
The use of mobile communication technology for tutoring
may be done. For example, the Leonardo project From

eLearning to mLearning (2002) looked at eLearning to
see what could be learned in the development of learning
materials for mobile learning materials. So, in examining
the role of the tutor in a mobile learning environment, it
is worthwhile looking at the way online tutoring is
performed. In the Online Tutoring e-Book (Cornelius
and Higgison 2000) it is stated that, in online tutoring
above all the tutor should be flexible. It is appropriate
to apply this to mobile tutoring also.
By way of combining the above approaches of gaining
information from tutoring in a face-to-face learning
environment and in eLearning, Silander and Rytknen
interviewed 52 teachers who had previous experience in
web-based teaching. The authors posed the question:

How can advanced mobile technology facilitate the
teachers work like tutoring and guiding the students
learning processes? Answers were focused, not on the
technology, but on the educational practices that it
enables. This is very relevant to what we are trying to
establish in this section of the chapter which is What
should an mTutor do?
Based on Silander and Rytknens (2005) questionnaire,
the table below of the educational practices that mobile
technology may be used for was drawn up. Education al
practices listed 5-7 were not assigned a mobile technology.
This author has suggested possible mobile technologies
and tutoring applications for these educational practices.
Educational Practices
Mobile Technology
1. Tutoring and guidance of the learning

process:
Tutoring by SMSs
Blogs (an abbreviation of web logs, like an online diary)
Students inquiries
Receiving and answering students acute questions in problem
situations
Reaching students rapidly
Tutoring by video phone calls
Providing help by SMSs if needed
Maintaining tutoring dialogue
Getting students answers to learning tasks/assignments
Getting material like pictures and text gather by a student in an
authentic environment
Easy access to students learning diaries / learning log books
2. Receiving students products:
Easy access to students observation logs and reports

Chat
One-to-many communication
3. Communication:
Real-time Interaction
Students portfolio
Gathering continuous evaluation information on students learning
4. Evaluation/assessment:
Gathering evaluation information from authentic learning

situations
5. Working on open learning environment
Chat-rooms,
Contact lists with presence information for push to talk,
multimedia messaging, application sharing.
6. Positioning of students (GPS)
Mobile Positioning Centres (MPC) can position students, could be

used to guide and provide geographically relevant information to
students
7. Simulations
Application Servers could host a simulated environment and deliver

this via mobile handheld devices
Table 2. Educational practices for which mobile technology may be used
103
Clearly, section 1 Tutoring and guidance of the learning

process relates to mobile tutoring. Taking the activities
listed in this section as the desired mobile tutoring
practices that teachers would like to perform using
mobile devices, section 3 will re-examine these practices
and suggest other mobile services that could be used to
perform them.
It is worth bearing in mind that Silander and Rytknens
research was conducted a) among teachers, not
necessarily those aware of all mobile telecom services.
There could be activities not listed here that they felt
could not be addressed by mobile technology and b) the
paper was given in 2005, since then many developments
have been made. The continual evolution of telecom
core networks to an all-IP environment enables many
more services than before.
Automated mobile tutoring
Automated or semi-automated tutoring, if designed
carefully, could be ideal for large numbers of learners.
The knowledge, strategy and experience of the expert
could be performed with the automatic delivery of the
mTutor's own tutorials. The advantage for the tutor is
that once a tutorial is developed, it can be delivered
again and again to new students. Any automatic mobile
tutoring system should support easy creation of new
tutorials thereby reducing the time it takes to create a
tutorial, maximising use of resources. Most existing
mobile learning environments use a mobile Learning
Management System to track and manage a students
progress through a mobile or blended learning
curriculum. It is likely that an automated tutoring
application would be integrated with the mLMS,
providing and using information in a back-end database.
A number of automated mobile tutoring systems have
already been developed. lykk is an application that
Silander and Rytknen developed for tutoring students
learning processes based on the AEFIRIP model for
both PC and mobile devices. Students can construct the
individual content of learning in the form of portfolios
and communicate with tutors by using the tutoring
dialogue log. It is primarily a tutors tool with automatic
and semi-automatic tutoring . MTutor is a software
package developed by Culverhouse and Burton at the
University of Plymouth. MTutor enables one-to-one
tutorials over the web. Tutors pose a problem and
provide resources and their own expert knowledge for
the learner to find a solution. MTutor follows the model
of traditional tutorials, where learners meet with their
104
tutor to work through and discuss directed problems.

MTutor provides a complete computer-based tutorial
system with defined stages.
Peer tutoring
Research on peer tutoring indicates that the intervention
is relatively effective in improving both tutees and
tutors academic and social development. (Gartner &
Reissman 1993). In fact, the benefit to the tutor may
actually outweigh that of the benefit to the student. In
their 1993 paper, Peer-Tutoring: Toward a New Model,
Gartner and Reissman state: This results from
reworking what they know in order to make it
understandable to their tutees. This learning through
teaching is the significant mechanism, and it poses an
opportunity to reformulate and extend the use of peer
tutoring. So if the tutor role is so effective, why not
build on this and give all students the opportunity to be
a tutor? This model is different from usual tutoring
approaches where more proficient students tutor the less
proficient. What will tutees and tutors learn in the
tutor-centred mode, Gartner and Reissman ask. First,
they will learn the subject matter that is being tutored.
Second, they will learn how to tutor. Third, they will
learn how to listen and communicate effectively. Fourth,
and perhaps most importantly, they will learn about
learning.
Tutor training
Any research article on online tutoring notes that tutors
need training and practice to learn to do it well. Etutoring or m-tutoring differs so much from face-to-face
tutoring that a specialised training is required for the
results to be of benefit to the learner. It is important that
the first experience a tutor has of m-tutoring technology
is a good one, otherwise they may be reluctant to try it
again.
2. Third Generation Technologies

With the current and forthcoming wealth of ways to
communicate, there is a danger that educators may be
over-eager to use this technology simply because they
can, putting the cart before the horse; the solution
before the problem. Implementing a tutoring
mechanism that has no perceivable benefits is a waste of
the time it takes for students and tutors to learn how to
use it in the first place. Just because the technology is
available it does not mean that there is an overriding
educational reason to use it (Lockitt, 2005). So the
question is not how can mobile technology be used for
mLearning, but rather, how can mobile technology be

used effectively for mLearning? To answer this question,
it is a good idea to have a look at the technology that is
soon to become widely available on mobile handset. The
next section looks at these possible tools for tutors of
mobile learning.
Third generation (3G) mobile networks will offer faster
uplink and downlink speeds with more reliable
connections and a Quality of Service across the radio
access network. At the same time, mobile core networks
are migrating toward an all-IP backbone, furthering the
convergence of fixed line and mobile networks. This
evolution provides a basis for richer and more complex
services than were available previously. 3G technology is
standardised by the Third Generation Partnership
Project (3GPP), defining standards in the radio access
network, the core, the service layer and user equipment.
Multimedia enablers will be discussed in this chapter, in
particular the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and the
applications it supports. Although mobile devices can be
tools used during the whole knowledge building process,
this section lists the features of 3G mobile devices that
could be used to tutor the knowledge building process
taking place on-site in a mobile environment. Section 4
will suggest how these features can be combined into an
mLearning application.
IP MultiMedia Subsystem
The IP MultiMedia Subsystem (IMS) is an (Internet
Protocol) IP standard specified by the Third Generation
Partnership Project (3GPP). It is a platform that
supports many new and existing services. It is seen as the
cornerstone of the evolution toward an all-IP network.
Indeed, the word evolution is worth noting, as it is an
evolution, not a revolution of the service networks in
mobile telephony. Data communication or Datacomms
is, in principle, the communication of information
between computer systems. This includes
communication within a local environment (LAN) or
where the systems are separated over some distance
(WAN). Various methods for data communication have
evolved over many years going well back through the
20th century. The phrase convergence technology is
often heard in relation to IMS. It is seen to enable this
evolution, or convergence of the datacomm, telecom,
entertainment and media networks into one service. An
implementation of IMS is called the IMS Common
System (ICS).
ICS consists of components that are used in both
wireline and wireless IMS system deployments and/or,
components that are used to support different solutions

in one domain. For example, the ICS contains a
presence component and group list management
component which may be used for a number of
different applications, for example both are used for the
Push To Talk and WeShare applications. The support of
wireline and/or wireless applications could be very useful
for the mobile tutor who is more likely to access the
tutoring system from a PC in his office, whereas
students will be more likely to be on the move, accessing
from a PDA or a mobile phone. Device profile caching
is a feature of many applications that sit on the ICS for
example, the WeShare application.
Storing the details of the device that a student last used
to access the system allows the system to tailor the
presentation of the material to the mobile device.
Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) could be used to make
changes in the layout and providing the appropriate
style sheets based on the clients accessing the page. An
extension of this principle could be applied to mobile
tutoring also, whereby a tutoring system records the
device last used to access the mTutor or materials
suggested by the tutor, and presents it in a suitable form.
ICS supports Push to Talk (PTT) Application, which is
a walkie-talkie type of single duplex communication,
and the WeShare family. The Push to Talk Application
enables real-time communication one-to-one and oneto-many with the press of a button. The solution is
based on the Push To Talk over Cellular (PoC) standard
to secure global interoperability. WeShare is a family of
services enabling the sharing of pictures and video while
talking. The IMS solution also includes Engine
Multimedia Feature Server and Presence Server to
provide IP Centrex applications for enterprise customers
as well as multimedia offerings to residential broadband
customers. Also included in the IMS is the Service
Development Studio which is a development tool with
on open source integrated development environment for
new applications that can run on the IMS platform. It is
possible for developers to develop content that use the
services offered by the IMS eg. Presence, group lists and
so on.
Presence Service
The Presence service is a component of the IMS
platform that may be used by other applications e.g
WeShare. It enables a user to subscribe to another users
presence. This means that user1 will send a message to
user2 requesting the ability to see their presence and any
105
changes that may occur to it. User2 will see a pop-up

message with this request and can either allow it or not.
If they allow it, User1 will be able to see when they log
on. All users will have the ability to change their
availability, much in the way that MSN Messager does
i.e. busy, out of office. Even moods will be possible to
indicate. So User1 will see any of these changes when
user2 changes them. So for example,in WeShare, when a
list of buddies is called up on the mobile handset, it will
be possible to see who is logged on or not. A tutor
would be able to initiate a WeShare session with a
student or vice versa.
Group List Management
Group List Management is the IMS platform whereby a
list of buddies (addresses) may be stored in a shared
server, or on application specific servers. This is a
component that is available to other applications, eg.
Push To Talk. If a user wished to contact one of their
stored PTT buddies, it is simple to lookup the buddy
address and send a voice message. Similarly, if a tutor
wished to notify a group of students as to an up and
coming deadline, for example, he can simply select this
groupname and send a message.
Service Development Studio
It is possible to develop IMS applications by using the
Service Development Studio and thereafter launch them
on a SIP Application server or an Application Server.
This could allow the developer to develop specific
learning applications, that could facilitate the tasks that
a tutor should perform as part of their role.
Push to Talk
The PoC service, as defined by the Open Mobile
Alliance (OMA), provides the possibility for two or
more users to communicate in a walkie-talkie type of
fashion using mobile telephones. It requires the person
speaking to press a button while talking and then release
it when they are done. The listener then presses their
button to respond. The call setup is quick, involving
only the press of a button, allowing instantaneous
communication.
PTT is implemented over standard GSM/GPRS/EDGE
and CDMA200 networks. The solution can be
implemented on the same device that is used as a
traditional mobile phone. This feature makes it
particularly suitable for mLearning for students who
cannot afford PDAs or smartphones that to date have
proved more effective for mobile learning. IMS PTT is
106
based on IETF and 3GPP/3GPP2 standards and uses

the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for control
signaling. This adherence to standards
guarantees interoperability and therefore more
widespread availability and use and also provides
future-proofness.
Features of PTT
One person can talk to everyone in the group at one

time, just by pressing the PTT key.
User Contact List Users can view the availability

of contacts (or buddies) in their contact lists. They
may be listed as individuals or as group members in
the group contact list. Based on who is available, the
user can select one or many buddies from the
contact list and send them a PTT invitation.
Instant Personal Talk - This service includes 1-to-1

communication as well as 1-to-many
communication.
Instant Group Talk PTT enables the set up of

group calls, where one user sets up the group session
either by selecting a pre-defined group or by creating
a temporary group on-the-fly.
Invite or Reject A recipient has the option or

manually accept or reject joining a PTT session.
Presence Indicators This provides a user with an

indication of the presence of another user on the
network, in other words, indicating that a user is
registered.
Do-Not-Disturb (DND) If a user is engaged in

another call the presence will be set to a do-notdisturb mode. All PTT invitations will automatically
be rejected in this mode. A user can also choose to
activate and deactivate the DND function while not
engaged in a call.
Contact and Group Management The user is

able to manage their buddy list and create groups
from the mobile device, or from a Web interface.
Users can add, edit and remove contacts on their
lists.
WeShare
WeShare is a family of services combining the circuit
swiched voice with packet switched data, like pictures,
video and games. These services have a very obvious
potential to be tools for tutoring any type of mLearning
course. It is flexible allowing media to be sent at anytime
during the call.

The advantage of WeShare for tutoring is that it is built
on existing behavior. During voice conversations, (face
to face) people share things. So they will probably want
to do this when having a voice conversation that is not
face to face. (This is why it is called weShare.)
Features of WeShare
The user can combine any voice call with different

media types: weShare includes Video, Picture,
Stored File as current share-able options with,
Games, Music and Web.
Whiteboard application allows two users to see the

same diagram and add text or graphic to it. So if
user1 adds an arrow, user2 will see this arrow on the
shared whiteboard. Voice will simultaneously be
heard with this.
It is easy to understand. It is almost totally intuitive.

Nothing difficult about using it at all.
Minimises user input, just a few key strokes are

required, therefore suitable for a mobile learning
environment
Users can introduce service & educate each other

during the call
A user can see immediately (via the CSI icon)

whether or not the other party has weShare.
Can spontaneously add something to help convey

the message
Material can be stored or created during the

conversation
3. Applications enabling tutoring of

mlearning students
Telephones are still used an enormous amount by both
students and their tutors but have only recently become
again the subject of critical analysis and research, mainly
in the context of mobile phones and 'mLearning'
(Keegan 2002). In a paper presented to the
Third EDEN Research Workshop in Oldenburg by

Gaskell and Mills (2004), it was found that proactive
and responsive contact from the tutors in the Open
University UK as well as over-the-phone tutorials were
favourably received by the students, improving student
performance on the course assignments as well as
increasing student retention. Their paper did not
examine the functionality of the mobile phone beyond
voice and SMS messaging. The technologies discussed in
section 3 have the potential for the tutor in a mobile
learning environment. However, the task of designing
mLearning applications and appropriate learner support
is complex and challenging. The impact of new mobile
technologies needs to be appraised and evaluated. What
the following section covers is the suggested applications
of 3G mobile technologies for the purposes of
mTutoring.
In section 2 the role of the tutor was discussed, and
more specifically, what a tutor should actually do was
analysed. Table 2 in section 2 listed some of these tasks.
Section 3 examined the available tools to do this. In
order to give some structure to applying the functions
offered by the tools in section 3, we revisit table 2, this
time applying the possible use of the tools which we
have since learned about.
Table 3, below, introduces a third column, which lists
the technology that could be used to achieve the task
identified by Silander and Rytknens research. Some
other technologies are suggested here in combination
with IMS applications. MultiMedia Messaging Service
(MMS) or picture messaging enables graphic and text to
be sent to/from student and tutor. This could be a map,
diagram etc. Short Message Service (SMS) is a circuit
switched technology for transmitting small amounts of
text. Global Positioning System (GPS) is present in 3G
networks and can approximate the position of a mobile
terminal. Wireless Access Protocol provides mobile
access to the Internet. (iMode also performs this
function).
107
Role
Task
Technology
1. Tutoring and guidance of

the learning process:
Tutoring by SMSs
Blog
Students enquiries
SMS
Web based system
Email,SMS,PTT,Voice call
with WeShare add-in
Voice call or Video call (WeShare)
PTT
WeShare
SMS
Receiving and answering students

acute questions in problem situations
Reaching students rapidly
Tutoring by video phone calls
Providing help by SMSs if needed
Maintaining tutoring dialogue
Getting students answers to
learning tasks / assignments
Voice,WeShare
WAP access for students to get
to pre-assigned tasks.
Getting material like pictures and

text gather by a student in a
mobile environment
Students submit video,voice, picture

messages to tutor. These could be
stored on database as part of mLMS
Easy access to students
Presence service with PTT

or WeShare
Learning diaries / learning log books
PTT, SMS, Email
2. Receiving students products:
Easy access to students

Observation logs and reports
Chat
One-to-many communication
Web access to stored student

logs and reports
PTT, SMS, Email
PTT, conference call
3. Communication:
Real-time Interaction
Students portfolio
Gathering continuous evaluation
information on students learning
WeShare, Voice Call

mLMS support
mLMS support
4. Evaluation / assessment:
Gathering evaluation information

from mobile learning situations
mLMS support
5. Working on open
learning environment
Chat-rooms,
Contact lists with presence
information for push to talk,
multimedia messaging, application
sharing.
Presence and Group List (PGM)

management in IMS
6. Positioning of students (GPS)
Mobile Positioning Centres (MPC)

can position students, could be used
to guide and provide geographically
relevant information to students
Mobile Positioning System (MPC)
Application Servers could host

a simulated environment and
deliver this via mobile handheld
devices
WAP access to simulator. WeShare

stored maps, games, demos, video
walkthrough of an equipment
upgrade procedure, for example.
7. Simulations
Table 3. Educational practices and technology used

108

4. Moop Project
Having examined the roles of the tutor and then listed
the newer ICS technologies in sections 1 and 2, we then
looked at some suggested uses of these tools for mobile
tutoring that could be developed, based on the
pedagogical models discussed in section 2. But are there
any current applications of these technologies for the
purposes of mobile tutoring?
school learning. The basic functions of a mobile phone

are normally usable. The real-time learning situation is
coordinated by the teacher and enables interaction
between pupils using Push To Talk. Maps and GPS are
used for safety. The environment offers tools that
support communication between pupils, pupil groups
and teacher.
The work is divided up into 4 steps:
Some projects that use a small number of theses

applications have been mentioned in this chapter
already, but a very good example of a system that uses
nearly all of them is a system developed by the software
house Incode Oy from the city of Oulu in Finland called
Moop. The pedagogic and technical know-how of Moop
is developed in a collaboration of the public and private
sector.
The Moop application is developed by the software
house Incode Oy from the city of Oulu in Finland. The
project is supported by Nokia, Elisa and Viestimaa
companies. The pedagogical planning and development
work of Moop environment has been done by the
schools of Korvensuora, Oulunlahti and Patamki
(2005) in Finland. The project has received funding
from Oulus development project for network services
and from the Smart Oulu project. To conclude this
chapter we will examine how Moop is used and how,
going forward, a similar system could rework this model
for the purposes of mobile tutoring.
Moop is an existing mLearning system that utilises
many of the above mobile services. It is included here
because it is very close to demonstrating how most of
the above technologies could be used by an mTutor. It is
based on a sound, learner-centered pedagogy. The
teacher in the Moop system fulfils some of the roles of
the mTutor discussed in section 2, but it could very
easily be extended to provide a full system for mobile
tutoring.
Moop is a learning platform for situations where a pupil
first makes observations, then saves and manages them
on a mobile and web-based platform. It promotes
interaction among students and teachers. The learning
environment is closed and safe for pupils to use,
requiring users to log in before allowing access. The
system enables learning through observations taking
photos, recording sounds and interviews or filming short
video clips in the nearby surroundings of the school. A
camera phone is used as a tool that supports elementary
1. Teacher or Pupils Prepare the Task Courses on the

Computer The teacher logs into the system and
assigns tasks to the student. These may be location
dependent.
2. Execute The student logs into the system and sees
the list of assigned tasks. The student performs the
task by writing an answer, sending a picture,
recording a sound or for example by filming a short
clip according to the task. The observation is then
sent to a database with a push of a key.
3. Real time interaction The teacher can see the
location of every pupil or group from the map view
of MOOP teacher's web application. Also the map
view of MOOP teacher's mobile phone application
can be used. The tasks executed and pupils'
observations are delivered in real time to the
teacher's and pupils' MOOP web applications. The
teacher and pupils can communicate through the
mobile phone's PoC connection while outdoors.
4. Finish the task The pupil logs on the MOOP
pupil's web application. All the tasks and
observations have been saved and can be seen in the
pupils MOOP application. Attached to every
observation, there is a small map showing the
location where it was delivered from. The pupil can
revise the observations by for example adding
clarifying notes to the pictures.
This system of mobile learning is learner centred and
motivates a pupil to drive his own learning path. A
similar system could incorporate the role of an mTutor
into this learning path. The activities of the Moop
teacher are very similar to those of a mTutor (discussed
in section 2). An mTutor would take a step back in the
execution step, but would be available for queries. The
mTutor should not provide any direct solutions, just
providing the student with support at this stage. Step 3
could be an opportunity for Peer-to-Peer tutoring.
While in the authentic environment tutoring from a
peer that is present or in a remote location would
109
benefit the tutor and tutee. Step 4 of the Moop course

could be extended much more for the purposes of the
mTutor. The mTutor can look at all students submitted
observations and notes and mark them accordingly. The
mTutor could facilitate a group discussion to review the
tasks with input from all students. The mTutor could
suggest a student re-take the task if a student went about
the it the wrong way, or send further material to give the
student better understanding of the topic.
5. Summary
To conclude, it is clear that mobile technology and
applications can have various pedagogical roles in
tutoring students in a mobile learning environment. The
design and implementation of a mobile tutoring system
using mobile technology must be with reference to a
soundly researched pedagogical model. It is possible that
mTutoring may be semi-automatic, and it is likely that it
would be part of an existing mLMS with a database
tracking the students progress, storing grades and
completed assignments. Mobile learning is fast
developing in its scope and effectiveness, moving from
short-term small-scale pilot projects into mainstream
education and training as part of a blended learning
environment. The research and development of
mTutoring systems will develop with it. While it is a
small field at the moment, the area of tutoring mobile
learning is one that is likely to grow.
References
Silander, P. and Rytknen, A. (2005) An Intelligent
Mobile Tutoring Tool Enabling Individualisation of
Students Learning Processes. M Learn Seminar
110
Denis,B., Watland, P., Pirotte, S. and Verday, N. (2004)

Roles and Competencies of the e-Tutor Networked
Learning Conference.
Gaskell, A. and Mills, R (2004). Supporting Students by
Telephone: a Technology for the Future of Student
Support. Third EDEN Research Workshop,
Oldenburg, Germany.
Keegan, D (2002) The future of learning: from eLearning
to mLearning, http://learning.ericsson.net/
mlearning2/project_one/book.html
Ally, M. (2004) Using learning theories to design
instruction for mobile learning devices. M Learn
Seminar
Garnter, A. and Riessman, F. (1993) Peer-Tutoring:
Toward a New Model. ERIC Digest
http://www.ericdigests.org/1994/peer.htm
Cornelius, S. and Higgison,C. (2000) Online Tutoring
e-book Chapter 2 The Tutors Role
http://otis.scotcit.ac.uk/onlinebook/otis-t2.htm
City of Oulu, Board of Education;
Schools of Korvensuora, Oulunlahti and Patamki
Incode Ltd (2005). Moop mobile and network
learning environment http://www.edu.ouka.fi/
koulut/korvensuora/moop/moop_report.doc
Lockitt, B. (2005) Mobile Learning
http://www.3t.co.uk/Post-14EducationandTraining/
index.aspx?id=2&SubSect=66
Leonardo da Vinci project (2002) From e-learning to mLearning http://learning.ericsson.net/
mlearning2/project_one/index.html
Chapter 14
Practical considerations when developing
course materials for mobile learning
Aleksander Dye, Bryan Jones and Gabor Kismihok
Experience in the development of mobile learning courseware leads to decisions about various techniques used, including choice
of font and type size and other display techniques for mobile learning. These decisions are put forward here as possible choices for
readers who wish to develop mobile learning materials.
Recommendations on choice of font for

mobile learning on PDAs
The following is a list of the most common fontcombinations for traditional web design and should also
work on most other devices:
Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif

Times New Roman, Times, serif
Courier New, Courier, mono
Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
Using these fonts will increase the likeness of fonts on

different devices.
Recommendations on choice of font and

type size for mobile learning on smartphones
and mobiles
Font choice, from experience, is very much a trial and
error approach and also a matter of personal preference.
As stated for PDA design, common font combinations
for traditional web design exist and many designers have
a personal preference for look and feel.
Third party applications must be considered as font
support will differ from application to application. For
example, font support in a web browser as opposed to font
support for the Flash Lite player installed on the handset.
The same consideration can be applied for devices as
different devices will render graphics and fonts differently.
Initial versions used Sans Normal 11 and Serif Normal
18. The preferred font for the final version was Verdana
Normal 12.
Much of the mLearning work to date targeting standard

mobile phones has been SMS based, so font selection is
not a consideration as the supported font is device
specific.
Recommendations on bold/italics mobile

learning on PDAs
The use of bold and/or italic is the same as with the
traditional web pages. Do not use them exceedingly, but
to emphasize the message. It is easier to read bold than
italic so we recommend using bold if the word is of
importance for the readers understanding.
Recommendations on bold/italics for mobile

learning on smartphones and mobiles
Varying the font mark up, colour, size and type is
recommended and can help emphasise the look and feel
of your material. A recommendation would be to use
distinct font and colour for application instructions,
navigation or help and use a different dedicated font for
course content and learning objectives. Furthermore a
separate distinct font type and size for actual learning
content or subject matter is also recommended.
Content creation for the mobile phone is not a
technological debate; phones are now generally
considered multi-media devices. It is better to design for
the mobile environment than attempt to simply port
existing content. The users or target audience must be
engaged; and how they assimilate the material is very
different to a classroom or desktop environment.
Users attention spans are lowered due to the smaller
nature of the mobile device and also the environment
they may be in, for example waiting in an airport lounge
111
or commuting to and from work. Users of mobile

devices, such as phones, tend to be more cost conscious
if the application is deployed over a network and a data
charge is incurred. There is a lower tolerance for delays
and difficult navigation of applications. Phones have
been traditionally easy to use and reliable and users can
be every unforgiving when trying out new applications
or services.
stripping away unnecessary illustrations. Always keep a

textual description of an image for the users who can not
(vision impaired users) or choose not to (users on a high
cost access point who do not display images) show the
images. If one has separation of content and presentation
in mind at course creation, the expense of adapting it to
a mobile device, screen reader, converted to PDF or other
format is lower and easier to accomplish.
Memory requirements and design for grahics

for mobile learning on smartphones and
mobiles
Assignments which are useful on small screens are short

questions with automatic feedback, quizzes, multiple choice
assignments and other assignments requiring little amounts
of textual input from the user, such as a vocabulary test. It
is possible to design multimedia assignments, for instance
in Flash, such as drag and drop and other types of
assignments if the device has support for them.
Typically bandwidth determines the memory

requirements for data transfer. Again standard network
provider charges vary and are as such unpredictable.
Users are often not aware of the costs involved for data as
operators charge varying tariffs for data transfer, whether
it is GPRS or 3G for example, and roaming charges and
content are service specific. In general data over mobile
transmission is considered expensive, especially in
comparison to broadband data rates. Reducing graphic
formats reduces the size of applications but also the
amount of data required for download.
When developing standalone applications using Flash
Lite for example, application size greater than 250kb in
size is not recommended as the processors for most
mobile devices run into difficulty in managing
applications of this size. Lags occur in screen refresh
rates and animations, applications become slow,
predictable and buggy in appearance and use.
An alternative design approach is to modularise learning
material. It was found during testing that the inhibiting
factors for students of mobile learning material were
primarily
1. The speed of the application whether it be streaming
or downloading.
2. The duration of the content.
It is generally preferred to have short concise material or
to reduce larger bodies of material into modules. By
modularising learning material with the users preferences
in mind conveniently assists when reducing filesize.
Assignment design requirements for mobile

learning on PDAs
Mobile devices have a small screen and usually the
bandwidth accessible is low with an unpredictable cost. It
is important to keep information easily accessible by
112
Assignment design requirements for mobile

learning on smartphones and mobiles
When an application is being designed the flow can be
decided by the designer. With learning applications it is
possible to prevent a student progressing to further
content without attaining a particular score. Depending
on the subject matter of the application, where possible
it has proven effective to engage the student with their
physical environment, for example a thesis application
developed by students of Dublin City University
(Godfrey et al. 2005). The application was designed for
primary school geography students and involved
following a map and answering questions about the
physical landscape of a national park in Ireland.
Some features which assisted in effective assessment were
Verification of correct answers

Forced re-tries or incorrectly answered, randomly
questioning the student
Multiple choices questions
Score counters / pass rates
Hints to assist questioning
Drag and drop exercises.
Streaming audio and video requirements for

mobile learning on smartphones or mobiles
The primary considerations for media streaming are
primarily the mobile device capabilities, for example does
the handset supports colour display and does it have a
media player to support streaming protocols? Another
consideration is the access technology to the data network.
Considerations for service provider access technologies are
the coverage available for that network, such as 3G, and
the quality and speed of the data connection.
Bearer
GPRS
3G
HSDPA
Download Speed
160 kbps
384 kbps 2 Mbps
384 kbps 14 Mbps
Table 1. Packet Switched Mobile Network Download Speeds

Note: Download speeds vary according to network
coverage, subscriber usage and service provision
Design and performance issues in relation to

the use of Flash Lite in mobile learning
When designing content for Flash Lite using Flash Mx
2004 it is important to adhere to certain practices. Here
is a description of the recommended practices (Morris
2006).
Technique matters when creating animations- from
tweening to hand tuning
Motion tweening:
On the computer, slick motion graphics in Flash often
require high frame rates to look smooth. Flash designers
often use from 30, 60, or even 100 frames per second
(fps) to achieve the appearance of smooth motion
graphics (animations) with tweens. However, if you try
that on a mobile phone, the graphic will be anything
but smooth. It will appear to stutter across the screen.
According to Heim, Director of Technology at Smashing
Ideas (an entertainment and marketing services studio
which creates interactive content for all screens) in
Seattle and a Macromedia Advisory Board member,
The secret to successful animation with Flash Lite is
what I call hand-tuning.
Hand tuning:
Hand tuning is the process of manually adjusting your
animation key frame by key frame. Or in the case of
motion graphics, this translates into the following: Start
with tweens as you usually would, then hand-tune your
animation, frame by frame, to get the result you want
the user to experience.
When you are creating animated transitions for mobile
devices, you will have to adjust your thinking from the
computer monitor. For example, a cool transition that
shows a transparent object speed onto the screen will
work just fine on a computer monitor, but on a mobile
phone it will run in slow motion and ruin the effect of a
smooth transition. The first step to making this transition
effect smoother for the mobile phone is to use a less
intense effect during the motionfor example, tint the
object or reduce its brightness, and only set its
transparency one frame after the transition has completed.

So in conclusion, instead of moving something at 50
fps, you create what your eyes perceive during the
motion. Dont combine transitions with changes in
transparency or other graphical effects; this will slow
down your animation.
Optimizing Flash Content:
It is very important to optimize Flash content for mobile
phones, because personal digital assistant mobile phones
run slower than computers.
For example:
Start a project with a frame rate of 10 to 15 fps:
Apart from making it easier for the Flash Lite player to
keep up, a lower frame rate will also lead to a smaller file
size. Each keyframe of a symbol adds 12 bytes to a SWF
movie. This may not sound like much, but it can add
up, especially in the case of animations.
Place your graphics in symbols rather than on the main
Timeline or in groups:
Optimize the symbols by selecting Modify > Shape >
Optimize or by hand with the subselection tool. This
will remove unnecessary points, and any hidden shapes
and symbols. It will make the Flash content look and
perform better and it will reduce the file size.
Simplify your animations:
Don't have too many things going on at the same time.
Avoid performance killers such as alpha transparencies
and gradients. They create a better-looking animation,
but they also affect performance. Besides, on a small
phone display, much of the effect is lost anyway; it may
even look worse. Simpler graphics will often look better
and perform better on the small screen.
Avoid pans and alpha fades:
Short (five-frame) fades over a static background may
work just fine. If possible, work only with shapes and
remove lines, including outlines around shapes. Lines
are more complex to render for Flash. When creating
113
animations for mobile devices, you will run quickly into

problems when you ignore these best practices for
optimizing Flash content.
Best Practices For Optimizing Sound
a) Optimise the animation scene by scene. Sound and
animation do share memory resources, so it only
makes sense that a cleaner animation allows for
more sound.
b) Different mobile phones support different types of
audio, but, as a rule, most support various types of
MIDI. When authoring for mobile devices, you
must place a proxy sound in a supported format
such as MP3, WAV, or AIFF in the Flash document
temporarily. The temporary sound files serve as
pointers to the final MIDI files. The conversion
from sound file to pointer (or proxy) happens as you
publish your Flash Lite movie.
c) Use the Flash Lite SoundBundler.exe application to
bundle the desired sound files together. When you
create this bundle, it saves as an FLS file. This bundle
is played when triggered by an event on the mobile
device. When the appropriate event is triggered,
Flash Lite 1.1 processes this bundle and plays the
sounds in the format supported by the device.
Bitmap Images versus Vector Graphics
Bitmap
Bitmap images improve performance, because they are
rendered already. However they other factor is they
result in larger file sizes. For complex backgrounds,
there's no way around using bitmap images, because
animation on top of a complex vector background
would be very slow. On a small device screen, a lot of
that detail will be lost anyway.
Memory
The biggest enemy when creating Flash Lite content is
not performance, but running out of memory. We have
already touched on this in relation to sound and
animations. It is based on this issue that you will most
likely spend most of your debugging time.
First, you need to realize that file size is not equal to
memory used. File size is an important indicator, but it
is simply not the same as how much memory your
movie needs to run. For example, JPEG images are
compressed inside the SWF file, but they need to be
restored to their full size for display. The same is true for
sound filesan MP3 or ADPCM compressed sound file
is a lot smaller than a raw sound file, but when played, it
has to be turned back into raw sound.
Other objects, such as movie clips or code, need more
memory at runtime by themselves than they would if
they were stored in the SWF movie. Additionally, you're
able to create more objects when the movie is running,
for example, by duplicating movie clips. Each new
object uses additional runtime memory without adding
to the file size.
That doesn't mean file size is not important; you may
still have to meet file size limit specifications, and
bandwidth. When the file is received over the air
bandwidth is still very limited, similar to the bandwidth
of a 14.4K modemunless you are fortunate enough to
develop for 3G networks only. You also need to keep in
mind that most phones have rather limited storage
capacities. To make sure the Flash Lite player has enough
memory to run animations the animation is split into
shorter segments, each placed in separate movie clips.
A simple vector background helps animation

performance. When creating bitmap images save them
as PNGs because they are a smaller file size then JPEGs
and there is no quality loss.
Text Issues
Flash Lite 1.1 includes support for both device fonts and
embedded fonts. Although embedded fonts give you
more control over the design of your content, they
increase the size of the SWF file. Supported mobile
phones support multiple device fonts providing content
developers with multiple options for using device text
fonts helping keep your file size small. When using
device fonts, Flash Lite 1.1 limits text-formatting
options in dynamic text fields to justification (left,
center, right) and color. Formatting options such as
superscript, subscript, and kerning are not supported.
A Bitmap image versus vector graphics is not an eitheror questioneach has its place, so choose wisely.
When you create Flash Lite content, you can use Flash
to embed text. If you place text inside the application or
Vector
Vector backgrounds, on the other hand, can scale
without loss in quality. This can be very beneficial to
your file size, or when creating Flash Lite content for
more than one screen size. For bitmaps to look their best,
they need to be displayed at 100%, no scaling applied.
114
Affordability: the ability to increase efficiency and

productivity by reducing the time and costs involved
in delivering instruction.
graphics, use a typeface that is designed specifically for

small screens. Choosing readable fonts is always an
important design consideration. This section describes
several options for using fonts and text for Flash Lite
content.
Durability: the ability to withstand technology

evolution and changes without costly redesign,
reconfiguration or recoding.
It is very important to use the right type fonts for the

Flash Lite content you intend for display on mobile
phones, which have small screens. Standard fonts such as
Arial or Verdana are not easy to read, because Flash
Player handles anti-aliasing in all but the low-quality
mode. In this case, you should consider using pixel fonts
that are displayed without anti-aliasing.
Pixel fonts make text more readable because text outlines
are aligned along pixel boundaries. Because these fonts
use pixels to create each character, they remain sharp
and easy to read. They can be used on all types of screen
displays, regardless of the screen resolution. The font
sizes need to be in increments of 8 points (8, 16, 24, and
so on) to remain crisp and legible. Use an 8-point font
to get the maximum amount of text on the screen yet
keeping it legible.
Interoperability: the ability to take instructional

components developed in one location with one set
of tools or platform and use them in another
location with a different set of tools or platform
(http://www.adlnet.org).
The basis of the SCORM compatible content is the
structure of the learning content, which identifies the
activity tree, which contains modules, clusters, units and
courses. It is essential to define all the connections
between these elements in the content packages. This
tree basically represents the sequence of courses in a predefined structure. In order to build up this tree the
content developers have to present the following models:
When using pixel fonts, follow these guidelines:
Place text on absolute x and y values (10.0, not

10.2, for example).
If you create input or dynamic text boxes, make sure
you embed your fonts. Otherwise, your Flash
content is displayed in the default system fonts.
To make your text stand out, use a combination of
font types
Compliance with SCORM

SCORM compatible content development
Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is
a standard model of the Advanced Distributed Learning
Initiative (ADL), which was established by The
Department of Defense and the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy in November 1997. The
main idea behind this model is the creation of reusable
learning contents within a standardized framework.
According to the description of the ADL, a standardized
content development has to fulfill the following criteria:
Accessibility: the ability to locate and access
instructional components from one remote location
and deliver them to many other locations.
Figure 1. Activity tree. (Source: www.adlnet.org)
Follow up model collects information about the

student activities.
Activity status model handles the information

about activities whitin the tree
Sequence definition model Defines the sequence

and navigation between the elements of the tree,
provides information for the follow up model
References
Godfrey C., Kelly N., Maguire P., (2005) mLRN Project,
Thesis for B.Sc(Hons) in Multimedia. Dublin:Dublin
City University.
Morris E., (2006) Flash Lite for computer technology,
Thesis for B.Sc(Hons) in Multimedia Systems. Dun
Laoghaire, Co Dublin: Institute of Art, Design and
Technology.
Adaptability: the ability to tailor instruction to

individual and organizational needs.
115
PART 4
GOALS FOR MOBILE LEARNING
COURSE DEVELOPMENT
117
Chapter 15
The enrolment of mobile learning students
into fee-paying and assessed courses
Desmond Keegan
The importance of enrolling mobile learning students in assessed courses is underlined if mobile learning is to be incorporated
into mainline education and training. The dangers of remaining at project level are stated. Examples of mobile learning
assessment are given. It is also important that mobile learning students should be enrolled into fee-paying courses.
It is a goal of the field of mobile learning that mobile

learning courseware should be assessed with the same
rigour as is applied to the assessment of face-to-face and
e-learning courses. It is important that mobile learning
courseware, or modules of courseware which have
mobile learning components, should form part of
courses that are assessed in the same way as the other
courses of the institution.
If this does not occur, mobile learning will not be
incorporated into the mainstream of education and
training provision. It will remain a project with all the
fragility of project status which has already been
outlined elsewhere in this book.
Parallels with the field of distance education, of which
mobile learning forms a subsection, are relevant here.
Distance education had the advantage of using the same
methods of assessment as were current in face-to-face
education at the time. These were either essay-type
assessments, or written answers to questions set by the
institution and its representatives.
In spite of this similarity of assessment methodology, the
first 100 years of distance education (1870-1970) were
subject to constant criticism and tainted by the
correspondence image. The assessment methodologies in
use led only slowly to accreditation at university level.
An immediate change of status and of the quality and
quantity of provision came in the 1970s with the
foundation of the European Open Universities. These
universities had their own charters for the awarding of
degrees and developed strict assessment criteria. The
Open University of the United Kingdom even went as
far as the introduction of Kosmat Analysis. Kosmat

Analysis was a computerised weighting of assessment
scores to ensure that the same grading scales were being
used by all assessors. As the university was located in all
parts of the United Kingdom it was important for it to
ensure that assignment gradings were the same in the
North of Scotland and in the South of England.
The history of assessment in eLearning was quite
different. eLearning was, from the start, characterised by
a strong corporate dimension and by the use of
pedagogical strategies that were not characteristic of
European universities: chatting, quizzing, the templating
of content, multiple choice questioning, reusable
learning objects.
Rekkedal (2002) from NKI in Norway explains a
European academic attitude to multiple-choice
questions in a policy document thus:
Traditionally, NKI has put little emphasis on
objective, multiple-choice questions. This is mainly
due to our general views on knowledge and learning.
We look at learning as a change in the students
perception of reality related to the problem areas
studied and increased competence in solving
problems in a field, ability to differentiate between
focal and more peripheral questions, analytical skills
and competence in using the tools within a field in
appropriate ways.
This means that learning results are shown in a
qualitative change in the students understanding,
academic, social and technical competence. The
learning is a result of active processing of learning
119
material and solving problems individually and/or in

groups. This view is often the opposite to what we
can find in many so-called eLearning programmes,
where knowledge often is seen as a larger amount of
information or ability to recall and reproduce facts.
In addition to cost considerations, this is why we
have put little emphasis on using fancy effects in a
behaviouristic pedagogical tradition, programmed
learning and knowledge transmission (see Marton et
al, 1997, Morgan 1993 on students conceptions of
learning, deep level and surface level approaches to
learning).
We also hold the view that learning is an individual
process that can be supported by adequate
interaction and/or collaboration in groups. The
arguments above have resulted in emphasis on other
assessment, exercise and assessment solutions than
multiple-choice questions and similar assessment
techniques.
Quizzes and multiple choice questions tended to be the
usual form of assessment in eLearning. In spite of this,
accreditation at degree, diploma and training
certification level was quickly won and this acceptance
may carry over to mobile learning.
used to produce a 3 or 4 alternative multiple choice

assignment that is comfortable for student study and
response.
Multiple choice questioning is well established in mobile
learning and works well on mobile devices. A typical
pattern would be: the institution sends an SMS message
with 3 or 4 multiple choice questions to all students.
The student is instructed to press a, b, c, or d and send.
If the student is correct the institution replies: Correct!
and adds a higher level question for reply. This process is
continued for up to 5 questions. If the student was
incorrect the institution replies with explanation of the
error and with the correct answer and further
questioning. At the end of the process the institution
replies:
Dear Student
Correct! You are on your way to reaching the
2nd and 3rd outcomes of this unit. Now read pages
60-65 of the learning guide.
Good luck!
Figure 2. Example of multiple choice

questioning by SMS
Other forms of questioning on mobile devices include
quizzes, drag and drop, screen games, matching pairs,
Assertion-Reason, Multiple Response, True/False,
Text/Numerical, Ranking, Sequencing.
Fig. 1 Space available on a mobile device for student

assessment
The illustration shows the challenge and opportunities
for the presentation of multiple-choice questioning on a
mobile device. Experience shows that this space can be
120
The University of Pretoria reports the developing of

mobile assessment software to help students to assess
themselves and claims that in subjects where they
introduced this kind of assessment the success rate
increased significantly! They report that they had 50
first year students in 5 groups of 10 downloading their
assignments via Bluetooth on their PDA's; connected
these via a WiFi 3G connection to the WWW; where
they searched for and downloaded the needed
information and built a presentation; used Bluetooth to
transfer the file back to the server and did their
presentation of their research findings for assessment to
the rest of the group.
Here is a screen assignment from a mobile learning
course in the field of Telecommunications:
The enrolment of mobile learning students into fee-paying and assessed courses
Enrolment of mobile learning students into

fee-paying courses
The enrolment of mobile learning students into feepaying courses is also a goal of mobile learning course
development.
The reason for this is that if the course is not presented
for paid student enrolment in the prospectus of the
institution, it remains at the level of a research project
and has the fragility of project status.
Figure 3. Example of multiple choice questioning

on mobile phone
Next is a mobile learning assignment in the field of High
School Geography (Godfrey et al. 2005). In this
assignment the student clicks on the red numbers, each
of which leads to further information on the feature
selected. This is accompanied by one or more pages with
a 3 or 4 point multiple assignment. Feedback is provided.
The student is either informed that the answer is correct
and directed to further questioning or told that the
answer is incorrect and the correct answer is provided:
Clearly these observations apply only to courseware in

countries in which fees are payable for further and
higher education programmes.
It is a goal for the field of mobile learning to emerge
from its present project status and take its place as an
official form of education and training provision, as the
fields of distance education and e-learning have done
before it. A major stage towards this official status is the
listing of the course for paid student enrolment.
The dangers for the field of mobile learning of not
achieving this official status are that it remains at project
level, the preoccupation of a professor or staff member
working on a research project in some small area or
department of a college or university. The undertaking
remains peripheral to the official procedures of the
college or university, and of its faculty or department
structure.
The characteristics of projects are well known. They
tend to collapse when the project funding is withdrawn.
There is no continuity of results once the project has
been completed. The project grouping tends to be
dispersed and to focus on new undertakings. The
expertise developed within the project group tends to be
dissipated and the research gains are not consolidated.
Figure 4. Assignment from High School History

course on the History of Irish Monasticism
These illustrations show how imaginative forms of
assessment can be designed for mobile learning
courseware. As in the field of eLearning assessment in
the field of mobile learning will have a focus on multiple
choice questioning. The acceptance of this form of
assessment for accreditation in eLearning courseware
justifies its use in mobile learning courseware as well.
A great number of distance education and eLearning

initiatives have not survived the transition from project
status. They were based on special funding from
international or national or local government funding or
funding from some educational foundation and have
withered and died when the funding came to an end.
Contract staff, employed for the duration of the project,
are let go and the full-time staff return to other work.
The impetus created by the project is lost and the
expertise developed during the project is not developed.
It is important that the field of mobile learning should
not follow this route.
121
The example of the fields of distance education and

eLearning show how these two fields, both of which are
outside the field of traditional face-to-face education
and training like mobile learning is, achieved the status
of fee-paying provision and, hence, entered into
mainstream provision alongside traditional face-to-face
provision.
The early days of distance education were commercial
and fee-paying, but tainted with the correspondence
image. Correspondence education institutions were
developed on a for-profit basis and run as businesses in
which charges for courses were central to the activity of
the business. In spite of this correspondence image
courses were sold by correspondence colleges throughout
the world especially in fields like accountancy, languages
and high school graduation.
The early days of distance education at colleges and
universities was again fragile in status but always on a
fee-paying basis. A major breakthrough occurred in the
1970s with the foundation of the European Open
Universities: the Open University of the United
Kingdom at Milton Keynes, the FernUniversitt in
Hagen, Germany and the Universidad Nacional de
Educacin a Distancia in Madrid, Spain.
These universities immediately offered their courseware
for paid enrolment, though in the early days at the
German Open University, these fees were subsidised
from general taxpayers revenue. The paid enrolments at
the Open University of the United Kingdom quickly
reached the 200.000 paid enrolments per year figure.
Distance education courseware was then accepted for
fee-paying enrolment in conventional face-to-face
universities and colleges where the courses were offered
side by side with the face-to-face courses, sometimes for
the same fee and sometimes for a different fee.
In a similar way fee-paying courseware was quickly
introduced into the field of eLearning. eLearning had,
from the start, an important corporate character and
eLearning quickly became a multi-billion dollar/euro
training industry, with extensive enrolment of students
whether in fee-paying courses or in courses paid for their
company.
eLearning quickly spread to the university and college
sector and eLearning courses were quickly offered sideby-side with their face-to-face and distance education
122
equivalents, sometimes for the same fee and sometimes

for a different fee.
It is an important goal, therefore, for a university, or
college or corporate training structure that when it
decides to introduce mobile learning as a form of
provision, that this provision should move quickly from
its research project status to take its place amongst the
fee-paying courseware of the institution.
The structures of fee-paying for mobile learning needs
to be carefully considered as mobile learning students
will study largely as individuals whereas fee-paying
structures for colleges and universities in conventional
education are largely structured on groupings of
students.
The use of mobile learning for fee-paying courses, or the
inclusion of mobile learning elements into a fee-paying
course, guarantees that the institution will treat the
course seriously, that the faculty in which it is used will
take ownership of it and that it will be assessed in an
appropriate way.
If mobile learning modules or courseware that includes
mobile learning elements is not offered for fee-paying
students in the prospectus of the institution, mobile
learning remains at the level of a hobby for a professor
or staff member. The costs for the staff members time
spent in the development of mobile learning courseware
cannot be recovered from mobile learning.
For mobile learning courseware the status of providing a
fee-paying course is linked to being included in the
official prospectus of the institution, and to student
achievement on the course being assessed by the staff of
the institution, and to the course being available for
credit at degree, diploma or training certification level,
or being included as part of a course that is so assessed.
References
Godfrey C., Kelly N., Maguire P., (2005) mLRN
Project, Thesis for B.Sc(Hons) in Multimedia.
Dublin:Dublin City University.
resourcesshtml
Dye, A and Fagerberg, T (2005) Exploring online
services in a mobile environment.
http://learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2/files/workpa
ckage2/nki_technical_working_paper_2005.doc
The enrolment of mobile learning students into fee-paying and assessed courses
Marton, F., Hounsell, D. & Entwistle, N.(ed.) (1997)

The Experience of Learning. Implications for Teaching
and Studying in Higher Education. Edinburgh:
Scottish Academic Press.
Rekkedal, T. (2002) Assessment and Evaluation

Techniques in NKI E-Learning Courses.
http://learning.ericsson.net/socrates/doc/
norwayp5.pdf
Morgan, A. (1993) Improving your students learning.

Reflections on the Experience of Study. London,
KoganPage.
123
Chapter 16
Enrolment of mobile students into official
and accredited courses
Alexander Dye, Torstein Rekkedal and Truls Fagerberg
This chapter describes the process of adapting NKIs learning management system to support students that have enrolled
into NKIs official courses and want to use mobile devices in their studies. It is based upon the work carried out by
NKI Distance Education.
NKIs focus has been on the development of learning

services to use on a personal digital assistant (PDA) in
distance education to increase the student and teacher
flexibility in their study and mentoring situation.
It should be emphasized that we assumed that the
NKI Internet students normally will have access
to a desktop or laptop computer with Internet
connection. This means that the equipment and
technologies used when mobile are additions to the
students equipment used when studying at home or at
work. It should also be noted that our developments
were based on the absolute assumption that mobile
learners would study in the same group as students not
having access to mobile technology. Thus, the design of
the learning environment had to cater efficiently for
both situations.
represents a generic development of the model of

distance teaching institutions and applies normal media
and technologies independent of time (and place), such
as asynchronous computer communication, video, audio
and printed materials. The model on the opposite end of
the scale, the extended classroom model, assumes that the
students are organised into groups required to meet
regularly at local study centres and applies technologies
such as video conferencing, satellite distribution, radio
and television (Gamlin 1995).
One of the overall aims for NKI has been to extend the
distribution of learning materials and communication to
lighter equipment and increase the flexibility in distance
education. A number of evaluation studies among
distance and online learners at NKI have demonstrated
that students emphasize flexibility (see e.g. Rekkedal
1990, 1998, 1999, Rekkedal & Paulsen 1997).
In this connection we have chosen the philosophy for

the development of Internet based education at NKI:
Flexible and individual distance teaching with the student
group as social and academic support for learning. NKI
recruits nearly 10,000 students to more than 600
courses and over 120 study programmes by
correspondence based and Internet based distance
teaching every year. These students may enrol to any
course or programme or combination of courses on any
day of the year and progress at their own pace. This
flexibility does not exclude group-based solutions in
cooperation with one single employer, trade organisation
or local organiser, or that individual students on their
own initiative or by the initiative of the tutor are
collaborating on learning tasks.
We have argued that distance education generally seems

to develop in two quite different directions. The
solution at one end of a flexibility continuum can be
described as an individual, flexible solution allowing the
student freedom to start at any time and follow his/her
own progression according to personal needs for
combining studies with work, family and social life
the individual flexible teaching model. This model
NKI philosophy on online learning is expressed

in the strategic document (NKI 2005): NKI
Distance Education facilitates individual freedom
within a learning community in which online students
serve as mutual resources without being dependent on each
other. This philosophy sets the premises for NKI
in their development of flexible education and
system for Internet based learning and sets the
Increasing the flexibility of distance

education
124
guidelines for both technical and didactical

development. To get a brief overview of the parts
in an Internet based learning system, it is
recommended to take a closer look at the model The
Multimedia WorldWide Web Kernel for Distance
Education.
In connection with a previous European Union

Leonardo da Vinci project we described the programme
and distribution system in Internet based learning as a
Multimedia World Wide Web Kernel for Distance
Education (http://www.nki.no/eeileo/) with the
following elements:
Figure 1. The Multimedia WorldWide Web Kernel for Distance Education.

In designing the learning environment with the
mobile learner in mind, all these aspects and
functionalities have to be taken into account. In
addition one must also take systems for administration
into account when developing solutions to support the
mobile learner.
Mobile Design and Development Issues

Students and tutors use of technology when mobile
When mobile and using mobile technologies NKI
found that it was generally satisfactory for the student
(and the tutor) to have the course content available to
study on the PocketPC. In addition, the following
communication possibilities were seen as necessary.
When mobile, the student must be able to:
Access the course forum archive to read messages (if

necessary) (messages on the forum is also sent to
participants as e-mails)
Access the course forum to submit contributions to

the discussions
Send e-mail to fellow students, to the teacher and to
the administration (study advisor)
Receive e-mail from fellow students, from the tutor
and from the administration
Submit assignments by e-mail including
attachments
Receiving assignments corrected and commented on
by the tutor including attachments.
To access e-mail and discussion forums, mobile phones

with infrared connection to the PDA were used.
Studying online and/or offline

One must consider whether courses are designed to
function as online interactive e-learning programmes or
not, and if some parts of the courses implies interaction
125
with multi-media materials, tests and assignments.

Traditional courses at higher level of education could
often involve intensive study, mainly of text based
materials, solving problems, writing essays, submitting
assignments and communicating with fellow students by
e-mail or in the web based conferences. This means that
most of the time the students will be offline when
studying if always online solutions are not available.
From experience NKI also know that the students often
download content for reading offline and often also
print out content for reading on paper.
When planning for the mLearning environment, the
NKI project team had long discussions whether to
develop the learning materials for online or offline study.
NKI considered 3 alternative solutions for distribution
of course content during project one. The 3 main
solutions for distributing content were:
NKI decided to develop systems for the

Download-on-demand version for course
distribution. The decision to go for the choice
of downloading content for offline study was based
on previous experiences and also the following
considerations: NKI Internet students study
mainly offline. Communication concerns
discussion with fellow students in the academic
forums, cooperation on projects and group
assignments, and individual communication with other
students and, most important, according to our
evaluations (see e.g. Rekkedal & Paulsen 1997),
communication with the tutor including submission of
assignments with correction and feedback. All our
analyses concluded that the students should have all
these possibilities available on their desktop or laptop
PCs, including online interaction with the learning
materials.
1. The AvantGo Mobile Internet service

2. Online access via mobile telephone to the entire
course
3. Download-on-demand version
Figure 2. Screen shot from the webpage from the Download-on-demand version of the course.
Initially the course material was provided in two
versions. We chose a course previously developed for
Internet/web based learning already available in a
HTML version. This was relatively easy to adapt and
display on the Pocket PC using applies Microsoft Pocket
Internet Explorer that is a web browser with far less
functionality than the full scale PC version.
126
The second version of the course was provided as an Ebook using Microsoft Reader with ClearType to read the
course material. Microsoft Reader with ClearType
enhances display resolution by as much as 300 percent by
improving letter shapes and character spacing, making
them appear more detailed, more finely crafted, and more
like printed fonts. This gives powerful digital advantages
like integrated dictionary support and electronic

annotations, while honouring the best traditions of
typography to ensure proper kerning and leading, correct
margins, and line justification, to name a few.
There are several methods to produce materials in the
Microsoft Reader format. One may create on-the-fly
Reader files via publishing websites like eBookExpress or

download software that converts publications into
Reader files/e-books according to individual preferences.
One of these is ReaderWorks that is third-party software
recommended by Microsoft developed by OverDrive
Inc.
Figure 3. Screen shots of course pages on the PDA

NKI concluded that the learning environment should
include the following aspects (Fagerberg, Rekkedal and
Russell 2002):
Technology:
Pocket PC/PDA
Mobile phone
Portable keyboard
Learning content and communication:
Learning content to be downloaded on the mobile
device to be studied offline. Downloaded content to
include all course materials:
o Content page
o Preface
o Introduction
o All study units
Resources (articles on the web, references to

other resource materials)
Online access to the discussion forum with the
possibility of as quick as possible access for reading
in the Forum and writing contributions
E-mail for individual communication with tutor
and fellow students and for submitting assignments.
Assignments may be submitted as text-based e-mail
or as Word or Text attachments.
Designing and Testing an Always-Online

Environment for Mobile Learners
As a result of the experiences, NKI wished to continue
the research on mLearning based on the PDA solutions
available in 2004-2005. After examining the different
brands available, we decided to develop solutions for the
follower of the previous devices, HP iPAQ Pocket PC
127
5500 series with built-in wireless network card. At the

same time all developments were done with the main
object to develop generic solutions independent on
devices on the user side.
For NKI as a large-scale provider of flexible online
distance learning, and as well as for other providers as
well, it is extremely important to deliver cost-effective
solutions, i.e. for NKI it is of vital importance that we are
able to find system solutions that allow learners who are
users of mobile technology and wish to study also when
on the move, that also allow other students to apply
standard technology. The solutions must be designed in
ways to allow both groups to participate in the same
course. This means that we had to look for solutions that
are optimal both for communication and for distributing
content in courses, independent on whether the students
and tutors apply mobile technology or standard PC and
Internet connection for teaching or learning.
Online access to course content was considered to be the
best solution. However, 5 years ago this was seen as
neither technologically nor economically possible. Since
then, the technological developments have made it more
attractive to start developing and experimentation with
solutions based on the assumption that an always-online
environment would be available for mobile learners.
This is, in fact, close to reality today, and will most
probably be the normal situation in the near future.
Functionalities of the always-online

environment
When planning for this project, the NKI project team
emphasized development of solutions for mLearning
where students and tutors using PDA/PocketPC
through wireless systems could benefit from teaching
and learning in an always-online environment.
Although downloaded content gives access to the course
at any time, this solution has some disadvantages, such as:
Little incentive to log into the Internet College and

take advantage of a learning community
No possibility of taking advantage of interactive
materials
No (or slow) access to other Internet resources
Restricted communication possibilities
During the planning process we described the

following aspects of an always-online solution that
would possibly increase the quality of the services for
mobile learners:
128
High bandwidth gives fast downloading of course

content and use of audio, video and advanced graphics
Independence of synchronization with desktop PC
Access to resources on the Internet at all times
Easy access to e-mail at all times
Possibilities for online assessment and assignments
Options for easier co-operation with fellow students
Possibilities for synchronous communication, chat
and IP telephony
ADSL or free access to WLAN give control over costs
During the first phase of this project an ideal description

of requirements for a mobile learning management system
(mLMS) for the NKI context was developed by Dye &
Fagerberg (2004). The requirements were based on the
assumption that the NKI Learning Management System,
SESAM, would be further developed to accommodate the
needs of mobile learners with priority to learners using
PocketPC. A description of SESAM and functionalities
have been given by Paulsen et al. (2003).
mLMS system requirements

The specifications proposed by Dye & Fagerberg (2004)
are presented below and the specification is divided into
six categories. These functionalities can be considered as
recommendations for other institutions when
considering LMS systems and mobile learning. We have
used the term mLMS, Mobile Learning Management
System, in this chapter. This means that the LMS is
capable of dealing with mobile devices and system, not
that the actual LMS is mobile.
Overall framework needs
The mLMS must be a part of an LMS and support
the mobile client as well as traditional clients.
The mLMS should provide different types of
content to different devices automatically.
The mLMS must create a comfortable learning
environment for students studying with mobile
devices.
Course content
The mLMS must be able to store course content in
the system.
The mLMS should provide easy navigation.
The mLMS should provide a zoom function for
illustrations and pictures.
Access to courseware
Access to resources, library, references, glossary and
exam database.
Access to course planning tools and calendar.

Students must have the possibility for
submitting assignments. This could be by e-mail
with attachments, submission systems or other
solutions.
Tutors should be able to answer and return
assignments.
One should have access to a class list with tutor and
student information.
Students should have the possibility to answer using
multiple choices, drag and drop test/exercises, etc.
Text to speech possibilities would be very helpful.
The mLMS must support graphics, audio and video,
moving image. Have in mind the issues with
displaying elements of a certain size on a small
screen. (Large pictures, animation etc.)
The mLMS should immediately provide answers
and feedback on test/exercises to students.
It would be useful to have searchable course content.
Communication
One should have access to online synchronous
communication such as chat, IP telephony would
also be useful.
One must have access to an asynchronous
communication system such as e-mail.
The mLMS could support Short Messages Service
(SMS) between students and teachers for instance to
notify the teacher that a student has just delivered a
new assignment. The other way around, a student
could get a notification that the teacher has just sent
the answer to the assignment. This notification
could also contain the score/grade.
The mLMS could support the use of Multimedia
Messaging Service (MMS) for instance to upload
pictures to personal presentations.
SMS between users of the mLMS and the mLMS to
give reminders and other information as well as
enrolling and signing up to exams and other
arrangements.
Students and tutors must have access to course
forums to read and write messages.
One must have access to a list with both tutor and
student information.
Message board.
Announcements.
Administration of users
This is a feature that is meant for the administration of
the institutions and is not actually a part of the end user
system for the mobile student or tutor.
The mLMS should give the possibility to register for

an exam.
One must have access to student records.
Student tracking.
SMS and MMS administration system
Other
The mLMS should give the possibility to enrol to a
course (students enrol from a web page)
Provide export features to have course access even
when offline. This is a feature if the always online
environment is not available.
Adjustment of personal settings such as changing
password or e-mail address.
Access to frequently asked questions (FAQ).
Access to contact information.
Access to general study information such exams
dates, student handbooks, regulations, etc.
Access to a sitemap.
A possibility to print from the device.
An area where you can upload and store personal files.
Access to technical support services.
Features and functionalities tested in the

NKI trials
Related to the requirements above NKI has developed
the SESAM LMS into a functioning mLMS. The trials
were carried out during March 2005 with 18 test
students registered in the course Sales and services
(Rekkedal & Dye 2005). The functionalities tested are
described in the following writing. The elements tested
in the trials should be seen as elements that function as
foundation of what to include when developing user
stories and test matrixes for own mobile learning
development and in own testing.
Introduction to the PDA and use of equipment
As the majority of the test persons were not users of a
PDA, we started the test by describing the hypothetical
real situation lying behind the developments and how to
use the PDA. It is important to have in mind the level of
competence regarding mobile devices and technology
use in general when developing for the mobile user. It
could for instance be difficult to set up ones PDAs
correctly, but there are reasons to believe that students
choosing to use a mobile devise in their studies already
are familiar with this technology.
129
Logging in and navigation on the NKI Internet College

personal page
The students were asked to log into their pages on the
Internet College and to navigate and examine their
personal page as it is presented on the PDA.
Navigating in the course
After having been acquainted with the personal start
page, the students had the opportunity to navigate
around in the course.
Navigation is perhaps one of the most important parts
in a well-functioning system for mobile learning. There
is limited space available on a small screen and one
should be very focused on this when designing the
course navigation structure and course material that will
be used on a handheld device.
Reading study units 1
In the trials all students were instructed to read the text
of study Unit 1.
Submissions of assignment for Study Unit 1
The first assignment in study unit 1 was: What is your
opinion of reading course texts on the PDA?
Instead of answering the ordinary assignment for
submission, the students wrote an answer to the above
question. Submission 1 involved using Pocket Word for
writing the answer, storing the word document, opening

e-mail programme, attaching document, sending and
receiving e-mails. During the test the students received
feedback from the tutor with comments.
Examining multi media (ordinary multi media in the course)
The following standard multi media elements in the
course were examined:
Sound
Video
Multimedia
Multiple-choice questions
Drag and drop exercises
In addition the test course included some multi media

elements specifically developed for mobile learning:
Sound including Synthetic speech (Talking course

pages)
Multimedia
Multiple-choice questions
Graphics
Animations with and without sound
Drag and drop exercises
Reading in the course Forum

All students and teachers have access to a discussion
forum that is available within each course. In these
forums one can ask questions, read previous postings
Figure 4. Screen shot from the discussion forum in the course SPICE 603
130
Figure 5. Screen shot from the discussions forum in the course SPICE 603 Online
Teaching and Learning, on the PDA
and discuss various issues. The functionality of reading

in the course forum and writing messages to the forum
was tried out. The first message was written by the tutor.
The students received messages by e-mail onto the PDA
and read the same messages on the course pages.
Writing messages to the Forum
For writing messages to the forum, the students had to
open a text box on the forum pages of NKI Internet
College and write their messages. Writing messages to
the forum may be done either by writing in Pocket
Word and paste into the forum text box, or by writing
directly into the text box. All agreed that a portable
keyboard is a need for writing more than very short
messages. If not online, a student will normally write the
forum messages in a text processor and paste it into the
text box on the forum pages. When submitting
assignments to the tutor, the students had to use the
Pocket Word programme, store and retrieve files and
attach files to e-mails sending and receiving mails. For
students inexperienced with the use of a PDA, these
operations may seem a little complicated. All activities,
both writing to the forum and submit assignments,

seemed to have functioned satisfactorily for most of the
students.
More about navigation in the course
The students also examined the course functionality
through reading presentations of other students and
writing e-mail to fellow students, sending and receiving
mails
Synchronous communication
Although NKI in general puts little emphasis on
synchronous communication, as this project concerned
a theoretical always-online environment, we took the
opportunity to try some synchronous solutions such as
chatting by MSN messenger and Skype. Skype offers
primarily an IP telephony functionality, which was also
tested in the trials. Thus, the students also had the
opportunity of communicating orally with fellow
students using the PDA and Internet telephony with
Skype.
131
Figure 6. Screen shots of synchronous communication software on the PDA.
Conclusion
The NKI developments and research on mobile learning
has resulted in better solutions for serving distance
online learners. We have learned that cost efficiency
considerations do not allow for developing parallel
versions of courses. Courses must be developed,
presented and distributed in ways that allow both
mobile and non-mobile learners to participate and enrol
in the same course and that course materials can be
assessed both by standard and mobile technology with
acceptable quality of all content elements. Interaction
with course content and multi-media materials and
communication with tutors and fellow students must
also function adequately both through standard and
mobile technology.
It is still a question of what the ideal device and
solution for mobile learning really is. Probably the
answer is a result of the learners individual preferences.
That is why NKI has found it extremely important to
experiment with different solutions that have inspired
developments towards finding course design systems
solutions that may serve the needs of the learner
independent of the technology used by the students.
References
Dye, A. & Fagerberg, T. (2004) Mobile Learning
Management System specification.
http://learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2/files/workpa
ckage1/nki.pdf
132
Fagerberg, T., Rekkedal, T. & Russell, J. (2002):

Designing and Trying Out a Learning Environment
for Mobile Learners and Teachers. Sub-project of the
EU Leonardo Project From e-Learning to mLearning. http://www.nettskolen.com/
forskning/55/NKI2001m-learning2.html
Gamlin, M. 1995: Distance Learning in Tranisition; The
Impact of Technology: A New Zealand Perspective.
Keynote address to EDEN Conference The Open
Classroom Distance Learning and New Technologies in
School Level Education and Training, Oslo.
NKI (2005): Strategisk plan for NKI Fjernundervisning
2005-2007. Internal document. Bekkestua: NKI.
Rekkedal, T. (1990) Recruitment and Study Barriers in
the Electronic College. In: Paulsen, M.F. &
Rekkedal, T. 1990: The Electronic College. Selected
Articles from the EKKO Project. Bekkestua:
NKI/SEFU.
Rekkedal, T. (1998) Courses on the WWW - Student
Experiences and Attitudes Towards WWW Courses. An
Evaluation Report Written for the Leonardo Online
Training Project http://www.nki.no/eeileo/
http://www.nettskolen.com/alle/forskning/35/0306
98.html
Rekkedal, T. (1999) Courses on the WWW Student
Experiences and Attitudes Towards WWW Courses
II. Evaluation Report Written for the Leonardo On-
line Training Project, MMWWWK.

http://www.nki.no/eeileo/
Rekkedal, T., Qvist-Eriksen, S., Fagerberg, T., Paulsen,
M. F., Aakre, A. K. & Sjaastad. J. (2003)
Student Support Services in E-learning,
http://www.nettskolen.com/forskning/
student_support/student_support.pdf

Midtsveen, B. & Russell, J.(2005) Design,
Development and Evaluation of Mobile Learning
at NKI Distance Education 2000-2005
(http://www.nettskolen.com/forskning/
m_Learning_2000_2005.pdf )
133
PART 5
EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL MOBILE
COURSE DEVELOPMENT
135
Chapter 17
Courses on Art Appreciation for mobile devices
Mikls Bir, Andras Gabor and Gabor Kismihok
In this chapter a description is given of two pilot courses developed for mobile devices at Corvinus University of Budapest (CUB).
The first part of the chapter details issues about difficulties of content development and mobilization. Pilot results and user
satisfaction are discussed in the second part.
Courses on Art Appreciation

Corvinus University of Budapest has developed two
complete mobile courses:
2. Introduction to the Urban Architecture of

Budapest
1. Introduction to Contemporary Hungarian

Painting
Figure 2. Graphic from Introduction to the Urban

Architecture in Budapest
Figure 1. Graphic from Introduction to
Contemporary Hungarian Painting
The courseware contains an overview of modern art,

discussing three significant art movements in more
depth. The course material includes reviews of specific
styles and artists in these areas as well. The language of
the content is Hungarian, since Hungarian art students
were taught using this material. The course contains
about 50 paintings as examples of various art
movements.
The courseware has been developed for art history

courses by an urban history professor. It contains an
overview of old gate door-handles and their connection
to the history of the architecture of Budapest. The
courseware is also in Hungarian, since the target group
of this material was the same as before. The course
contains 68 different buildings, which are important for
the urban architecture history of Budapest, but not very
well known to the public.
137
Developing course materials

The development processes were the same for both
courses. After the analysis of the course in a paper-based
form, it was restructured during a consultation process
between the author and an eLearning expert who was
familiar with the SCORM standard. As a result, we have
divided the course material into packages following the
main parts of the course. In case of the paintings course,
we identified three main categories. In the case of the
architecture course, we divided the material into
seventeen packages according to geographical location.
After the classification, the metadata required by the
SCORM standard was created. This metadata described
the internal structure (sections and subsections) of the
electronic material.
The SCORM standard suggests a content packaging
methodology for the creation of content entities in the
course. This means that only a relatively small piece of
information can be shown on one page, or in our case
one file. The content was accordingly separated into
plain HTML files containing a small amount of
information. Using this technique, the appropriate
structure of the course could be maintained, so the
navigation between the elements of the structure became
quite easy. It is also better for the content management
system to manage user progress by bookmarks which
simply means the storage of the current part (file) of the
material, and not the current page where the text may be
long and may have to be scrolled. As a result, the
content packages have been developed with their
appropriate metafiles describing the structure in a
specified XML format.
Delivering course content

mLMS
For the purposes of the pilot testing of the course
materials, the staff of Corvinus University of Budapest
decided to use the Atutor Learning Content
Management System. The Atutor environment is an
open source application developed by the Adaptive
Technology Resource Centre at the University of
Toronto.
A much-emphasized aim of modern distributed learning
solutions is to separate learning content from the means
and infrastructure of content delivery. Delivering
content for mobile devices means preparing an
138
infrastructure for displaying content online considering

the special needs of mobile browsers (restricted XML
and HTML set and small screen resolution). The aim of
the project was the development of a SCORM
conformant online learning content, customization for
display on Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices and
smartphones. The content packages, which were
developed by the Corvinus University staff in Atutor, are
in conformance with the 1.3.1 (2004) version of the
Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM).
However, Atutor is not fully compatible with the
SCORM standard. It does not implement the Run Time
Environment, which didnt cause any problem to us
since we do not use this feature of SCORM during the
pilot phase (it is only necessary for interactions between
the material and the learning management system, as in
the case of tests for example). Moreover, there were some
minor differences in the metadata interpretation of
Atutor and the SCORM standard. To avoid difficulties
and to enable the re-use of the lecture materials, two
kinds of packages have been developed: a version for
Atutor and another version conforming to the SCORM
standard. SCORM conformance has been tested with
the open source testing suite available from Advanced
Distributed Learning. The result was that the course
packages are well-formed, valid and compliant with the
standard.
Since our packages contain plain HTML pages and
images, we decided to publish them as normal web
pages, so we have created a Table of Content page for
them, which follows the structure of the course
described in the SCORM metadata files. This way, the
different representations of the course are identical.
Using Atutor for mobile devices is not more difficult
than using the system for an ordinary PC. The only
requirement is a html based browser, which has an
internet connection. After the log in procedure at
www.atutor.hu, the user can browse the on-line teaching
material, and enrol to the ones, which are related to the
given study programme. The teaching material is fully
indexed, searchable. The system allows the student to
communicate directly with the content supervisor
(teacher). The Atutor environment is available not only
in English but also in Hungarian, which makes it
suitable for Hungarian course-development as well.
Figure 3. Screenshot from ATutor

Mobilization
One part of mobilization has been done by the
sectioning of the course according to the SCORM
standard. Since we have divided the material into small
textual parts, they could be easily fitted on the screen of
a smartphone. This way, the material was already
mobile. We have converted the pictures into a small
form, to make them suitable for display on mobile
devices.
This led us to some of the challenges regarding
smartphone browsers. There were two browsers available
for smartphones at the time of the pilot test: Opera and
the integrated browser from Symbian. Each browser
interpreted the given size of a picture differently. The
60% sized picture width was interpreted by Opera as
60% of the visible page width, and as the percentage of
the picture width (in pixels) by the internal browser. So
we decided to directly convert pictures to a small form
in order to reach optimal visibility on small screens.
There was another problem with browsers: the internal
browser supports special Hungarian characters while
Opera does not.
The next issue with mobilization was to change the
appearance of Atutor, since it uses a horizontal
arrangement, which is quite optimal for large PC screens
but does not fit small screens. Since Atutor can have so
called Themes, we managed to arrange its layout in a
vertical way.
Being on-line
As was mentioned before, there were two browsers
available for smartphones. The internal browser was
mainly a WML browser capable of interpreting HTML
pages as well. This browser could connect to the internet
by using the GPRS features of the given device. The
features of this browser were much more moderate than
Opera which is supposed to be a possible candidate for
gaining the position of the de-facto standard in the
market of pocket browsers. But Opera couldnt connect
to the Internet through the phone using its GPRS
features.
Feedback
Place & Time
The first pilot course was located in the Hungarian
National Gallery, on the 20th of February 2005. The
second one was in the historical Castle District in
Budapest. The date of this course was the 25th of
August 2005. The CUB staff allocated 2 hours for both
events, which also included a short introduction about
the course material and about the test circumstances.
139
In both cases a content supervisor gave a brief overview

about the topics and students discovered the location
and the learning content individually afterwards.
Participants
Altogether 24 people tested the course materials. 22 of
them were students and 2 of them were lecturers. The
CUB staff provided technical assistance for students, as
some of them didnt have any previous experience in
using Smartphones or PDAs.
Equipment
The CUB staff provided 3 Smartphones (Ericsson
P900s), 3 PDAs (HP Ipaqs) a small portable computer.
PDAs didnt have Internet connection, so only the offline course material was accessible, which was stored in
the memory of devices. The P900s were capable to
access the on-line content, but the off line version was
available on their memory sticks as well.
After each course, a questionnaire had to be filled out by
users, which provided the basis of this evaluation. The
figures in brackets indicate the results of the Urban
Architecture course.
strongly agreed at the second time). The time students

spent learning how to use the equipment, was not more
than 5-10 minutes. It was clear at the end that majority
of the students enjoyed the virtual mobile course.
Furthermore, 58% (92%) of them would participate in
another mLearning course, and half of them (75%)
would recommend this learning method for other
people as well. All participants (83%) agreed that
mLearning increases the quality of eLearning, and a
large majority of them thought that learning objectives
could be fulfilled by mLearning. There was no
evaluation included in the on-line and off-line course
material about knowledge gained throughout this
course. Nevertheless, the content supervisor asked some
questions that students could only answer if they read
the course material.
Technical Feasibility
There were some technical and functional differences
between the devices used during the test. The problem
mostly occurred, when a student, who used a PDA
before, changed to a Smartphone. As a PDA has a bigger
screen and MS Windows based software environment, it
was more convenient to use than a Smartphone where
the users had to learn the usage first, and than try to use
the course material.
Cost Effectiveness
The students were mostly uncertain about the cost
efficiency of the mLearning course. On the one hand,
reaching the core course material itself, in case of using
off-line version, was free. CUB provided the technical
equipment, the software and the content for free as well.
On the other hand, if people use this system individually
with their own devices on-line, the costs of a course can
be quite high.
Student reflections
As it emerged from our questionnaire, accessing and
reading the text on mobile devices functioned quite well.
75% (92%) of students were satisfied with it. The text
was supported with a rich image gallery. The quality of
images were much better on the PDAs, than on the
P900s, as the screen was bigger.
Figure 4. Student with a Smartphone

User satisfaction
On average students were satisfied with the equipment.
66% agreed, 17% strongly agreed that it was easy to use
the equipment during the first event (42% agreed, 58%
140
From the students point of view, the structure of course

materials was sometimes not clear enough. For instance,
it was easy to get lost between the different styles, artist
names and paintings. This confusion happened mostly
because the off-line version was lacking the search
function. Users who used the on-line version didnt face
this problem, as teaching material was fully indexed and

searchable.
A very interesting point was that mLearning is quite
exhausting! Students agreed that using mobile devices
needs more concentration from users than an ordinary
classroom presentation or an eLearning course. They
stated that using these small devices makes their eyes
tired after an hour. According to our experience, a 15
minutes break after an hour long session is essential.
Later, when students are more familiar with the usage of
mobile devices, they dont need so much help from the
content and the infrastructure supervisors, so they might
be able to concentrate on the teaching material more
efficiently.
Another advantage of PDA was the MS Windows

environment. Users who havent got any experience in
using mobile devices, which are able to handle
mLearning teaching content, could browse the content
on a PDA easier, as the environment and the logic of the
operating system and the web browser was similar to the
software they use on their own PCs.
In the case of the Urban Architecture course another
missing point was a map. In the discussion after the
session some students recommended that an interactive
map be put at the beginning of the course content. The
user can indicate his or her position on the map, which
shows the nearest building in the neighbourhood. With
GPS it would be possible to get proper guidance as well.
However, the structure of the content was well
established, so it was easy to find the buildings, which
were shown in the course content.
Challenges and Conclusion
Figure 5. Students browsing the content on

the Urban Architecture course
The biggest lesson learned by the CUB staff about these
courses was that the bigger the screen of the device was,
the more one could learn about the content, which was
accessible through that device. Thats why PDAs were
more suitable for mLearning purposes than
Smartphones. Pictures, images were bigger and it was
more convenient to read the text, as more characters
were shown in one line.
Despite some technical issues related to Internet

connection, the courseware was suitable and available
for further testing with students. Besides the on-line
version, the plain HTML package could be stored on a
memory card, so an off-line version was also available for
the users. The students had to put the memory card into
their mobile devices and play the content with any
browser on the phone. The offline version is cheap, and
accessible anytime, anywhere. According to the student
feedback mobile learning is a useful academic
application, which in this practical case is capable of
supporting face-to-face education successfully.
References
Materials of the project Mobile Learning: The Next
Generation Of Learning (2003 2005),
141
Chapter 18
Mobile Learning and the Marginalised
Judy Nix
This chapter highlights different initiatives which showcase how mobile learning can be used to advantage among a myriad of
learners who for different reasons have difficulty accessing learning.
mLearning as an assistive technology

Can mLearning give an advantage to those people who
find accessing traditional learning a problem? TechDis
(2005) in the United Kingdom has developed an
interesting grid which highlights the potential of
mLearning in this arena. TechDis is an organisation who
Type of tools
wishes to be the leading educational advisory service on

inclusion and accessibility in the UK. It aims to enhance
provision for disabled students and staff in higher,
further and specialist education and adult and
community learning, through the use of technology.
mLearning potential
Sound - many PDAs provide the facility for easy voice recording. Many disabled learners
have difficulty with note-taking - voice recording may offer an easy alternative.
Recording tools:
Images - the inbuilt cameras on many PDAs and phones provide an alternative way for
many learners to make records when (or where) traditional note-taking might prove
difficult.
Text - Handwriting recognition, portable keypads and onscreen keyboards provide
alternative opportunities for making notes in a range of environments. For some learners
this can be more effective than note taking with pen and paper.
Planning:
Students with difficulty in planning and organisation can benefit from many of the
inbuilt functions in PDAs and phones, such as the calendar, clock, to do lists, alarms,
notepad functions etc. In respect of planning assignments and essays, mind mapping
software for PDAs can allow learners to separate content from structure and focus on
each independently.
Reading tools:
Print challenged learners can benefit from the alternative media available on many PDAs.
These can include audio clips, animations, video clips or text to speech.
Writing tools:
Word prediction and spellchecking software are available for the main PDA platforms
and can offer support for learners in a range of environments where PC-based support
would not necessarily be available.
Communication tools:
For many disabled learners, mobile phones add disproportionate value to the learning
experience. For example, SMS and email allow deaf learners to work on collaborative
tasks on an equal footing with their non-signing peers. Similarly, the ability to beam files
wirelessly between devices means collaborative tasks are made easier for all users - often
providing disproportionate benefits for many disabled learners. Live uploads to blogs,
wikis and mediaboards can enable disabled learners to actively participate in field courses
even if access is limited.
Table 1. http://www.techdis.ac.uk/?p=9_5_20052007040722
142
Naturally, where there are advantages, there may also be

constraints. Learners who are visually impaired may
struggle with screen size. Learners with poor coordination may find the buttons on mobile devices too
small to manipulate. Learners with cognitive difficulties
may have problems navigating the functionalities of a
mobile device.
However, technology, even if it costs a little more, can
often solve some of the problems mentioned above.
Speech recognition, screen reader, character by character
interactive texting, alerts which are purely auditory,
external screen magnifiers, virtual keyboards, simple
graphical navigational aids and clear menu structures
can make a difference. It is important to select the
appropriate device to match the skills (both physical and
mental) of the learner. In general, the disabled prefer
mobile devices as they are lighter, easier to use and easier
to manipulate than more conventional devices.
The personal/private aspect of mobile learning should
not be under-estimated. There are learners who will not
interact in the classroom due to personality traits, lack of
confidence or fear of failure. Those undertaking
elearning modules can be intimidated as the screen is
large enabling colleagues or others to know what they
are studying. Mobile learning, due to the screen size and
the users relationship with their device, is different.
People can learn without feeling self conscious.
Case Study i-Map
i-Map was devised by Howell and Porter(2003) at the
Tate Modern Art Gallery, London, to enable blind and
visually-impaired people to engage with the art of
Matisse and Picasso. i-Map also aids blind and visuallyimpaired students and their teachers to understand the
work of these artists, how they were motivated along
with concepts of modern art.
The project had its roots in work undertaken with
partially-sighted adults to seek ways of describing art
through language. Sculptures were explored with the
aim of creating ways of interpreting art through
language. A creative team, including writers and
performance artists, helped the group to describe
different tactile sensations.
The developers considered it vital that i-Map would
bring a visually-impaired person to the same level of
understanding of a painting as a sighted person. This
increased the challenge as all, rather than some aspects,
of a painting had to be included. i-Map incorporates

text, image enhancement and deconstruction, animation
and raised images. It visually deconstructs works online
to examine small areas of a painting in detail to enable
those with visual impairments to build a better
understanding of the whole picture. Map, sponsored by
BT, won a BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award in
2002 for accessibility.
M-Learning Disaffected Learners

M-learning (LSDA 2004) originated from a 3-year panEuropean research and development programme, aimed
at helping young adults aged 16 to 24, who were
considered most at risk of social exclusion, to engage in
learning activities to improve their literacy and numeracy
skills. The group consisted largely of disaffected learners
who had not succeeded in the education system. They
were not involved in any education or training and were
unemployed, under employed, or even homeless. The
consortium was a partnership of organisations combing
skills in pedagogy and technology. It included Ultralab at
Anglia Polytechnic University in the UK, Centro di
Ricerca in Matematica Pura et Allicata at the University
of Salerno in Italy, Cambridge Training and
Development in the UK, Lecando in Sweden and cocoordinated by the Learning and Skills Development
Agency in the United Kingdom.
Background
In 1997 the OECD conducted an international survey
on adult literacy which found that many developed
countries had functional illiteracy rates of 20% or more.
In 1999 the UK Government asked Sir Claus Moser to
advise on ways in which its plans for basic skills
provision for adults could be supported and developed
to achieve a target to help 500,000 adults a year by
2002. Moser (2003) found that in the UK one in five
adults had less literacy than is expected of an 11-yearold child. Further UK Government research in 2001
stated that of the 580,000 or so 16-year-olds who leave
school each year, around 15,000 are below Level 1 in
both Maths and English, where Level 1 is the level of
attainment schools pupils are expected to achieve by age
11. In addition, 22% of these young people do not go
on to training or work after they leave school (DfEE
2001). Hence the concentration on young adults aged
between 16 and 24.
Solution
The project constructed a micro portal (mPortal)
through which learning materials, mini web page builder
143
tools, a collaborative activities tool, messages, chat,

discussion & blogs, the learning management system and
a simple help guide for the system were available.
Learners were able to access materials both online and
offline via the mPortal. This was to make it as easy as
possible for the users by minimising problems which may
have been encountered by, for example, signal problems
while on the move or in remote areas. Material was
developed at Entry Level 3 of the UK Adult
Literacy/Numeracy Curriculum (DfEE 2003). Following
initial testing, feedback was received which resulted in
material for Entry Levels 1 & 2 being suggested. The
mobile devices used during the project were XDA II
along with the Sony Ericsson P800/P900. Additionally,
quiz games developed in J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro
Edition) were pre-loaded onto the phones which were
used. The J2ME driving theory test game was very
popular. SMS was used two ways the first involved
questions being printed and circulated, the answers to
which were SMSed to a predefined number and a
response was received. The second involved an SMSbased basic Italian language course where the learner
could respond by replying to the SMS message with a
further message which was tracked, verified and
forwarded to a new SMS containing test results and
suggestions for improvement. This allowed students with
standard phones to take part in the learning process.
Findings
A mentor approach was employed to ensure that the
learners knew the purpose of the research and were
happy to take part. In some cases activities took place
over a short period of time whereas in other cases
learners were involved with mobile learning on certain
days of the week over a longer period. The learners were
allowed to take the devices home to use them whenever
they pleased. Pre and post research review questionnaires
were uses.
62% of the learners were enthusiastic about learning

after using the mobile learning.
29% were assessed by their mentors as having
developed a more positive attitude towards reading
after taking part in the research.
82% felt the mobile learning games could help them
to improve their reading or spelling and 78% felt
these could help them improve their maths.
Conclusion
Analysis of the research suggested that mobile learning
can make a useful contribution to attracting young
people to learning, maintaining their interest and
144
supporting their learning and development (Atewell

2005).
The use of Mobile Learning by the Homeless

in the United Kingdom.
As part of the project described above, M-Learning, the
LSDA in the UK decided to analyse the affects of
mobile learning on the homeless. 216 people took part
in the main project whereas 32 people were surveyed as
homeless learners. They were given mobile devices for
between 1-6 weeks and in some cases were allowed to
keep them for the duration of the research (SavilleSmith 2005).
Findings
The mobile device used for this part of the project was
the XDAII. Most of the participants had no previous
experience of using palmtop computers but were very
positive afterwards. The features most used were the
storage of numbers, the downloading of files from a PC,
accessing the internet and listening to music.
More than one-third of the participants considered that
access to the internet was the most important feature of
using a mobile device. One of the mentors involved with
the project commented that there was a noticeable
increase in confidence in his group in the use of the
internet during the course of the project. Another
mentor made use of the mPortal to introduce his
learners to the internet where literacy issues were acting
as a barrier. In one instance, participation in the project
encouraged one homeless learner to seek help from a
local Adult Basic Education Centre to improve his
mathematical skills.
At the end of the project, the participants were reluctant
to give back the devices as (they) didnt want to give
them up, it was helpful. I wish we (could have) used
them for a long time and they like them so much
because they cant afford such devices themselves and
also because they can use them anywhere. Some of the
organisations involved in the research have subsequently
looked into instigating their own mobile learning
initiatives.
Conclusions
The mentors noticed a change in attitude and/or ability
in the homeless learners after participation in the
project. There was some evidence that mlearning helped
the homeless learners to identify what kind of learning
support they needed. It helped them to remain focussed
for longer and helped to build stronger links between

them and their mentors. The participants thought the
XDAII was a useful learning tool.
Response (IVR) for FAQs (Frequently Asked

Questions), SMS quizzes and SMS question/answer
system.
mLearning Distance Reducer
An academic instructional message could include a

study tip for a difficult assignment which students
normally get wrong or preparation for a contact
session/tutorial. The outcome was better quality
assignments through increased interaction at the contact
sessions.
Distance in learning can mean either mental or physical

distance. This section will explore how mLearning can
contribute to lessen physical distance for students.
Background
In 2002 the Distance Education Unit at the University
of Pretoria started to use SMS (Short Message Service)
for basic administrative support (Brown 2005) for
teacher training programmes for in-services teachers in
rural Africa. The students had no access to a computer
network infrastructure; however, they all had mobile
phones.
Solution
The University posts courseware and general
information to its students who often live up to 100km
from the nearest Post Office. It was common for many
packages to be returned. With the introduction of SMS
to let the students know that a package had been posted,
the return rate on packages dropped significantly
(Hendrikz et al. 2005).A similar approach was adopted
for assignment submission. Submission dates or
extensions of submission dates were sent to the students
by SMS, resulting in normal assignment submission
statistics. If a contact session/tutorial was scheduled, the
date, time and venue were SMSed to the students
ensuring a full attendance. Registration for exam dates
was also included which resulted in a higher rate of
participation in relation to previous years.
Challenges
The main challenge was to ensure that the SMS message
was clear, succinct and not open to any ambiguity. At
times it took up to three weeks to compose a message as
only 160 characters were available. It was important also
to categorise the database of mobile phone numbers as it
was not necessary to send all student every message.
However, the participation, completion and success rates
greatly out-weighed any difficulties.
Extension
Following the success of SMS for administrative
purposes, the University of Pretoria decided to extend
the service to academic matters in November, 2004
(Hendrikz et al. 2005). Four areas were concentrated on:
academic instructional message, Interactive Voice
IVR for FAQs was used to reinforce important concepts

in particular modules. The students were invited by
SMS to contact a specific number where they could
listen to important aspects of the concept in question.
This led to a deeper understanding.
SMS quizzes were developed which facilitate content
review, help to identify learning shortcomings and tutor
desired learning outcomes.
SMS question/answer systems allowed the students to
ask questions on issues they were unsure of, much
cheaper than making a telephone call.
This initiative is new, but even so, the standard of
assignments has risen.
Conclusion
mLearning has enhanced the distance education
experience for many African students. Not so long ago,
these students had very limited access to eLearning due
to the poor fixed telecommunications infrastructure in
rural areas. The rapidly growing wireless infrastructure is
addressing this deficit, thus taking some of the
disadvantage out of distance.
mLearning Drug Awareness

Crosscare (the Catholic Social Care Agency of the
Dublin Diocese) has initiated a confidential SMS service
for young people to warn of the hazards of drug taking.
A person can send a text on the name of a drug and
receive information on its effects (2006).
Background
Surveys undertaken in Ireland in 2005 have highlighted
that 27% of students interviewed between the ages of 15
to 24 had used cannabis while a further 3% had
experimented with cocaine. Even though it is perceived
that there is a lot of knowledge and information about
drug use and abuse in Ireland, if you are 13 or 14 you
145
may not be aware of the dangers. 66% of those of have

taken illegal drugs, took them for the first time while in
secondary school.
Solution
Crosscare has launched an SMS alert service, with
sponsorship from The Vodafone Ireland Foundation, to
provide people with urgent advice on the dangers of
illicit drugs. The service recognises all the different ways,
code words and common language used to describe and
tag illegal drugs. Information is accessed by texting the
name of the drug to a number. A description of the
negative effects and the dangers surrounding the taking
of the drug is then sent back along with a phone
number and web address for more advice. The idea is to
discourage people from experimenting with dangerous
drugs which could ruin their lives. Even though the
service is directed at young people, it is open to anyone
who requires this information.
Conclusion
Currently this is a six month pilot scheme which
commenced in April 2006. By July 2006, 60,000
enquiries had been received by the service demonstrating
the need for the information and also the effectiveness of
SMS to get that information out to the target audience.
Conclusion
As stated already in this book, in Europe mobile phone
penetration has reached 100% in most markets. Its
ubiquity is starting to be tapped to assist inclusion be it
for the disabled, those who feel/are marginalised and
those who need help to make good choices in life. Users
develop a personal relationship with their mobile phones
which they view as a necessary possession. As can be
seen, services developed using the mobile phone are
quickly successful as they reach the target audience
directly.
146
References
TechDis (2005) http://www.techdis.ac.uk
Howell, C. and Porter, D. (2003) Re-assessing Practice:
visual art, visually impaired people and the Web.
London: Tate Modern Art Gallery.
LSDA (2004) M-Learning project. http://www.mlearning.org/
Moser, C. (2003) Background to Skills for Life the
Moser Report http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/
socialinclusion/adults/moser.html.
DfEE (2001) Transforming Youth Work. London:
Department for Education and
Employment/Connexions.
DfEE (2003) http://www.dfes.gov.uk/
curriculum_literacy/level/
Attewell, J.(2005) Mobile technologies and learning A
technology update and m-learning summary.
London:Technology Enhanced Learning Research
Centre, Learning and Skills Development Agency.
Savill-Smith C. (2005) The use of Mobile Learning by
Homeless Learners in the UK. Proceedings of IADIS
International Conference Mobile Learning.
Lisbon:IADIS.
Brown, T.(2005) mLearning: Doing the Unthinkable
and Reaching the Unreachable
http://learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2/files/confere
nce/keynote.pdf 2005
Hendrikz, J., van der Bank, A., Viljoen, J, and Brown, T.
(2005) Mobile Learning Project Team.
Pretoria:University of Pretoria.
Crosscare (2006) www.dap.ie
Chapter 19
Truls Fagerberg and Alexsander Dye
This chapter gives an overview of the process of development of courseware to be used on a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). It is
based upon the work carried out by NKI Distance Education. The NKI research team studied international experiences
concerning mobile learning, analysed technological solutions and pedagogic/didactic needs based on our internal practical
experiences and results from previous surveys and evaluation studies among our distance students.
Introduction
The technical solution chosen was to use the Pocket
PC/Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) in combination
with mobile phone for distribution of learning content,
communication between tutor and students, between
students and for students communication with the
learning material. Technologies develop so fast that the
specific technology available changes from one week to
the other. It was important that the solution chosen had
some generic basis, i.e. also that the specific brands of
PCs, mobile phones and keyboards etc. should not
constitute any substantial restrictions concerning the
generalising of our experiences. After analysing
PDA/Pocket PC devices, we chose to build our learning
environment around the Compaq iPAQ communicating
via mobile phones with infrared connection. The
solutions were tried out with two different courses, The
Tutor in Distance Education and SPICE 603 Online
Teaching and Learning.
As a result of the iniyial experiences, NKI wished to
continue the research on m-learning based on the PDA
solutions available in 2004-2005. After examining the
different brands available, we decided to develop
solutions for the follower of the previous devices, HP
iPAQ Pocket PC 5500 series with built-in wireless
network card. At the same time all developments were
done with the main object of developing generic
solutions independent of devices on the user side.
Development of courseware and the software

applied
In the first project, From e-learning to m-learning NKI
adapted two courses previously developed for
Internet/web based learning, The Tutor in Distance
Education and SPICE 603 Online Teaching and

Learning to the PDA. NKI has also experimented with a
course called Sales and Services adapted to the PDA.
The two courses adapted were two of NKIs many
ongoing Internet courses and therefore already available
in a HTML version. Thus it was relatively easy to adapt
the existing versions of the courses to the iPAQ since
MS Internet Explorer is the browsing tool used. The
main part of the adaptation was to create directories and
file structures that ensured that all content was present
and worked as intended. Some modifications had to be
done, e.g. the table of contents had to be changed, so
that all links to introductions, study units, articles etc.
could be placed on one page. The table of contents page
also contained links to other course pages such as class
list, forum page, the students personal presentation,
NKI college page and others. Students could find a link
to the presentation of their tutor with contact
information. The course also includes reference links to
many external resourses.
Initially in 2001, we supplied our students with two
optional versions of the course, one in HTML and one
in the Microsoft Reader (*.lit) file format. Based upon
our evaluation results and experiences with Microsoft
Reader from 2001, we decided to offer the course in the
Microsoft Reader format only in 2002.
Microsoft Reader is a program for reading e-books or
content in the *.lit file format (MS Reader file format).
Microsoft has developed Microsoft Reader with
ClearType that enhances display resolution and
improved reading qualities. This also gives powerful
digital advantages like integrated dictionary support and
electronic annotations, while honouring the best
147
traditions of typography to ensure proper kerning and

leading, correct margins, and line justification, to name
a few. The software also gives the opportunity to read ebooks, Pocket Dictionaries etc. downloaded from the
Internet and synchronized to the PocketPC via the PC.
For the 2002 trial, NKI chose to adapt one of the courses
in the SPICE program, SPICE 603 Online Teaching and
Learning. The Specialization Program in International
Online Education (SPICE) comprises five six-credit
(ECTS) courses about online education delivered
internationally via the Internet (Fagerberg et al. 2002).
In the second project, Mobile Learning: the Next
Generation of Learning (2003-2005) NKIs focus was to
develop server side solutions and mobilize our learning
management system that made it possible to provide all
the courses in NKIs portfolio to be used on a PDA
without specific course adaptation.
The best approach to mobilizing an LMS in our
opinion is to optimise the pages for layout by using
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), not by using tables, which
has been the tradition for a long period of time. We are
now using CSS and div-tags in (x)html (Extensible
Hypertext Markup Language) to control the layout.

This not only eases the mobilization of the content,
but also improves the accessibility for other users that
might have different disabilities.
By laying out the pages by div-tags and CSS one
separates the content from the presentation, which is a
good idea. This, for instance, enables one to use one
font-family for print and another for screen, as well as
changing the text-size and any other properties of the
page based on the target device. To do this we used a
method in CSS known as media-types, which recognizes
the device accessing the page and uses the appropriate
style-sheet for that device (one still has to write this
style-sheet though, but the content stays the same). This
enables the designer to re-design a page for one device
and not every device intended to access the page.
Solutions exemplified 1, Sales and Services

This example is from the course Sales and services that
NKI adapted specially for the PDA in the first project.
This example show an intro page accessed via an ordinary
web browser and the course menu gives access to course
content in a fixed width to fit to the PDA screen.
Figure 1. Screen shot from the demonstration course Sales and Services
in a web browser from an ordinary desktop computer.
148
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figures 2 and 3 show the course Sales and Services from the PDA. Note that the course menu
at the bottom on figure 3 is available on all pages for easy navigation
149
Figure 5. Drag and Drop assignment (Flash)
Figure 4. Screen shot from study unit 1 with

link to interactive assignments.
On the PDA the text is perfectly adapted to the screen.
The menu link is fixed at the bottom of the PDA screen
to allow easy navigation. Multi-media elements were
developed in Macromedia Flash and were also
specifically developed for the PDA version. We tried
different solutions to make the multi-media elements
readable on the PDA. We had to make special
adaptation to the Flash files to be able to display them
on the PDA with acceptable quality. The conclusion,
both during development trials and testing with
150
Figure 6. Multiple choice assignment (Flash)
students, was that that most multi-media elements have

details that are difficult to present in acceptable form on
the PDA. It is important not to use negative text and to
be more focused on the readability of the colour
combination of the background and text. The choice of
font is also important (Dye and Fagerberg 2005).
Solutions exemplified 2, SPICE 603, Online

Teaching and Learning
These are screen shots, Figures 1- 10, from the PDA

from the course SPICE 603,Online Teaching and
Learning. These examples show how the course appears
on the PDA when generated online on-the-fly as
dynamic web pages powered by NKIs LMS SESAM.
Thanks to the development during the second mlearning project, we are now able to deliverer our entire
course portfolio to a PDA with good quality. There are
still issues with large images and animation as described
in Chapter 7.
Figure 7. Enrolment page
Figure 8. Course menu
Figure 9. Course introduction page
151
152
Figure 10. Course objectives
Figure 11. Question for reflection,

an example of an assignment
Figure 12. Course objectives
Figure 13. Online recourses
Figure 14. Discussion forum
Figure 15. Contacts
Figure 16. Students personal presentation
153
Conclusion
In our trials during the two projects, From e-learning
to m-learning
(http://learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2/project_one/)
and Mobile Learning: the Next Generation of
Learning (http://learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2) it is
our clear impression that accessing even comprehensive
course material and using communication elements on
the PDA functioned well. Along with designing systems
for accessing course material it is also important to pay
attention to the integration of communication elements
such as e-mail and forums when designing for handhelds
devices (Rekkedal et al. 2005).
It is our absolute recommendation for institutions not to
develop parallel solutions for delivering content to
different devices. If possible the technical solution
should seek to separate content, layout and business
logic from each other to maintain maximum control
over each element. There are still challenges to overcome
in converting existing materials intentionally developed
for large screens the small screen of the PDA or other
mobile device. The optimal solution for the small screen
is obviously to make the most of the space available, and
the challenge is to do this globally on the server, not on
154
every single web page. If the basic structure is basically

good, there are already technologies available, which
solve the problem with small screens quite well.
References
Dye, A. & Fagerberg, T. (2005) Mobile Technical
working paper 2005, http://learning.ericsson.net/
mlearning2/files/workpackage2/nki_technical_worki
ng_paper_2005.doc
Fagerberg, T., Rekkedal, T. & Russell, J. (2002):
Designing and Trying Out a Learning
Environment for Mobile Learners and Teachers.
Sub-project of the EU Leonardo Project
From e-Learning to m-Learning.
http://www.nettskolen.com/forskning/55/
NKI2001m-learning2.html
Midtsveen, B. & Russell, J.(2005) Design,
Development and Evaluation of Mobile
Learning at NKI Distance Education 2000-2005
(http://www.nettskolen.com/forskning/
m_Learning_2000_2005.pdf )

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MOBILE LEARNING:

This publication was produced with the assistance of

Use of mobile devices in educational administration

The use of SMS (short messaging system) within educational administration

The use of SMS messages in teaching and learning

Voice messages to students and IVR systems for FAQs

SMS question-answer system

SMS assignment advice

SMS tutoring of desired learning outcomes

The use of mobile technologies for teaching and learning

Designing courseware for mobile devices

Podcasting as an mLearning Approach

J2ME based applications in an mLearning situation

Using Java-enabled phones and games for learning

Location and Presence: context in mLearning

Mobile Learning: A Practical Guide

Developments of mobile communication technology for tutoring

Practical considerations when developing course materials for mobile learning

Goals for mobile learning course development

Enrolment of mobile students into fee-paying and assessed courses

Enrolment of mobile students into official and accredited courses

Examples of successful mobile course development

Courses on Art Appreciation at Corvinus University

Mobile learning and the Marginalised

Courses on the PDA at NKI

continuum goes from desktop computers to laptop

Figure 1. Functionality and mobility in

Language), but they were not successful because not

In July 2005 Ericsson announced that the number

The justification of mobile learning comes from the

Never in the history of the use of technology in education

It is calculated that in the United Kingdom alone

Mobile Learning: A Practical Guide

Recent research on audience characteristics published by

Penetration of ownership of mobile devices in most

Ericsson Education Ireland

From e-learning to m-learning

Ericsson Education Ireland

The m-learning project

Giunti Ricerca Italy

The MOBILearn project

Ericsson Education Ireland

The incorporation of mobile

Fig 3. Mobile learning projects funded by the European Commission

1. The Leonardo da Vinci From e-learning to

4. The IST project MOBILearn led by Giunti Ricerca

Approach of this book

The use of mobile devices in educational

Development of a series of 5-6 screen mobile

Development of a number of mobile learning course

The need for using mobile devices in educational

Mobile Learning: A Practical Guide

If a lecture, or similar activity, has to be cancelled at

which have many advantages over the postal system or

SMS messages can be sent in this way either to the

Part Three deals with the use of a wide range of wireless

The development of a series of 5-6 screen mobile

Structure of this book

Part Two deals with the use of SMS messaging in

Part Four deals with the goals of mobile learning which

Copenhagen and NKI Distance Education from 2005,

Mobile Learning: A Practical Guide

involvements are in the Service Layer of telecom

sponsored projects relating to e-learning as well as some