Learning Activities Mediated by Mobile Technology: Best Practices

for Informatics Education

Gabriela Lovászová, Martin Cápay and Viera Michaličková

Department of Informatics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Constantine the Philosopher University, Nitra, Slovak Republic

Keywords: Mobile Devices, Tablets in Education, Location-based Games.

Abstract: Mobile devices with all their advanced features (the networking and multimedia capabilities, portability,

intuitive interfaces, location awareness etc.) enable teachers to involve students in learning activities that

may bring the formal school environment closer to real-world contexts, provide the attractive and

personalized learning experiences as well as enhance the collaboration, creativity and productivity of

learners substantially. Thanks to the long-term national projects concerned with mobile technology and its

successful adaption as an effective learning tool, teaching practice in Slovak primary and secondary schools

is getting better. However, the integration of tablets and smartphones is still rather intuitive or even

improper. Within the informatics education, lessons usually take place in a computer laboratory, so the

innovative mobile scenarios are considered less frequently. This paper provides an overview of the potential

of tablet devices to support learning. This paper presents the sum of general and specific use cases targeting

the learning objectives stated by the Informatics curriculum. They were implemented during the regular

lessons, non-formal workshops or summer camps and comprise both, the indoor and outdoor scenarios.

They focus on informatics concepts and were designed to foster computational thinking. Mobile technology

is used to facilitate the active construction of knowledge and development of new skills.

1 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, mobile technology literally penetrates

both, private and work spaces of many individuals as

it impacts on ways they communicate, solve

problems and even spend their free time. It is mainly

their portability, the advanced networking and

multimedia capabilities together with the intuitive

interfaces and context-awareness that make the

mobile devices so popular. Emerging technologies

are in some countries becoming pervasive

(Commission E, 2013). Present-day students use

various mobile devices (cell phones, PDAs,

smartphones, tablets) on a daily basis and with

confidence, typically for connecting with family and

friends, browsing the web, capturing and sharing

moments and ideas, listening to music or playing

games. Nevertheless, to become a successful

lifetime learner, every pupil should experience the

emerging technologies also as an effective learning

tool; enhanced through collaboration (Haßler, 2015).

The educational research in mobile learning is rather

diverse (Cheung and Hew, 2009; Sharples et al.,

2009, Johnson et al. 2014, Naismith et al., 2004;

Kearney et al., 2012); in general, comprising

anything relevant to the process of learning that is

mediated by a mobile device (ranging from pure e-

learning scenarios innovative classroom-based

activities, to non-formal and informal learning

situations). As pointed out in (Naismith et al.,

2004), mobile technology provides an opportunity

for a fundamental change in education away from

occasional use of a computer in a laboratory towards

more embedded use in the classroom and beyond.

Being mobile adds a new dimension to the activities

that can be supported, both because of the personal

and portable nature of the devices themselves, and

because of the kinds of interactions they can support

with other learners and the environment. In

(Kearney et al., 2012), the authors highlight three

features of mobile learning: the authenticity,

collaboration, and personalization:

 Authentic learning has great potential to

increase the motivation and engagement of

students. Using tools that are familiar to

students from outside the school brings

learning scenarios closer to the real-world

practice. To make the learning authentic,

394

Lovászová, G., Cápay, M. and Michali

cková, V.

Learning Activities Mediated by Mobile Technology: Best Practices for Informatics Education.

In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2016) - Volume 2, pages 394-401

ISBN: 978-989-758-179-3

students should apply the technology

constructively and in a creative way (while

solving problems, working on projects,

performing experiments, exploring contexts

and discovering meanings).

 Mobile devices and cloud computing support

the collaborative activities that promote

creativity, productivity and learning through

social interaction. Data exchange and

collaboration with other learners or teachers

can happen in both, virtual and face-to-face

settings.

 Personal nature of mobile devices enables the

individualized learning experiences as they can

be customized at a tool or a task level. This

adaption to learners’ specific preferences may

also strengthen the feel of responsibility for

their own work and learning outcomes.

The above-mentioned promises of using mobile

technology for educational purposes correspond with

the constructivist and constructionist learning

theories our research and teaching approach is drawn

on. In this paper, we suggest a conceptual

framework for using mobile devices in formal

educational contexts, namely the primary and

secondary schools, with focus on the Informatics

curriculum. Teachers in schools are expected to

adopt the emerging technologies in a meaningful

way (Johnson et al., 2014; Naismith et al., 2004).

We strongly agree with (Sharples et al., 2009), that

the design of mobile learning activities should be

always driven by specific learning objectives. The

use of technology is not the target but rather a means

to enable activities that were otherwise not possible,

or to increase the benefits for the learners. Mobile

technologies may only be suitable for part of the

activity, with other parts being better supported by

other technologies, or by no technology at all. The

examples of learning activities given in the

following sections include indoor and outdoor

scenarios that can be implemented within the

compulsory Informatics lessons, as a non-formal

activity in ICT clubs, during excursions or trips.

2 MOBILE TECHNOLOGY IN

SLOVAK SCHOOLS

Conditions favorable to the process of integrating

mobile technology with the actual teaching practice

in Slovak schools have arisen thanks to the ongoing

projects that are aimed at solving 3 problems:

• lack of modern equipments at schools;

suggested solution is to provide schools with mobile

devices (tablets),

• lack of modern materials and methodology,

suggested solution is to prepare digital educational

content for using on tablets,

• lack of m-learning practices of teachers;

suggested solution is to train the in-service teachers

for using mobile devices effectively within their

instruction.

Highly digitally equipped schools, putting the

focus on providing emerging technologies and

interactive whiteboards, would help to overcome

what is still considered by practitioners as the major

obstacle to ICT use. The Survey findings concerning

ICT infrastructure show that education systems are

responsive to technological trends, for example

implementing equipment policies reflecting recent

trends in mobile devices. It seems that the priority is

often to concentrate these efforts at first at secondary

education level (Commission, E, 2013).

The DigiSchool (http://digiskola.sk/) project

funded by European Union is implemented by

Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Sport

of the Slovak Republic in cooperation with

Methodology and Pedagogy Centre (institution for

in-service teachers’ education and training). One

thousand classrooms in primary and secondary

schools across the country were equipped with the

Samsung technology (20 tablets with a 10.1"

touchscreen and a stylus pen). Besides this technical

aspect, also the initiative of digital content

production is supported. These multimedia learning

objects for various schools subjects are based on

HTML5 and delivered to teachers through an online

system. Teachers can attend specialized courses,

download practical teaching guides or watch video

tutorials.

The School at the Touch (http://www.

skolanadotyk.sk) is a project of a non-profit

organization called Edulab known also for their

center of modern technologies (situated in

Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia). Edulab

focuses their efforts on effective adopting of ICT in

schools and promotes the active using of digital

learning resources within the instructional process.

In cooperation with a commercial partner

(Samsung), 12 schools were chosen as experimental

for setting up a dedicated tablet classroom (with 20

tablets, an interactive board and the Samsung School

as a professional classroom management solution).

The absent of a tablet policy, the lack of relevant

training (Oliviera, 2014) and the lack of materials

and methodology is often discussed when proposing

the application of tablets in education (Švecová et

Learning Activities Mediated by Mobile Technology: Best Practices for Informatics Education

395

al., 2015). Therefore the Edulab is also responsible

for organizing courses, demonstration lessons and

conferences for teachers and takes care of the online

environment for sharing experiences and creative

ideas of participants (video blogs and learning

materials produced by teachers, pupils’ work etc.).

The project has been extended to the field of

prospective teachers’ education in January 2015.

Three Slovak universities (including the authors’

home university) with long tradition in teacher

training programs were also provided with tablet

classrooms. This university part of the project is

meant for developing effective strategies of using

the touchscreen technology within the pre-service

teachers’ curriculum.

To reveal more about the actual situation in

schools, we pursued a survey and gained responds

from 140 primary and secondary school teachers.

We were interested in mobile devices their schools

are equipped with as well as whether they really use

them to enhance the learning process. Fig. 1 shows

the results: “Tablets” was the prevailing answer

(45%), 13% of schools declared having voting

devices. However, according to this survey, only

about a half of the total number of mobile devices

present at schools were being actively used. The

smartphones seem to be an exception as teachers

reported their usage, though they were not in the

possession of schools. This means pupils can use

their personal devices what is in compliance with the

popular BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy.

Figure 1: Survey results: The percentage of responses to

questions “What kind of mobile devices are available at

your school?” and “What kind of mobile devices do you

use in education?”.

The second group of questions was concerned

with determining more about the learning activities

carried out during lessons. The survey’s results

(Fig. 2) indicated that the science and foreign

language teachers are those who are the most active

users of mobile technology. Surprisingly, only 21%

of Informatics teachers affirmed the using of mobile

technology in their lessons. The same results are

declared by other researchers (Švecová et al., 2015);

tablets are used by only 2% of Informatics teacher in

science oriented and 0% of teacher in humanities

oriented grammar school.

Figure 2: Survey results: The use of mobile devices in

particular school subjects.

While analyzing the data about typical learning

activities, 3 categories of answers were identified:

content consuming (electronic textbooks,

presentations, web), using tools (electronic

communication, numerical calculations, note taking,

testing), and creating (getting and processing of data,

programming). In answers, the active methods

(using tools, creating) dominated the passive digital

content consuming.

Figure 3: Survey results: The categorization of responses

according to ways of using mobile devices in education.

The outcomes of the survey suggested some

important conclusions:

• In many schools, tablets are present. However,

the number of schools reporting their active using is

much lower. This may come from the fact, that

teachers need to get familiar with the new

technology first.

• Teachers from the survey prefer active methods

of working with mobile devices. Still we consider

the high ratio of passive content-consuming

activities (39%) inappropriate. This fact is in

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396

contrast with all modern trends in education

emphasizing the constructive learning strategies.

• The Informatics teachers do not use mobile

devices very often, probably because the instruction

takes place in a computer classroom where students

usually work on desktops and don’t need to use

another computing device.

3 TABLETS AND

SMARTPHONES IN

INFORMATICS EDUCATION

The national projects in Slovakia are focusing on

tablets as they have larger screens and are more

powerful in general than smaller hand-held devices.

However, in some situations (e. g. during an outdoor

game, a museum visit or a school trip) also the

smartphones and tourist navigators may be sufficient

or even more suitable choices.

In Table 1, we analyze strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities, and threats involved in using tablets

and smartphones in education.

Based on the SWOT analysis, we identify the key

features that make tablet technology useful for

Informatics education besides standard computers:

• Portability. Tablets are wireless computing

devices, which may be used in education anywhere,

outside the computer classroom, and even outside

the school building. They enable more flexible,

decentralized learning, not limited by restricted

space of computer classroom.

• Touchscreen technology allows students to

interface with tablet computers in more natural and

immediate manner. Touching the screen means

much more direct interaction with a computer than

using a traditional input device like keyboard and

mouse. Therefore, the touchscreen technology

makes computers accessible for younger children

who are still developing their motor skills, and opens

new possibilities in learning with technology for

older students too, e.g. with handwriting, note

taking.

• Sensors. Tablets have built-in sensors for

gathering various types of digital data: camera for

capturing photos and videos, microphone for voice

recording, GPS receiver for determining the

geographic location. Learning about digital data

processing is more attractive to students when they

work with their own data gained from tablet sensors.

Table 1: A SWOT analysis of tablets in education.

Strengths: Weaknesses:

portability, size, weight

wireless connectivity

touchscreen technology

sensors

multimedia, quick start

battery life

small display

low display readability

outdoors

software keyboard

Opportunities: Threats:

decentralization of learning:

using tablets anywhere,

anytime

interfacing in more natural,

immediate manner

new ways of using:

handwriting, drawing,

recording data, listening

audio, watching video

collaborative learning

cloud computing

technical problems with Wi-Fi

connection, charging battery

non-qualified teachers

wrong teaching methodology

focused on content

consuming

distraction from work

3.1 Using Tablets as Versatile Personal

Learning Tools

Tablets have strong potential to change to an

attractive learning tool in the hands of pupils. The

teachers should guide them with proper tasks, but

not trying to make tablets a universal solution in

every situation. According our experiences during

lessons and informal acitivities, we recommend

teachers to apply the blended teaching strategy and

vary the learning activities reasonably.

With help of a classroom management system,

the distribution of assignments and other digital

resources to tablets as well as storing and sharing of

pupils’ solutions in cloud repositories are easy. To

avoid the danger of distraction from learning

objectives, teachers can centrally manage the content

and functions of pupils’ devices, block the unwanted

activities (e. g. playing games during lessons),

broadcast anyone’s screen in public and so focus the

attention of the class as needed.

The distinctive features of tablets discussed in

previous chapters suggest some of the meaningful

use cases:

Tablets have software keyboards, but most of

them accept also the handwritten input. Pupils work

with all kinds of digital learning resources on tablets

in rather natural way, e. g. interact with

textbooks/worksheets by adding personal notes

(Mang and Wardley, 2012) or producing

handwritten solutions with graphical tools provided

by tablet’s applications. When writing personal

notes, preparing a project report, documenting an

experiment or a problem’s solution (e. g. using the

popular S Note or Evernote applications), pupils can

easily combine various media elements to create

highly attractive outputs. Photos, videos or sounds

Learning Activities Mediated by Mobile Technology: Best Practices for Informatics Education

397

taken during lessons can be immediately used

(without post-production) and inserted into the

digital document that pupils are working on.

Tablets integrate many hardware and software

tools into a compact portable unit. The online stores

offer lots of simple and intuitive applications usable

for educational purposes (e. g. games, data recorders

and analyzers, creative environments). In our

workshops and during summer camps, we used the

mobile applications e. g. for creating anaglyphs (3D

photos taken outdoors), multimedia presentations,

collages and animations (authors). For

interdisciplinary projects, the data gathering

functionalities of tablets are of a great benefit.

Various attributes of the environment can be

measured with sensors or specialized mobile

applications and stored while moving in a terrain.

Pupils could realize a survey or examine some

phenomenon within a scientific project. The

calculations or other forms of post-processing tasks

may be finished later, e. g. at home or in a computer

classroom.

3.2 Playing Location-based Games

Since hand-held devices are capable of identifying

the user’s location while she/he is moving in a

terrain, it is possible to develop and play mobile

computer games that process the geospatial data as

an essential input. When players are required to

physically move from one place to another in order

to progress, the game is considered to be location-

based. In our case studies (Lovászová and

Palmárová, 2013; Palmárová and Lovászová 2012),

several examples of outdoor learning activities

inspired by well-known LBGs (Geocaching,

Wherigo and GPS Drawing) were given. Playing

LBGs with pupils was found beneficial from

different reasons. The informal and competitive

atmosphere of a game strengthens the motivation of

pupils to participate actively and promotes the

authentic learning. Educational LBGs (when

properly designed) let pupils learn constructively by

problem solving and performing experiments,

individually or in collaboration within teams. Health

and social aspects of playing outdoors with fellows

should not be omitted as well.

3.2.1 Hide-and-Seek Activities

Geocaching is world-wide hide-and-seek game

popular thanks to the analogy with searching for a

real treasure. Players (geocachers) navigate to a

specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to

find a geocache (container) hidden at that location.

Geographical coordinates of caches and their

descriptions are published online

(https://www.geocaching.com/). Caches are founded

by volunteers, usually on places that are interesting

to visit (cultural sights, historical monuments,

beauties of nature etc.). The container usually

contains a logbook, a pencil and some souvenirs.

After discovering the cache, players are obliged to

sign the logbook and after returning home, they log

their experience online to share their success or

failure with members of the geocaching community.

In (Palmárová and Lovászová, 2012), we suggested

a learning scenario that enables pupils learn

fundamentals of GPS technology by using it in

action. While collecting series of hints needed to

calculate the final location of a hidden container,

pupils encountered various types of problems

connected with the Informatics curriculum. In order

to solve them quickly, pupils were expected to

collaborate. Geocaching may be also a theme of an

interdisciplinary project (e. g. pupils can found and

maintain their own thematic caches or watch and

analyse routes of their travelling bugs).

The locations and hiding tricks are what give

geocaching hunter feels on a geocache quest. But

what if instead of following the coordinates, we just

followed distance prompts? The Reverse Geocache

Puzzle is a sort of the game that use an Arduino-

based puzzle box that won’t open until it is taken to

a certain location (Hart, 2015). Instead of solid

quest box we could use GPS navigation in mobile

devices. The teacher set up the coordinates of final

destination and is the only one person who knows

the coordinates.

Figure 4: Triangulation created during ICT-oriented

summer camp.

He/she only answer to players the distance like "you

are 2 km from the target". Backwards geocaching is

a game where players need to triangulate (Fig. 4) the

“magic spot” by using a map, scale and compasses.

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3.2.2 Augmented Reality Games

Augmented reality location-based games are

computer games situated in the real world

combining physical environment with additional

digital information supplied to player by mobile

location-aware device. An example of software

platform for developing such type of games is

Wherigo.

Typical Wherigo games offer a sightseeing tour

or a fictional adventure (based on fairy tales, some

sport activities, board games, true stories etc.).

Players have to visit specific places (called zones),

they fulfil tasks, find, collect and use virtual or even

real objects. To play a Wherigo game, a Wherigo

cartridge has to be downloaded and the Wherigo

Player application must be installed into some GPS-

enabled device. Wherigo cartridges are created

(programmed) by volunteers from the geocaching

community and published on the dedicated portal

(http://www.wherigo.com/). Most of these games

were built primarily for entertainment. However, the

emphasis on some educational aspects of the games

may result also in non-formal or informal learning.

In (Lovászová and Palmárová, 2013), Wherigo

games where used to introduce pupils to the concept

of a stack data structure (by simulating a procedure

calls while carrying out a chain of missions) and

discovering the necessary condition for the existence

of Eulerian cycles in graphs (by visiting

zones/vertices of a virtual image in a specific order).

3.2.3 GPS Drawing

GPS drawing combines art, physical activity and

digital technology to create large-scale pictures by

recording a walking route using GPS. Location-

aware device is used as a pen led by the user who

walks on the land as on a large canvas. Walking is

carried out mostly in open spaces like playing fields,

parks, or in an urban environment along footpaths,

roads. It can be guided by a sketch of the picture in a

ma (Fig. 5) or navigated by instructions so that

walkers don’t know what they are drawing in

advance. GPS drawing activities can be based on

creating individual designs as well as on creating

collaborative compositions combined from several

tracks (Woods, 2014). Some examples of GPS

drawings created on workshops organized by the

paper’s authors are shown in Fig. 5.

Data collected during the walk provide

interesting information: about the time of visit,

latitude, longitude, and altitude of particular track

points on the route. These data are usually recorded

Figure 5: GPS drawings created during workshops and

ICT-oriented summer camps.

into a text file using a mark-up language which is

both, human and machine readable (e.g. GPX,

KML). Data can be processed by students during

Informatics lessons at different levels of difficulty:

from simple visualization of their route using

specialized mapping software (e.g. Google Earth) to

more in depth projects that focus on the technical

aspects of working with geographic data using some

general-purpose application software (e.g.

spreadsheets).

3.3 Programming Mobile Application

Educational programming is considered to be an

essential component of the Informatics curriculum.

When smartphones and tablets are chosen as the

target platform, it is likely to enhance motivation

and engagement of students significantly. Students

are put in a role of creative developers. They

produce solutions that can be run on their personal

mobile devices. In this way, also the project

assignments could be better linked to what pupils

experience in their everyday lives.

The professional development tools are too

complex and so not suitable for using in primary and

secondary schools. The programming environments

designed specifically for children and non-

programmers should be used instead as they possess

the beneficial attributes of educational software. The

MIT App Inventor and the Urwigo builder should be

recommended as programming environments for

developing mobile applications in school

Informatics. The MIT App Inventor is an online tool

that runs within a web browser. The Urwigo builder

is a standalone application for programming

location-based games. Both of them are based on

visual languages, ready-made components and

event-driven programming. In both cases, pupils are

able to share their products in public within the

related online communities (http://gallery.

appinventor.mit.edu, http://www.wherigo.com).

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399

3.4 Real-time Questioning

Tablets and smartphones can be used as devices for

transmitting responses to teacher’s questions posed

in a face-to-face setting. With support of a student

response system (SRS), automatic recording and

real-time processing of responses enable teacher to

use the immediate feedback (gained from the whole

class) also for purposes of the formative assessment.

The responses can be anonymous; the results can be

visualized for students as well as stored for future

analysis. The SRS learning activities are likely to:

• facilitate the maintaining of student attention,

• encourage students’ activity during lessons,

• support collaborative learning,

• stimulate critical thinking and creativity,

• assist teachers in assessing students’ level of

comprehension.

In Table 2, we recommend general strategies for

effective implementation of the SRS-based learning

activities that are suitable also for the Informatics

lessons. These strategies are grounded in verified

suggestions published in (Mendez-Coca and Slisko,

J., 2013; Dervan, 2014; Liu and Taylor, 2013) as

well as our own positive experiences with the

Socrative SRS (http://www.socrative.com) - a high-

quality web-based system using the existing Wi-Fi

or wired networks with standard mobile or desktop

computing devices as transmitters.

Table 2: Strategies for using student response systems.

Category Goals Educational activity

test to automate student

assessment

summative or formative

assessment tests;

knowledge quizzes

quick

question

to stimulate student

engagement, to

gauge the level of

student

understanding

real-time question –

immediate responses –

projection of responses –

discussion among students

collecting

ideas

to support

collaborative

learning by sharing

ideas

generating creative ideas

in brainstorming; sharing

different

answers/solutions to

divergent

questions/problems

voting to stimulate critical

thinking

voting for the best idea in

brainstorming; peer-

assessment

survey to determine

students’ attitudes,

opinions

ice breaking

questions/quizzes/surveys;

self-evaluating surveys

3 CONCLUSIONS

One of the interesting findings of the study is that

although the devices are present at school, they are

not used very much. The ownership of these devices

must be followed by m-learning practices by

teachers. The long-term projects DigiSchool and

School at the Touch were initiated by state

institutions in order to improve the status quo of

teaching practice in primary and secondary schools

in Slovakia. Teachers who are actively involved in

these projects appreciate the opportunity to learn

how to adopt the emerging technologies to enrich

their instruction with innovative learning activities.

The first feedback coming from experimental

schools and other participants is promising. In

previous chapters, several ideas for using mobile

technology in secondary education were presented.

Some of them are applicable in general, in any of the

traditional school subjects. In our research project

(Mobile Technology in Schools for the 21st

Century), we target specifically on the Informatics

curriculum to overcome an objective lack of

practical teaching guides that would be helpful for

teachers of Informatics.

The suggested conceptual framework (Fig. 6)

points out the main reasons for considering mobile

learning scenarios more frequently: Tablets and

smartphones have features that cannot be found on

classical desktops (portability, touchscreen interface,

various input sensors etc.). The mobility of these

devices opens new possibilities for collaborative

learning and creative projects including authentic

learning activities that can be pursued out of the

classroom environment. The personal nature of

hand-held devices contributes to the intrinsic

motivation of students and is likely to facilitate the

active construction of knowledge or development of

new skills. There are many learning objectives stated

by the Informatics curriculum that may be reached

when mobile devices are used in an appropriate way,

always having the actual benefits for pupils in mind.

We recommend to:

• use tablets or smartphones as personal learning

tools that enable learners to be mobile (to

search for information, create and share

artifacts with classmates without being

restricted by space or time, work with digital

worksheets or compose multimedia

solutions/reports/answers to problem

assignments/projects/questions),

• involve pupils in outdoor learning activities

(games or projects) that are connected with

automatic or manual recording of data

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(geospatial data, pictures, sounds, numbers or

personal notes),

• let pupils program their own applications for

mobile devices,

• use a student respond system for real time

questioning during lessons and enhance the

interactivity of learning by making use of the

immediate feedback.

Figure 6: Tablets and smartphones within the Informatics.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper was published thanks to the financial

support from KEGA grant agency of the Ministry of

Education, Science, Research, and Sport of the

Slovak Republic provided for the project Mobile

Technology in Schools for the 21st Century.

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