Boston College

Year 1: Assessing the impact of m-learning with work-based learners undertaking Apprenticeships across rural Lincolnshire 2007/2008

M-learning was used to enable work-based learners to undertake Apprenticeships in a range of vocational subjects across rural Lincolnshire and to help address the lack of assessors to cover such a wide geographic area.

The aims of Boston College’s mobile learning project research were to establish: how the use of mobile devices can increase the skills sets of Apprentices (eg the ability to use IT to organise portfolios); how the use of mobile devices helps Apprentices to collate evidence related to their qualifications; and what the impact of mobile learning is on the retention and achievement of Apprentices.

A significant indicator of success across a period of time would be a decrease in the numbers of learners who fail to complete their work-based learning (WBL) Apprenticeship courses in rural areas. It was envisaged that the project and further expansion of mobile provision would ultimately affect the college’s success rate and help engage students using new innovative and practical technologies.

The project introduced smartphones, which allowed learners to undertake flexible learning and actively participate in evidence gathering in the workplace. The electronic evidence was then stored as an e-portfolio held on the college servers and made easily accessible to assessors and learners. 

The project found that the use of mobile devices increases Apprentices’ skills sets and helps them collect and manage evidence, build portfolios and use technology. Mobile learning increases their satisfaction with their courses and improves retention and the quality of provision as recorded through lesson observations.

The conclusion of the research is that mobile learning is a positive teaching and learning strategy for Apprentices and full-time learners. The most significant outcome was that discovering the optimum use of mobile devices is an organic development between learner and teacher.

College and Project Background

Boston College is a rurally isolated college on the eastern coastal strip, and has over the past years developed innovative ways of using technology to reach learners across the community. These have included the use of satellite technology and mobile e-learning buses. Internally, through gaining Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) and 14–19 Pathfinder status, the college has successfully implemented the use of wireless networks and laptops to maximise opportunities for learners.

Boston College was the first college in the UK to provide a working mobile solution that allowed students to connect to a central server and the worldwide web from any location in Lincolnshire. To facilitate this objective the college ran three satellite-enabled vans that allowed wireless connection of mobile devices to the network. A similar model was used to run a fully equipped mobile classroom housed inside a bespoke bus. The bus and the vans cover a wide geographic area of rural Lincolnshire

In the context of the above demography Boston College was keen to build on its ability to widen participation and to continue to explore new ways of reaching learners using available mobile technologies.

It has been recognised that there are high levels of deprivation within the college’s catchment area – Boston and East Lindsey specifically contain some of the 20% most deprived neighbourhoods in England. For Lincolnshire to achieve parity with the rest of the region would require huge numbers of additional jobs and lots more qualifications. Along the coast there are 10 settlements that have been nationally recognised as Enterprise areas because of their high levels of deprivation. Rural areas and settlements in the College’s catchment area have low and dispersed populations and low average per-capita income levels. This creates problems for the college in terms of recruitment and access (money to attend college/funds to get to college). One-third of Lincolnshire’s adults do not have any qualifications and there is a lower proportion of people with qualifications at Level 3 or higher (21% v. 24% in region).

Local barriers to learning therefore include:

• accessibility, including both real and perceived issues to do with the proximity of learning opportunities
• access to information, advice and guidance about learning and progression
• low aspiration leading to low levels of motivation and confidence to engage with learning.

Within this context the MoLeNet project aimed to increase the flexibility of provision, improve retention and achievement and increase the self–esteem of learners by using smartphones that would allow learners to undertake flexible learning and actively take part in evidence-gathering in the workplace. The electronic evidence was then stored as an e-portfolio held on the college servers and made easily accessible to assessors and learners.  This project aimed to help tackle the issues surrounding retention due to the nature of the local industries (such as catering), and specifically of young learners who are typically on minimum wages, and have low ability and low self-esteem. 

The college has also done some initial work on using recording devices in assisting with assessments in health and social care subjects. The MoLeNET project helped in building and expanding this work across a range of Apprenticeship and Advanced Apprenticeship subjects that the college offers and coincided with work being done to standardise WBL assessments within the college.

Project aims

The project aimed to increase the flexibility of provision, improve retention and achievement and increase the self-esteem of the learners by using smartphones that would allow them to undertake flexible learning evidence-gathering in the workplace for storing as an e-portfolio that is easily accessible to assessors and learners. Specifically it aimed:

• to enable work-based learners undertaking Apprenticeships in a range of vocational subjects across a wide rural geographic area in Lincolnshire to collate evidence related to their qualification using smartphones and other software
• to increase the ease of evidence-gathering in workplace contexts by using smartphones to capture, store and send relevant content for WBL assessment
• to increase the skills sets of Apprentices and Advanced Apprentices by working with employers to maximise the potential impact of using mobile devices in work-based environments
• to evaluate the impact of the use of smartphones against a range of soft and hard targets.

Key objectives

• Use modern technology to engage learners in their qualification and make evidence-gathering an enjoyable experience, which will also increase the skills of the learner, rather than a tedious process
• Increase the consistency of the delivery of course content, specifically the initial assessment, diagnostics and induction processes for work-based learners as at present there is an inconsistency between processes for full-time and part-time learners. This objective is identified in the college’s quality improvement plan and strategic objectives for 2007/08. By the end of the project there will be initial assessment, diagnostic and induction materials that can be used with both full-time and part-time learners and accessed through a mobile device.
• It is envisaged that the use of the mobile devices in the workplace will support the delivery of both the practical and theory elements of courses, as students will be able to port learning content and evidence in their working environments.
• By using personal digital assistants (PDAs) as an e-portfolio evidence- capturing device through means such as photographic/video, Word documents and witness testimony, it hoped to increase the effectiveness and standardisation of assessment for these learners. By the end of the project all Apprenticeship assessments will follow a standardised methodology.

Benefits for participants

Benefits for learners, across all learner groups

Learners have gained:

• ease of capture of evidence for NVQ assessment
• ease of storage of assessment content for external verification
• engagement in active capture of their own learning
• alternative methods for evidencing achievement.

Benefits for staff

Staff have gained:

• development in a range of information and learning technology (ILT) skills
• awareness-raising in terms of using mobile devices with e-portfolios
• increased ability to provide flexible learning methods
• opportunity to use MoLeNet training to count towards 30 hours’ continuing professional development as required by the Institute for Learning.

Benefits for the lead college

The lead college has gained:

• increased interest in using mobile devices in teaching and learning
• flexibility of curriculum delivery across the rural community
• increase in awareness and use of e-portfolios in vocational areas
• a review of the outcomes that will affect the planning of the intended ‘new build’.

Lessons learned

A significant positive teaching and learning outcome was the use of the PDAs in the classroom environment during a formal teaching observation involving external inspectors. The lecturer used part of the lesson to receive evidence captured by learners using Bluetooth file transfer. The use of this technology in class was noted as a positive factor in retaining the interest of the learners. The method was further identified as an example of model practice to be disseminated across the programme in the future. Other practical examples as described above may help remove the existing perception that the use of mobile devices in a teaching and learning environment should be avoided. Furthermore, it may encourage other staff members to take risks and experiment with the use of mobile devices in a classroom situation.

Another important lesson that arose in leisure and tourism was that the PDAs were used as a replacement for desktop computers, allowing learners to work on their coursework assignments in their classroom, where they could be supported by their lecturer, rather than in the learning resource centre, where computers are not always available.

A major difficulty was not only training staff to use the PDAs but building in the related pedagogy of how the devices could be used to support the teaching and learning process across a range of different contexts. A related issue was the perception that the devices were simply ‘mobile phones’ for accessing college email and the internet and not sophisticated devices for file transfer of Word documents, movie clips, Powerpoint presentations and Excel documents. This was compounded by the fact that it was not until three months into the project that a system for file storage and transfer of collated evidence was devised for staff and learners.

To a large extent these two issues were addressed during the internal staff development sessions in early December 2007, February and March 2008 However, teaching staff and WBL assessors sometimes found it difficult some to ‘sell’ the use of the PDAs to their Apprentices as they also could not see the advantage in having ‘another phone’.

In hindsight it might have been better to establish the methodology of storage and file transfer before undertaking any training on the use of the PDAs. It might also have helped to have had a range of concrete practical examples clearly demonstrating evidence-gathering methods.

A recommendation for other organisations undertaking similar projects would be to have systems in place before introducing devices to teaching staff. This would allow an overall view of the use of the devices in context with practical examples to support the aim of the project.