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Gloucestershire College

Year 3: Sparkly Project at Gloucestershire College 2009/2010

 

 

 

Project Description:

The Sparkly project builds on success of the Glossy and Shiny projects.

Sparkly will continue the transformation and embedding of mobile learning at Gloucestershire College, whilst sharing and collaborating with two partners, Royal Forest of Dean and Stroud in their transformative journey down the road of mobile learning.

Sparkly will fast track the two partner colleges in the strategic embedding of the use of mobile devices and technologies to enhance and enrich the learning process. Gloucestershire College will provide technical support, pedagogical guidance and training, whilst continuing to embed the use of mobile technologies across the curriculum.

Aims;

The Sparkly project through the experience and expertise gained by Gloucestershire College through the Glossy and Shiny MoLeNET projects will provide technical and pedagogical help and support for Royal Forest of Dean and Stroud Colleges in their transformative journey in the embedding of mobile learning and use of mobile technologies to support assessment, learning and teaching across a range of curriculum areas.

Sparkly will continue the embedding of mobile learning at Gloucestershire College.

Sparkly will fast track the two partner colleges in the strategic embedding of the use of mobile devices and technologies to enhance and enrich the learning process.

Objectives

• Sparkly has the following key objectives:
• To support a transformative journey of mobile learning for Royal Forest of Dean College through the use of staff development, training and mutual support.
• Royal Forest of Dean College will put in place the infrastructure and devices to support the use of mobile devices and mobile technologies by learners to enhance and enrich the learning and assessment process.
• Royal Forest of Dean College will provide mobile devices and mobile learning experiences to learners across a range of curriculum areas including Life Skills, Numeracy, Literacy, Construction, Catering and Hospitality, Business Administration, ICT, Hair and Beauty.
• To support a transformative journey of mobile learning for Stroud College through the use of staff development, training and mutual support.
• Stroud College will put in place the infrastructure and devices to support the use of mobile devices and mobile technologies by learners to enrich and enhance the learning and assessment process.
• Stroud College will provide mobile devices and mobile learning experiences to learners across a range of curriculum areas including Hair and Beauty, Construction, Media, Literacy and Numeracy.
• To continue to embed the use of mobile technologies at Gloucestershire College by improving and enhancing the use of mobile devices and mobile technologies across the curriculum, with specific focus on Construction, Engineering, Hair and Beauty, Media, Business and Management
• To create forums and staff development opportunities for sharing experiences with the partner colleges over the life of the project and beyond the end of the project.
• To create mobile resources for learning in the form of lesson plans, exemplars, guides, videos, audio recordings, screencasts and mobile learning objects.

Target audience:

Main audiences

14-19 Learners Levels 1-3

NEETS

Apprentices

Stroud College’s curriculum areas include: Hair and Beauty, Construction, Media, Literacy and Numeracy.

Royal Forest of Dean College's curriculum areas include: Life Skills, Numeracy, Literacy, Construction, Catering and Hospitality, Art, Design & Media, ICT, Hair and Beauty.

Gloucestershire College’s curriculum areas include: Construction, Engineering, Hair and Beauty, Media, Business and Management.

The project will cover classroom based learning, work place based learning, field trips, workshop activities and learning at a time and place to suit the learner.

Secondary audiences

other curriculum areas, part-time students, work based learning.

Partners

Royal Forest of Dean College and Stroud College

Year 2: Shiny – Mobile Assessment at Gloucestershire College 2008/2009

 

 

 

The Shiny project will focus on the use of mobile devices for the assessment of learning at Gloucestershire College. The project will develop and implement the use of m-assessment across the curriculum.

The Shiny project will build on the work of the MoLeNET Glossy project, which provided the infrastructure for mobile learning, through the provision of mobile technologies that encourage the use of m-assessment.

The project will provide opportunities to learners and staff for a more engaging, relevant and personalised assessment experience.

To build a sustainable future for m-assessment through the use of case studies, guides and exemplars.

Project Aim

The aim of the Shiny project is to improve and enhance the assessment processes in the college through the utilisation of mobile devices and technologies in the classroom, at home, in the workplace and in the wider community.

Through the project, Gloucestershire college will expand and build on embedding m-assessment across key target curriculum areas identified for improvement in the recent Ofsted inspection and in the College Strategic Plan.

To build a sustainable future for mobile based assessment through the use of case studies, guides and exemplars in relation to m-assessment.

Project Objectives

To use and compare a range of mobile devices and technologies to provide for a more engaging and personalised assessment process. This m-assessment will take place in the classroom, at home, in the workplace and across the wider community. Across various subjects and curriculum areas, academic staff will design and implement mobile assessment opportunities for different groups of learners. The project will provide training, guides and exemplars for staff to allow them to use m-assessment effectively.

To use m-assessment to make assessment processes in the college more engaging and relevant to 14-19 learners. Staff across the college who teach will develop and implement assessment activities which are designed to engage 14-19 learners and to make through m-assessment a more personalised assessment process.

To introduce the use of proprietary mobile learner response systems across the college and to compare the use of such systems with the use of consumer based mobile technologies and the use of learner owned mobile devices. The college with Promethean ActivBoards (IWB) in every teaching space will implement the use of the ActivExpression learner response system and will also design comparable assessment opportunities which use other consumer mobile devices and the learners’ own devices.

To improve the ways in which the college undertakes work based assessment and to expand the best practice models which started last year under the Glossy project across a wider range of curriculum areas. The college will build on the assessment work started by the Plumbing department in the use of mobile devices to capture assessment opportunities via cameras and PDAs and exporting the final assessment material to the learners’ own mobile devices for review and action. This will be expanded initially across the Technology Centre which includes Construction (a target area for improvement), Engineering, Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy. Other vocational areas of the college will also start using this mobile technology.

To allow work based learners to build an mobile accessible e-portfolio using mobile technologies to gather evidence and competency statements. The college will implement an e-portfolio server that is accessible from a range of mobile devices. Students using their own or provided devices will capture assessment evidence for their portfolios and then using mobile communication methods (SMS, Bluetooth, 3G and WiFi) upload the evidence to the e-portfolio server regardless of their location.

To improve the success in key skills for 14-19 learners by the introduction of m-assessment. Identified as a weakness in our recent Ofsted inspection report, staff who teach Key Skills will design and utilise mobile assessment to engage and personalise the assessment process for 14-19 learners undertaking Key Skills.

Year 1: The Glossy project at Gloucestershire College 2007/2008

 

 

 

 

The Glossy project undertook a large-scale development and implementation of mobile learning across Gloucestershire College using the mobile devices that learners already own.  A comparative study was planned by providing a range of mobile devices for learners in excluded groups at Gloucestershire College and for learners with learning difficulties and disabilities at National Star College. 

The project put in place an infrastructure allowing learners using devices they already own to access learning activities and content through a mobile learning portal in conjunction with the college virtual learning environment (VLE). 

The project also supplied mobile devices to some groups of learners and tested a range of mobile technology for use by learners with learning difficulties and disabilities.

Specific technology was researched because of its particular features, including the HTC TyTN II handset, Nokia N95 handset, PSP, iTouch, ASUS  eee PC and Sony Viao ultra-mobile PC (UMPC). The project found that all devices could be used to aid learning, depending on several factors including: the learner’s abilities, the staff’s abilities, the content and context of what was being taught, the time required to use the devices to the best of their abilities, the support available to assist those using the devices (in educational and residential environments) and the IT support available.

College and Project Background

Gloucestershire College is one of the largest further education colleges in the UK, offering a wide range of education and training programmes, including A-levels and GCSEs, vocational qualifications, work-based learning, basic skills courses, higher education, short courses for business, part-time day and evening courses and English for overseas students.

Gloucestershire College’s Gloucester campus is a new state-of-the-art site with a strong vocational focus based alongside Gloucester Docks. The College’s Cheltenham-based campus is a purpose-built facility, which also incorporates a gym. There are satellite sites such as the Construction School in Cheltenham, and three Gloucestershire College Do IT centres in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury. The college also operates from over 120 community venues throughout the county.

National Star College (NatStar) is an independent, specialist college that provides for 143 residential (from a national catchment) and 18 full-time day learners who have physical disabilities and/or acquired brain injuries, alongside associated learning, behavioural, sensory and medical difficulties.

The college has very specialist expertise in meeting the learning needs of a diverse range of student requirements. it also offers part-time adult education classes to 200 local disabled adults and is currently offering a pre-modern Apprenticeship programme for 14 students.

NatStar provides high-quality, personalised learning to enable learners to be more autonomous and self-determining in shaping their lives and making a positive contribution to their local community. The innovative use of information and learning technology (ILT) has enabled learners to become more autonomous in their learning, living and work. The college is also able to provide professional expertise and support in the use and development of IT and ILT for organisations who work with learners who have learning difficulties and or disabilities.

The aim of the project was to enable learners to access learning at a time and place to suit them in order to improve retention and achievement. The project provided mobile devices to learners in selected groups; including excluded learners and learners with learning difficulties and disabilities. The hardware and software provided allowed both staff and learners to develop, create and convert content for use on mobile devices. The project also ensured that there was the infrastructure to allow the college and staff to communicate with learners’ mobile devices through the use of 802.11 wireless and Bluetooth technologies.

Research took place as part of the overall GLOSSY project and forms a sub-set of the overall research findings submitted to the MoLeNET project as a whole.

The key question addressed was

How can we identify and differentiate the usage and benefits of students using diverse personally owned devices against those using common-type returnable issued devices?

It was found through the three-month research period that the strengths of mobile learning actually came from the diversity of equipment used and that common-type equipment restricted facilitation of the learning process. The student using their own equipment took the opportunity to use the best device for the learning experience rather than try to use a device issued in a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Throughout the research periods there were frustrations around technical issues that hindered access to resources but there was enough data to justify the conclusion that students are happy to use their own equipment and demonstrate a commitment through ownership and adapt in a positive manner. The drawbacks came from mixed modes of access or lack of suitable equipment. Those using the issued equipment enjoyed it but did not demonstrate the engagement with the learning topics through the specially created resources – their focus stayed with the hardware rather than the application to learning.

In conclusion the researcher judges that there is little benefit, outside of logistics, in issuing equipment and the focus should be the development of efficient resources and access points that the student may engage with.

This part of the GLOSSY project took a specific perspective on the practical issues that surround the effectiveness and impact of the mobile device used on access to learning materials. There was a desire to assess the practical issues that might arise for all the parties involved when relying on mobile devices to reinforce and extend the learning process. In order to make an assessment of the potential issues, two groups of students working on identical courses, in separate geographic locations, were selected to undertake a controlled experiment where one group were loaned an Apple iPod touch and the other group were encouraged to use their own devices.

It was based around modules that were common to both groups with the same lecturers, assessment deadlines and desired learning outcomes. This was done to enable additional resources to be prepared. The criteria being that they had the potential for use on the college-issued devices and the broad range of devices that the students would provide. The courses chosen were at National Diploma level and broadly speaking were traditional classroom-based groups, full-time, attending college daily. The facilities used by the students were IT-rich with most of their classes having individual PCs, and all having interactive whiteboards and access to excellent extended electronic resources in out-of-timetable hours.

The College-issued equipment was the iPod touch, which was chosen for the potential of internet access and screen size. Each unit had to be registered with the college IT department and forms of monitoring and protection devised. The IT department also acted as technical support to the participating staff and students using College-issued devices but not for student-owned devices.

A secondary server was installed in the college by to allow access by all portable devices and allow the students to download resources to their devices to facilitate their learning while protecting the existing systems from any compromise by non-registered equipment.

As part of the resources preparation one member of staff was sent on an external training week to use Apple Training software with the intention of further training participating staff in preparing podcasts, film and animation suitable for mobile devices.

The teaching staff involved were briefed on the principles behind the MoleNET Project itself, given opportunities to attend training events and supported with the creation of effective resources.

Data gathering and assessment of work-based learners is a time-consuming process. With the use of video and mobile devices it is hoped to reduce the time involved and produce learner feedback that can be viewed on mobile devices.

Introducing mobile learning by introducing mobile devices is easy. However, without the infrastructure to support mobile learning, practitioners and learners, the introduction will be followed by disappointment and a decision not to use the devices in the future.

The Glossy project was all about putting in the infrastructure to allow a sustainable future for mobile learning. However once the infrastructure was in place, a cultural change was needed: not only the culture of the practitioners and teaching, but also of learners and learning. Simply purchasing devices and hardware will not, on its own, change the culture of an institution. Some of the equipment the college has purchased is expected to last up to 10 years.

The project aimed to test a range of mobile technology for use by learners with learning difficulties and disabilities. Specific technology has been researched for the trial because of its particular features. These included HTC TyTN II handset, Nokia N95 handset, PSP, iTouch, ASUS eee PC and Sony Viao UMPC. The criteria for the selection of mobile technology were the functionality of the devices – formats for video and GPS enabled, large and visible screen areas, and ability to be held by those with disabilities or mounted onto wheelchairs.

They found that all the devices could be used to aid learning, depending on several factors including:

• the learner’s abilities
• the staff’s abilities
• the content and context of what is being taught
• the time required to use the devices  to the best of their abilities
• support being available to assist those using the devices (in educational and residential environments)
• IT help being available to support the devices
• the cost of using the phones.

Project aims

• To enable learners to access learning at a time and place to suit them in order to improve retention and achievement
• To put in place an infrastructure at Gloucestershire College that will allow learners using devices they already own to access learning activities and content through a mobile learning portal in conjunction with the college VLE
• To create a student wireless network that can be accessed by learners’ own devices to access college services, e-resources and the internet
• To provide mobile devices to learners in selected groups including excluded learners and learners with learning difficulties and disabilities (LDD)
• To provide hardware and software that will allow both staff and learners to develop, create and convert content for use on mobile devices
• To provide the infrastructure to allow the college and staff to communicate with learners’ mobile devices through the use of 802.11 wireless and Bluetooth technologies, SMS, MMS and 3G services
• To develop sustainable and accessible mobile learning technology devices to match the requirements of individual learners with LDD within the project
• To develop accessible, innovative and inclusive learning materials to be used for mobile learning
• To monitor and record the effective development of mobile learning throughout the project from learners working on course programmes within the scope of the project
• To record achievement through mobile learning and promote greater independent working by students throughout the life of the project and beyond
• To evaluate the key outcomes of the project and develop a sustainable future plan for mobile learning for learners with LDD.

Key objectives

• To utilise mobile learning to improve retention and achievement in target areas within the partner colleges
• To make learning accessible and inclusive for learners with learning difficulties and disabilities
• To embed the development and implementation of mobile learning across the partner colleges
• To enhance and improve the quality of teaching and learning through personalisation
• To promote learner independence towards autonomy through using mobile learning technology
• To ensure that mobile learning materials are accessible and inclusive.

Benefits

Benefits for learners, across all learner groups

Learners have gained:

• a change in culture in relation to the use of mobile learning with more staff interested in creating, developing and adapting learning scenarios and content for mobile learning or using mobile devices. (This has made and will make learning more interesting and fun for learners.)
• a student wireless network that allows learners to connect to the internet in college with their mobile devices and so engage and interact with learning activities and content
• an infrastructure that allows learners to access learning at a time, place, pace and mode to suit their needs
• the opportunity to try the latest technology
• the ability to take resources to different locations easily
• the ability to record their own progress and identify when they had achieved
• more independent working
• increased familiarity with ICT
• expectation that ICT will be integrated into other learning.

Benefits for staff

Staff have gained:

• changing perceptions and working practices about what is learning and how and where it takes place
• an infrastructure that allows them to easily create, develop and adapt learning scenarios and content for mobile learning or using mobile devices
• training and information on mobile learning and mobile devices
• a challenging experience of ICT
• the ability to take on a facilitative approach with learners
• the ability to engage with learners at external locations
• support and networking through the partner college
• support and networking through the MoLeNET community.

Benefits for the lead college

The key benefits for Gloucestershire College were:

• a change in culture across the organisation in the use of mobile learning and mobile devices to enhance and enrich the learning experience
• the installation of an infrastructure to support mobile learning which has had other benefits as well
• a (possible) improvement in retention and achievement.

Benefits for institutions taking part (partners and colleges)

The key benefits for National Star College were:

• the support of Gloucestershire College
• the opportunity to network with other staff involved in the project
• shared responsibility for achieving outputs
• more knowledge of the  infrastructure in Gloucestershire College.

Lessons learned

Teaching and learning lessons

The key lesson when working with practitioners is that simply providing the technology is not enough.

Training and development are essential if practitioners are to change their practice and to start embedding mobile learning.

Training needs to include:

• how to use the equipment: no mobile device can do everything and that is part of the problem; the interfaces and processes differ from device to device.
• uses of the equipment: it was clear early on that practitioners were often unaware of the potential and the capability of even their own mobile devices 
• file management
• software training for the creation, development and delivery of mobile learning materials.
• learning scenarios and design: how to build mobile learning into delivery
• overcoming the myths: it’s surprising how often the phrase ‘this won’t work with my students’ comes out when you mention using (any) learning technology
• accessibility: staff working on content ensured that by using digital content that could be easily converted, it would be more accessible than traditional paper-based content.

In delivering sessions incorporating mobile devices, the consideration of how to integrate them fully led to some changes in how sessions were planned.  The risk is that materials that could be paper or PC based are simply converted to a format to go onto a mobile device rather than starting form the lesson objective and establish how mobile learning will enhance the delivery. 

The time to prepare materials in unfamiliar formats was under-estimated and required negotiations on teaching hours with line managers. There was also the additional time to upload materials onto devices, in comparison to photocopying resources. 

Learners engaged with the devices far more enthusiastically than anticipated and quickly starting driving the direction of activities. This was especially apparent with life skills activities and in recording their own progress. It has promoted a more facilitative approach to teaching in some areas. The relationship between recording your own progress and the level of self-confidence promoted was more than anticipated and will be built upon through the widening of e-portfolios incorporating more video, audio and photographic evidence.

Technical and procurement lessons

The PCs were ordered with in-built multi-card readers to allow learners to easily move content from the college network and the VLE to mobile devices, especially those devices which did not have wifi capabilities which includes many (if not most) mobile phones and many media players such as the iPod nano, the Creative Zen, the iPod classic, the Archos range of devices. The iMacs and MacBooks used external USB multi-card readers.

The external Kingston card readers the college purchased allow users to use the various card formats used in phones without needed the “usual” adapters. They can read without adapters, the miniSD, microSD, MMCmicro, Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick M2 without adapters. 

This enables learners to move data and files from network to mobile device and back again without having the barrier of not having the correct adapter.

The College VLE, after some tweaking, was found to work very effectively and easily through a range of mobile devices.

The key challenge was to ensure that the variety of content that can be used by learners on the VLE would work on a range of mobile devices.

There was (obviously) some content that did not work on all mobile devices. A beauty therapy lecturer has been using the Content Generator software to create Flash-based activities. These activities were found not to work well or not work at all on a range of mobile devices. They did however work very well on the UMPCs micro-laptops on the Windows platform and with MIDs on the Linux platform.

The member of staff concerned demonstrated these was quizzed using the UMPC micro-laptops at a Good Practice in Teaching Jamboree and she came first in a vote by practitioners who attended the event. As a result the college has purchased a site license for the software. It should be noted that the use of video on iPods and Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) came second in the same vote.

The key with any student wireless network is to ensure that the multitude of devices which can connect to a wireless network are able to do so in smoothly and easily.

From a college perspective, as a member of JANET the college needs to ensure that access to the network is only by authorised users and that the college uses authentication processes that enable to college to know who is using the network, where in the college they are using that network, and what they are doing on the network.

Though various methods of authentication and authorisation have been investigated and looked at, the shortness of the time frame of the project meant that the project needed some “simple” method for authentication and authorisation for the devices learners had and were using.

In the longer term the college is looking at changing its authentication methods to tie in with either the college’s LDAP authentication used for the main college network and/or Federated Access Management (Shibboleth).

The student wireless network in Gloucestershire College was complicated by the presence of two campuses, an existing network infrastructure and the need for the network to be connected to at any one time by a large number of devices.

It was never going to be as simple as placing one or a few wireless routers in different locations.

The student wireless network has the scalability and robustness to ensure that any learner who wishes to utilise their own wifi device will be able to connect to the wireless network and access the internet. At the same time, class sets of mobile devices (for example PSPs or iPods touch) will also be able to access the network.

The wireless network also allows the network through triangulation over a plan of the college to pinpoint where specific devices are been used. This as well as finding errant devices will also be used to find where the demand for wireless is heaviest and therefore require either new wireless access points or move others from elsewhere.

The Cisco wireless routers the college uses allow us to use them for both the student wireless network and the standard college wireless network. As they use PoE (Power over Ethernet) they do not require an external power source and therefore can be placed anywhere that there is a network cable.

The iMacs, with their built-in iSight camera and Quicktime Pro, allow users to create video and audio recordings with minimal effort. Photo Booth, which is also available on the iMacs, allows users to create very creative image and video recordings.

Users of the Windows PCs were encouraged to use online conversion tools such as Media-Convert or to use the Apple iMacs for converting video.

On all the Macs in the college, the college has installed an application, VisualHub, which allows very simple (and importantly) very fast video conversion to a variety of formats. It generally can convert video faster than real time.

The IT systems team at National Star College are very experienced in setting up unfamiliar and bespoke equipment due to the nature of IT related enabling technologies that learners bring or acquire living and learning at the college.  This includes integrating alternative and augmentative communication devices onto the network and managing the devices to sync with Outlook.  This means most of the server and network equipment is up to date and can manage the new devices becoming available.  Ensuring staff are trained and able to manage this equipment has led to defined roles being developed within the team of systems co-ordinator, server technician and user technical support for desktop and laptop PCs including telephone help desk support.  This does mean equipment such as the mobile devices doesn’t fall directly within responsibilities and a decision is taken by the co-ordinator on whether it is best configured by the server technician for network configuration or user team.  For this project one of each device was loaned to the department for a period before allocation to staff teams for familiarisation and the chance to set one up without the pressure of staff waiting for deployment.  The team valued this opportunity and it helped make them feel involved.  Before purchasing equipment their advice was taken on ease of set up from web reports and looking at configuration data from manufacturers’ web sites.  Also buying a reasonably consistent range of equipment increased familiarity and ease of set up, rather than buying one of each available for comparison.  In some cases it was found by buying more than one item of the same item discounts could be negotiated.

The main issues for configuration for National Star College systems team was with Apple devices due to small numbers of devices within the college and being able to find suitable training.  They were all successfully configured but took more time than expected.  Consideration would be given in future to training a member of the team to manage Apple devices and use wireless connectivity initially to download materials and access email resources to avoid time delays in configuring for the network.

Synching and configuring Windows Mobile devices was generally found to be easiest of all the formats trialled, despite some reviews giving the platform a low rating for functionality and reliability.  All phones using Windows Mobile have continued to operate smoothly, with only requiring a full reset following an unsuccessful sync when the server was being updated and unavailable.  The ability to perform a soft reset easily without loss of data where the processor has become overloaded with the number of open programmes has proved useful on a small number of occasions.  The battery life was also found to be good for these devices despite heavy usage, the only exception to this being extended use of wireless connection and even worse with GPS at around two hours continuous use.  Access to an external power source is essential in these circumstances and led to car type chargers being required.

Setting up the PSPs and DS on a wireless network was found to be very easy and could be done by staff without reference to the Systems team.  This was also the case for linking the devices to Interactive White Boards.  The range of educational games for the DS was used regularly across this platform.

All the equipment, apart from the ASUS UMPCs, was easily obtained by suppliers regularly used by the college. The ASUS UMPCs were difficult to obtain because of high demand and a rapid change in specification, meaning by the time they were available for deliver a better model was available.  If not tied into a project period for funding waiting until a new device has been available for an evaluation and immediate upgrades would be preferable.  Having obtained ASIS running on LINUX operating system Windows machines became available.  This did give the opportunity to compare the operating systems, and in general for accessibility LINUX was preferable, being clearer and easier to navigate.  The ability to integrate general Microsoft Office applications outweighed the accessibility for most users.  The ease of wireless connectivity of the ASUS was of note, including being trialled in locations as far afield as Turkey for uploading materials to the VLE for viewing back in the UK. 

The long -erm reliability of equipment is difficult to establish from a project of this timescale, but in general all the equipment has been reliable and shows little indication of wear and tear despite usage above what could normally be expected during evaluation and by the physical nature of some learner’s disability in being able to control limbs and fine motor control.

Although discounts are available for educational use of equipment and buying more than one of the same item, a centralised procurement facility could bring more significant savings by bulk buying equipment colleges regionally or even nationally would be requesting.  This would be similar to the arrangement within the county for organisations allied to the procurement department of the local authority.

The long term investment of the equipment in terms of how long it will be used before becoming obsolete and putting a cost per learner against a device is difficult to establish from such a short project and the college would value an extended or follow project to look at the longer term benefits of integrating mobile learning into the curriculum fully.

For further information

The Glossy Blog - http://glossymolenet.wordpress.com/

Content Generator - http://www.contentgenerator.net/

MID - Mobile Internet Device - Intel: http://www.intel.com/products/mid/

JANET is the network dedicated to the needs of education and research in the UK. It connects the UK’s education and research organisations to each other, as well as to the rest of the world through links to the global Internet. http://www.ja.net/company/about.html