What is the Last Digit of , by C. L. Liu

Emerging Scientific and Design Issues for Wireless Mobile Learning (given through video conference), by Roy Pea

Learning Technology Research and the Interest of Society, by C. H. Liu

Six Research Themes of Center for Science and Technology of Learning, by Tak-Wai Chan

Interactive Digital Media in Educational Scenarios - Added Value through Mobile Devices?, by Ulrich Hoppe

Mobile Learning in Theory and in Practice: Which are the challenges for the G4P?, by Marcelo Milrad

Media and students' culture of m-learning, by Kinshuk

Addressing Conceptual Understanding through Wireless, Handheld Technologies , by Jeremy Roschelle

Mobile Support for Collaborative Learning, by Pierre Dillenbourg

The first G4P at National Central University was responding to the idea of Milrad who proposed the possibility of 3-continent consortium in the first WMTE at Vaxjo University in August of 2002. If the process of conceiving a model of this global collective actions is analogous to cooking a pot of soup, then vegetables, meats, and ingredients represent contributing ideas. Here we document synopsis of these ideas raised in a sequence of conversations of G4P related activities. In the future, G4P, besides being a forum for participants to exchange results of their research works as most academic workshops do, it may also be a forum of exchanging prototypes as well.

Jeremy Roschelle

Jeremy gave an account of what he said a research infrastructure. The two most important things to him seem to be (i) support for rapid prototyping of educational applications for mobile devices and (ii) standardized support for collecting data when students use the prototypes. Rapid prototyping could be made easier by having a toolkit of things like:

1. communications protocols or middleware;
2. communications classes, handlers, or objects;
3. a collection of useful communication handlers on the server; and
4. communications widgets on the client.

Collecting data could be made easier by:

1. basic ways to instrument code to track pedagogically relevant events;
2. a standard form (XML) for recording pedagogical events (as simple as "how long did the user use the pedagogical application?" or "how many messages did they respond to?"; and
3. data analysis tools that can analyze data in the standard form.

It could be possible that we could also share a general educational environment that would provide things that all teachers and students will want, but which are not really research questions. Like ways to login, some basic calendar and messaging options, etc. This may not be a reasonable goal because of the desire to be international.

In any case, the infrastructure does not need to be built from scratch there may well be existing things we could leverage. One big problem is what sort of devices will be used. The available genera of devices are quite diverse. Furthermore, it is not clear that a critical mass of researchers and practitioners will choose hardware that is mutually compatible. For example, the US researchers tend to use Palms, iPAQs and TI calculators. There is hardly a standard in common among those three. The Europeans use some cell phones, in addition. Then there are also a wide variety of OS's and a wide variety of kinds of networking (Bluetooth, 802.11, IRDA). It is going to be hard to have any common research infrastructure without enough of a shared hardware, OS, and network platform.

This conundrum may push us in two directions:

1. more abstract: to more abstract things, like an XML format for capturing data and analyzing it. Each platform could have native ways to capture data that are translatable to such a format.
2. more introductory: to things that are short of a real infrastructure, like sharing tips for getting bluetooth to actually work on a specific PDA model.

G4P could try to define what kind of shared research infrastructure is possible at this point, given the platform divergence and early stage of the field. We should also define something we can do to help each other, even if it falls short (or more abstract) of an infrastructure.

Roy Pea

Roy called to identify Grand Challenge Problems for wireless and mobile technologies for education. A grand challenge problem defines a commitment by a scientific community to work together towards a common goal, considered to be valuable and achievable within a predicted timescale. An example of grand challenge problems in mathematics were Hilbert's 23 major mathematical problems to be solved last century when he addressed that in 1900 in a conference. As Jim Gray proposed in his Turing Award address, a Grand Challenge Problem in computing should be understandable and challenging, progress measurable, with international scope, and having long-term benefit to science, industry, and society. But education is a normative enterprise, with very diverse standards across the USA and globally. There are fragmented researchers and knowledge with rare "collaboratory" arrangements for collective intelligence and action. He attempted to identify 8 candidates. He suggested to use the UK E-Science (2002) model for soliciting and refining grand challenge problems for the wireless and mobile technologies in education research field: Collect, say, 100 candidates, then categorized in panels and vetted in a workshop for refinement into 'top 10'. Through this way, we can have our wireless and mobile technology in education grand challenge problems to become a valid reference for challenging long-term research directions.

Marcelo Milrad

Marcelo thought that it is a good exercise to identify a number of convincing reasons finding some answers to the following questions: Why wireless and mobile technologies are interesting for education and; which are the potential benefits we can get from them having in mind the last 20 years of "Information Technology in Education"? A very central topic for G4P is a "white paper". The areas he wants to addresses are:

(1) Pedagogical Aspects

• How can we design learning activities to support innovative educational practices?
• Since mobility allows for learning taking place in a variety of settings; how shall we design activities that integrate learning in informal and formal settings?

(2) Human Computer Interaction

• What does "ubiquitous learning" mean, if we consider ubiquitous computing + life long learning?
• What will be the "social computing" with mobile devices? It relates to Pierre's topic (space-aware social interactions);
• With mobile technologies new interaction patterns arise, how these activities are designed from a HCI perspective?
• How a usable mobile artifact should be designed? It needs to find a common ground between academy and industry.

(3) Engineering

• How learning aspects should be considered while designing new mobile solutions?
• What are the semantic issues and interoperability of the learning material?
• How GPS and context awareness technologies to support collaborative learning?
• How smart probes and mobile tools for simulation and modeling in learning?
• How new learning tools be integrated in physical and computational media?
• How the voice can be as an input/output mechanism (e.g. VoiceXML)?

(4) Implementation and strategic issues

To reinforce Jeremy's ideas about creating "international test-beds", implementation and strategy aspect "can make the difference" with regard to the efforts of G4P. Note that there are already a number of efforts underway (e.g. http://www.mobilearn.org) although they are based on a top-down approach (for instance the European Union funding this particular activity based on a number of premises already predefined in advance). Also, a number of interesting projects are underway in different countries. How some of these efforts could be integrated? As a synergy effect of this integration, new projects will arise. Industrial collaboration is also crucial for creating a number of "success stories" and "best practice" cases. Another important aspect is a close collaboration with teachers and children in real education settings (not just lab conditions).

For more information of Marcelo's views, see http://www.masda.vxu.se/~mmilrad/papers/G4P_Milrad.doc and http://www.msi.vxu.se/imwc/interactive_media.pdf

Kinshuk

Kinshuk regarded that the use of mobile technologies in the learning process corresponds to more of a facilitator role of these technologies for flexible learning, or to say, learning anywhere, anyhow. Since mobile devices are evolving very rapidly, there is and there will be no real consensus about what are the boundaries of mobile technologies, but it is clear that they include all those technologies that help the learner interacting with the rest of the world, and particularly with those static entities with which learner had routine contact, had learner not been mobile. To start with, such technologies include devices like PDAs, Tablet PCs and cellular phones, and services like AventGo and push technologies.

In the learning process, learner transcends through various scenarios as the situation demands. In a classroom, there may be collaborative learning. On travel, individual isolated learning may prevail, with sporadic communication/collaboration as and when communication channels are available. Adaptability towards the content and the learner in these scenarios requires consideration of rapid technological evolution where learners change the learning mode and supporting devices more often than ever.

CSCL and WMTE researchers need to find solutions that do not only support learning using mobile devices, but also work on other platforms so as to reduce the problems of redundancy, out-of-sync content versions, and mismatch of profiles when learners move from one platform to another. The research is therefore required to develop a framework for automatic adaptation of educational content to suit various devices (both mobile and desktop platforms) and the individual preferences of the learners using those devices.

Another important issue of research is to provide adequate adaptability to the learner not only on the individual platforms but also when the learner moves from one platform to another (for example, switching from a desktop computer to a palm pilot at the start of a journey). The research is needed to look into issues related to learner needs for various platforms, learner expectations during the transition from one platform to another, and adaptability requirements for such transitions.

Sherry Hsi

Sherry suggested that G4P needs a mission statement. Furthermore, she suggested that several strands should be considered in G4P:

(1) Common set of methodologies to identify user, learner, and customer needs. Very often people make assumptions about their user audiences, or base design decisions on outdated models of users, and are quick to implement solutions. It would be useful to understand if, across our nations and work practices, there are some agreed upon set of design methodologies that will help to systematically determine the needs, beliefs, activity, and practices of our audiences, where audiences can be individuals or groups (e.g. teams, villages, distributed organizations, etc.). With these methodologies, we can design for:

1. Customization and personalization of user experience;
2. Better flow and orchestration of learning, work, and activity; and
3. Compelling activity structures, interactions, or patterns of activity with nomadic computing devices and ubiquitous infrastructures.

These methodologies could be included in the rapid prototyping, tools and infrastructure that Jeremy described.

(2) A G4P knowledge network and living database of innovations. Every time when one turns around, there are 5 more innovations in the area of ubiquitous computing and 5 reinventions of the wheel. As a distributed group, it might be useful to set up a mechanism to continuously collect pointers to these innovations. We could have international scouts in each country who will collect news about research and development, or scouts that would cover particular contexts (e.g. museums, zoos, K12 classrooms, manufacturing, healthcare, etc.)

(3) A synergy policy. As we move ahead to work in an international context, we will each have different sets of audiences and criteria for design, implementation, and assessment. We might consider putting in place a set of operating principles that reflect our beliefs about open collaboration, working synergistically across the globe. This might include things like: (recognition of) diversity; (hope for) interoperability; (design for) usability and accessibility; (encourage) flexibly adaptive design; (design for) lifelong learning; willingness to do assessment or be assessed.

Sherry also raised two questions. Should we focus on creating applications infrastructure technology that will make one's current work and work practices easier or will we design applications that enable transformative user experiences? Where are these technologies going? Is there a trajectory, an evolution, and/or mutations? (Desktop computers => handheld computers => tablets => wearables/"wetware" => smart dust => wired immersive environments => smart hiking boots, etc.)

Ulrich Hoppe

Ulrich thought that G4P should

(1) Explore the value added of mobile and wireless technologies in a variety of educational scenarios, including the whole spectrum ranging from schools on the one hand to learning and knowledge management at the workplace on the other;

(2) Foster the cooperation between, industry, academic research, and application sites to develop and put into practice promising solutions using mobile and wireless technologies in education and creative teamwork;

(3) Foster international cooperation in the above-mentioned field of research and development, including comparative studies of culture-dependent and inter-cultural needs.

Ulrich pointed out further that, from a practical point of view and as a meta-level of strategic importance, both from an international and a mixed industry-academia perspective, to derive the definition of cooperation strategies, G4P should take (1) and (2) below as background and explore (3), (4), and (5).

(1)Start from a definition of educational scenarios, including settings, role definitions, basic activities and interactions;

(2) Define the role of technology as supportive to these scenarios, including representational functions, communication functions, "productivity tools", etc. (reconsider the concept of "educational media", do not use technology types to characterize scenarios such as video-conference)

(3) Design and develop adequate software solutions, such as

• support low-threshold teacher tools;
• "collaborative mindtools": e.g., supporting model building in group scenarios based on collaborative visual languages;
• develop classroom communication tools: face-to-face, but potentially extending to virtual classrooms;
• support heterogeneous interface technology: devices => "form factors";
• facilitate built-in self description: tool-specific generation of metadata

(4) Identify and analyze device-specific media functions, such as

• low-threshold teacher supporting tools;
• free-hand input;
• location awareness and ad-hoc networking;
• specialized physical interfaces; e.g. "smart objects", specialized controls;
• "transitional digital objects": allowing for physical connections between scenarios.

(5) Characterize integration patterns and value added, including

• revolutionary definitions: e.g. new technology => new ways of learning;
• digital mimicry: replacing traditional production or presentation tools by functionally extensible digital surrogates, e.g. chalkboard => electronic whiteboard, defining and exploiting added values.; and
• reusability: given that re-usability is a typical added value, develop adequate indexing mechanisms for individual archiving and inter-individual exchange.

Randy Hinrichs

Randy saw a possible schism in the argument. On one hand we want "the learner to be more active than in traditional courses with mobile learning devices serving as tools or mediators to communicate knowledge with others" and on the other hand "we do not think mobile learning technologies would and should create new educational scenarios and then we put learners to fit in such scenarios". If we are going to use technology to transform the way we learn, we may have to strike at the very core of the classroom, lecture, the one to many delivery model, and the highly behavioral test taking assessment model and make it very clear that mobile technologies will have this disruptive effect (it certainly does in business). Therefore, we should focus on how to extend learner centric behaviors by using technology to engage students in project based learning and advanced embedded assessment environments outside of the classroom first. In doing so, we may end up specifically only with new scenarios for learning that resemble the knowledge worker more than the traditional student. This is the service he believes universities can provide to industry.

He suggested G4P should discuss

(1) Building mobile learning research platforms for learning science to support tool creation for mobile learning:

• High bandwidth, low latency n-way video conferencing for distributed lecturing and discussions;
• Teacher Tools: Tablet PC collaborative presentation tools, with embedded feedback for distributed presentation;
• Student Tools: Synchronous collaboration with fine grained hyper-linking, and stored history for asynchronous offline collaboration; and
• Componentized learning portals for contextual aggregation;

(2) Learning web services

• SDKs for on-line laboratories;
• call for development of integrated learning web services

Pierre Dillenbourg

The field of wireless and mobile technologies in education is interesting because

(1) Technology for learning will less and less be these boxes on our desk and more a variety of embedded devices ("disappearing computer", ubiquitous computing, or mixed reality);

(2) The great potential of mobile technology is less the fact that it is smaller than the fact that it is situated in a physical context and even knows (through GPS stuff) where it is located in the environment; and

(3) Most of work on blended learning forces students to move in and out lecture rooms and computer labs, while a large part of what they do could be carried out with advanced phones for instance.

This is an exciting area because by inventing new models, we can integrate more technology into everyday classes. There are three axes one can develop:

(1) Ultra-light scripts

The goal is to provide an ultra-light support for CSCL scripts. An important part of how CSCL scripts support learning actually is to provide short instructions, announce new phases, remind deadlines, and ask for votes. These interactions do actually not require a computer since they require limited input and output. With mobile technology, this support can be provided within any learning room without computers. This is one step further in the notion of blended learning, where computerized and computerless activities are not simply juxtaposed, but where the technology is used to shape and structure face-to-face activities.

(2) Space-aware social interactions

The goal is to invent new forms of interaction among collaborative learners. Since the communication device is aware of one's position, social interactions may be enriched by spatial information, for instance for mapping the physical and digital territories of (informal) learning communities; for investigation digital-physical proxemics; for providing teams with a representation of their processes ('socio-cognitive mirrors'); for enabling interactions where spatial positions and moves express more meaning than words; and

(3) Audio learning

Learning technology often refers to visual interactions. Audio has generally been an add-on. Mobile phones, even the next generation, offer small displays but can bring good quality audio messages when they are relevant for learning. I propose to develop the concept of audio briefing and debriefing sessions where "on the road" professionals receive small chunks of information that has been rated on the basis of their daily assignment and social ratings.

Summary

The long-term goal of mobile learning technologies is to improve the quality and the effectiveness of the educational system, corporate training, and informal learning. More precisely, our research aims to grasp how learning technologies may contribute to this improvement. We develop knowledge through interdisciplinary work, covering computational development, pedagogical design, empirical testing and cognitive analysis. We share a vision of education where the learner is more active than in traditional courses with mobile learning devices serving as tools or mediators to communicate knowledge with others.

We seek opportunities how mobile technologies can be value-added to the current educational scenarios, extending the scope of interactions in different dimensions, time, space, and scale. Such extensions will make it possible for learners to continue to learn and switch smoothly from one scenario to another without difficulty:

(1) time: synchronously or asynchronously;

(2) space: classroom, home, outdoors, museum, and other sites; face-to-face or at distance; and

(3) scale: individual, small group, class, community from multiple classes to the societal or even global level.

We believe that learning will be more natural, interesting, exciting, and demanding with the right support of mobile learning technologies. Through the research process of mobile learning technologies, we shall gain better scientific understanding of learning as well as more knowledge about content, communication, institutions. While we believe that from the economic and educational perspectives, integrating social and mobile technology support for learning will help grow a knowledge economy, we concern about mobile learning technology research in the interest of the society, for example, digital divide, health, law, behavior, etc. induced by such technologies.

G4P fosters the cooperation between, industry, academic research, and application sites to develop and put into practice promising solutions using mobile and wireless technologies in education and creative teamwork as well as international cooperation in the above mentioned field of research and development, including comparative studies of culture-dependent and inter-cultural needs. The relationship of academia and industry in the concept of G4P can be elaborated in the following figure sketched by Jeremy.