2. Theoretical framework

 

This chapter describes the theoretical framework of this research project. It will first give a general overview of how mobile technology has become an important part of our daily lives. Second, it will give an overview of how mobile technology can play a role in learning processes (M-Learning). Third, it will describe the role of reflection in higher education. Fourth, it will describe how weblogs and moblogs can support reflection in higher education.

mobile technology and our daily lives

These days, everybody seems to own at least one mobile device, it is hard to imagine a world without them. We do not just use them for making phone calls anymore. High-end devices such as the Nokia N96 or the HTC Touch HD can be used for navigation purposes using the built-in GPS. They allow you to take high-quality pictures and upload them directly to the Web. But even mid-range or low-end devices can be classified as versatile devices; besides making phone calls and sending text messages, a typical low-end device such as the Sony-Ericsson K320i can also be used to surf the full internet using the Opera Mini web browser and the device’s GPRS connection, and to send photo messages to other phones or to web logs, using the built-in MMS function. Portable audio and video players such as the iPod Touch allow you to take your favourite audio and video streams with you on the go. Apple has even succeeded in making portable media players hip and trendy. Even car manufacturers and the aviation industry are playing into this trend – they are more and more fitting their cars and planes with iPod connections. Wireless 3G subscriptions are becoming more and more accepted, allowing people to watch the news or browse the web on their mobile phone in full-speed (Wagner, 2005).

Mobile devices have become a part of social reality and will therefore contribute to changes in education ( (Kommers, 2005). Some even argue that the use of mobile phones in education will be adopted quickly, because they are already familiar with them and they already know how to use them (Wagner, 2005). This especially seems to apply to the current generation of undergraduate students; they have grown up in a time when mobile technology has always been a part of their lives.

What is mobile learning?

Mobile learning has several definitions. According to Rubens (2005), mobile learning is learning with the use of wireless devices, such as laptops, tablet PCs, PDAs and mobile phones.

Mobile learning (M-learning) is frequently considered as a specification of e-learning (Rubens, 2005): learning takes place with the use of mobile devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, tablet PCs or Smartphone.

Others argue that there is a distinction between mobile devices and wireless devices: mobile devices are generally smaller and can last several days on a single battery charge (Wentzel et al, 2005). In this distinction, a laptop would not fit into the definition of mobile learning.

An important benefit of mobile learning is the fact that it is almost physically unbound. In the early days, advocates of e-learning frequently used the slogan ‘learn any time, anywhere’. But they forget to include the phrase ‘…just as long as there is a desktop or notebook PC, a power outlet and a broadband internet connection’. Mobile learning makes any time, anywhere learning a real possibility. Where e-learning took learning outside of the classroom, M-learning takes learning virtually anywhere.

Kommers (2005) describes four types of advantages of mobile learning:

• Flexibility
  Students on a fieldtrip to a museum can access information on the web without the need for a computer. This also enables learning in context, like work placements and projects on location.
  
• Differentiating between learning styles
  Mobile learning enables a learner to choose between several learning delivery methods. Instead of attending classes for example, students can listen to podcasts or vodcasts of lectures on their mobile device, wherever and whenever they want.
  
• Enhances collaborative learning
  Learners can use their mobile device’s instant messaging system to check if follow students are available, and then have the choice to send them an instant message or an e-mail from their device. Students can use Bluetooth wireless technology to share learning content. Students can record images, video stills or sound clips of meaningful learning experiences on their device and share these on social network platforms like Hyves or Nokia’s Ovi. By sharing content and resources, mobile learning enables collaborative learning
  
• Enhances constructivist learning
  Mobile learning allows learners to choose their own learning path.
  

In addition, mobile learning offers the user a more personal experience, compared to learning with a PC (Kommers, 2005) (Wagner, 2005). A mobile phone for instance, is a device which people always carry with them, Contrary to a PC, a user feels more ‘ownership’ with a mobile device (Soloway, Norris, Blumenfeld, Fishman, & Marx, 2001). A mobile phone offers to user extensive possibilities to personalize their device with ringtones and multimedia content, or with replaceable covers or keypads. Contrary to PCs, mobile devices have become objects of fashion and trends, a means which enables you to express your own personal identity.

Examples of learning situations where mobile devices played an important role are:

• Mobile systems for language learning (Kadyte, 2003),
  ConcertStudio (a system that allows to student to interact and vote during classes) (Dawabi et al, 2004),
• ‘m-portal’, a system which offers the user mobile educational games (Mitchell, 2004) and
• ‘Verover de Stad’ (‘Conquer the City’), a project in which elementary school students photographed important locations in Amsterdam, en re-enacted important events which took place there (Kommers, 2005)

A literature research shows that there is evidence of M-Learning projects taking place in higher education, but this is mainly restricted to medical education. In these projects, PDAs were e.g. used to view patient files, but also for recording reflective logs which were later used for reflection (Savill-Smith & Kent, 2003).

Savill-Smith and Kent (2003) also raise the question whether teenagers might be willing to use mobile devices for reflective logging, considering their enthusiasm for text messaging. In this research, we will explore how students of the Training & Human Development Study programme have used their mobile phones to create reflective logs, and it has helped them write reflection reports.

The next paragraphs will describe the role of reflection in higher education, and how moblogs can play a role in this.

The role of Reflection in higher education

What is reflection?

Reflection refers to the process of analyzing and making judgment about what has happened (Yen & Chen, 2008) and is considered a vital part of a learning process. Schon (1985) distinguishes between two types of reflection:

• Reflection-in-action.
  This type of reflection focuses on performing certain tasks and thinking about them whilst performing them. Reflection in action is about ‘learning by doing’ (Schon, 1985) and about ‘paying attention to what you are doing, maintaining control, making sure everything goes as planned and adjusting when necessary’ (Bolhuis, 2009). By thinking about actions and their effects  whilst performing them, people learn to perform these better in the future.
  
• Reflection-on-action.
  Learning results can be improved further when a learner reflects on their actions after performing a task. This can be achieved by asking questions like “how did I do that?”, “what happened exactly?”, “how did I react?” “why?” and “Could I have done that differently?” (Bolhuis, 2009). Reflection-on-action may lead to ideas for improvement for when a next situation occurs.

Reflection in higher education

Currently, every bachelor study programme in the Netherlands is required to have ‘methodic and reflective thinking and action’ as a core qualification, a standard that every student must meet (HAN Chassis, 2003). This is usually operationalized by the study programmes by requiring students to show evidence of reflection-on-action, by doing assignments like ‘answering reflective questions’ or ‘writing reflective analysis reports’, for example about a project or a work placement (Bolhuis, 2009).

As students often find it hard to describe their reflection process, and teachers often find it hard to indicate what is expected of them in this area (Bolhuis, 2009), several tools have been developed to make it easier for students to describe their reflection processes. One example is Korthagen’s cycle of reflection (Kelchtermans, 2001), a model that especially aims at teachers, educators and trainers and is also applied in the Training & Human Development study programme.

Korthagen’s cycle of reflection consists of five steps, which are visualized in the image below:

• Step 1: Action and experience.
  This step should answer questions like “what did I want to achieve?”, “what did I want to pay attention to?” and “What did I want to try out?”
• Step 2: Looking back
  This step should answer questions like “what happened exactly?”, “what did I do?” and “how did that make me feel?”
• Step 3: Formulating essential aspects
  This step should answer questions like “how do the answers to the previous questions all come together?” and “what does this all mean to me?”
• Step 4: Development of alternatives and choosing from these.
  This step should answer questions like “what alternatives do I see?” What are the pros and cons of these?” and “what will I try the next time?”
• Step 5: Experiment
  In this phase, the student tries out the desired behaviour they formulated in the previous step. Ideally, the cycle should repeat itself.

Bolhuis (2009) argues that is important that study programmes ask themselves the following questions:

• What is good reflection-on-action?
  This is a question which has been discussed often at the Training & Human Development programme; it seems to be one which is hard to operationalize, as reflection-on-action is such a personal affair (Bolhuis, 2009).
  
  The study programme has come up with some indicators, which are also used for assessment, and have been used for assessing the reflection reports in this experiment:
  
  - Uses a cyclic model when describing their reflection, like Korthagen’s Cycle of Reflection (see previous paragraph), or Kolb’s cycle of learning styles. Using a cyclic model makes a reflection easier to follow, plus it encourages the student to formulate new behaviours.
  
  - Criticizes their own thinking and action. This is at the core of their reflection, something which students indicate they find hard to put into words.
  
  - Uses peer feedback for their own development. See the discussion on how this element can be addressed in future research on the use of moblogging.
  
  - Recognizes own learning needs and can name these.
  
  Finds suitable learning possibilities for themselves. 
  
• Do educators give a clear view of this beforehand?
  
  The above criteria are always mentioned in course manuals and assessment criteria; in this research, these criteria were also addressed in the workshop which took place before the course.
  
• To what extent does an educator’s preference play a role in this?
  
  The assessment criteria have been developed to rule out personal preference as much as possible.
  
• Are these kinds of assignments (see first paragraph under ‘reflection in higher education’- FT) the right way to teach students a reflective attitude?
  
  This the question that validates research into reflection in higher education, like this research.

These questions are general questions for developing assessment criteria for reflection. They do not specifically relate to the role of moblogging. Moblogging is an instrument that can support reflection and the criteria mentioned above. In the following paragraphs, weblogs and moblogs and their link to reflection are discussed.

 

Weblogs and moblogs

weblogs

A weblog (or ‘web log’ or ‘blog’) is a system that allows an author to publish content to the web in a chronological way (Trafford, 2005). A blog can be created and edited by one or more people, who are the owners of the blog.

A blog consists of ‘blog entries’ , i.e. contributions posted to the blog, usually consisting of text, sometimes accompanied by pictures, video or audio. Blog entries are usually listed according to date of posting. Most blogs allow their users to ‘tag’ their entries, i.e. attaching keywords that describe the general content of an entry. These tags can be used for categorizing a blog, and for easy retrieval of content in a later stadium. Most blogs allow readers to comment on entries, thus making a blog an interactive system, for some the most essental element of a blog (Trafford, 2005; Jacobs, 2003). Through interaction, a blog owner reflects their personal character.

Blogging became widely available when the first free blogging tools (like Blogger) became available on the internet (Jacobs & Williams, 2004). Blogger offers users a ‘push-button publishing for the people’ experience and ‘instant communication power by letting you post your thoughts to the web whenever the urge strikes’.

See the video below for a short video explanation of how blogs work (Leelefever, 2007).

Moblogs

Initially, ‘posting your thoughts to the web whenever the urge strikes’ would still require you to be at your desktop PC and to be on-line. With the advent of moblogs, this became a thing of the past. A moblog (short for ‘mobile blog’) is essentially like any other weblog; the difference with a weblog lies in the fact that its content is updated by the owner with the use of a mobile device, like a mobile (camera-)phone, a PDA or a netbook (Ward, 2004). A moblog can be a service dedicated to mobile blogging, like Numpa (www.numpa.nl) or a more standard weblog service like Blogger (www.blogger.com), set up by the user to also accept mobile updating.

Moblog entries are usually short compared to normal blog entries and often contain multimedia content like pictures and sound. The reason for this are that they are mostly created on-the-go with the use of a mobile phone. A mobile phone is usually less suitable for typing large chunks of text, but usually does have the option for recording pictures and videos.

A moblog user usually updates their moblog by one of the following methods:

1. Via text messaging: A user sends a blog entry via a text message to a special phone number. The moblog recognizes the sender’s phone number and will update the corresponding blog. These types of messages can only contain text. This method requires a text messaging enabled phone.
2. Via MMS / E-Mail. If the user’s mobile device is either MMS and / or E-mail enabled, the user can create an e-mail or MMS, containing text, images or video and send it to a special e-mail address belonging to the moblog. The moblog will recognize the sender’s device and will update the corresponding blog. This method requires the user to have a mobile data connection and an e-mail / MMS client on their device.
3. Via a webpage which has been optimized for mobile viewing. These days, many blogging systems offer specialized webpages that can be viewed via the webbrowser of a mobile device. These webpages normally contain all basic functionalities of the desktop version of the blog; the user uses these pages to update their moblog. An example is Twitter, which offers a specialized mobile version of their website that can be accessed on a mobile device via http://m.twitter.com. This method requires the user to have a mobile data connection and a webbrowser.
4. Via specialized mobile applications that can be installed on the device. These days, many devices allow the user to install additional applications on their phone. These applications, often referred to as ‘apps’ or ‘widgets’ can be used for performing single tasks like updating a weblog. Some weblogs and third parties offer these applications, either for free or for a small fee. Examples are the Twitter App for the Apple iPhone, and WaveLog, a blogger client for Nokia smartphones. This method requires the user to have a mobile data connection and the ability to install extra software on the device.

Which of these methods can be used, depends on either the user’s device and compatibility with the blogging platform. For example, Blogger allows you to create a moblog and to use  method 2 and 4, provided that the user’s device supports these methods.

Moblogging has made blogging more ubiquitous and on-the-go. Ward (2004) argues that 'Moblogging was originally event-driven, as a kind of grassroots, on-the-scene reportage that provided different pictorial perspectives on demonstrations, flash mobs and the like’, and helps ‘relatives far apart keep in touch and see what other family members are up to; others are snaps of images or incidents that would otherwise be lost.’

One application of moblogging that has become very popular recently is microblogging; microblogging is a form of blogging that allows users to post entries with a maximum length of 140 characters (Saxberg, 2008), either posted via a PC or via a mobile device. Microblogging is usually used for giving brief personal status updates. Currently, the most well-known microblogging platform is Twitter (www.twitter.com). See the video below for a short video explanation of how Twitter works (Leelefever, 2008).

weblogs and moblogs in higher education

Blogging has seen many applications in education since its widespread availability. Review of the literature (Oravec, 2002) shows there are two main categories of educational blog use:

• As a way for educators to disseminate educational content.
  E.g. a teacher sets up a blog for their course and shares instructional content, exercises, practical information, etc.
  Oravec (2002) argues that the benefits of this type of usage are the ease of use for the teacher to set up a blog (some blogs even offer educational templates), the commenting system, which allows to students to interact with the teachers and with peers, and easy sharing of links to other resources on the internet.
  
• As a way for students to reflect on their learning process. Weblogs can provide  a space for students to reflect and publish their own thoughts and understanddings (Ferdig & Kaye, 2002). A review of the literature shows that this is the most commonly used form of weblogs in education. Oravec (2002) suggests that ‘Weblog development can empower students to become more analytical and critical’ and ‘reinforce critical thinking skills’. Ferdig & Kaye (2004) argue that weblogging ‘makes material accessible for subsequent reflection and analysis, allowing students to revisit and revise their artifacts; thus, enriching the learning experience’. Trafford (2005) states that blogs facilitate personal learning and development, especially when the object of reflection is their study.

A review of the literature shows that moblogs have not yet seen many applications in education (Yen & Chen, 2008). One example is the RAMBLE project, which researched the the use of blogs as a reflective tool in education through the use of PDAs (Trafford, 2005). The reason for choosing a PDA as a reflection tool was the necessity to reflect at any given time. The conclusions of this research project are that PDAs enhance personal reflection, in spite of some technical difficulties.
Another example is a research experiment where the nature of students’ reflections on solving a given problem in a mobile technology enhanced learning environment was researched (Yen & Chen, 2008). The conclusion of this study was that ‘although the device was limited in the screen size and ways of input, learners showed high degree reflections in the earlier stages of problem solving both during the task and after the task’.

The following chapter discusses an experiment which combines moblogging and reflection.