A recent research report indicates that Singapore is the third in the world when it comes to per-capita smartphone ownership. This trend is also reflected in the the student community where smartphone use continues to increase by leaps and bounds. The popularity of apps, internet access, social media platforms combined with competitive data plans from telcos (and not to mention – peer pressure) are encouraging students to upgrade to smart phones.
This provides educators with many new opportunities for enhancing learning.
Smart phone popularity has increased dramatically
Let us look at some of the many ways educators can create and distribute media for their students.
E-books
The larger and sharper screens of smartphones makes reading on mobile devices more comfortable. The most popular ebook format on the current breed of smartphones is the epub format. (See more on epub.)
These are popular epub reading apps
- IPhone, iPod Touch and iPad – Apple’s own iBook app and Stanza app
- Android Phones and Tablets – Aldiko app
Converting your notes (in Word/PDF) to epub format
The simplest way to convert your notes to epub format is to use the Stanza application from Lexcycle. Stanza allows you to import your materials from popular document formats such as Microsoft Word and convert it to epub.
Video
Smartphones are able to shoot decent video
Smartphones allow you to create learning videos on the go. More importantly, you can get your students involved too.
If privacy of the content is not an issue, the best way to publish videos is direct publishing to YouTube, which is possible with most current smartphones. YouTube will take care of the conversion and storage and gives you limitless storage. The students can also watch these videos on the go on their smartphones.
Presentations
To provide presentations for your students to consume on their smartphones, just create an account on slideshare.net and post your presentation. Send the link to your students and they can view them on their smartphones. Your presentation would become public and can be viewed by anyone on the web. (Before doing this, you may need to consider who owns the copyright on the presentation.)
See:
Audio
Set up a free account on SoundCloud and get your students to do the same. The students can download the free iPhone or Android app and use the app to record and publish their audio. Using the app (or SoundCloud’s site), they can comment on each other’s audio clips.
Other interesting learning activities with smartphones
Digital archiving with Evernote
Evernote is an online archiving solution that gives you generous storage even on a free account. Evernote’s app is available on most smartphone platforms. Using Evernote, you can get your students to collect text, audio and images for a project. Evernote’s app can then sync this date from the student’s phone to a common private storage folder on the web. (The teacher will need to have a paid Evernote account to create this common folder but the students can use free accounts.)
Mobile discovery tours with QR codes
QR or “quick response” codes are becoming more popular with people using smartphones.
QR codes are rectangular codes that anyone can generate using URL shortening services such as Goo.gl or Bit.ly. We can find a good web resource (an YouTube video or a Wikipedia page) for a physical object – a tree, a machine etc. and generate a QR code for it. Print this code out and attach it to the object. When the students snap a picture of the code using a free QR code reading app, they will be directed to the web resource.
Real-time Q&A in conferences – and in class
Here’s an interesting possibility for engaging students in class, especially in large lectures. Pigeonhole live (currently under development in Singapore) could help to make lectures more interactive.
Participants enter a PigeonHole “live” session and can post their questions – or vote on existing ones so the “best” questions rise to the top – using their smartphone.
Author
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Preetam Rai, Educational technologist, Teaching and Learning Centre, Ngee Ann Polytechnic |
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