Week 6: mLearning & ELL

Welcome to Week 6! This week we plan to take you through Mobile Learning (mLearning) with a focus on English Language Learners (ELL). As we are doing mLearning, we do suggest that you try the website and activities with both a more traditional device such as a laptop or desktop, but then also try it with a mobile device as well and share your thoughts on the two formats. For this week you will see the following activities:

  • A Google Form
  • Two Mentimeters
  • Two Padlets (There is an extra Padlet, that is hidden on the site, but more info on that when you start your journey)
  • A Poll
  • A Forum
  • A Kahoot!

Have a great week! Emily, Sundeep and myself will be around this week, so please feel free to ask us any questions and we look forward to hearing from you on this learning journey!

Week 6: mLearning & ELL


( Average Rating: 3.5 )

32 responses to “Week 6: mLearning & ELL”

  1. Alice Shin

    Hi, Michael, Sundeep and Emily! I did a quick preview of the course and because of my ESL teaching background, am keen on seeing how mLearning can be utilized for second language learner, and the site looks great!
    On another note, I already answered a question wrong on your survey! Disregard the last question – if I can edit, I will, but otherwise I’ll continue on with the course.


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    1. sundeep lail

      Hi Alice,
      Thanks so much for your feedback. No worries on the survey questions.


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  2. tara davis

    Hi Michael,
    Thank you for creating such an engaging mLearning interactive website.

    I wasn’t able to add a comment on the website to your question, “Think about the change that has happened over the past three years, since the infographic above was created. What are the biggest changes you have noticed with mLearning? Where do you think it will be in three years? Please remember to add your name!”

    Here’s my response:

    Tara: As an educator during COVID-19, the greatest changes I’ve noticed with mLearning is how my school district’s top priority became granting access to mLearning to every student. Access to technology was an issue of equity as it was the responsibility of schools to continue to teach students online via mlearning. I think mlearning has transformed the teacher to student relationship, a relationship which had already been evolving throughout internet age. Teachers became facilitators and designers of the overall learning curriculum and schedule of a child wile utilizing pre-existing online learning platforms. I think this opened up parents and students to the infinite possibilities of mlearning as well as the pitfalls of mlearning (e.g. lack of social interactions, social-emotional learning through collaborating with others in a physical school environment).


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    1. Michael Saretzky

      Hi Tara,
      Thank you for your participation! We were a little unsure how the Wakelets would work, as you had to go outside of the site in order to comment, so thank you for your response. I have gone and changed the first one and we will attempt to fix Emily’s as well, so that it is more user friendly. We appreciate the work around of commenting in here.

      I also believe that COVID-19 has made major changes to learning as well. In my school division eLearning was only offered to high school students prior to COVID-19, however students now are able to participate in eLearning all the way down to Kindergarten and in talking to one of the administrators in charge of the At Home Learning “school”, he believes that this will most likely be a change for good, although I am not too sure how young our division will continue to allow after the pandemic. Personally, I thought that when we offered it again in the fall that most parents would see the pitfalls that you mentioned and we would have very few students partaking in At Home Learning, however our division has close to 1000 students from K-12 registered, making it one of the largest “schools” in our division.


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  3. tara davis

    Hello Emily Chen,

    Thanks for making such a fun and interactive learning activity. I was not able to add on the website to your task, “Watch these videos of different APP contents and share with us what functions you think stood out the most for you. Do you think they are helpful in language learning for children? Why or why not? If you have more great APPs to share, please add them to the list!”

    I’ve added my response here:

    I’ve ranked the following videos in order of being the most helpful for language learning:
    1. Lingo kids (as it is interactive and gives instructions by a verbal and visual cue as oppose to a written cue). It reminds me of Lalio, a rsearch-based phonics and comprehension program: https://www.lalilo.com/
    2. Khan Academy (game-based learning that is interactive and student led is always best)
    3. Writing alphabets with Dave & Ava tracing app as it is animated and interactive (it is very student focused as opposed to instructor focused)
    4. Endless Academy (as it frames the lesson as a game) although they could improve their assessment and there is a lot of passive listening as opposed to active engagement compared to other language learning games


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  4. adrian wheeler

    Hi Week 6,

    Thanks for the engaging OER! I would like to provide a bit of feedback starting with what I really enjoyed. First and foremost I appreciate that you explored mobile learning through the lens of ELL. This was a very clever approach that provided natural examples for your arguments. Second, I really like the “pros and cons” page near the end of your OER, it was a great way to summarize the content in an approachable way. Lastly really liked the multi-modal approach to content delivery. It was cool to see text, video and interactive segments all incorporated.

    While my experience was very positive, I would also like to offer some constructive feedback. First, it did at times feel more like a curation of external content rather than an original narrative. The info graphics and videos were excellent, but I would love to learn more about your team’s experience and expertise. This could be through your own production of videos, infographics etc, or through a bit more contextualization of the embedded content. Lastly, I’m not sure it was necessary to have six separate platforms for the activities. Some worked really well and others (like mentimeter and the forum) didnt really differentiate themselves from padlet or this blog, yet added complexity. (I also personally was unable to log into the forum section. The log in with email didint seem to register properly and I dont have a facebook account.)

    Overall I really enjoyed your OER and especially your approach to contextualizing it through ELL. Well done!


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    1. Michael Saretzky

      Hi Adrian,
      Thank you for your feedback and participation. mLearning and ELL was an easy topic for us to focus on as we are all familiar with it, albeit at different levels. I do apologize with the different activities, the intent was to share different tools we have used ourselves, however as we are discovering they are not all working out as smoothly as we had hoped. Thank you again, have a great week!


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      1. adrian wheeler

        Hi Michael,

        No need to apologize! I totally understand your intentions and I know how finicky embedding these applications into Wix can be. Like I said, I think you guys did an excellent job overall.


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  5. Rachel

    Hi mLearning Team!

    Great site with lots of information and I appreciate the thoughts you put into different activities for interaction and engagement. The layout is clear and the Activities & Responses section is so helpful that I can say by having that, I’m more willing to go back and read others’ posts.

    Similar to Adrian, I also had trouble posting on the forum. The only feedback I have is in terms of mobile learning, is the site created with tablet and laptop users in mind? I wonder for users with other mobile devices, would they be able to have the same positive learning experience. Having said that, I don’t think it’s the goal of this assignment and it’s more like a thought I have. Again, great work, mLearning team!


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    1. Michael Saretzky

      Hi Rachel!
      Thank you for your response and feedback. We did use computers/Chromebook for creating the site, however with Wix I attempted to make it as friendly for mobile devices as I could without losing out on content. However, it did not go as smoothly as I had hoped, such as the one infographic, which doesn’t fit into the mobile device screen as nicely or the graphs. Essentially we had to make decide on whether to lose out on the content or to post it with a minor flaw. I am curious though, with the forum, was this through a mobile device? I would like to attempt to fix this before the end of the week. Thank you again!


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      1. Rachel

        Hi Michael,

        I hear you and it’s such a struggle sometimes to determine what should be the priority when presenting information! I used my laptop to go through the site and was able to participate in all activities, except the forum. Help that helps!


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        1. Michael Saretzky

          Hi Rachel, I played around with it and you should be able to contribute now by clicking on the images. If that doesn’t work, please let me know.


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  6. AmandaKong

    Hi mLearning Team!

    I enjoyed the journey-like feelin learning about mobile learning. I appreciate beginning with a short googleform on prior existing knowledge and ending with a fun Kahoot! The question and hidden answer work as it forces one to read through the content for theanswer to be revealed.

    In terms of the activities, as Adrian and Rachel mentioned, there were some technical issues. I will check again later this week.Thanks. 


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    1. sundeep lail

      Hi Amanda,
      Thanks for your feedback. Hopefully you were able to return and some of our glitches were resolved.


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  7. julio palacios

    Hi Team. Thanks for sharing this informative OER. The topic mirrored my interests in mLearning and the focus on ELL made the content more grounded and directed. I appreciated the learning interactions, but should note that I didn’t include my name in my survey response. I feel others have given valuable feedback on the content of the OER so i’ll direct my feedback towards accessibility. When designing, try to make sure your text is clearly visible. In some cases you have text sitting on top of images or similar coloured backgrounds and although it was legible to you and me, a user with low vision or who is colour blind may have difficulty seeing it.


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    1. Michael Saretzky

      Hi Julio,
      Thank you for the feedback. We appreciate the note about the text, I am actually Red/Green colourblind, so I do worry that my colour choices at times may be difficult for others to read or that my colour choices will be way off the theme, so I appreciate when the platform provides a set of colours. One issue that I have found, and I don’t know if it is isolated to Wix, is that the formatting is quite different depending on the screen size. It looks quite different on my work Chromebook (small screen) compared to my son’s Chromebook (large screen). And thank you for the note about your name, we will add that it was completed.


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  8. Neal Donegani

    Hi Week 6,
    Thanks for sharing your venture into mLearning. I see mLearning as a wonderful way to make learning very accessible, meanwhile gamify learning, which together seems like a no-brainer recipe for the future of education. However, many of the experts in the videos you shared spoke about the problems with distractions. This would be especially true for younger users; however, let’s not fool ourselves here because adults are probably just as bad with distractions. Further, schools such as mine are banning handheld devices from bell to bell, so students don’t have access via phones. Finally, operating on small devices works for certain learning situations, but doesn’t for others, such as serious research and typing papers. Perhaps the latter I’m worried about because I still encourage typing skills in my CS middle school course.
    Again, thanks for an engaging week.
    Neal


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    1. Alice Shin

      I agree with you, Neal, on both the advantages and challenges mLearning brings to training and education for every learner. I’ve become keenly interested in not just learning about the endless options and uses for mobile learning, but how to most effectively integrate this strategy to meet overall learning goals as opposed to distract from them.


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    2. Michael Saretzky

      Hi Neal, Thank you for your response and participation! I like that you still teach typing skills, my son is in grade 5 and he was recently working on typing skills and absolutely loved it. I think it is a skill that is losing focus, similar to cursive writing. Although, I have been impressed with the number of students who are typing assignments on their devices as they are on the bus or on car trips with their parents over the weekend. Last year I had a student that handed in a 12 page story that was mostly typed on her phone, not something that I think I would be capable of doing, but I was quite impressed.


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  9. Grant MacLeod

    Hey Week 6 Team,

    I just want to say thanks for the informative and engaging OER! MLearning is still relatively new and does come with its drawbacks but I can really see it taking off when new tech is developed and implemented. For example, issues with connectivity and broadband limits will most likely be improved with 5G and projects like Elon Musk’s Starlink. Screen size and usability issues will be improved with new tech like foldable phones and holographic displays as well. Personally, my challenges lie with teaching new tech to older adult users but I think they are starting to get used to smart phones now, it just takes a little more time. In any of your research did you come across anything relating to mobile learning and older adults? I think with an ageing population and adult re-training concerns due to industry automation, I wonder if mobile learning will benefit or pose challenges to these learner populations. Thanks again for your work!

    ~Grant


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    1. sundeep lail

      Hi Grant,
      Thanks for your comments. I have been in the ESL adult sector for quite some time, and have definitely found challenges with the elder population. I have had students who have never even touched a mouse before and have a hard time with basic hand/eye cordination. Since COVID all our classes went online and we had 60/70/80 year olds trying to navigate a fairly complex educational platform that we work on. I should also preface this with, some of the students that went online younger and still had a hard time with the online classroom. They just couldn’t get the grasp of where to go, what to click, how to respond, uploading etc… What I did find is that mobile learning was actually easier for these students than computer based learning. The reason being most people have phones, they can access various apps from their phones, the majority have facebook and can navigate facebook on their phones extremely well. I think for those who are digital illiterate, mLearning works well as long as they don’t need to download, write papers, upload etc… basically as long as they have an app to work within, they can use it better than a computer. Which if you think is about, is such an interesting phenomenon.
      As for any papers, I didn’t come across any in my research, but if I do, I will definitely pass it along.


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      1. Grant MacLeod

        Thanks for your response Sundeep! It is interesting that elderly people find mobile devices easy than computers. I would guess that a lot of elderly didn’t have to use computers that much because it was not a necessity but since smart phones/tablets kind of took over traditional home phones they probably had learn how to use them fairly quickly if they still wanted to communicate. Having more experience with mobile devices would definitely make Mlearning more appealing to this population.

        No worries about the papers, I was just curious.

        ~Grant


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  10. ryan valley

    Thanks Sundeep, Michael, and Emily for your thoughtfully put together OER.

    What worked best for me about your OER is that it was a great resource for exposing me to a variety of tools and apps. I also liked how consistent and concise the information was in the Advantages & Disadvantages page, it was very easy to follow and felt very coherent in the sequence of pages.

    I actually would have liked to hear more of your own voices come out in the OER, it seems like you all have some great professional experience of your own and I think those stories and perspectives coming through would make it more interesting to read. Language learning is so abstract, your own passion and stories would really bring it to life to supplement the resources and academic notes.


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    1. Michael Saretzky

      Thank you Ryan!


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  11. johannes dirk wielenga

    Hey Dundeep, Michael, and Emily, thanks for the OER.
    I have to admit, I am one to mix up eLearning with mLearning so this OER helped ground me with what makes mLearning distinct. I loved the overall format of the OER – it is clean and uniform. I want to pay special praise to your Activities page in general, and the Google Forms page in particular. I also had a Google Forms in my OER but how you have it set up makes it more likely that the user will see the overall results!
    I had trouble with the Mentimeter and I didn’t like having to sign up to use the forum section, but I understand why they were included and they do work as intended (though Mentimeter glitches a lot and I can’t read all the responses).

    Overall, great job on the OER and thank you for teaching me some of the nuances of ELL mLearning!


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    1. Michael Saretzky

      Thank you Johannes! Yeah, Mentimeter isn’t very smooth, it gets a little blurry as it moves and does move a little quickly. There are some other interesting features that you can do on the site that just didn’t fit with this presentation.


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  12. Erica Hargreave

    Hello Michael, Emily, and Sundeep,

    Thanks for the engaging OER this week. It was quite timely for me, as I am currently in the process of experimenting with an mLearning App and creating a course on it. Although I had intended on creating an mLearning Course years ago, and I have created some short form courses, I believe this is my first truly mLearning one.

    Your content flowed in a sequential manner that made sense, as we moved towards the opportunities that mLearning possesses. I also liked some of the ways that you engaged the class: suggesting accessing the OER on multiple devices, having a hidden Easter Egg, replacing the quoted in the opening gallery with those from the class, and the Kahoot at the end.

    Knowing that feedback is beneficial at the ‘Beta Testing’ phase, before you submit your completed project, I thought I’d offer some of the things that the digital magazine editor in me could not help but notice:

    – add a woman into your home page gallery of images (at present all three images are of men)
    – make sure that any wording placed over images is easy to read
    – proofread (there are grammar and spelling errors throughout)
    – I’d move Activity 1 until after you have introduced people to ‘What mLearning Is’.
    – I would find alternate videos for What Is It and Who Are ELL Students pages, as those videos felt scattered and at times off topic to me. Rather than where did this come from, where is it going?
    – I was not a huge fan of the Mentimeter as I found the short response was limiting for fully reflecting on.
    – I wasn’t sure why discussion boards / forums were presented with 3 different tools, rather than letting learners become comfortable with one. Was this simply to introduce us to different tools to use?
    – Finally, I’d be curious to learn more about the future forecasting for mLearning.

    I hope that feedback is helpful in prepping everything for submission to David.

    Thanks again for an engaging week.


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    1. sundeep lail

      Hi Erica,

      Thank you for your in-depth feedback. I really appreciate it. I think what stood out more than anything in your feedback was the fact that there were only men in the homepage image gallery. I’m usually so careful about that, I’m actually quite upset at myself for missing that mark!
      As for the different tools, yes, the whole premise was to have some variety and introduce people to various ways you can add interaction to the site. However, we recognize that some things worked and others not so much!
      As for the future…good point, we will try and add that in.
      Thanks again.


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  13. ben zaporozan

    Hello Michael, Emily, and Sundeep,

    You’ve done a nice job experimenting with different types of interactivity to explain what mlearning is. I think you have provided a helpful introductory overview as well as some interesting questions to take away for further thought.

    I have only worked with mlearning for adult learners where the starting, general knowledge base is much higher and where devices in classrooms are handled much differently than in K-12 classes. I posted a note in your forum about Learning Catalytics, which is an application used in higher education in Canada that works on many devices synchronously and asynchronously, can help with formative learning, and is a replacement for mandatory clicker devices. Ease of use and cultural concerns seem to be limited factors compared to the K-12 space, and while it can be used with younger learners, I don’t think that it is in Canada. I was interrupted while working through the kahoot quiz and lost points for timing out. Showing the leaderboard in progress was a great motivator, and I was disappointed to lose the points.

    In your advantages section you rightly mention support for multiple learning styles. I have started to notice a trend in a different direction with subject matter experts (university professors) that I work with, where multi-modal content is delivered to promote active learning and to increase engagement, but not in support of multiple learning styles. I’m not well-versed in academic literature for or against this in K-12, but it is interesting to work with instructors who deliberately design content in different ways with the expectation that students will be encouraged to experience different types of learning to expand their learning options rather than to feel limited by their current preferred method of learning (in most cased, a preferred method is without proof that it is the most efficient or effective method). I wonder if you came across anything that suggested that students ever have the option to select materials that suit their preferred mode of learning.

    Your section on the disadvantages, especially the reference to Criolo et al. 2019 and the video from John Traxler, raises a good point about social etiquette. What is the social etiquette for mobile use in the classroom? How might that maintain cultural norms to the detriment of learning, and is that impeding the future of mobile learning? Which side of the wider social readjustment scale do we fall on? Should this be an individual choice for teachers, or a broader social mandate to change?


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  14. sarka kubelikova

    Good job team! I enjoyed the layout. It was interactive and the flowed easily from one topic to the next. I used my smart phone to navigate through your information and had no issues. My online comment was on the colour of the text and background at the start of the presentation. The dark text on a dark background made it a harder on the reader and another section the text blended in with the background image. This may have been less of on issue on a bigger screen.

    Overall it was a great presentation!


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  15. Feng Mao

    Thank you for thoroughly introducing mobile learning. The activities were engaging, especially the Kahoot activity at the end was a good tool to perform a self-check. The mobile learning apps you introduced in the OER are also useful especially for the functions you pointed out, I have saved them all for future reference. I also think adding the activities and responses together in one category is a great idea that could save time from going back to the OER to find an activity I wanted to look at.

    The only thoughts that I have would be that I found using different platforms to be a bit busy, especially with the activities not being in numerical sequence. I also found that the auto scrolling function in the activity responses on Mentimeter was not ideal for finding specific responses.

    That said, I think this was well done. Great job, mLearning team!


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  16. JamieTooze

    Thank you Mobile Learning team!

    I love how you focused your attention on mLearning and language learning. Language learning encapsulates so many of the pros and cons of mobile learning and is probably the largest area of growth in this industry. I especially liked the variety of activities you provided. As Education Venture Analysis though I was wondering if you have any insights into the future of the language mlearning industry and the directions it might be heading. With augmented reality, adaptive learning and 5G technology the possibilities seem endless. Some day I imagine I might be sitting in a virtual cafe in Paris having my pronunciation of “Une carafe d’eau, si vous plait” corrected by polite waiters. 😉


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