- Give an example of organizational policy that regulate “use of mobile technology” or “mobile devices”. What is the purpose of these rules?
In the elementary school I use to work at, mobile devices needed be kept in a locked cabinet in the office at the start of the day, and at the end of each day students would pick them up. They brought their devices to school to stay in touch with their parents or use it on their bus ride home. The only reason for locking them up was to avoid lost or stolen devices. I work for the Calgary Board of Education and there is an administrative regulation for Responsible Use of Electronic Information Resources: http://www.cbe.ab.ca/GovernancePolicies/AR1062.pdf
This organizational policy applies to staff, students, parents, volunteers, contractors, guests, visitors, and those who are authorized to act on behalf or are associated with the CBE.
Purpose of regulating:
- Security: viruses, password protection, device encryption
- Applications: allowed and not allowed (i.e. YouTube is not allowed without teachers overriding → control over content, i.e. adult material).
- Control of endpoints: ensure compliance with policy, FOIP, emails (sensitive info).
- In what way mobile-learning affects the instructional design practices?
Once the needs, audience and available resources have been analyzed in the design process, using mobile games and apps to support learning, I believe, will “make an activity both intrinsically and extrinsically motivating for a learner” (Ciampa, K., 2013). In a previous course, I did a research project on gaming and I can see a strong correlation between the elements outlined in Ciampa’s (2013) article: challenge, curiosity, control, cooperation, competition and recognition, and how they all contribute to engaging and meaningful learning. According to the MIT paper “Moving Learning Games Forward,” gaming can be used as: authoring platforms, content systems, simulations, trigger systems, technology gateways, exemplars of point of view, documentary, texts to be critiqued, and for research assignments (Klopfer, E., Osterweil, S., and Salen, K., 2009). With all of these entry points, the instructional design practice now becomes more flexible and personalized.
- What could be some of the mobile-learning specific rules for creating educational materials?
- Teaching copyright and fair use is important for all educators to do. Using a creative commons is a great tool for communicating what rights an owner allows a user. Only use material which is Fair Use.
- Ensuring FOIP and security issues are addressed.
- Teach digital citizenship!
References:
Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96. (PDF)
Klopfer, E., Osterweil, S., & Salen, K. (2009). Moving learning games forward. Retrieved from
http://education.mit.edu/papers/MovingLearningGamesForward_EdArcade.pdf