Bernardo Tabuenca

Time will tell

This longitudinal study explores the effects of tracking and monitoring time devoted to learn with a mobile tool, on self-regulated learning. Graduate students (n?=?36) from three different online courses used their own mobile devices to track how much time they devoted to learn over a period of four months. Repeated measures of the Online Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire and Validity and Reliability of Time Management Questionnaire were taken along the course. Our findings reveal positive effects of tracking time on time management skills. Variations in the channel, content and timing of the mobile notifications to foster reflective practice are investigated, and time-logging patterns are described. These results not only provide evidence of the benefits of recording learning time, but also suggest relevant cues on how mobile notifications should be designed and prompted towards self-regulated learning of students in online courses. Mobile notifications and learning analytics can be used to foster self-regulated learning.Tracking and monitoring learning time on mobile devices improve time management skills.Learning analytics served on mobile devices raise awareness on the learning process.Sporadic contextualized mobile notifications support the competence of learning to learn.

Smartphone Apps for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training and Real Incident Support: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation Study

Background No systematic evaluation of smartphone/mobile apps for resuscitation training and real incident support is available to date. To provide medical, usability, and additional quality criteria for the development of apps, we conducted a mixed-methods sequential evaluation combining the perspective of medical experts and end-users. Objective The study aims to assess the quality of current mobile apps for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training and real incident support from expert as well as end-user perspective. Methods Two independent medical experts evaluated the medical content of CPR apps from the Google Play store and the Apple App store. The evaluation was based on pre-defined minimum medical content requirements according to current Basic Life Support (BLS) guidelines. In a second phase, non-medical end-users tested usability and appeal of the apps that had at least met the minimum requirements. Usability was assessed with the System Usability Scale (SUS); appeal was measured with the self-developed ReactionDeck toolkit. Results Out of 61 apps, 46 were included in the experts’ evaluation. A consolidated list of 13 apps resulted for the following layperson evaluation. The interrater reliability was substantial (kappa=.61). Layperson end-users (n=14) had a high interrater reliability (intraclass correlation 1 [ICC1]=.83, P<.001, 95% CI 0.75-0.882 and ICC2=.79, P<.001, 95% CI 0.695-0.869). Their evaluation resulted in a list of 5 recommendable apps. Conclusions Although several apps for resuscitation training and real incident support are available, very few are designed according to current BLS guidelines and offer an acceptable level of usability and hedonic quality for laypersons. The results of this study are intended to optimize the development of CPR mobile apps. The app ranking supports the informed selection of mobile apps for training situations and CPR campaigns as well as for real incident support.

Supporting lifelong learners to build personal learning ecologies in daily physical spaces

This paper presents the results from a questionnaire filled out by 147 lifelong learners with the aim to analyse learning practices of adults, and to recognise patterns of lifelong learners in order to support them with technology. These patterns capture the context in which lifelong learners are more willing to learn, that is, the day of the week, duration, location activity being performed, type of device being used, way to interact with their devices and how these aspects can affect when an adult student takes the initiative to learn. Likewise, this paper examines previous publications on surveys, questionnaires and information collected with the same objective, to corroborate and contrast the findings. Moreover, we present a literature review on augmented tangibles for learning identifying potential contexts to orchestrate tangibles depending on the physical space where they are normally used. As an outcome of this work, important research questions are raised to integrate smart learning objects in learner-centred ecologies of resources.

Stop and Think: Exploring Mobile Notifications to Foster Reflective Practice on Meta-Learning

Nowadays, smartphone users are constantly receiving notifications from applications that provide feedback, as reminders, recommendations or announcements. Nevertheless, there is little research on the effects of mobile notifications to foster meta-learning. This paper explores the effectiveness of mobile notifications to foster reflection on meta-learning by presenting the results of two studies: (1) a formative study with 37 secondary school students offering a daily reflection and reporting exercise about their learning experience during the day; (2) an experiment involving 60 adults to read an eBook on energy-efficient driving for one hour. During that time, the participants received mobile notifications inviting them to reflect in-action. On the one hand, the results from the first study show that students do not have a habit of seeing themselves as learners and developing a “professional” awareness about their daily activity at work/school. On the other hand, the second study explores the effects of different notification types on knowledge gain and motivation. Results envision a higher knowledge gain and motivation for the group assigned with the least complex interactions with mobile devices during the reflection exercise. Finally, these results are discussed and important research questions for future research on mobile notifications are raised.

Mobile authoring of open educational resources for authentic learning scenarios

The proliferation of smartphones in the last decade and the number of publications in the field of authoring systems for computer-assisted learning depict a scenario that needs to be explored in order to facilitate the scaffolding of learning activities across contexts. Learning resources are traditionally designed in desktop-based authoring systems where the context is mostly restricted to the learning objective, capturing relevant case characteristics, or virtual situation models. Mobile authoring tools enable learners and teachers to foster universal access to educational resources not only providing channels to share, remix, or recontextualize these, but also capturing the context in situ and in time. As a further matter, authoring educational resources in a mobile context is an authentic experience where authors can link learning with their own daily life activities and reflections. The contribution of this manuscript is fourfold: First, the main barriers for ubiquitous and mobile authoring of educational resources are identified; second, recent research on mobile authoring tools is reviewed, and 10 key shortcomings of current approaches are identified; third, the design of a mobile environment to author educational resources (MAT for ARLearn) is presented, and the results of an evaluation of usability and hedonic quality are presented; fourth, conclusions and a research agenda for mobile authoring are discussed.

Tap it again, Sam: Harmonizing the frontiers between digital and real worlds in education

Lifelong leaners are intrinsically motivated to embed learning activities into daily life activities. Nevertheless, finding a suitable combination of the two is not trivial since lifelong learners have to face conflicts of time and location. Hence, lifelong learners normally build personal learning ecologies in those moments they set aside to learn making use of their available resources. On the other hand, the advent of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology facilitates the harmonization in the interactions between the digital world and daily physical spaces. Likewise, NFC enabled phones are becoming more and more popular. The contribution of this manuscript is threefold: first, scientific literature where NFC has been used with a direct or indirect purpose to learn is reviewed, and potential uses for lifelong learners are identified; based on these findings the Ecology of Resources for Lifelong Learning is presented as suitable setup for the scaffolding of learning activities with NFC augmented physical spaces; finally, this ecology is piloted and different learning scenarios are proposed for further extension.

Where Is My Time? Identifying Productive Time of Lifelong Learners for Effective Feedback Services

Lifelong learners are confronted with a broad range of activities they have to manage every day. In most cases they have to combine learning, working, family life and leisure activities throughout the day. Hence, learning activities from lifelong learners are disrupted. The difficulty to find a suitable time slot to learn during the day has been identified as the most frequent cause. In this scenario mobile technologies play an important role since they can keep track of the most suitable moments to accomplish specific learning activities in context. Sampling of learning preferences on mobile devices is a key benchmarks for lifelong learners to become aware on which learning task suits in which context, to set realistic goals and to set aside time to learn on a regular basis. The contribution of this manuscript is twofold: first, a classification framework for modelling lifelong learners’ preferences is presented based on a literature review; second, a mobile application for experience sampling is piloted aiming to identify which are the preferences from lifelong learners regarding when, how and where learning activities can be integrated.

Binding Daily Physical Environments to Learning Activities with Mobile and Sensor Technology

Lifelong learners’ activities are scattered along the day, in different locations and making use of multiple devices. Most of the times they have to merge learning, work and everyday life making difficult to have an account on how much time is devoted to learning activities and learning goals. Indeed, learning experiences are disrupted and there is a lack of solutions to integrate daily life activities and learning in the same process. On the other hand, smartphones are becoming a universal learning device facilitating new tools and ways of interaction that can be smoothly embedded into daily life. This manuscript presents the NFC LearnTracker, a mobile tool proposing the user to introspect his autobiography as a learner to identify successful physical learning environments, mark them with sensor tags, bind them to self-defined learning goals, keep track of the time invested on each goal with a natural interface, and monitor the learning analytics. This work implies a suitable tool for lifelong learners to bind scattered activities keeping them in a continuing learning flow. The NFC LearnTracker is released under open access licence with the aim to foster adaptation to further communities as well as to facilitate the extension to the increasing number of sensor and NFC tags existent in the market.

User-Modelled Ambient Feedback for Self-regulated Learning

A fundamental objective of human-computer interaction research is to make systems that are seamlessly integrated into daily life activities. Hence, the challenge is not only to make information available to people at any time, at any place, and in any form, but specifically to say the right thing at the right time in the right way. On the other hand, the proliferation of sensor technology is facilitating the scaffolding and customization of smart learning environments. This manuscript presents an ecology of resources comprising NFC, BLE and Arduino technology, orchestrated in the context of a learning environment to provide smoothly integrated feedback via ambient displays. This ecology is proposed as a suitable solution for self-regulated learning, providing support for setting goals, setting aside time to learn, tracking study time and monitoring the progress. Hereby, the ecology is described and intriguing research questions are introduced.