Effectiveness of vocabulary learning via mobile phone

Whereas the penetration of mobile phones in Asian countries keeps climbing, little research has explored the application of the short message service (SMS) in second language learning. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of SMS vocabulary lessons of limited lexical information on the small screens of mobile phones. Thirty high school students were randomly distributed into two groups and given two sets of English words either on paper or through SMS messages during two weeks. Students recognized more vocabulary during the post‐test after reading the regular and brief SMS lessons than they did after reading the relatively more detailed print material. Qualitative data from interviews offer information about the learning process as well as the benefits and limitations of m‐learning. Results of the questionnaires show that students in general hold positive attitudes towards learning vocabulary via mobile phone. On the other hand, technological limitations, unfamiliar presentations and learning activities may prevent students from reading SMS lessons.     

Bridging the gap between students and computers: supporting activity awareness for network collaborative learning with GSM network

The internet has been widely used to promote collaborative learning among students. However, students do not always have access to the system, leading to doubt in the interaction among the students, and reducing the effectiveness of collaborative learning, since the web-based collaborative learning environment relies entirely on the availability of computers and the internet. A web-based collaborative learning scheme based on activity awareness carried out through mobile phones is proposed herein. The proposed mechanism automatically sends SMS messages on a GSM network, based on student identity and learning activity, making the student aware of the collaborative learning context, and further improving the student's learning. A web-based collaborative learning activity was implemented in a Taiwan undergraduate class to examine the proposed scheme. Experiments demonstrated that awareness of the collaborative learning context through mobile phones significantly increased student participation in learning activity and improving student learning performance.     

Combining rule-based learning and memory-based learning for automatic word spacing in simple message service

Short message service (SMS) is a widely used service in modern mobile phones that allows users to send or receive short text messages. Current SMS, however, has two problems of inconvenient input and short message length. These problems can be resolved if a phone has an ability of automatic word spacing. This is because users need not put spaces in sending messages and longer messages are possible as they contain no space. Thus, automatic word spacing will be a very useful tool for SMS, if it can be commercially served. The practical issues of implementing it on the devices such as mobile phones are small memory and low computing power of the devices. To tackle these problems, this paper proposes a combined model of rule-based learning and memory-based learning. According to the experimental results, the model shows higher accuracy than rule-based learning or memory-based learning alone. In addition, the generated rules are so small and simple that the proposed model is appropriate for small memory devices.     

基于GSM模块的交互式多媒体课堂系统

随着计算机和多媒体技术的发展,多媒体教学在高校中得到了广泛的应用。然而多媒体教学在应用中出现了不少误区,存在不少的问题。多媒体教学使教师与学生之间失去了互动性,难以发挥教师在课堂上的主导作用和学生的主体作用。互动式教学方法能够弥补多媒体教学的不足,提高学生的积极性,加强师生之间的沟通,从而提高教学效果。在手机已经大量普及的情况下,利用手机短信增强多媒体课堂教学的交互性,比传统的教学交互模式效果更好。文章在研究SMS技术、AT指令集和字符编码的基础上设计了基于GSM模块的交互式多媒体课堂系统。     

Influence of group size on students' participation in online discussion forums

This study attempts to examine how students participate and interact in different discussion modules organized with different group size in an online environment. It adopts a case study methodology where full semester online course with two small-group and three class-wide discussion forums was examined. The researcher counted the number of messages and hits (i.e. the number of students' clicks on other messages) and analyzed that to classify the level of interactivity of every individual message into four categories, i.e. independent, quasi-interactive, interactive (elaborative) and interactive (negotiating). It found that the class guidelines and active encouragement by the instructor had contributed to the high number of total messages and hits representing students' overall participation in all discussion forums. However, large discussion forums in the course had their limitations in promoting higher level of interactivity among the students. On the other hand, two small-group discussion forums had a higher number (by 21%) of enhanced interactivity (elaborating and negotiating mode). The study then concludes that a high quality participation in a large online class could be effected through sub-grouping. It further alludes that other practices should be taken into consideration to promote interactivity in discussion.     

An interactive mobile SMS confirmation method using secret sharing technique

As we all know, Short Message Service (SMS) has brought about junk emails or nonsense messages coming from advertisement providers, called SMS spam. It does bother subscribers and make them distress to check SMS messages of mobile system. Statistically, each mobile subscriber receives an average number of 8.29 short messages every week. Thus, to furnish legitimate message service to the mobile subscribers, engineers have strived to figure out an interactive service system which can certify the user-participation in a communicatory session. If a system can verify whether the communicating party is human being or not, the machine tries can be detected to mitigate the risk. To realize this essential, we aim to develop an interactive SMS confirmation mechanism using the famous techniques – CAPTCHA and secret sharing. Experimental results show that it takes slight computation costs to complete the authentication including the identity verification and the check of user-participation. This has led to predominance that the new method is suitable for mobile environment.     

Increasing Interactivity in Distance Educations: Case Studies Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

This paper describes how distance educations in developing countries can enhance interactivity by means of information and communication technologies. It is argued that e-learning involves a shift in the educational structure from traditional transmission of knowledge to interactive creation of knowledge. Our case studies are two distance educations in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka that use different technologies for implementing interactivity; Internet and computers in one case and video and mobile phones in the other. The findings are analyzed based on Structuration Theory and we compare the two approaches based on emerging norms and beliefs. Findings from both cases show the concurrent enactment of both the transmission and the interactive structure. Whereas peer collaboration and the use of self-assessment tools make students take more ownership of their learning, we also found the idea of a classroom with an instructive teacher to be deeply rooted in the students' minds.     

3D动画自动生成的学习系统

手机3D动画自动生成系统实现了在计算机辅助的条件下短信动画的全自动生成.本文为手机3D动画自动生成系统设计并实现一个学习系统,该学习系统利用随机森林算法生成一个以用户评价为分类结果的学习模型去指导手机3D动画自动生成系统生成更让用户满意的动画,同时学习系统能够随着手机3D动画自动生成系统的运转不断更新学习模型,最终实现“不断学习”的学习能力.     

手机短信息隐蔽转发机制的分析研究

对在智能手机上实现的通常短信息隐蔽转发机制进行分析研究。结果表明,短信息隐蔽转发一般是利用MAPI规则过滤机理,在手机上的短信息接收过程中将信息进行截获,提取接收的短信息内容及发件人信息,进行组合后隐蔽地转发到另外的监听手机上。仿真实验结果表明,该攻击方法具备高隐蔽性,低延迟等特点,容易对手机造成攻击。     

Wireless and mobile technologies to enhance teaching and learning

Abstract This research aims to build a Wireless Technology Enhanced Classroom (WiTEC) that supports everyday activities unobtrusively and seamlessly in classroom contexts. This paper describes the integration of wireless LAN, wireless mobile learning devices, an electronic whiteboard, an interactive classroom server, and a resource and class management server to build the WiTEC. This contains a number of features that can support class members in various types of teaching and learning activities. Project-based learning is taken as a scenario to elaborate how teachers and students can engage in teaching and learning via WiTEC. Finally, a number of suggestions are discussed for further study.     

Creating a live, public short message service corpus: the NUS SMS corpus

Short Message Service (SMS) messages are short messages sent from one person to another from their mobile phones. They represent a means of personal communication that is an important communicative artifact in our current digital era. As most existing studies have used private access to SMS corpora, comparative studies using the same raw SMS data have not been possible up to now. We describe our efforts to collect a public SMS corpus to address this problem. We use a battery of methodologies to collect the corpus, paying particular attention to privacy issues to address contributors’ concerns. Our live project collects new SMS message submissions, checks their quality, and adds valid messages. We release the resultant corpus as XML and as SQL dumps, along with monthly corpus statistics. We opportunistically collect as much metadata about the messages and their senders as possible, so as to enable different types of analyses. To date, we have collected more than 71,000 messages, focusing on English and Mandarin Chinese.     

Using a voting system in conjunction with interactive whiteboard technology to enhance learning in the English language classroom

This study discusses the pedagogical potential of an interactive voting system used in conjunction with interactive whiteboard technology. The data discussed here are drawn from a qualitative study, carried out in the context of a British university pre-sessional programme in English for Academic Purposes and Study Skills for international students in the summers of 2003 and 2004. Research data were collected via a variety of ethnographic research instruments, namely classroom observations and feedback from critical colleagues, teacher’s field notes, video recording of classes, semi-structured interviews with students, and pre- and post-course student questionnaires. The findings indicate that the electronic voting system was seen to increase considerably the scope of interactivity during the lessons by helping students to enhance their development into active participants. However, the data have also indicated that the levels of interactivity in the approaches adopted in the context investigated could still be considered relatively “shallow”, and some suggestions have been provided to improve this aspect of technology use.     

Anatomy of a mobilized lesson: Learning my way

With the mass adoption of mobile computing devices by the current school generation, significant opportunities have emerged for genuinely supporting differentiated and personalized learning experiences through mobile devices. In our school-based research work in introducing mobilized curricula to a class, we observe one compelling mobilized lesson that exploits the affordances of mobile learning to provide multiple learning pathways for elementary grade (primary) 2 students. Through the lesson, students move beyond classroom activities that merely mimic what the teacher says and does in the classroom, and yet they still learn in personally meaningful ways. In deconstructing the lesson, we provide an in-depth analysis of how the affordances of mobile computing enable personalized learning from four facets: (a) allowing multiple entry points and learning pathways, (b) supporting multi-modality, (c) enabling student improvisation in situ, and (d) supporting the sharing and creation of student artifacts on the move. A key property of mobile technology that enables these affordances lies with the small form factor and the lightweightness of these devices which make them non-obtrusive in the learning spaces of the student. This article makes a contribution on the design aspects of mobilized lessons, namely, what the affordances of mobile technologies can enable.     

Anatomy of a mobilized lesson: Learning my way

With the mass adoption of mobile computing devices by the current school generation, significant opportunities have emerged for genuinely supporting differentiated and personalized learning experiences through mobile devices. In our school-based research work in introducing mobilized curricula to a class, we observe one compelling mobilized lesson that exploits the affordances of mobile learning to provide multiple learning pathways for elementary grade (primary) 2 students. Through the lesson, students move beyond classroom activities that merely mimic what the teacher says and does in the classroom, and yet they still learn in personally meaningful ways. In deconstructing the lesson, we provide an in-depth analysis of how the affordances of mobile computing enable personalized learning from four facets: (a) allowing multiple entry points and learning pathways, (b) supporting multi-modality, (c) enabling student improvisation in situ, and (d) supporting the sharing and creation of student artifacts on the move. A key property of mobile technology that enables these affordances lies with the small form factor and the lightweightness of these devices which make them non-obtrusive in the learning spaces of the student. This article makes a contribution on the design aspects of mobilized lessons, namely, what the affordances of mobile technologies can enable.     

An interactive whiteboard student survey: Development,validity and reliability

The interactive whiteboard (IWB) has become a popular technology for instructors over the last decade. Though research asserts that the IWBs facilitate learning in different ways, there is a lack of studies examining actual IWB use in classroom settings based on learners’ perspectives by means of valid instruments. The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable interactive whiteboard student survey in order to evaluate the IWB use based on perceptions of students who have been taught with IWBs. In establishing the theoretical base of the survey, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and constructivist learning theories were considered. In addition, with respect to IWB use in classrooms, a number of studies emanated from countries such as the UK, the USA, and Australia were examined, and similar research questionnaires and findings and also reflections of students about IWBs were utilized to create an item pool. A 39-item survey was conducted among middle school students (N = 263) from the city of Istanbul in Turkey. Collected data was exposed to exploratory factor analysis and resulted in a 26-item, three-factor survey, whose factors were named as the perceived efficiency of IWB, perceived learning contribution and motivation, and the perceived negative effects of IWB. The results of the analyses illustrated that this new IWB student scale, which explains 50% of the total variance with a good level of Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient (0.93) is a valid and reliable instrument designed specifically for measuring the use of IWBs in real classroom settings. Besides, theoretical foundations of interactive whiteboard use, the development process of the instrument, and results of validity and reliability analyses were discussed in detail.     

Perception of Interactivity: Affects of Four Key Variables in Mobile Advertising

There are indications that interactivity could benefit the effectiveness of mobile advertisements. But there are few guidelines on how to design interactive mobile advertisements. This study investigated the influences of various design features of mobile advertisements on perceived interactivity and the relationship between perceived interactivity and attitude toward mobile advertisements. An experiment consisting of 2 sessions was conducted to test 5 proposed hypotheses with 40 participants. Results showed that the number of user control options and the customizability of advertisements have significant influences on users' perception of interactivity. The more options a message advertisement provides, the more interactive the participants perceive the advertisement; a customizable game advertisement is perceived as more interactive than an uncustomizable game advertisement. But no significant effects of presenting instructional information of mobile Web advertisements and including humorous elements were found. Finally, perceived interactivity was found a strong predictor of attitude toward mobile advertisement.     

Factors influencing students' beliefs about the future in the context of tablet-based interactive classrooms

With the distribution of easy-to-use tablet computers, tablet-based interactive classrooms have become popular environments for innovative learning activities in recent years. However, little research has investigated the relationship between technologically enhanced learning environments and students' beliefs about the future and self-efficacy for learning. In this study, young students' perceptions of tablet-based interactive classrooms, beliefs about the future, and self-efficacy for learning in rural areas of Korea were examined after the students engaged in tablet-based interactive classrooms. To develop the theoretical framework, we created a structural research model of ease of use, usefulness, satisfaction, deepened experiences through tablet use, beliefs about the future, and self-efficacy in tablet-based interactive classrooms based on a partial least squares (PLS) method. The results indicate that (1) students in tablet-based interactive classrooms perceive frequent experiences with tablet-based instructions as easy and useful and (2) student satisfaction is significantly influenced by their perceptions of deeper learning experiences through tablet use, which are significantly influenced by their future expectations and self-efficacy for learning. This study provides relevant implications for educators who design learning activities for students in rural schools in tablet-based interactive classroom environments.     

How do skilled and less‐skilled spellers write text messages? A longitudinal study

The link between students' spelling level and their text‐messaging practice gives rise to numerous questions from teachers, parents and the media. A corpus of 4524 text messages produced in daily‐life situations by students in sixth and seventh grade (n = 19, 11–12 years of age) was compiled. None of the participants had ever owned or used a mobile phone before the start of the study; their text messages were collected monthly over the course of a year. The comparison between the group with mobile phones and the control group without mobile phones (n = 30) showed no difference between the level of traditional writing at the beginning of the text‐message collection and during the collection. The results showed that the correlation between the level of traditional spelling and the density of textisms was dependent upon the type of textisms (consistent/breaking with traditional code), the type of spelling (usage‐based/rule‐based), the grades in French class and the duration of text‐messaging practice. On the whole, students who were skilled or less skilled in traditional writing at the beginning of the text‐message collection remained respectively skilled or less skilled throughout the year, despite their text‐messaging use (density and type of textisms). The discussion of this study's academic implications tends towards a complementarity between traditional writing and text messaging.     

新业务环境挑战下短信业务感知提升方案研究

随着移动互联网的飞速发展,越来越多的新兴消息传送类业务如雨后春笋般出现,这些新业务对传统的短信业务产生了巨大冲击。目前,国内乃至全球的短信业务都出现了增速下降甚至业务量下滑的情况,为了应对新业务的挑战,增强短信用户粘性,提升短信业务感知和业务使用量,本文基于2个方面提出一些提升短信用户使用体验和感知的方法,一是针对特定用户提供主动提醒业务的短信关怀业务,二是为简化短信业务操作难度而提出的短号短信业务。     

A cloud-based learning environment for developing student reflection abilities

Students learn new knowledge effectively through relevant reflection. Reflection affects how students interact with learning materials. Studies have found that good reflection abilities allow students to attain better learning motivation, comprehension, and performance. Thus, it is important to help students develop and strengthen their reflection abilities as this can enable them to engage learning materials in a meaningful manner. Face-to-face dialectical conversations are often used by instructors to facilitate student reflection. However, such conventional reflection methods are usually only usable in classroom environments, and could not be adopted for distance learning or after class. Cloud computing could be used to solve this issue. Instructor guidance and prompting for initiating reflection could be seamlessly delivered to the students’ digital devices via cloud services. Thus, instructors would be able to facilitate student reflective activities even when outside the classroom. To achieve this objective, this study proposed a cloud-based reflective learning environment to assist instructors and students in developing and strengthening reflection ability during and after actual class sessions. An additional experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in an industrial course. Results show that the learning environment developed by this study is able to effectively facilitate student reflection abilities and enhance their learning motivation.