Switched on
5 May 2008
Information technology academic Richard Raban has developed a novel and inexpensive system – the first in the world – to bring alive classroom interaction using mobile technology, and the first students to trial his mInteract have given it the thumbs up.
Raban says, “My colleague, Dr Laurel Dyson, and I trialed the system with our students in spring semester last year. At the end of the trial we surveyed them and their general response was that it was novel, interesting, fun and they wanted more of it.”
Dyson says mInteract makes lessons livelier, and students enjoyed using their mobile phones with a new innovative system. “The most interesting result, from my point of view, was when we asked them a question at the beginning of the lesson their responses were evenly spaced across the possible range of answers, and only a minority took part. It was as if they were guessing. When the question was repeated at the end of the lecture the participation rate increased enormously and most got the answer right.
“We showed them the before and after graphs of their responses and there was a noticeable buzz around the room as they realised how much they had learnt. It was quite exciting.”
Dyson says mInteract’s real potential is in large lectures, to encourage students to be more involved and interactive. She says many people around the world are experimenting with interactive classroom technology but the advantage of mInteract is that it is cheap. “Students use their own devices so the university doesn’t have to buy ‘clickers’ or special software or hardware, and the transmission cost to students is very small.” According to Raban it costs the student about four cents to connect to the internet using their phone as opposed to around 20 cents for the cost of sending a text message. And if students don’t have a mobile phone that can connect to the internet, the software can be applied to other technologies with older wireless devices such as laptops and PDAs.
Raban and Dyson have applied for a Carrick Grant to explore further low-cost solutions to m-learning and develop ways that all students, including those without mobile phones or those who have difficulty using them, can participate in the learning activities. The ultimate goal of Raban’s research and development project is to inspire academics to introduce innovative pedagogic approaches to interactive teaching and learning.
This semester the Faculty of Information Technology, which sponsors the mInteract project, has authorised access to the system for all UTS staff. UTS staff can access mInteract using their UTS webmail user names and passwords.
Faculty of Business academic Jonathon Tyler says, “The brilliance of Richard’s system is the ability to use available technology and an instrument most students have and love to play with - their mobile phone - to provide interaction in classrooms and lecture theatres. People have been trying to do this with hard wired or additional equipment for about 50 years.
Raban says there are so many different ways to use this technology and academics are very likely to come up with novel ways to use it to create better teaching and learning environments. “We’re looking forward to finding out how they will exploit this system, and how their students will make use of it.”
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