Mobile and Contextual Learning: A Case Study on Mobile Didactics in Teaching and Education

Smartphones have become ubiquitous companions in all activities of daily living (ADLs), and consequently they have also been adopted for education and learning contexts and environments. Plenty of concepts for mobile campus services, tools and e-learning applications have thereupon been presented in the last decade. The development towards large-screen smartphones with fast processors, large high-resolution displays, innovative interaction concepts, and a multitude of sensors opens up new possibilities. Today's and future applications go along with novel interfaces and ways of interaction, converging towards the vision of Ubiquitous Computing on campus (Weiser 1998). In this article, we provide an up-to-date overview of the demand on mobile services in higher education and learning environments grounded on two large-scale studies. We investigated the current use and the demand of online campus services among students and academic staff at a university of technology. In a follow-up study, we focused on the demand of mobile learning applications. Based on a video prototype, we identified requirements for a didactics application in higher education as an example for ubiquitous mobile learning support. We subsequently introduce the MobiDics application, describe its didactic foundation and its implementation. MobiDics allows ubiquitous didactic training adapted to personal needs and contexts. Our proposed system addresses needs and wishes expressed in the requirements analysis. The employed approach, facilitating the acquisition of didactic concepts and knowledge, was discussed in a questionnaire-based inquiry with 46 lecturers, outlining some future perspectives for didactic teaching support.     «

Smartphones have become ubiquitous companions in all activities of daily living (ADLs), and consequently they have also been adopted for education and learning contexts and environments. Plenty of concepts for mobile campus services, tools and e-learning applications have thereupon been presented in the last decade. The development towards large-screen smartphones with fast processors, large high-resolution displays, innovative interaction concepts, and a multitude of sensors opens up new possib...     »