Taking note with the MOBIlearn2 application was perceived as very useful by the participants who used it during the exploration. They thought that the application was suitable for conducting research work on the field site as well as journalism as the user could take notes for data and information collected and save it for future retrieval. Nevertheless, they suggested displaying the notes in a list in the main screen, as the number of the notes surely will increase from time to time. So, it could make it easier to retrieve them when the application is started again. The other suggestion was not to make the saved note editable once the user opens it in order to prevent accidental change.
They also thought that the features in the MOBIlearn2 application such as taking a picture and recording a video were very useful when they learnt about a new place and captured information as well as shared their visit or learning experiences. For instance, some of them said that they did not know that HUBs had many interesting places such as café to relax, socialize and become involved with fun activities. Furthermore, they agreed that they
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could make their friends aware and learn about the HUBs too by sharing their pictures on social media. However, they emphasized that all the issues found need to be addressed first in order to provide a more reliable application.
One remarkable finding was that the participants found the MOBIlearn2 application really useful because the inclusion of a messenger (Chat) to communicate with friends in real time. They thought that the component was really helpful in their collaborative task such as to decide who is going to perform a particular task or to know about a task progress from a member. Figure 7.5 shows a screen snapshot from a mobile phone of one participant who used this feature.
Figure 7.5: A snapshot of screen showing conversations of the participants in a group
One of the participants commented as follow which his group mutually agreed:
Student B: "With this feature…I think users can talk or discuss about a task easily…I
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Despite the positive perception given, they commented that the messenger should display the name of their members instead of their phone numbers. Furthermore, they suggested adding features like a video call, picture attachment and voice message in order to have more effective communication and collaboration. They also suggested that the application have an online-shared folder where they could access, edit and upload a file for their group members at any time.
Overall, they thought that the MOBIlearn2 application was useful because of different kinds of files it could support, the ability to record and save data in audio visual format, effectively for note taking, the many options and integration of tools in single application and a messenger for group communication. Nevertheless, they thought that the application could be improved to have a better support to conduct learning tasks on the move.
Student A: "It’s a very good app…good works…keep it up"
7.7 Discussion
Based on the findings in this case study, it was found that different participants used different tool to perform a task. It seemed that it depends on their preference and perception when deciding which tool to choose for a particular task. For instance, in the Task 3, some participants used the audio recorder while others took a video to record information. Moreover, it was found that some of the participants only used one component to perform a task and while the others were prefer to use more than one component. For example, in the Task 4 some participants just wrote note to create an instruction, whilst the others added a video file to explain more detail. These findings showed that the MOBIlearn2 application provided personalized use of tools.
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After taking all the participant feedback into account, there were several enhancements that had been made to a new version of the MOBIlearn2 application. The enhancements are listed as follow:
1. Save As File was removed as it confused all the participants. It was believed that there was no negative effect on the removal as they could save the file on cloud storage like Dropbox or Google Drive as well as share it as text format via other text- based application such as email or memo.
2. A collection of notes was displayed in a list on the main screen. The separate interface for Note was pop up in the screen when a user clicked on any note on the list to read or edit it. This separation enabled the application to maximize the space for the text area in Note so that the user could have a better view on the written texts. To add a new note, a button was provided in the main interface. There was also a search function to provide search for a note from list. The change is illustrated in Figure 7.6. This design was implemented in Idea component as well for the same purposes. 3. A function of speech recognition was provided for Note component so that users could have an alternative to take a note without using a virtual keyboard. This enabled the users to record their speech or voice to be converted into texts. With this feature, they were able to see immediately the note texts displayed on the text area.
4. Users could take more than one picture for a note. That means they could take many pictures as they wanted and save them to support a note. The pictures were grouped together so that the user could easily navigate them one by one as shown in
Figure 7.7. With this new design, the current picture being viewed was displayed on
top of a list of other pictures. There was also an add image button displayed next to last picture in the list.
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Figure 7.6: Note is displayed in a list with a search function and Add New Note button
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5. A video call like Skype was added in Chat to enable richer communication. As suggested by some participants in the study, the new version was provided with a function to do a video call.
6. A function to record and send voice message was provided in Chat. This was an alternative to share information with group members.
7. A function to attach a picture for sharing with other group members was provided in Chat.
8. A shared folder was created in the application so that users could download, edit, upload and share a file with their friends.
Considering the improvements made for the final version, the study found that there was a need to provide collaboration tool for a mobile learning application particularly the
Chat component and emphasis on its effective design. The component should be designed to
add more functionality in order to enable rich and effective communication and collaboration in real time. Furthermore, the study found that a mobile learning application should include an online-shared folder to provide all users in a team to share a file for collaborative work.
7.8 Conclusions
As a conclusion, it appeared that the MOBIlearn2 application could provide a good support for mobile learners to undertake their learning activities by allowing them to collect data and information instantly and effectively in an authentic environment. With a combination of a variety of tools, the application provided many options for the learners on how to perform a task, as they prefer and in different way. For example, they could use camera or audio recorder to record data and information about a location or building.
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Despite the positive feedback from the case study, it was found that the MOBIlearn2 application should be improved to provide richer learning experience for the learners particularly to support their collaborative work. For example, the messenger (Chat) could be enhanced with a function to do a video call so that they could communicate in more effective way.
The desire to build up and maintain a record of their learning through the provision of online storage was of particular interest as the scenarios explored in these prototypes were specifically chosen to encourage real-time collaboration learning. It also provided the tie in with the learning provider as such a mechanism could be used to provide the instructions that underpin the learning activity and further information, as required for the task in hand. This way of communication supported the learners to collaborate by allowing them to update their progress, asking questions and make a decision together instantly in order to complete a task.
7.9 Summary
The case study demonstrates that the MOBIlearn2 application provides personalized way to collect data by providing a variety of tools users. Furthermore, they could choose to have different format for their learning resources or files. Therefore, multi-modal learning could be supported by the application so that the learning could be more interesting, engaging and encouraging for learners.
Importantly, the results of the case study indicate positive feedbacks from the participants in all groups despite there are several issues that need to be addressed. In fact, they found the application was very useful to support them in performing learning activity in non-formal environment. Moreover, they found that the design and interface of the
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application was user friendly and understandable. Nevertheless, they suggested several improvements in terms of the functionality in effort to provide more reliable tools for mobile learners.
In addition, the findings of the case study show that the participants believed that the messenger system is useful for task collaboration and suggested that the application should be equipped with an ability to access an online-shared folder. They mentioned that the tool and feature are very important to communicate with their members and work on a shared file for their collaborative task.
In the next chapter, the last part of the research project begins whereby a cross-case analysis is conducted and discussed in order to find an overall pattern from the findings in all the previous case studies. It is then followed by a discussion on several use and design guidelines which have emerged from the data and a series of steps to employ a mobile learning application into blended and hybrid learning. There is also a discussion to enhance the current version of the MOBIlearn task model in effort to stay relevant as a design reference in future.