Monday, August 08, 2011

How 2 Deal With Mobile Students

On August 2 I wrote about the New Digital Divide and the problems it creates for online education. Also I promised to share my thoughts on how I plan to deal with this new phenomenon.
I believe there is a need to combine accommodation as well as being clear with students about the draw backs of mobile technology. For assessment purposes such as testing and writing papers the mobile technology is NOT acceptable. However, for delivery of content I can see accommodating the mobile technology.
I will start with how we the online educators can warn our students about the dangers of mobile technology.
It needs to be stated clearly in the syllabus that online assessments such as quizzes and exams should be taken on a computer and attempting the assessments on mobile device can lead to mistakes and thereby a lower score.
Also there is a need to strictly forbid the use of acronyms such as OMG, LOL, and smiley faces in email communication.
I plan on inserting the following into my syllabus for online classes:
"Please do NOT use your cellphone or other mobile devices to attempt the quizzes. There is a strong chance that you will encounter technical difficulties."
"Your instructor is an old man. Please refrain from using acronyms such as OMG. ASAP, and smiley faces in your emails."
In order to accommodate our students love affair with mobile technology, I am studying how to deliver the course contents to students on their mobile devices. The plan is to create my lectures with the mobile device in mind. I am planning on creating an i-tunes channel, where I can upload my lectures for students to listen to on the go. I have experimented with a website called Podomatic.  However, I wish the school would provide us with a similar service to upload our lectures. I have not been able to upload video lectures created by Camtasia for mobile devices due to the size limitation on this site.
Also I am studying how this blog appears on mobile devices. If you access this blog on a mobile device it will look different than on a laptop or a desktop computer.
Here are some of the websites that I have looked at but I am not too confident on this issue.
If you know of a good site or a good book please leave a comment in the comment field. Also please feel free to share how you plan to deal with this mobile phenomenon in your online classes.

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