E-journal
of All India Association for Educational Research (EJAIAER)
VOL.20 Nos: 3
& 4 September
& December, 2008
USING MOBILE
DEVICES FOR DELIVERY OF EDUCATIONAL CONTENT AND INTERACTION WITH STUDENTS
(AIAER’s B. K. Passi Award 2008 Paper on Educational
Technology)
Dharam Parakash
BACKGROUND
A decade ago, nobody could
predict that there was an insatiable demand and need for communication through
telephones in a developing country like
OBJECTIVES
To explore the possibility
of delivering content (educational in nature) to a learner/user using the
mobile platform.
To study various strategies
of interaction with the learner/user through mobile devices.
TARGET
GROUP/PARTICIPANTS
To know more about who are
the learners who have access to a mobile device or carry a mobile device for
communication with them separate individual discussions were held with various
educational institutional Heads, teachers, parents etc. It was found that generally the students who
were studying in Class 9th to 12th have access to a mobile phone or carry a
mobile phone with them. It was also
found that there was an inbuilt contradiction in the whole scenario. Most of the schools had banned the use of a
mobile device/carrying of a mobile device in the school premises as they felt
it had a very disturbing effect on general discipline and communication etc.
within the school. While discussing about the target users, a request was also
made to a commercial mobile network to find out whether they had any
information about the users who were between the age group of 14th to 17th
years. The mobile network companies,
even if they had any information or data, were reluctant to share the same
because of the confidentiality clauses imposed on them. It was also pointed out that most of the
mobile devices that are being purchased for children may not be in the name of
those children. The parents could have bought
the device for their child in their own name or in their mother’s name. So Heads of some schools were requested to
let the students of Class 10th and 12th (Board Classes) of their school to
participate in the study. After
detailed discussions and convincing, Principals of five schools agreed to allow
the students of their
EDUCATIONAL CONTENT
There was a detailed
discussion on what could be the educational content which was being delivered
through mobile devices in an SMS mode.
Following points came up during the discussions:
*Mobile network operator
representatives pointed out that most of the mobile devices which are in the
low cost category, can only receive text messages. Some alpha-numeric fonts could be used. Graphics like photographs, line graphics,
visual icons etc. could only be received by a multimedia ready mobile device
only. Otherwise special multi-media card
has to be inserted into a mobile device if it has a slot or provision for
that.
*The Principals of the
schools and teachers pointed out that to create only text based educational
content which is self-explanatory in nature and can be easily understood by the
students without any visual support is going to be a tough challenge in itself.
*Everybody felt that for
the study purposes some content should be created which can reach out to every
mobile device whether it is multi-media enabled or not.
*During the discussions, it
was brought out that most of the students appearing for the
Board Exam are never made
aware of study skills formally.
Although, informally, the teachers and parents keep on providing some
thumb rules or tips to them. Based on the limitations pointed out by the
various participants in the discussion, it was felt that it would be more
appropriate if for the study purpose, some content which is not hard
educational content but is educational in nature could be taken up. The receivers (the students) should find that
the content is of some use to them in their preparation for exams. So, it was decided to work on study skills
which would consist of various sub-units like self-study, concentration, time
management, preparation for exams etc. Following flowchart represents the
process and various steps that were undertaken to get the content ready:
Creating the detailed Study Skill Tips Content ready for Mobile Network Operators
A two-day workshop was
organized in which teachers, principals, school counselors, psychologists etc.
participated. Representative of the mobile
network operator also joined in the workshop to appraise all the people
concerned of various limitations of this mode of delivery. The group after detailed deliberations
decided as follows:
*Based on the mobile
operator’s suggestions and detailed discussion, SMS would be sent initially to
the participating student for his/her acceptance to participate in the study.
*The study skills under
various sub-units should be sent to the receivers as tips or tip for the day.
*The user could be given
the choice of choosing the sub-unit, which he wants to receive tips for.
*In case the user/the
student is not sure and wants to check about whether he/she needs to learn
about a particular aspect of study skills then self-check questions were also
available (Annexure ‘II’). Self-check
questions would help a user to decide about which aspect of study skills he/she
needs to go in for.
*The user should receive
only one tip a day and the next tip should go to his mobile the next day. After receiving all the tips or going through
the complete sub-unit he could be asked for the next choice or feedback.
*The possibility of
encouraging children to ask questions regarding a particular study skill was
also pondered on but was put in abeyance due to various resource limitations
and the counselor/psychologist’s opinion that it would be difficult for even a
trained counsellor to respond to any such question without knowing more about
the background of the child.
*The module and tips on
study skills developed during the workshop .
MAKING THE CONTENT SMS
READY
The group of teachers,
psychologists, counselors and principals worked together to get the content
ready. The sub-units of the study skills
taken up were: Preparing and writing for exams; Concentration; Time management;
Memory; Self-study. As it was felt that one sub-unit and tips given under may
be sent for 5-6 days. 5 to 6 tips in
each sub-unit were prepared.
To check the suitability of
wording and student friendliness of the matter that tips evolved by the group
were again field tested with the students of Class 10th in one of the
participating schools. The suggestions
and comments received from the students were carefully examined. Most of the
suggestions were related to making use of simple language. Necessary modifications were made in the
tips. Then a detailed SMS sequence was
prepared. For example, the first SMS had
to be an SMS which invited the receiver for registering by sending a ‘Yes’
response to a pre-designated number.
Once the receiver sends a ‘Yes’ then second SMS provides list of
sub-units with a request to send their choice to the same pre-designated number
so that based on their choice further SMS’s start flowing in. As the whole of this sequence would be
required by the mobile network operator for sending the SMS messages
automatically, detailed instructions had to be provided in the SMS
sequence. The detailed SMS sequence had
prepared for study skills is at Annexure ‘I’. Also while making the SMS
sequence, the feedback mechanism was built in to the sequence. Question like how to simplify the feedback
mechanism, when do we activate feedback mechanism etc. were discussed and
resulted into the SMS sequence
CONVERTING STUDY SKILLS TIPS IN SMS
LANGUAGE
As pointed out earlier by
the mobile network operator a single SMS message would consist of 180
alphanumeric characters. This count of
180 characters also includes the blank spaces or the punctuation marks within
the text. If there are more than 180 alphanumeric characters in the message
then the software for sending the SMS messages will automatically divide the
message into two messages. The
receiver’s mobile device would have the compiler software, which would then
compile the two messages as one message. It was also felt that a long message
may not be read by the receiver. The
work on changing the text started and was a great learning experience. For example ‘would’ would change into ‘wud’
and ‘could’ into ‘cud’. Similarly, ‘you’
got changed into ‘u’ and ‘for you’ got changed into ‘4u’. ‘Diagrams’ got changed into ‘digrms’,
‘before’ got changed into ‘b4’ and so on and so forth. The effort was to use alphanumeric text in a
creative manner so that not only it becomes brief and uses minimum possible
characters but also is able to communicate the message. While going through this exercise and looking
at the readymade templates available within the mobile devices, it was felt
that using such a language may not create any problems for the young users as
they are habituated to such a style of SMS language. So the tip initially, which was written as
‘think about the overview before starting to read in depth’ was finally sent as
‘think abt the overview b4 strtng 2 read in depth’.
Interactivity
Various levels of interactivity
was built into the study at various stages:
After receiving the first
SMS, the user has to SMS back ‘Yes’ to start the further flow of SMS.
The user had to choose one
such unit out of five units and SMS back the code of the sub-unit to a
pre-designated number.
If the user wanted to do a
self-check about a particular sub-unit he/she could SMS ‘check’ to the same
number and receive ‘self-check’ questions.
After receiving the tips,
the user could SMS <feedback> and give feedback through SMS about the
tips received.
Interactivity at (ii),
(iii) is need based but at (iv) requires an extra effort on the part of the
user.
Getting it to the mobile
network operator
Once the sequence and the
content was SMS ready, then a detailed discussion about implementing the
experiment took place with the mobile network operator. Wherever possible, in the SMS sequence,
detailed and specific instructions were formulated and provided so that chances
of confusion or vagueness were reduced minimally. The whole material was then sent to software
developers and backend operators for the mobile network company. While encoding the whole sequence into the
software they had lots of queries like “What do you mean by this instruction?”
or “Once the user has given the feedback what happens next?” which were settled
through E-mails or telephones.
Revenue Sharing
It was found that SMS to a
five digit number which is accessible from all over India is charged depending on
the spread of audience from 5 to 6 rupees and the revenue thus generated by
sending the SMS is shared between the mobile telecom operator and the
organization or the company sponsoring the event or the happening.
In case, six-digit number
or normal ten-digit number is used the charges are lower but the revenue
sharing between the two organizations continues and varies depending on various
factors like audience spread, volume of responses etc. However, for this Pilot Study a ten-digit
number was used and instead of sharing the revenue with the teleco, it was
decided that the SMS sent by the user or by the person participating in the
study is to be charged at a very low rate i.e. 50 paise per SMS and thus NCERT
cross subsidized SMS responses for the purpose of this study.
Time Schedule for the
Study
Initially it was proposed
to start the experiment in mid December 2006 but due to administrative delays
and other delays we could only start on 31st January 2007. The timing of this experiment was crucial and
critical as most of the Board Class students are busy preparing for exams and
were not attending the schools. So it
was thought to be an opportune time for support in various aspects of study
skills and it was felt that quite a lot of students would opt for it. However, the delay in starting the experiment
may be a factor, which impacted some aspects of the study.
DATA ANALYSIS
Following information about
the users flowed in after the experiment was finished:
Database of mobile numbers
available and first SMS (requesting the students to SMS back ‘Yes’ to receive
further SMSs) sent to 1071 participants
No. of students who
registered (sent ‘Yes’) after first SMS 275;No. of students who registered
(sent ‘Yes’) :after first reminder 90;No.
of students who registered (sent ‘Yes’)after second reminder 37; and Total No.
of students who SMSed ‘Yes’ 402 :
Out of 402 participants,
the number of participants who
gave their option for any of the sub-units and received SMS’s 159
Detailed break-up of the students
who opted for different sub-units: Self
Study-34; Memory-14; Concentration-26; Time Management-27; Preparing and
writing for exams -38; Total-159.
No. of students who took up
“Self-check”questions and also related study skills –sub units 61.
No. of students who
requested for tips on2nd sub-units of study skills 75
Detailed feedback provided
by 8 students
Analysis
There is a sharp drop in
the number of participants who sent ‘Yes’ or agreed to take part in an exercise
of improving their study skills. Out of
the 1071 students in the first instance 25.7% students SMSed ‘Yes’ or agreed to
take part in the study. Registration
improved to 37.5% of the sample after two reminders. Although, as per industry standards, most of
the SMS sent by various companies/organizations get a response upto 10% to 15%.
So although response was better than industry standards but it was below the
expectation of the team conducting the study.
There could be some possible reasons for this:
The students were informed
about such a study by the school principals/school teachers in November 2006
when the mobile numbers of the students were collected. The pilot study was delayed by almost a month
and not many students were available and reminded about the pilot study due to
exam preparation holidays.
It is also likely that in
the personal space of the students, it is their own will or motivation that
would prompt them to join such an activity.
Also improvement in the number of students who agreed and SMSed ‘Yes’
after 1st and 2nd reminder showed clearly that reminding students was
effective. The registrations improved
from 25.7% to 37.5%. It also indicates
of the need to remind the students and cajole them into action or pursuing the
receivers as most of the advertisers do to improve the receiver’s
responses.
The students who actually
then gave their option after selecting the sub-unit and started getting tips
was less than the students who registered.
As per the data 39.6% of the registered students actually opted for one
of the sub-unit. During the planning, it was clear that some students may not
like to choose (i.e. to interact) and may drop out. The major possible reason contributing to
this dropping out would be the level of interaction required. In this interaction, the receiver was given
the choice of sub-units as 1, 2, 3_ _ _ _ __ along with the title. The receiver after reading the title of five
sub-units had to SMS back the number of sub-unit (1, 2, 3 or _ _ _ _) to a
pre-designated number. This required
slightly higher level of interactivity and it could be a factor due to which
there was a reduction in numbers of participants.
Also the experiment started
on 31st January 2007. Most of the
students were in the midst of their board exam preparation. It is quite likely that after having
registered and received the 2nd SMS, they chose not to get distracted and hence
did not respond further.
The distribution of
students in opting for a sub-unit clearly indicated their concern. Maximum number of students (29% of the
registered students) opted for sub-unit entitled “Concentration”. Next most opted for sub-unit was “Preparing
for and Writing Exams” (24% of the
registered students opted for it).
Third popular or opted for sub-unit was “Self-study” (21.4% of the
registered user opted for it). 48% of
the receivers also opted for a second sub-unit after receiving tips on the
first sub-unit. It implies that quite a
lot of students were finding the tips in study skills useful. It is clear from the above that there was an
untapped need to provide support to students in various aspects of study
skills. It also indicates while that
planning for delivery of educational content, the choice of content will have
to be outlined by the users.
Another aspect of the pilot
study was the “self check questions” on various aspects of study skills. These questions help the user to informally
know about the need to learn more about a particular aspect of study skills. To receive such question, the user had to SMS
“check” to a pre-designated number and then read the questions and decide for
oneself what to do. Due to interactivity involved, it was expected that not
many students would opt for it. It was interesting
to find that 38.4% of the registered students opted for self-check and then
registered for the relevant sub-unit.
This also provides indicators towards the user’s need. If the user feels the need for a particular
educational content, then he/she will definitely try to use the same. So, while
developing educational content for the mobile platform, user’s need needs to be
looked into and analyzed. It is going
to influence what goes in to the content.
Feedback questions were
also part of the exploration into interactivity through the mobile
platforms. Only few students responded
to these questions. It clearly implies
that traditional interactive strategies may not work with the mobile medium (as
most of the feedback questions were typical traditional feedback
questions). There is a need to explore
the question of interactivity further in this regard as to what style of
interactivity would be best suited for this medium.
The feedback given by the
small number of participants can be taken as indicative. The students found the tips sent to them
useful. All the students who gave
feedback tried and used the tips either fully or partially. The recipients also tried to share the tips
either by forwarding the tip or by discussing it with their friends. When asked whether information about school
subjects in this format will be useful only few of them gave an affirmative
answer.
IMPLICATIONS
It was felt during the
pilot experiment that there was a need for support in information dissemination
through print or other media so that other students beyond the existing number
could also participate in the study.
Also it would have required a “pull” model rather than a “push” model
that was used. (In a push model, one pushes out the SMS’s that has to be sent
to the receiver but in the pull model, the receiver pulls out the SMS’s by
accessing a pre-designated number).
There is a need to explore further both the models and compare their
effectiveness for educational content. Also the people working in the field of
education will have to develop a mindset like marketing people who try
different strategies and techniques to make receivers respond to the
messages. There is a need to try out
various marketing strategies and look at their impact. There is need to explore further the
capabilities of mobile platform and experiment with multimedia approach. One can see the market forces are slowly
forcing the features like better and more storage, multimedia capability,
coloured screen etc. being incorporated in the low end models of mobile devices
also. So there is a need to explore the mobile platform for educational purpose
using multimedia content. Push model was
used in the pilot study. But there is a need to convert some units of school
subjects into mobile ready content and then try the ‘pull’ model where a user
could get it by accessing through a pre-designated number. Such an activity could slowly become
self-sustaining financially as the numbers of users grow exponentially and each
pull generates some revenue for the content developers. Interactivity is an important aspect of
educational communication. Different
strategies for interactivity need further exploration so as to make
communication more effective. The
mobile explosion is already taking place in