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Mobilising learning: A primer for utilising wireless palm devices
to facilitate a collaborative learning environment
Thomas Cochrane
Learning Technologies
Unitec New Zealand
Abstract
This paper outlines the potential for establishing the use of Palm PDAs as core ICTs
(Information and Communication Technologies) within tertiary education courses. The
potential of Palm devices integrated with a campus wireless network can facilitate the use of
elearning tools to enhance tutor-student and student-student communication, collaboration,
reflection and critique. Student productivity will be enhanced by the provision of a ubiquitous
computing environment. The paper outlines how this will be achieved at Unitec.
Keywords
mobile devices, wireless
Introduction
Facilitating teaching and learning
Many Unitec courses tend to approach education from a constructivist, student-centred pedagogical
perspective. An example of such a pedagogical approach is Diana LaurillardÓs (2001) conversational model
of tertiary education that focuses on building communication between tutors and students and student to
student. Technology can be successfully used to facilitate this approach to education. The explosion of
elearning tools aimed at facilitating reflective communication is evidence of this, e.g. email, instant
messaging, RSS (Really Simple Syndication, or Rich site Summary), Blogs, access to courseware and
discussion boards, student web home pages, etc. (Farmer, 2004; Glogoff, 2005; Kaplan-Leiserson, 2004).
PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants Ï including Palm and PocketPC devices) have traditionally been seen as
a way of carrying information in a more convenient format, with longer battery life than a laptop computer
and less weight than a bag full of reference books. However, while some specific tertiary disciplines rely
heavily on large databases of knowledge (medicine, law, etc.) that can be accessed conveniently on location
using a PDA, most courses have more modest demands on student recall. What appears to be generic to all
tertiary courses is the development of student communication, collaboration, reflection and critical thinking
skills. These skills can be developed with the aid of elearning tools that can be accessed via PDAs. These
tools include all of those mentioned above: Email, instant messaging, RSS, Blogs, access to courseware and
discussion boards and student web homepages.
In conjunction with PDAs or laptops, wireless connectivity promotes the establishment of a virtual
collaborative learning community producing a higher level of communication between tutors and students
and between students themselves from anywhere on campus or any wireless hotspot. There are currently
59 Telecom WiFi hotspots listed in Auckland (Telecom NZ, 2005), including Starbucks cafes, hotels, and
most shopping Malls. The term commonly used to describe this freeing of learning from specific classrooms
or computer labs is m-learning.
Advantages that PDA devices have in facilitating collaborative m-learning environments include:
Portability -
can take the computer to different sites and move around within a location
Social Interactivity
- can exchange data and collaborate with other people face to face
Context Sensitivity
- can gather data unique to the current location, environment, and time, including both
real and simulated data
Connectivity
- can connect handhelds to data collection devices, other handhelds, and to a common
network that creates a true shared environment
Individuality
- can provide unique scaffolding that is customized to the individual's path of investigation
(Squire et al, 2002, p. 7)
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ascilite 2005: Balance, Fidelity, Mobility: maintaining the momentum?
Why Palm/PDAs?
While laptop computers can also meet the advantages listed above, for courses that do not require high level
processing power and applications, todayÓs PDAs provide all the processing power and communication
applications that students need, at a lower cost, greater portability and longer battery life than a laptop
computer. A PDA is not made redundant by a laptop or desktop computer, but is designed to complement
them.
Students will not engage with elearning and collaborative communication tools if they do not have easy
access to computers. Several departments on campus do not have dedicated computer facilities for student
access, but could potentially provide ICT access for their students at a much lower cost and greater flexibility
in the learning environment by integrating the use of wireless PDAs into their course delivery (GoKnow,
2004; Norris & Soloway, 2005).
The choice of PDA platform (PocketPC or Palm OS) is dependent on the key requirements of the end users.
Medical courses and professionals in New Zealand tend to use PocketPC devices, but beyond this there is
currently not much market penetration of PDAs in tertiary education in New Zealand. The Palm OS devices
support a wider range of software, tend to be more reliable (crash less), and integrate better in a
cross-platform environment (Macintosh and Windows) than PocketPC devices (Martin, 2005; palmOne,
2005). For disciplines where there is not a platform preference set, the author favours the Palm platform.
The wireless networking capability of todayÓs PDAs is a key aspect of their mobility on campus but increases
the cost of the PDA. The cost of wireless Palm devices sits affordably within the course-related costs funding
that tertiary students receive ($1000NZ per year). A practical pricing point for students to purchase their own
PDA is around $500Î$600NZ. This leaves them with money for other course related costs as well.
International students do not receive this funding, and will need to finance the cost of the PDA. Wireless
PDA devices currently available in this price range include the Palm Zire72 (with additional WiFi SD card),
Palm Tungsten E2 (with additional WiFi SD card), or Palm Tungsten T3 (no longer current). The new Palm
Lifedrive (with integrated Bluetooth, WiFi, and 4GB HD) is outside this pricing, but bulk-buying deals may
bring the price down to $600NZ.
Renaissance (the NZ importers for Palm) has supplied Unitec with a set of 18 LifeDrives for the purposes of
initial feasibility trials.
Figure 1: Uses of PDAs
(Source: GoKnow, 2005)
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Some recent research has promoted the potential use of cell-phones as the technology of choice for
mobilising student learning (Attewell, 2004; Prensky, 2005). However only the most expensive cell phones
integrate the feature set available in dedicated PDA devices, and the cost to the student of text messaging,
and data plans on 2G or 3G networks is currently prohibitive (at least in New Zealand). Eventually the cell
phone and PDA will merge at an affordable price point and 3G or 4G networking will drop in price, but this
is still in the future.
Collaborative learning tools for Palm
PDAs can be used for much more than mobile calendars or document editing. Virtually all the popular types
of collaborative learning tools that are available for desktop computers are also available for PDAs (see table
below for some example applications). It is these collaborative tools that can be utilised by virtually any
course to facilitate development of reflection, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration skills.
There is a range of applications available for Palm devices, from open-source freeware, to shareware and
commercial products. Palm devices are usually supplied with a complementary suite of useful applications
(*). These are also available for purchase from the Palm website for models not bundled with them. There is
a huge range of software available for trial and purchasing from http://www.palmgear.com and similar
websites. Below is a brief overview of example applications that the author recommends.
Table 1: Example collaborative learning applications for Palm
TOOL
Freeware
Shareware
Commercial
RSS
QuickNews ($21.38NZ)
Web Pro* (via JavaScript)
Blog
Plogit
U*Blog
Mo:Blog
Vagablog
HTML
PHTML ($14NZ)
Torpedo ($35NZ)
Email
Versamail* ($43NZ)
Snappermail ($56NZ)
Instant Messaging
AIM v1
Agile Messenger
Chatopus ($21NZ)
VeriChat ($35NZ per year)
AIM v 3.2 ($29NZ)
Web Browsing
Palmscape ($43NZ)
Web Pro*
Xiino ($43NZ)
Wiki
AcroWiki ($21NZ)
Remote Access
PalmVNC
AstroView
Veta Universal ($14NZ)
Clicker ($29NZ)
File Transfer
LFTP
TuSSH
EzFTP
TG ssh
VFSFTP ($21NZ)
DragÓnÓtooth ($14NZ)
WiFile Pro ($43NZ)
Mind Mapping
Inspiration ($43NZ)
Learning object development for Palm
Interactive multimedia learning objects can be created for delivery on PDAs. The latest generation of PDAs
are capable of resolutions, colours and brightness to display video and animation effectively. The main
multimedia authoring formats for PDAÓs are:
i. Flash
ii. QuickTime
iii. WAP (Wireless Application Protocol).
Flash has made its way from web-based applications to mobile devices including PocketPC and Symbian OS
cell phones (Hess & Hancock, 2005). Flash now comes with templates for mobile devices, and the Flash
Platform (latest version of Flash from Macromedia) is targeted at the burgeoning mobile market (Lynch,
2005). The beauty of Flash is its scalability and ubiquity. However, currently there is no Flash Player
available for Palm OS devices (except for selected Sony Clie Palm devices).
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ascilite 2005: Balance, Fidelity, Mobility: maintaining the momentum?
QuickTime provides the scalability required to create multimedia learning objects for mobile devices, and
supports a wider range of media formats than Flash. QuickTime movies can be viewed using the Kinoma
Player for Palm, which also supports interactive QuickTime ÒmoviesÓ. These miniaturised QuickTime movies
can include video, hypertext, VR scenes and audio (amongst others). There are two main QuickTime
authoring applications for Palm: Kinoma Producer, and iShell Mobile.
Simpler card-based authoring applications are also available for Palm. One example is ÒStudycardÓ.
WAP provides another approach to authoring learning objects capable of being used on the Palm platform.
WAP uses a subset of HTML, called WML (Wireless Markup Language). An example of a WAP based
authoring application for Macintosh OSX is iWapper. Current PDAs are also capable of running the game
engines that were used on desktop computers a few years ago. The advent of educational gaming provides
another area to explore with PDAs.
Table 2: Example multimedia applications for Palm devices
APPLICATION
Freeware
Shareware
Commercial
Audio
AeroPlayer
RealOne*
Kinoma
TCPMP
MMPlayer ($26NZ)
AeroPlayer ($36NZ)
RealOne
Kinoma ($34NZ)
Video
RealOne
Kinoma
TCPMP
MMPlayer
AeroPlayer
RealOne
Kinoma
Interactive Video
Kinoma
Kinoma
Document Reading
Adobe Reader*
CSpotRun
Documents to Go*
($43NZ)
Document Editing
Documents to Go*
Adobe Reader*
Input Utilities
FatFinger ($24NZ)
Thumboard ($21NZ)
Why wireless?
As already mentioned, the potential of mobile devices is enhanced with wireless technology. The wireless
revolution is already here (Alexander, 2004) and is being driven by wireless consumer devices, burgeoning
wireless hotspots and the falling costs of wireless access point hardware. Smaller tertiary institutions with
relatively low investment in wired networks have embraced wireless technology for several years. However,
the larger tertiary education institutions in New Zealand have been slow in implementing campus wide
wireless networking. There are many advantages of wireless networks even for institutions with
well-established wired networks. Boerner has written a good summary of relevant issues of wireless
networks for tertiary institutions.
Wireless LANs should be seriously considered when upgrading campus networks. The technology has
matured and provides a positive set of advantages, including: cross-vendor interoperability, practical
interference-free communication over reasonable distances, and minimal security that can be augmented
by several emerging technologies. Access Point devices have advanced to allow scalable connection with
the wired campus infrastructure, and students and faculty can roam the campus and maintain their
network connection. Above all, retrofitting older buildings with networking using wireless technologies
lowers the overall cost of ownership and facilitates faster installation, simplicity, and flexibility; and,
except for connecting Access Points, physical wires no longer need to be run through walls or between
floors.
(Boerner, 2002)
Sotillo (2003, p. 5) describes the pedagogical impact of ubiquitous wireless computing:
In summary, the advantages of wireless computing in education are ubiquity, portability, and flexibility
for collaborative learning projects. Computer power everywhere and all the time means the abilityÏand
the challengeÏto integrate computers into every aspect of teaching, learning, and research. This
represents a Copernican revolution in instruction, with the professor as guide and mentor rather than
Ðfount of knowledgeÑ or ultimate classroom authority.
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Wireless productivity/connectivity
There are four main wireless technologies currently available for PDAs:
i.
Infrared (IR)
ii.
Bluetooth
iii.
WiFi (802.11 È)
iv.
3G.
The main differences between these technologies, is an increasing order of magnitude of operational distance
and data rates. Short-range connectivity is termed PAN (Personal Area Network), medium distance
connectivity is W-LAN (Wireless Local Area Network, usually equated with WiFi), and longer-range
connectivity is termed WAN (Wide Area Network). IR and Bluetooth are conceived as inter-device
connectivity options, while WiFi provides access to a wireless W-LAN that can be bridged to the wired
LAN. 3G-network capability provides WAN access, at a price premium.
Figure 2: The wireless matrix
(Source: palmOne, 2002, p. 2)
Infrared connectivity is short range, and requires line of sight, is limited to 100kbps, but is good for quickly
ÒbeamingÓ documents and applications between devices, providing one to one sharing of data (there are one
to many ÒbeamingÓ applications around, but they are short distance). Infrared also allows a PDA to become a
universal remote control for any IR capable device that supports the protocol.
Bluetooth operates in the 2.4Ghz frequency range, the same as WiFi, microwave ovens, and many mobile
telephone handsets. It is limited to between 10 and 100m (depending on the strength of the transceiver, and
any interfering materials), and a data rate of 1Mbps (the Bluetooth 2 specification now used in Apple
Macintosh PowerBooks supports 2Î3Mbps). Bluetooth connectivity also provides network and WAN access
by pairing a Bluetooth cell-phone with a Bluetooth PDA. The Cell-phone can then act as a modem for the
PDA. The cell phone can either provide dialup Internet access, by dialing into an ISP (limited to 9600 bps,
but surprisingly useable for text and IM), or using a faster data protocol such as GPRS or CDMA that can
provide data rates equivalent to a 56kps modem through to 1Î2Mbps for 3G enabled cell phone networks. Of
course the call duration has to be paid for, if using dialup access, and the data used if accessing via a faster
data plan.
WiFi is the popular name for the 802.11 wireless Ethernet standard. WiFi is basically an extension and bridge
to your wired network. Anything that can be done on a wired network can be done on the WiFi network
(unless IT departments limit the functionality of the WiFi network). This allows the PDA device to
piggyback onto the network. There are currently three types of WiFi, b = 11Mbps, g = 54Mbps (backwards

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