4 Concepts, Requirements and the Methodology of an Intelligent Mobile
4.4 Use Case Scenarios
Now, Tobias logs in with his picture and a symbol as his password. Even though Tobias was excited, he managed to stay calm and attentive. He uses a pen device for interacting with the system. He very quickly managed to use the system.
Step 2: Tobias started his lesson and was asked whether he likes to do exercises with sky or temperature. Normally he would have started with numbers but the image of a cloud motivated him to choose the weather lesson. After clicking on the cloud he was welcomed by the recorded audio announcement from his teacher. He was asked to care-fully look at the picture and the written word under the picture. Afterwards the order of the syllabus was disarranged and he was asked to restore the right order of letters again.
During this presentation the voice of his teacher said “Cloud” and repeated this twice.
Afterwards he had to do the same procedure with an image of a sun and then with an image of rain and with an image that shows a storm with lightening. Tobias didn’t make any mistakes and so he was rewarded with a music animation presented on his mobile device. For the next exercise, Tobias experienced difficulties solving it, so he stopped the learning process for a short time. Fifteen minutes later he started his second exercise again. This time he could manage to arrange the exercise easily and he got good feed-back. After he had completed this exercise the system asked him to review the first ex-ercise to train again in order to strengthen the effects of the training. When he had com-pleted this work he told the teacher about his success. The teacher was so happy about his success that she asked him to present what he had learned to the class.
Scenario Highlights Pros and Cons Pros
• With a basic support autonomous exercises are possible.
• The system can stimulate motivation.
• The system recognizes the level and needs of the user and offers only sufficient materials.
• The system recognizes if a user is able to fulfill the tasks or if he needs some-thing else.
• If a person with less stamina is making mistakes, the system suggests small breaks. And after break, he can carry on at anytime.
Cons
• The profile creation (in the current situation of IMLIS) cannot be processed by the students alone.
• Communicating the results to classmates cannot be done directly with the device so the system doesn’t offer direct social communication.
• The system is very directive and does not offer opportunity for self-defined tasks.
4.4.2 Scenario 2: Mobile Learning at Workplace
Background Information
Mr. Schmidt (31 years old) is a worker in the sheltered workshop Martinshof. He is mentally disabled in the level of borderline. Before starting his work in Martinshof, he received two weeks of training in automotive parts assembly, so he knows about the basics of auto parts. He carries always his cell phone and uses it as a communication tool with friends, emergency calls, as an mp3 player and integrated camera.
Sheltered workshops Martinshof provided the IMLIS system for workers in workshops in order to provide learning anytime for the workers during their working hours. Every department supervisor is trained on implemented mobile learning systems and keeps many mobile devices for the workers in case of need. The appropriate learning materials for different levels of disability are designed and uploaded via IMLIS teacher portal to the Martinshof IMLIS server by experts in Martinshof’s training department.
Scenario #2
Mr. Schmidt started a new workday. He has to assemble new parts of a Mercedes-Benz car today. As the assembly process is new, he asks Mr. Winkler (his supervisor) for a mobile device. Mobile clients can connect via wireless protocol to the Martinshof IM-LIS server. His supervisor gives him a mobile device; he selects the appropriate chapter and starts to learn the assembly process directly at his workplace. He follows the in-structions step by step and tries to perform the process at the same time.
After a repetition of the process, Mr. Schmidt can accomplish the assembly process alone. Later, he will use the mobile application if he forgets how to do a particular as-sembly task.
Scenario Highlights Pros and Cons Pros
• Mobile learning helps workers to learn directly in a real context.
• Workers can feel independent due to their own learning experiences.
• Guided learning process where the description becomes less abstract as it is used directly in a real context.
• As Mr. Schmidt has his own cell phone, he can use his own device (if the device is compatible to the IMLIS requirements).
Cons
• The advisor needs to constantly keep the system updated which could take addi-tional time.
4.4.3 Scenario 3: Mobile Learning in Leisure Time
Background Information
Tanja is a 17 year old, student with a cognitive disability on the borderline level. In ad-dition to her mental problems, she has hearing difficulties. She is interested in mobile cell phones and the functions embedded in a cell phone. Her parents got a new contract from Vodafone for her with a new touch screen device. Her father is a sailor and has a private boat. He can work with computers and understands his daughter’s disability.
Scenario #3
Step 1: Tanja wants to accompany her father on the boat next summer. Her father prom-ised her, if she learns the basic safety skills needed for sailing, he would take her on a one-week trip. She had never been on such a trip and is motivated to learn these skills.
As Tanja’s father knows exactly about the abilities and disabilities of her daughter, he prepares the sailing learning materials via the teacher portal. He has different pictures, films and texts about sailing. Later, Tanja’s father helps her to install the IMLIS client on her cell phone.
Step 2: On the tram, Tanja uses her cell phone to learn about these sailing rules. On her mobile telephone materials without audio support are all visualized, and combined with some funny interactions derived from real context. On the weekend Tanja can take the device on a family picnic. There she can start to learn via her cell phone. In less than two weeks and with 12 learning sessions, she can learn what she the sailing skills she needs.
Scenario Highlights Pros and Cons Pros
• Learning process can occur anytime even in leisure time.
• Social communication can be between father and his daughter.
• Parents support child to become more autonomous from their own understanding of their child.
• Learner is not limited to a specific place of learning.
Cons
• Learners can be easily distracted from learning process in a non-school area.
• The parents or caregivers may not be acquainted with digital media and this kind of media-based learning.
4.4.4 Scenario 4: Preparation of Digital Learning Materials via IMLIS Teacher Portal
Background Information
Karin is a 35 year old teacher of children with cognitive disabilities. For eight years she’s taught: four in a special school and four with another teacher for normal children in an inclusive class.
Currently she teaches fifth grade to children mostly ten and eleven years old. Five stu-dents with disabilities are in their class. Two of her stustu-dents are borderline and three are moderate; each student is different in learning behavior and skills. For the exercises she prepares a daily small sequence of lessons and exercises for each of her five students, as there is not too much textbook, printed or other material available for people with cog-nitive disabilities. She collects pictures and small exercises that she can easily diversify and adapt. But this work takes a lot of time especially to make copies, arrange and try out the variations.
Scenario #4
Karin wants to teach to the students the topic “Time” as this topic should be reviewed many times with the students with cognitive disability. She had scanned some clock faces that show different times. She had also scanned the face of a digital clock. All these materials she had uploaded on the system some months ago and with the same materials she can arrange new exercises for each student monthly.
Katrin uses IMLIS teacher portal to create and manage lessons and monitor the success of her students. In the system each student has a profile that with updated information according learning behavior from each learning session. First of all, she studies each profile and how each student can succeed in his or her tasks. According to this she makes comments and notes that she saves in her task-field in the teacher portal. In a second step she creates two exercises, one for borderline and one for mild students. In step three she adapts the exercises to each student. The two borderline students are Ann and Franka. She analyses Ann’s success and needs and adds specific interactions to the exercise according to the student’s needs. Franka needs more support during the workflow so the teacher adds other interactions to the existing exercise. This learning design is customized for Franka.
The teacher prepared a unit to meet the diverse needs the three other moderate students Rose, Selim and Ronald. She created a unit for Rose and then for Ronald using a spe-cific lesson and adding different interactions for each of them. For Selim she had to modify more because he had language problems. She shortened the unit and added sev-eral iterations with variations of specific parts. She added the adequate interactions to the unit that should support him in the workflow.
Finally, she recorded and implemented a personal welcome for each student and spe-cific motivational feedback to be presented as audio. When everything is done she tests each learning unit with the preview-function where the system simulates the learning process of the chosen student according to his/her profile.
Scenario Highlights Pros and Cons Pros
• The system enables effective reuse and arrangements of uploaded materials.
• The system preview-function shows a simulation of how the student with his/her needs will manage to use the lesson.
• If a teacher works over a certain time with the system, the quantity of learning materials will increase enabling the easy creation of diverse lessons and exer-cises a in short timeframe.
• By the monitored learning behavior of each student in his/her profile the teacher gets detailed knowledge about the development and needs of each student.
• It becomes possible to analyze when and what kind of teaching material will best support the development of a certain student.
Cons
• The system has to be understood in order to use it effectively – takes time to learn how to use it.
• At the beginning, it takes a lot of time to upload and categorize the materials.
• The teacher portal is difficult for teachers with lower computer skills to manage.
• It is not easy to create lessons that can be solved collaboratively with other stu-dents.
4.4.5 Scenario 5: Sharing of Learning Materials between Teachers
Background Information
Agnes is a 42 year old teacher for students with cognitive disabilities. She works in an inclusive class with David, a 38 year old teacher. Together they teach 21 children, three students have borderline cognitive disabilities.
Scenario #5
David and Agnes set up the scheduling together. According to this scheduling Agnes states which of the three students with cognitive disabilities can do the normal lesson and which students need additional special exercises in order to follow the lessons. She selects material the learning materials for each of these three students and will upload their material to the teacher portal. Agnes and David create a personal profile for each of the three students; in this way David and Agnes can create the lessons specified for the needs of each student.
Half a year later Agnes enters another class set to teach the same topics that she taught the last class. She is able to reuse the previous materials for another lesson of new stu-dents. The system also monitors how the targeted student can deal with the materials.
According to student feedback and learning behaviors, a meaningful profile for each learning asset grows. Furthermore other teachers can benefit from this learning material knowledge base. Later, Harald (another teacher) asks Agnes to use her materials in his class. Agnes agreed to offer a public right to use her materials. Harald can search the existing lessons by the preview, and might use this lesson unmodified or change them for his class. He can also create new lessons from previous learning assets.
Scenario Highlights Pros and Cons Pros
• The system enables the effective reuse and arrangements of uploaded materials so the teachers can easily share the materials.
• The IMLIS categorizes the learning materials automatically based on learning history and behaviors.
• After an initial learning period, less effort in preparation time is required, and then the system reaches a certain amount of potential for to foster high learning performance.
Cons
• At the beginning, it needs a lot of effort to implement a basic collection of learn-ing material.
• It takes a period of time till the system gathers enough precise information for each learning asset.
• Like other communities, these interactive classrooms may have only a few ac-tive users who contribute to the system, and most other teachers will just use the prepared materials.
• It doesn’t support direct communication between teachers.