MeLOD

In the last few years, many applications for mobile devices have been developed to support learning experiences both in formal and informal contexts. One of the main limits of these applications concerns the development of learning materials suitable for mobile learning contexts. In fact, learning content must be usually prepared in advance by teachers and maintained during the whole lifespan of the application. In this paper, we present MeLOD, a mobile learning environment, which exploits the huge amount of dataset in the Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud to overcome the previous issue, and provides contextualized and continuously updated information based on students’ location. The position of the student sent by the mobile device is used to interlink Geonames DBpedia and Europeana datasets to provide information about all the interesting cultural heritage sites close to the student. Moreover, students social activities like voting and commenting are used to enhance the knowledge base of the environment and to provide recommendations for next students’ visits.

Modelling the Influencing Factors on Mobile Learning Tools

In this study, the authors concerned about influencing factors on mobile learning tools for the applicable and sustainable mobile learning environment. The authors proposed an impact model with five influencing factors namely usefulness, interactivity, motivation, facilitating conditions, and ease of use. The 60 students and 60 teachers in different learning and teaching disciplines in higher education institutions were involved in this study to evaluate the model. Initially, they were asked to fill the pre-usage questionnaire with their initial mobile learning experience. Then, they were allowed to use mobile learning tools in the Moodle Mobile app and allowed to fill the post-usage questionnaire. The results reveal that the most significant influencing factor is the ease of use among others. Hence, the study concluded that ease of use would be the most significant factor to be considered when designing mobile learning tools in the mobile learning environment.

Library café or elsewhere: usage of study space by different majors under contemporary technological environment

PurposeAs current university students may access information for their study anytime, anywhere with ubiquitous mobile technologies, this research re-examines the roles of study space in students' learning and campus life.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted to collect students' opinions and habits regarding the usage of different study spaces. Results in three different academic majors (science and engineering, arts and business) of a comprehensive international university were compared.FindingsThe authors’ findings showed a more diversified space usage among students, with the library café increasingly important in students' learning and life while learning commons remain important. However, there were only minor differences among these three study majors towards the learning and entertaining spaces, as these students generally apply inquiry-based learning.Originality/valueWhile some researches have investigated students' usage of university and library learning spaces, few studies have focused on the study space issue in Hong Kong or other metropolises in the East under the current mobile learning environment. This study's insights could help libraries and universities improve the management of their physical spaces to meet student needs.

Asmaul Husna Mobile Application (AHMA): Foundation of the Prototype Design and Development

Asmaul Husna Mobile Application (AHMA) is a prototype mobile application based on an interaction model intended for use in heutagogy with undergraduates. This app was created and designed to increase students’ knowledge, perceived awareness, and perceived motivation for the learning material. When learners are assisted with signalling or cueing to focus their attention on the most appropriate resources, they demonstrate improved learning performance and significantly reduced cognitive load. The signalling principle’s effectiveness in enhancing learning outcomes by emphasising correspondences between text and images has been increasingly confirmed by empirical research. AHMA’s heutagogic design encourages students to explore, connect, and reflect through their self-learning process. By promoting aspects of the learning experience that are conducive to lecture or self-paced learning. This project involved a four-phase methodology which includes planning, design, development, and evaluation. According to the pre-and post-testing and heuristic evaluation results, AHMA significantly improved the learning experience and user interaction in a mobile learning environment.

Enhancing the E-Content Skills of Instructors Through the Use of Cloud-Based Mobile Learning Environment: A Case of a Saudi Arabian University

The research aims to design a mobile learning environment based on cloud computing applications to enhance the designing and publishing e-content skills of the faculty members of Northern Borders University, Saudi Arabia. The researcher used the semi- experimental approach to measure the impact of the mobile learning environment on the cognitive and performance aspects of the faculties. Two research tools were used in the study: an electronic achievement test to measure the cognitive aspect and an observation sheet to measure the performance aspects of designing and publishing e- content skills of faculty members (N=53). A training programme on mobile learning environment based on cloud computing was conducted to enhance the faculty members’ e-content designing skills. There was a statistically significant difference between the average scores of the members in their pre-and post-study assessment of the cognitive and performance aspects of designing and publishing e-content skills. Following the training programme, the faculty’s achievement scores increased to 84% from 42% in the pre-test; their performance to apply the learned skills in various activities improved to 91% from 43%. Based on the results of the study, it can be recommended that the mobile learning environment based on cloud computing applications is quite helpful in developing the skills of using technology by the faculty members.

Fostering Student Engagement in a Mobile Formative Assessment System for High-School Economics

In a mobile learning environment, students can learn via mobile devices without being limited by time and space. Therefore, it is vital to develop tools to assist students to learn and assess their knowledge in such environments. This paper presents a tool/application for formative self-assessment. The tool supports the selection of questions based on user-defined criteria concerning (1) the difficulty level; (2) the associated concepts; and (3) the purposes of the test taker. The main purpose of the presented tool is to better support the learning aims of the participants and to increase their engagement in the learning process. The focus of this study is to evaluate the tool using quizzes in Microeconomics to realize its potential in this specific domain. Teachers and students were involved in the experiments conducted. The experiments demonstrated that the presented tool is usable; it motivates the students and improves their understanding.