What we can learn from “mobile cheaters”

The last few weeks I kept reading news messages about Chinese students who were cheating on exams in school. They would use all sorts of mobile technology to get the information they needed. Sometimes small Bluetooth ear pieces, sometimes sophisticated mobile phones with internet access and sometimes simply regular mobile phones and text messages. Of course, it is wrong to cheat in this way (and any other way), but I kept asking myself isn’t this also a good sign? Doesn’t this show all of us, who try to use mobile phones for education, that the technology is good enough now? After all, it has happened so many times, therefore it must be quite effective. Sooner or later, it will probably become almost impossible to stop such cheaters unless each and every student, who is taking an exam, is checked for electronic devices. Why don’t we integrate it more? It’s just a matter of time. I do not condone cheating, but I do approve of making use of available technology for learning.

So what happened to the Chinese students? Many of them were fined or even imprisoned. Probably not the best way to encourage everyone to make use of mobile learning..

Link news article 1: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-04/08/content_7657951.htm

Link news article 2: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE5324NK20090403

Austrian University studies Augmented Reality on mobile devices

This Monday I attended an extremely interesting presentation by Daniel Wagner of the Graz University of Technology. Daniel holds a Master in computer science and has been working on mobile augmented reality projects. He showed a few stunning demonstrations on what a combination between reality and a digital camera can create. One example was a tour through a campus in which users of a mobile phone could look through their mobile’s camera and actually see the buildings or rooms with certain tags on them.

Another application was a museum tour in which a virtual cartoon guide would explain them certain items whenever they looked through their mobile. (See image)

Interactive gaming with this kind of augmented reality was also shown in a short movie where a PDA camera was used as an interface together with a real life map. On the camera display the games virtual characters were shown as they moved and behaved in certain ways with the real map as the playing board. The player could also shoot the “bad guys” on his PDA and interact with this mixed reality environment .

There are several very promising ways in which these projects could help mobile learning professionals to create an entire new level of mobile learning. If you have the time and haven’t visited it yet, I really recommend to check out the demo page of the Graz University of Technology.

Link demo page of Graz University of Technology: http://studierstube.icg.tu-graz.ac.at/handheld_ar/media_press.php

Disclaimer: mLearningblog.com does not endorse any products or services on request. The views in this blog are the authors personal opinion.