Abstract:

Over the last years, there is increasing adoption of distance learning methods in various aspects of education. As in many European countries, the Hellenic Open University (HoU) was established in Greece in 1992, began offering courses in 1997 and is the only one that provides distance education. However, there is an increasing pressure for better support for distance learning tools in traditional courses, partly because of the country’s economic situation which has forced many students to take up part-time or full-time employment and even to return to their home cities. As a consequence, distance learning ICT in Greece is shifting from a secondary educational tool to the foreground of education in the last few years.

Recent research in the field of ICT – based education, referred to the use of collaborative web 2.0 tools [2], [3]. However, the evolution of technology is heading towards the use of pervasive computing and mobile devices [1], [4]. Student and teachers increasingly use mobile devices in their daily routine, thus, it is timely to explore the use of pervasive computing as a learning tool that supplements traditional web 2.0 based tools.

As a basis for our research, we conducted longitudinal observations and a survey on the use of web 2.0 tools in adult education. Although our platform was not developed exclusively for mobile devices, we found that 32% of the students who used it, were using it through mobile devices. Amongst other questions, we asked whether students would like to have an application specifically designed for mobile devices, 63% of them responded positively. Thus, we considered that pervasive learning tools are strongly in demand and the students’ desire to use them motivated a deeper investigation at how these might be used.

The first step in our research and the aim of this paper is to explore the studying habits of distance learning students, in order to gain a better understanding of existing practices, with a view of supporting and improving learning experiences through pervasive computing. For this, we started a process of collecting data in order to find out more information about where students of distance education are studying (the place), whether they prefer to collaborate or not and the type of digital devices that are they using. In order to conduct our research and collect the data, we used a platform (Sensr.org) which enables us to create a mobile data collection interface for participants. We asked our participants to answer the questions while they were studying by providing us with real time data for their study environment. Our findings from the collected data will be paired with post-collection period interviews, providing a quantitative and qualitative description of the context under which distance learning takes place.

References:
[1] Gwo-Jen Hwang et al. (2012).A context-aware ubiquitous learning approach to conducting scientific inquiry activities in a science park, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 28(5), 931-947
[2] Sue Bennett et al. (2012). Implementing Web 2.0 technologies in higher education: A collective case study. Computers & Education 59, pp. 524–534
[3] Susan A. Brown. (2012). Seeing Web 2.0 in context: A study of academic perceptions, The Internet and Higher Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, January 2012, Pages 50–57
[4] S. Figueroa et al. (2014). A ubiquitous learning environment model for a university context, INTED2014 Proceedings, pp. 529-536.

Keywords:

e-learning, Pervasive Learning Tools, Distance Learning.