Leicester mobile learning roundup, 5 March 12.30pm

Our next informal Handheld Learning gathering will be on Tuesday 5th March at 12.30pm, in the usual venue of 105 Princess Road East - in the Learning Innovation Studio.

This meeting will be a roundup of Leicester uses of 'by-design' mobile in learning... in other words, use of mobile by the plan of the instructors, as opposed to simply the students being able to check a discussion group on their mobile device, and will feature Jeremy Turner from the Centre for Labour Market Studies describing his work to create ebooks which are usable on any mobile device.

All welcome - see you there.

Leicester App and Blackboard Mobile Learn

On Friday 14th December, our newly-renamed Handheld Learning Group met around cookies and brownies to discuss the recent launch of the Leicester app and Blackboard Mobile Learn. I had been thinking of these two as separate things, but they are connected and they are both ultimately made available by Blackboard.

On the Apple store, you can find the Leicester app by searching for LeicesterUni (I don't know if it is titled the same in the Android store). It is free. When you download it, you can see a gateway into Blackboard. You need your university login for that part; it is an applet called Blackboard Mobile Learn (which can actually be downloaded as a separate app). Blackboard Mobile Learn offers users most functions of Blackboard in a custom-made environment for their mobile device -- even Blackberry.

The LeicesterUni app was launched rather quietly after autumn term started, and since then, even with not much publicity, it has been downloaded over 3000 times. 2500 of these have been to iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch). Besides the Blackboard section, the app offers campus maps, a way to quickly find a free campus PC, and a portal into the library search system, plus more. The ITS and Marketing joint project team responsible for the app have been meeting with students to keep up on student opinion and wishes for further development. I asked how staff could register a request for something to be added to the app, and the answer is that there is a feedback button on the app (it's kind of hard to see and it looks like a lightning flash), where email addresses are listed to register such requests.

LeicesterUni app on iOS

As for Blackboard Mobile Learn itself, ITS have written some guidelines about what definitely does not work and what definitely does work:

• Blackboard Mobile Learn help page – overview of what will work and links to documents from Blackboard with more details
• Best practice for mobile – how can you make your Blackboard course sites work better from a mobile device?

And Catherine Leyland of ITS says "This information is a starting point but needs to be developed as we use Blackboard mobile more within the University and get more idea of what works and how best to use it.  If anyone does come across anything else they want to share, useful tips etc. then could you let me know and I’ll update these pages?" So there is our invitation!

As for me, I have been encouraging instructors to solicit feedback from their students regarding Blackboard Mobile Learn, so that we can be aware of issues and how the students are using it.

Terese Bird, Learning Technologist, University of Leicester

Nature launches iPad app

Nature becomes the first major league scientific publisher to offer a free iPad app. Unlike most of Nature's content, that selected for the app is free.

Is it any good? What does it add to the free content already available on the Nature website? Has the world gone app mad?

Mobile Google+ Communities

On Friday, Google launched Google+ Communities. What are these good for? We don't know yet, but they are broadly equivalent to Facebook groups and as those have lots of applications, Communities look like they might be interesting.

An initial frustration was the inability to access Communities on mobile devices, specifically tablets, as they don't appear on the Google+ app or the mobile version of the site Google (wrongly) forces on tablet users. Thankfully, George Station came up with a workaround. Use the Chrome browser and at the Google+ login page, select Request Desktop Site from the dropdown menu under the Settings cog:

That should work, although you may need to log out and back in again a couple of times, then you should have access to Communities:

See you there!

Alan Cann

Biological Sciences

What are QR codes good for?

Alan Cann asks: QR codes - QPR or SPQR?

14 December - UoL Handheld Learning Group Meeting

The next Handheld Learning Group meeting will be held Friday, 14 December 2012 at 12.30pm, at the usual venue of 105 Princess Road East. At this meeting, Michelle Heap and Nichola Wilson will discuss the new University of Leicester app, as well as the new implementation of Blackboard Mobile Learn, which gives Leicester students cross-platform mobile access to their discussion boards and other Blackboard material.

Blackboard Mobile Learn image by jrhode on Flickr

This should be a good chance for informal discussion and hearing from the project leaders where they see these features heading, and what we might expect in the future. Plus some home-baked treats, no doubt! As usual, invite anyone along whom you think might be interested, and don't be too shy to bring your lunch along!

Terese Bird, Learning Technologist, University of Leicester

Blogger for iOS updated

We'll let you know....

I am editing this post on the iPad app now. It's an improvement on the previous version, but no WYSIWYG editing - this is a very basic client. Chrome for iOS is a much better bet for Blogger users.