The mobile phone has vast potential to breathe new life into modern teaching methodologies.

Mobile app stores provide a mechanism which facilitates the seamless download of applications to end-user devices from any location with an internet connection.  With development technologies such as Adobe Flash, XCode and Java, applications can be made visually stunning and highly engaging. Mobile browsers also continue to improve and provide a gateway to rich media such as YouTube, and social media integration with the likes of Twitter and Facebook.  A combination of all these technologies provides developers with the potential to create highly stimulating learning environments.  For such a small device, the mobile phone is a huge platform.

When developing educational content for mobile phones, the challenge is not specifically the implementation of it.  We can develop an array of standalone or collaborative applications which provide a high level of interactivity with the end-user.  More so, the challenge is how we can integrate mobile phones as a learning device into a classroom environment.  Consider allowing a group of 30 teenagers to use mobile applications in the classroom to engage in an interactive session.  How many of these 30 will be logging into their Facebook app, or texting their friend, or playing Angry Birds?  How could we stop this from happening, and ensure that students are using their devices for the intended purpose?

When personal computers were introduced into schools, the infrastructure initially comprised of single standalone machines placed in one or more classrooms.  Some computers didn’t even have logins, and the internet (if you were lucky enough to have it) could be freely roamed.

Educational technologists had known for many years that computerised techniques would improve productivity, consistency and accuracy of workload.  Applications for Word Processing, Desktop Publishing, Databases, Spreadsheets and Graphics/Design would evolve to become the cornerstone of educational best practice.

As computers became more popular, governments invested in the technology for schools.  Multiple computers meant that computer networks were introduced which governed and restricted access to certain people, applications, websites and specific files and folders.  Suddenly schools needed an IT department!  Through the use of Active Directory and Group Policy, network administrators could ensure that the computer systems were being used for the right reasons.

The technology is not the only issue around bringing m-learning to the classroom.  There are many socio-economic reasons why personal mobile devices could not be used.  Some students won’t be able to afford a mobile device, and other students will.  Some students will own slow, outdated mobile devices.  Others will own the latest trend.  It is this barrier which will limit the use of personal handsets as a means of learning in the classroom.  This is not to say that, just like computers, governments won’t one day invest in generic mobile devices for the classroom.

Although m-Learning (mobile learning) in the classroom is currently a relatively new concept, with time and investment it has the potential to become a managed and controlled platform for learning.

Well, this is our first blog.  So welcome, everybody!

I’ll start by telling you a little bit about the company, PocketRevision.co.uk.  We founded the company in 2009 with the intention of bringing highly interactive GCSE revision content to mobile devices.

We started out in some luxury office space which included the finest veneer computer desk, a PC with 512mb of RAM, a motivating Rocky Balboa poster on the wall and even a double bed for those moments of exhaustion.  (Cough).  Ok.  I must confess that the office was in fact my bedroom.  But we all have to start somewhere!

We’ve always had a passion for learning new things and exploring new technologies.  Through our passion for learning, we were also able to realise which methods and principles worked best for us from a teaching perspective.  Did we find going to lectures the most effective?  Books?  Articles?  Web-based content?  Or a combination of all of these?

In actual fact, it was the latter.

Each platform has its own advantages and disadvantages.  Lectures were the hardest method of learning as you had to sit, listen, learn, and the pace was dictated by the lecturer.

Books were better.  We had the information at our fingertips, and we could learn at our own pace.  But any examples in there were static, limited, and the books were often cumbersome.  Some of the books were black and white, and not very appealing to the eye.

Articles were similar in nature but due to them usually being written about one specific subject and being a limited length, they often provided more clarity and the context took a more direct approach.

Web-based content varied – most likely due to the skill set of the developer.  Some content was much like books – static and colourless.  Other content was fantastic – java-based applets were interactive, but often lacking visual appeal.  Adobe Flash objects were interactive, visually stunning and extremely engaging.

With much brew-drinking and countless head scratching (and the occasional snooze), we knew that a hybrid approach to teaching via mobile handsets was required:

Self paced – the revision content had to be self-paced, so users could learn in their own time.

Specific – Like the articles, pages had to be specific and insightful.  Learning was most effective when things were concise and to the point.

Interactive – a technology was required so that the user could interact with the content.  This would increase engagement and focus.

Colourful – the content had to be colourful and appealing.

Dynamic – Examples had to be non-static, and have the ability to be recreated multiple times presenting multiple scenarios.

We decided that the best technology to use would be Adobe Flash.  It is multi-platform (Web, Mobile, OS-independent), has a powerful scripting language (Actionscript) and strong animation features (Tweening).

The Pocket Revision easel came out of the loft, and we commenced work on the user interface design.  We worked tirelessly – 2B pencil in one hand, strong coffee in the other, and created some fine abstract art.

A week later, the masterpiece was complete.  We could now focus on which subject we would attack first, and due to the mathematical nature of scripting languages our obvious choice was maths.

Our intentions were always to start with GCSE revision, as that’s the area we specialise in.  Although in the future we hope to expand into different disciplines such as A-Level and Degree level subjects.

We continued to research the content of many exam boards such as EdExcel, AQA and OCR.  Our ultimate aim was to remain exam-board independent so that our apps would be helpful to everybody, and not tailored to one specific syllabus.

We spent 3 months designing the content for our GCSE mathematics apps – Algebra and Sequences, Shape Measurements, Statistics, Graphs and Charts, Numbers and Probability, Shapes and Angles and finally Fractions, Ratios and Percentages.

A further 6 months down the line and we had completed development for the Nokia and Sony-Ericsson mobile platforms, and each application was accepted into the Nokia Ovi Store and GetJar.  To date, we have had over 20,000 free downloads of our apps, and buckets full of positive feedback.  (Thanks everybody for the feedback!)

In 2011, we launched our maths GCSE revision apps for the iPhone.  They’ve been on the Apple App Store for just over a month now, and downloads are slowly but surely increasing.

Many people wonder why our Nokia/Sony Ericsson apps are free, and the iPhone apps are not.  The reason is because our Nokia/Sony Ericsson apps contain advertisements.  This is how we tried to make money to continue developing our apps, whilst keeping the apps free for each user.

Unfortunately, the money we made just wasn’t significant enough to fund developments, and because we don’t receive any funding to develop our apps we now charge 69p for each iPhone app.  Of course, our iPhone apps are free of any advertising.  So ditch the chocolate bar and purchase one of our apps instead!

Hopefully one day when we get more and more traffic, we’ll be able to make our apps completely free again.

Here’s hoping….