Investigating Learner Interactions via Ubiquitous Access

This short paper is an account of the first steps in a research into how does mobile accessibility impacts the learner interactions (social versus cognitive presence) of adult learners in an informal, open, online course. The research is set up as a mixed methods study, combining two types of new educational learning/teaching formats to investigate a possible diversification in learner interaction. The two learning/teaching formats are: 1) the open, online course which embeds social media as a way to enhance peer-to-peer interactions, specifically the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) format, and 2) mobile learning (mLearning). The reason for combining these two contemporary educational approaches is to investigate whether or not learner interaction is impacted by enabling mobile access to a MOOC. The learner interactions will be investigated making use of an adapted Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework which focuses on learner interactions. The learner interactions under investigation using the CoI will be: social presence (personal interactions between course participants) and cognitive presence (cognitive, academic or intellectual interactions between participants). This short paper provides an overview of the research problem, its background, a shortened literature review and the methodology used. During mLearn2012 the research will have reached a first analysis and these first analysis will be shared by the participants of mLearn2012.