MobiDics - Cooperative Mobile E-Learning for Teachers

We report on MobiDics, a mobile learning platform for professors, lecturers and tutors. In a survey with 100+ participants, we revealed that young, inexperienced teaching personnel at universities rarely use specific didactic methods to plan and structure courses. Such methods play an important role in learning processes since they, for example, activate students and contribute to more profound and sustainable learning experiences. Based on learning phases and social forms, MobiDics is able to suggest didactic methods that are adequate to a specific teaching situation. Parameters such as class size, teaching tool support, room constraints, etc. can additionally be incorporated. Learning settings can thereby be formalized and reconstructed based on the building blocks in form of didactic methods. MobiDics encourages and supports the targeted use of didactic concepts with the long-term goal of increasing the quality of university education. A particular focus lies on cooperative learning through community-based features. Users report on their experiences how well certain methods worked by a commenting function, and exchange tips and feedback with peers and experts. While user-generated content can comfortably be added through the web frontend, a mobile application allows dynamic adaption of didactic planning to contextual conditions such as the current lecture hall. In a two-step evaluation, MobiDics was adopted positively in the target group and its features highly appreciated. Our results motivate a further long-term study where we will evaluate MobiDics in the field. Author