AppAdvisor 1

AppAdvisor: Providing Educators with Advice on

Mobile Language Acquisition Applications

Laura Hall, Sarah Irwin-Gibson, Lilian Lee, Oliver Lesum and Evelyn Welsh

Professor Chelsey Hauge

ETEC 510

February 15, 2015

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AppAdvisor: Providing Educators with Advice on

Mobile Language Acquisition Applications

Key Framework

The field of education is constantly evolving. As the world around us grows and

changes, so must the information taught in the classroom. The information, platform of

instruction and way that material is being delivered must be continuously modified to

support new ways to create individualized and authentic learning opportunities for

students. This calls for new methods of instruction to help guide students in their ability

to process information and aid in their construction of knowledge. With the influence of

mobile technologies, a drastic shift in terms of creative power, ownership, and authorship

has surfaced. Winston Churchills famous quote, History is written by the victors, no

longer applies, as individuals across the globe have access and the ability to contribute to

form a collective history (Winston Churchill Quotes).

The push towards technology has not gone unrecognized within the education

system. Yet, in many areas, teachers and students alike have been left without proper

resources, information or tools to implement and use new technologies in their lesson

designs and in their delivery. With cut-backs to preparatory time, collaboration time, and

the stripping of funding for professional development, many educators find it challenging

to create dynamic and engaging lessons for students incorporating technology. As

Nakamura (2007) states, the Internet is the largest participatory mass medium in use

today, and as such, it should be used equitably and to its fullest potential across

geographic and economic barriers (p.45). As educators identify the needs of their
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community, technology can work to positively impact their community by encouraging

participation in lifelong learning.

Our research proposal is to help facilitate the integration of mobile applications

developed for the iPad and Android tablets as tools in education. Specifically, we will be

creating a collaborative platform where education professionals can share and evaluate

mobile applications that support students language acquisition. This is where education

professionals can come together as a community to use a metalanguage for assessing and

evaluating these applications. In addition, we will create interactivities that exemplify

how applications can be used as a collaboration platform for students in the classroom,

along with self-learning tools to be applied in any learning environment, fostering do-it-

yourself communities (Kafai & Peppler, 2011).

Constructivism, much like technology, decentralizes the role of the teacher by

shifting focus to individualized and student-driven learning. This approach asks students

to construct ideas to develop a clear understanding of skills, processes and attitudes (Von

Glasserfeld, 2008). Language learning is based on four major components: reading,

writing, speaking and listening. With the preferred medium of technology, students can

work at their own pace and according to their own ability. The use of technological

applications helps to support student understanding and increase engagement in learning

environments through differentiated learning and individualized instruction (Watson &

Watson, 2011).

Intentions and Positions

The world has changed drastically in the last 10 years with regards to mobile

technology and this means that pedagogy must evolve in tandem with this change.
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Mobile devices are becoming more powerful and versatile, and are becoming the primary

computing device. According to Godwin-Jones (2011), this is not a trend language

teachers can ignore.

If students are using their mobile devices as their primary computing device, then

using applications to support learning of language bridges the gap between school

learning and home learning. Learning can happen anywhere and anytime. Having a

teacher guide the use of these applications and advise students in areas of weakness,

furthers individual learning, making it more valuable for all students.

Being digital natives, todays students have been raised to be engaged by the

media and digital world that surrounds them. Rhiannon Sparkes, an Elementary School

teacher who uses iPads in her classroom and has done research with Apple, believes that

Using technology is where the students are most comfortable and most creative. So its

really exciting to help them enjoy classic literature. The potential with iPad is limitless

(Apple).

Having a tool like AppAdvisor for teachers to browse supports hard working

educators and provides them with tools that engage, encourage and are current. To help

educators decide on which applications to use, AppAdvisor sorts and categorizes

applications according to a matrix built on two types of criteria: on the x-axis, we list 13

criteria made up of language skills that language learners need to master to be truly

competent users. These are Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking, Grammar/Sentence

Structure, Vocabulary, Storytelling, Publishing and Content Creation. Conventionally,

most of these skills are taught through a combination of textbooks, workbooks, drills and

games. However, with the use of mobile applications, these skills will benefit from the
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affordances that mobile learning provide. These affordances include active learning,

portability, participatory learning, immediate feedback and delivery of smaller chunks of

language information that can be repeated and adapted (Bracke, 2013).

Using mobile applications correctly can enhance learner language acquisition.

Oftentimes the use of technology can become a hindrance or a distraction if used

incorrectly because the same goals could have been better achieved without the

intervention of a mobile applications. Its use should therefore augment the student's

learning experience and optimize learning capacity (Carrington, 2008).

On the y-axis are six items from Blooms Taxonomy. This is a strategic tool that

helps teachers to design learning objectives that achieve higher-order thinking. The six

criteria are Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analysing, Evaluating and Creating.

This taxonomy of lower-order to higher-order thinking skills lends itself particularly well

to language acquisition. It seems to parallel a language learners journey from the time he

is a beginner trying to remember and understand new vocabulary, till he becomes a more

advanced speaker who is creating complex language that reflects his thinking processes.

Although this taxonomy has been in existence since the early 20th century, it has been

updated as Blooms Digital Taxonomy (Figure 1) for use in 21st century education.
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Figure 1. Blooms Digital Taxonomy Concept Map

Where the two axes of AppAdvisor intersect, there will be many applications that

could be employed by an educator to fulfill the relevant criteria. For example, if a teacher

were looking for an application to encourage students to practise their pronunciation, they

could choose Chatterpix where the x-axis criterion of Speaking and the y-axis criterion of

Remembering (how to pronounce a word) intersect.

Other Important Criteria of Mobile Applications

Besides the two sets of criteria that determine the x and y-axes of the AppAdvisor,

other criteria have also been identified as essential to the choice of applications. We will

look at the following affordances that mobile applications provide, as deemed important

by Jenkins (2010) for the education of the 21st century student.

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Play

Applications that contain gamification will afford learners to lose themselves in

the world of the game and not be afraid to use the target language even though they are

not competent enough yet.

Role Play and Simulation

Some applications allow different players to take on different roles to solve a

problem. This requires the use of more complex language and higher-order thinking

skills as students collaborate to solve a problem from different perspectives.

Appropriation

Some applications afford the building of new content from existing content. To

encourage new language learners to use the target language in a more extensive way, they

could remix content provided by an application and and then publish a new version.

Multitasking

Multitasking is typical of a 21st century students homework mode. So, self-

learning assignments through an application can be done while they are engaging in other

academic or personal activities.

Personalization

Learner-centered lessons are now easier to design than previously possible,

because of the affordance of personalization built into mobile applications. Recordable

speech, speech correction, error bookmarking and list creation are key requirements.

Participation

Through using suitably selected applications like both Productivity or Immersive

applications (Figure 3), a teacher can design a lesson that could involve small groups
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playing a multi-player game in competition or in collaboration with each other. On the

other hand, Utility and Productivity applications could be used by users for self-learning

outside the classroom to further bolster the lesson conducted that day.

Types of Applications Design

Utility Look up function; No practice mode

applications

Productivity Offer sufficient practice; more fully featured (with a range of connected
applications functionalities)

Immersive Used to play games, view media and perform specialized tasks; offer a
applications full-screen, visually rich environment which is focused on the content
and the users experience with the content
Figure 3. Three Kinds of applications Designs (Sweeney 2012:2, quoted in

Barack, 2013)
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The Application Selection Process

Figure 2. How to Select Mobile Tools for Engaging Students in Language Acquisition

Here is a visual that encapsulates the cyclical process that an educator would have

to go through to select an application. It begins firstly with the need to assess the learning

needs presented. These needs are always changing according to the progress that the

learner makes, and therefore some kind of formative assessment should be ongoing, at
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least in the educators mind. After the educator knows what is needed, he will have to

also decide which thinking skills or process will fulfill the learners language acquisition

most appropriately at that stage of learning. The educator then needs to study the

curriculum to assess when to schedule specific applications that encourage active

learning or collaborative learning to fulfill that learning objective. Correspondingly, other

or similar applications could then be selected to support class learning through

differentiated self-learning during or after school hours. Finally, the educator will design

the lesson to skillfully use the applications that were chosen so as to maximize the

learning of the students both in class and outside of class.

Key Concepts and Context

Considerations for mobile application formats will be taken into account when

designing the AppAdvisor. Interfaces, device features, usability and connectivity are all

variables when using mobile applications in the classroom. Having a centralized source

for educators to go to that is rated and reviewed by other educators will help in

overcoming obstacles like usability and platform type. Since private application sources

(iTunes) are designed for particular platforms, it will prove to be a useful tool when

implementing them into classroom settings that contain very diverse application needs

(Hue and Meier 2010). As the applications market continues to grow and develop for

multiple platform capabilities we hope to mitigate the frustrations of educators through

AppAdvisor.

By providing a matrix for evaluation that takes into account the myriad of mobile

applications available, our design will essentially be a resource for language applications.

By seeking out and developing evaluation and assessment criteria of these applications,
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we can better defend our own autonomy as professionals, as school boards and districts

seek to limit, manage and generally resist the use of mobile applications. It is understood

that recent research in the area of collaborative and participatory learning environments

incorporates the use of mobile applications. This shows a high level of engagement by

students when used for academic purposes in the classroom, which also requires

educators to critically evaluate their implementation and purpose. As Yarmey concludes,

while students are interested in using their phones for academic purposes, they still

require guidance from educators to choose the most appropriate mobile resource and to

evaluate mobile websites and mobile applications (Yarmey, 2011).

With our focus on language acquisition applications, our goal for AppAdvisor is

the evaluation of mobile applications through the developed matrix. We intend to launch

this process by focusing on five different applications as a starting point. The intention is,

as our AppAdvisor base grows, educators with diverse accessibility will be able to locate,

evaluate, and review applications for different platforms and device requirements. There

is some debate about the longevity of the mobile applications in comparison to the use

and growth of mobile web-based applications. Possible developments in AppAdvisor

may also include evaluation of mobile websites, as trends indicate that growth here will

occur at a much faster rate than that of mobile applications. The argument is that mobile

websites are easier to access in comparison to some mobile applications that require

multiple pages open, further slowing down the process (Yarmey, 2011). Staying current

and ahead of the curve in terms of trends is also a consideration for the longevity of such

a tool.
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The constructionist theories of Seymour Papert influence the scope and sequence

of our design project as it models the type of collaborative and immersive learning

educators have come to value (Stager, 2014), specifically, the idea of building a

community of lifelong learners.

Counter Arguments

Accessibility

Although iPads and Android tablets are available in many First, Developing and

Third World countries, present a vast disparity in the accessibility within countries and

populations. This disparity has been termed the participation gap by Jenkins (2010).

Usage

Even where iPads and tablets are available by the cartload in schools, many

teachers do not know how to optimize their use in classrooms.

Connection Speed

In rural areas, and in large cities where there is an over-subscription of the

Internet, connection to the Internet can be limited and even unreliable. This could hinder

online learning via mobile applications. Offline options should be made available to

offset the limitations of Internet coverage.

Workflow

It is important that learners are able to share their data with their teacher for

assessment and with their classmates or friends. This feature is not always available for

all iPad applications.

Interactivities
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Our group will attempt to create two specific design platforms: first, a simplistic

looking website, which will guide users to select the best application mobile application

based on a query. This visually interactive website will look sleek and simple, applying

Don Normans theory of a visceral level in designing, creating a comfortable and easy to

navigate environment, ensuring that novice users will stay on our website and make use

of what it offers (Norman, 2003). Mobile applications depicted on the website will

undergo a specific rating system, which is based on a very comprehensive and complex

analytical matrix.

The scores for a specific mobile application will be cross-referenced with reviews

and feedback from other educators in the future. Our intention is to keep the website as

an open source website with the hopes of making AppAdvisor a sustainable and ever-

evolving environment, where educators help educators. The development of our design

will follow Dr. Paul Kims ADDIES principles: analysis, design, development,

implementation, evaluation, sustainment (Kim, 2012). With sustainment in mind, our

goal is to create the notion of a wiki-like platform, where seasoned experts will rate

mobile applications using our matrix, and computing new scores for all sorts of

applications. This will give educators, who are looking for best mobile applications, the

chance to be a user and evaluator at the same time.

Second, we would like to expand our reach to mobile users, creating a mobile

version of our AppAdvisor. This mobile application will follow the same principles and

exhaustive assessment as the website. Keeping a sleek, simple, easy to navigate platform

is our key priority. The easier the platform can be used, the happier the user will be and

the more traffic it will generate, which will be vital to its existence.
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Our design will be for applications across different platforms and will aim to

reach out to every educator, no matter what the technological background might be.

From novice to expert, AppAdvisor will serve as a consulting platform to choose the right

mobile applications according to keyword searches, educator ratings, and user reviews.

To promote our product, we will attempt to create an advertisement spot in the

form of a short stop motion commercial for both platforms based on the main ideas of

AppAdvisor. We would also like to set up workshops in schools or school districts to

introduce this effective tool to educators.

Verification

Despite all the evidence showing how mobile applications can be useful

educational tools for language acquisition, there remains the question as to how we could

verify how useful our AppAdvisor will be. Are educators consulting the AppAdvisor

webpage or mobile version? Are teachers inspired to try out a new mobile application in

the classroom to engage their students, ultimately increasing learning? To verify our

design, we will employ statistics on website visits, use, and downloads. We will also

provide quick survey pop-ups that encourage critical feedback from visitors.

Firstly, we will verify how successful AppAdvisor is by how often it is used.

Educators will be looking for tools to help them wade through the myriad of mobile

applications available to them. AppAdvisor will narrow down the specifications of an

application and ultimately, it will save educators around the world a lot of time.

Secondly, prompting teachers to complete a quick survey, while visiting

AppAdvisor, would reveal important information about what teachers are looking for and

how satisfied they are with what they are finding.

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Lastly, by examining the success of applications ranked on AppAdvisor, we can

see how useful and relevant it is in connection to our matrix. Keeping an eye on ratings,

reviews, and other feedback will keep AppAdvisor current and useful. Educators will be

able to introduce new applications, which will be ranked after cross-referencing it with

our matrix and based on educators reviews.

Conclusion

Our aim is to provide every educator with a tool to help reach students and

educators on a global scale. By designing AppAdvisor, we hope to ease the facilitation

and integration of mobile applications as a tool to enhance meaningful learning.

AppAdvisor is based on the recommendations of an online learning community

comprised of educators. This platform will provide educators with an evaluative matrix of

mobile applications, specifically organized to support individual needs, organizing

applications into language skill categories, and juxtaposing it with Blooms Taxonomy.

AppAdvisor will be a tool to provide support not only to seasoned but also to novice

users, who are in need of a simple and easy to navigate platform. AppAdvisor, the one-

stop-tool all educators have been missing until now!

References

Apple. - Education - A novel's setting comes to life. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2015,

from http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/teach-with-ipad/classroom/secret-

garden/

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 14, 2015, from

http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

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Bracke, K. (2013). apps for mobile language learning. Retrieved February 14, 2015, from

https://www.academia.edu/8016956/apps_for_mobile_language_learning

Carrington, A. (2008). In Support of Excellence. Retrieved February 14, 2015, from

http://www.unity.net.au/allansportfolio/edublog/?p=917

Godwin-Jones, R. (2011). Emerging Technologies Mobile apps for Language Learning.

Language Learning & Technology, 15(2), 211. doi:ISSN 1094-3501.

Hue, R., & Meier, A. (n.d.). Mobile Strategy Report: Mobile Device User Research (pp.

1-37, Rep.). California: California Digital Library.

Kim, P. (Speaker). (2012, September 18). Dr. Paul Kim, Stanford University, Designing

a New Learning Environment. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E8ZBuysdWA

Kafai, B. Y. (2006). Playing and making games for learning: instructionist and

constructionist perspectives for game studies. Games and Culture, 1(1), 36.

doi:10.1177/1555412005281767

Kafai, B. Y., & Peppler, A. K. (2011). Youth, technology, and DIY: Developing

participatory competencies in creative media production. Review of Research in

Education, 35(1), 89. doi:10.3102/0091732X10383211

Nakamura, L. (2007). Digitizing Race : Visual Cultures of the Internet. Minneapolis, MN,

USA: University of Minnesota Press. Retrieved February 14, 2015 from

http://www.ebrary.com.

Norman, D. (Speaker). (2003, February). Don Norman: 3 ways good design makes you

happy. Retrieved from

http://www.ted.com/talks/don_norman_on_design_and_emotion?language=en
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Stager, G. (Producer), & Stager, G. (Director). (2014, TedXASB). Seymour papert

inventor of everything. [Video/DVD] YouTube.

Sweeney, P. & Moore, C. (2012). Mobile applications for learning vocabulary:

Categories, evaluation and design criteria for teachers and developers.

International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching,

2(4), pp.1-16.

Von Glasersfeld, E. (2008). Learning as a Constructive Activity. AntiMatters, 2(3), 33-49.

Retrieved from http://anti-matters.org/articles/73/public/73-66-1-PB.pdf

Watson, S. L., & Watson, W. R. (2011). The Role of Technology and Computer-Based

Instruction in a Disadvantaged Alternative School's Culture of Learning.

Computers In The Schools, 28(1), 39-55.

Winston Churchill Quotes. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12th, 2015 from

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/win

Yarmey, K. (2011). Student information literacy in the mobile environment. Educause

Quarterly, 34(1), 1.

Appendix 1

Language Learner Intermedi

Level ate
Language Skill Bloom's T R U Ap E C
Integrated Storybird Storybird
Reading WordPress WordPress
Writing WordPress WordPress
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Listening Duolingo Duolingo ChatterPix ChatterPix

Speaking Duolingo Duolingo ChatterPix ChatterPix
Literature
Story telling Storybird Storybird
Publishing WordPress WordPress
Content Creation WordPress Evernote Evernote
Gr
Wo
nde
Grammar/Sentence rlan
Structure d
Vocabulary Duolingo Duolingo

Appendix 2

Application Selection Process

1. Assess learning needs of the class
a. linguistic background of students
b. academic or age level of students
c. language skill needed (grammar, speaking, listening, reading, writing, integrated,
communicative)
2. Evaluate which thinking skills are needed, according to Blooms Taxonomy
a. Remember/Knowledge
b. Understand/Comprehension
c. Apply/Application
d. Analyze/Analysis
e. Evaluate/Evaluation
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f. Create/Synthesis
2. Identify which learning objectives in the curriculum need participatory and
collaborative learning using mobile applications. Some applications lend
themselves better to collaborative learning than others.
3. Decide which learning objectives need to be supported by applications for self-
learning outside the classroom
4. Design a blended lesson that uses the appropriate mobile applications both during
and outside of class time.