THE EXPERIENCE OF OPEN UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Anuwar Ali President/Vice-Chancellor Open University Malaysia OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING – OPPORTUNITIES FOR MOBILE LEARNING

Why Open and Distance Learning? Current need for mass education and life-long learning Knowledge-economy and globalised economy require fast track training Most organizations cannot afford downtime to train workers Conventional universities cannot grow fast enough to cope with demand

The OUM Context Vision: To be “University for All” 95% of learners are working adults. They face many challenges, including the following: 1. Cannot allocate fixed time to study because of many commitments 2. Many in areas with poor access to Internet 3. Must find time to study

OUM Learners Span All Ages AGE GROUP Broad spread in age distribution

OUM Learners are Everywhere Diverse Geographical Distribution: Access to services variable

OUM Learners are From All Communities

ODL Students – Managing Time The long commute Long day at work Quality time with family and chores Office work? Sleep Wake up, get ready The long commute

Working adults do not have long stretches of time for study Study time must be “created” while performing other activities Finding Time to Study

….. Usually very late at night

Or While Commuting

Or While Working

Learning Paradigm for ODL Time to learn for most ODL Learners – while doing other activities. Thus, learning contents must be: Mobile Easily accessible Suitably chunked into small bites Non distracting

Mobile Learning Mobile learning: in any location, at any time, including traditional learning environments such as classrooms as well as in workplaces, at home, in parks and while commuting. Well suited to ODL Learners

Devices – are readily available Mobile technologies include: mobile phones, smartphones, PDAs, MP3/ MP4 players (e.g. iPODs), handheld gaming devices (e.g. Sony PSP, Nintendo DS), ultramobile PCs, mini notebooks or netbooks handheld GPS etc, etc Many learners have at least one of these

Contents There are countless contents for conventional online learning but appropriate content for mobile learning is still lacking. The following are two large resources for mobile content: ITunes University: Audio and Video download from many universities BLOOM: Bite-sized Learning Opportunities on Mobile

Internet Radio – Audio and Video Files MP3 MP4 Mobile TV

The Way Forward New Initiatives: Authoring tools to facilitate production of contents Contents are appropriate for the various mobile devices Support for learners while on mobile learning Conduct research on effectiveness of delivery and contents Formulate strategy for growth of mobile learning to support ODL

Be prepared for the new mobile learners

Or just opt for the still popular mobile learning aid