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 readyThe 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