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Let the Students Lead the Way: an Exploratory Study

of Mobile Language Learning in a Classroom
Sobah Abbas Petersen
Dept. of Computer & Information
Sciences
Norwegian University of Science &
Technology
Trondheim, Norway
sap@idi.ntnu.no
+47 73551336
Roslyn Sell
Trondheim International
School
Festningsgate 2
Trondheim, Norway
roslyn@this.no
+47 73 51 48 00
Josie Watts
Trondheim International
School
Festningsgate 2
Trondheim, Norway
josie@this.no
+47 73 51 48 00
ABSTRACT
This paper describes an exploratory study that was conducted at an international school using a mobile application
designed to support situated mobile language learning. The mobile application, called Cloudbank, supports a
repository for words and expressions that can be shared by several users. The study was started where the
application was used for a limited activity within the classroom, which is using figures of speech in English. The
students were given the freedom to explore the functionalities of the application, the affordances of the mobile
device as well as to use it for other activities. The teachers initially believed that the application will be beneficial
for learning figures of speech in English. The study revealed that Cloudbank is beneficial for supporting learning
in several areas, collaboration among students and ownership of the knowledge leading to retention of the
knowledge. It also highlighted how the technology stimulated discussions about the cultural aspects of languages.
This paper presents an overview of the exploratory study and the observations.
Author Keywords
Mobile Language Learning, Collaboration, Figures of Speech, Language and Culture, student-centered.
INTRODUCTION
This paper describes an exploratory study that was conducted at an international school using a mobile application
designed to support situated mobile language learning. The mobile application, called Cloudbank, supports a
repository for words and expressions that can be shared by several learners.
The popularity of mobile technologies such as mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and portable
media players in education have been documented by several researchers (Roschelle, Sharples & Chan, 2005;
Naismith et al., 2005). Language learning has been an area where technology, in particular mobile technology in
recent times, has been popular. Initially, mobile-based language learning services focused on providing instant
help in either obtaining the meaning of a word (Morita, 2003) or help in pronouncing a word. Later, improved
support was provided by partial personalised learning such as supporting pronunciation of specific sounds for
specific user groups, e.g. (Uther, Zipitria, Uther, & Singh, 2005) and (Ogata, H., L. H. Gan, et al., 2008). Mobile
learning denotes learning that is conducted while the learner is on the go or when the learner is mobile (Sharples,
Taylor, & Vavoula, 2005). This involves providing easy access to appropriate learning resources. Thus, there has
been considerable focus on personalisation and contextualisation of learning resources accessible via mobile
devices. For example, the location and a users preference of learning resources are defined using a user profile in
(C.-M. Chen, Li, & Chen, 2007); additional parameters such as the users behaviour, the device and the
environment are considered in (Paredes, Ogata, Yano, & Martin, 2005) and the users learning interests and user
groups are considered in (Petersen, Markiewicz & Bjrnebekk, 2009).
Mobile learning emphasizes the active involvement of the learner where formal learning is complemented by
informal learning. This is well in line with the constructivist thinking where the learner needs to experience and
apply concepts and relate them to their existing body of knowledge. In particular, social constructivism
(Vygotsy, 1978), which focuses on the social context that shapes the construction of knowledge, is important in
language learning. While there is support for personalised language learning, there are very few applications
that focus on the collaborative aspect of language learning. The Cloudbank application used in this study is

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designed to support the sharing of content among language learners. The aim of the system was to develop a
mobile (Android) app that would enable advanced language learners to collect and describe multimedia
language and culture-related content they came across in everyday life within their target language culture. The
content is then uploaded to a repository that is accessible by other Cloudbank users, thus enabling sharing of
learning content among several language learners (Pemberton, Winter & Fallahkhair, 2009). Cloudbank
provides a medium for learners to create their own wordlists, which contains words and expressions with the
learners descriptions of them in specific contexts. Thus, the learner is able to share their understanding of a
word or an expression through their experiences with peer learners.
The aim of this paper is to describe an exploratory study that was conducted at an international school, in the
classroom, using the Cloudbank application. The main objective of the study was to evaluate if the Cloudbank
application is beneficial to the learning of the students and to explore how such mobile applications can support
the learning and the pedagogical approach. The study was started where the application was used for a limited
activity within the classroom, which is using figures of speech in English. The students were given the freedom to
explore the functionalities of the application, the affordances of the mobile device as well as to use it for other
activities. The teachers initially believed that the application will be beneficial for learning figures of speech in
English. In this study, the teachers took a back seat approach and let the students lead the way. The study revealed
that Cloudbank is beneficial for supporting learning in areas other than what was initially anticipated.
The use of the Cloudbank application proved a success in the classroom and it revealed a number of interesting
issues about using ICT and mobile technologies in the classroom, which are both social and pedagogical in nature.
Some of these address collaboration among students and peer support among the students, ownership of the
knowledge leading to retention of the knowledge as well as how the students appropriated the technology into the
different learning activities in the classroom. It also highlighted how the technology stimulated discussions about
the cultural aspects of languages. This paper presents an overview of the exploratory study and the observations.
We are currently conducting a qualitative evaluation of the study.
The rest of this paper is organised as follows: Section 2 describes the case, Section 3 describes the design of the
study, Section 4 discusses the observations during the study, Section 5 presents an overview of the design of the
evaluation process and Section 6 summarises the paper.
CASE DESCRIPTION
The study described in this paper has been conducted at the Trondheim International School (THIS), who
provides an international education in English, based on the International Baccalaureate (IBO) program. The
study was conducted with the students in Year 4. There were 28 students who are 9 or 10 years old. The students
represented a diversity of cultural backgrounds; there were students from 12 different countries and as many as 10
different languages are spoken by the children. Apart from 2 students, English is either their second or third
language. Several of the students have parents from different backgrounds; thus they are used to a multi-lingual
home and school community. The class teachers are native English speakers from Australia.
The IB pedagogical approach uses an enquiry based mode of teaching and learning where the students learn by
enquiring into a topic or a theme, called a Unit of Inquiry. The main subjects in the curriculum are Literacy,
Mathematics, Norwegian (as a second language), and the Unit of Inquiry. Other traditional subjects such as
Geography, History and Science are studied through the Unit of Inquiry, which helps to focus the learning efforts
in Literacy, Mathematics and Norwegian around a specific topic. The classroom is arranged in such a way that
students can gather around and work in small groups. Several learning aids such as the PC, reference books and
other material are made available for everyone and students are encouraged to move around the classroom to
obtain what they need for their work.
In the classroom, the students have access to a PC with internet access and a Smartboard. Cloudbank was made
available to them on 5 HTC Desire HD mobile phones. The study took place from the first week of March until the
second week of June, 2011. The students were introduced to Cloudbank using the repository of words that were
available at the beginning of the study. This included some Figures of speech and a few words with pictures to
describe them.
This was the first time the students had access to mobile phones in their classroom as a part of their studies. Some
of the students owned mobile phones; however they had not used it for anything related to their studies.
STUDY DESIGN
The study was an exploratory one. When the study was started, the class was working on figures of speech for
literacy. Since the Cloudbank repository contained some figures of speech, it was decided that it was natural to
start using it to support the students to learn figures of speech. To start with, the students were allowed to use it for
learning figures of speech and new words for an hour everyday. To ensure that all the students had an equal chance
of using the system, the students were divided into 5 groups (only 5 devices were available) and the student took

57
turns in using the phones. The class kept a log of who was using the system to ensure that there was equity of
usage. Another reason for restricting the use of the devices for a specific activity at a specified time was also to
ensure that the students used the devices for Cloudbank and to maintain focus on the application rather than the
gadget and all the other affordances of the mobile phone.
As the students got more comfortable using the system, they were allowed to use it more freely at any time during
the class. At this point, the teachers decided to let the students take more control of their use of the system and be
open to see what other parts of the curriculum could also be supported by the use of Cloudbank. The students were
also allowed to use the mobile phones for other activities such as taking photographs.
The Cloudbank technology was demonstrated to the class by one of the students who had been exposed to the
system earlier. It was demonstrated using the web-based widget, using the Smartboard. The basic functionalities
of the system, which are adding new content to the repository and browsing through the content, were shown.
Once the students started using the mobile phones and became confident using the system, they helped each
another. The teachers took a back seat and let the students have control of the situation.
OBSERVATIONS
As mentioned earlier, this study was an exploratory study to observe how a mobile application may benefit the
students and support their learning process. A summary of the main points that were observed during the study are
as follows:
Mobility and accessibility
Appropriation of the technology
Collaboration among students
Additional source of reference
Ownership
The following sub-sections provide a brief discussion on the above four points.
Mobility and Accessibility
Mobility has often been described in terms of physical space or location and time (Cooper 2001). More recently,
Sharples et al. have elaborated on the mobility that we are concerned with in Mobile Learning as mobility in
physical space, conceptual space, social space and of technology (Sharples, Arnedillo Snchez et al. 2007).
Kristoffersen and Ljungberg have illustrated mobility in the physical space further by introducing the notion of
modality of mobility as the fundamental pattern of motion (Kristoffersen and Ljungberg 1998). They propose
wandering, travelling and visiting as the main patterns of mobility. Another aspect of mobility among learners
come from the fact that learning is facilitated by communities and that learners move between communities
(Petersen and Divitini 2005).
In our study, since the learning arena that we have been interested in is confined to the classroom and the devices
remained in the classroom, the physical mobility of the learners was restricted to the classroom. Initially, since the
students were allowed to use the mobile phones in a dedicated area of the classroom, the students moved to the
place where the mobile phones were located to use the system. Once, the students got more used to the system, the
students continued moving to the mobile phones and bringing them to the place in the classroom where they were
working. The students did this whenever they came across something they could add to the Cloudbank repository.
Similarly, if they were looking for a word or a phrase, they began to check if they could find that in the
Cloudbanks repository before they checked other sources. This behaviour connects the ease of access or the
accessibility of the learning material to mobility. The students found it easier to access the Cloudbank repository
rather than other sources such as dictionaries, reference books or the Internet, which were also available in the
classroom. The ease with which they could move the source, which in this case was available on the mobile phone,
made that the first choice for the students.
In addition, the easy access to learning material via the Cloudbank application made it easier for the students to
browse and search for learning material as well as add content. In particular, for students who were a bit shy to ask
someone, the Cloudbank application encouraged them to use it for browsing content as well as to contribute
content.
Appropriation of the Technology
The notion of appropriation is often used in socio-cultural learning theory. A good overview of technology
appropriation in collaborative learning is provided in (Overdijk and van Diggel 2006). The authors quote several
definitions of appropriation, highlighting the different aspects of it such as adapting something to ones own use

58
and the way technologies and their uses are shaped through the users interaction with the technology as well as
the social interactions.
In our study, Cloudbank was introduced to the students for a specific task. However, they were given the freedom
to explore the functionalities of the application as well as the device. The students had been active in doing this
and thus had appropriated the technology for use in other learning activities. The students started using Cloudbank
for explaining figures of speech, using textual descriptions. An example of an entry contributed by one of the
students is shown in Figure 1, a. After a few weeks of using Cloudbank, the students started exploring additional
capabilities in the application. They discovered that it was possible to add pictures in addition to the text to
describe a phrase; an example of such an entry in Cloudbank can be seen in Figure 1, b.

Figure 1: Example of Figures of Speech in Cloudbank Figure 2. Examples of Maths terminology in Cloudbank
While using Cloudbank for figures of speech and new words and phrases in English, the students realised that they
could also use it for their Maths. When they came across a new maths term, the students started using Cloudbank
to collect and share their maths terminology, see Figure 2 Figure . Unlike some words and expressions, maths
terms often have precise meanings, which can be illustrated through a diagram. The students discovered that they
could use the camera on the mobile phone to capture a drawing to illustrate the meaning of the term and upload it
to the Cloudbank repository, see Figure 2, b. Note that the students have also started using the functionality tags
to distinguish the category of the content; e.g. figures of speech or idiom and Maths.
In addition to using Cloudbank for the different types of words, it spurred discussions around the figures of speech,
stimulating the students to compare them to similar ones or what a similar expression may mean in the other
languages that they spoke. Students with a second language quickly found that cloudbank could support other
languages too and it was very motivating and rewarding for them to have their own language recognized. This
created a bridge between home languages and classroom learning. This also brought in the dimension of language
and culture, enhancing the cultural awareness among the students as well as contributing to their knowledge of
other countries and their cultures.
Collaboration among students
The students discovered that they could edit the content in the Cloudbank repository and started editing each
others work. They took pride in telling the original contributor of a word or a figure of speech that they had added
to the original description in the Cloudbank repository. Collaboration also included extensions of each others
entries, discussion and debate regarding definitions of figures of speech resulting in clearer understanding and an
acknowledgment of anothers perspective. Students had to defend their information in discussions with each other
and together they often came to an agreement of the best definition.
The students were proud that they have helped someone else learn something from them. The shared repository
supported in the Cloudbank application provided a means of collaboration through the shared content and
collaborative contribution of editing of the content. The students also edited others contents while browsing by
correcting the mistakes of others. This was indirectly evaluating the work of peers or learning from your peers.
The students explored the functions of Cloudbank in a guess and check manner with no fear of failure and they
shared their mistakes and discoveries with each other. This is not found in a classroom using traditional reference
material.

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Additional Source of Reference
Often students are reluctant to use a reference tool particularly a dictionary. However, using Cloudbank, this
wasnt the case due possibly to two factors: (i) they were motivated to use the technology; (ii) they were not
singled out as not knowing something because they could have been either adding to, or looking for information.
The students realised that knowledge could be extended and refined unlike a dictionary or a set body of work.
They were creating knowledge and not just gaining knowledge. This was a real life opportunity to enhance student
awareness of how a google site needs to be checked for accuracy.
As the focus was adding to a body of knowledge with figures of speech, the students were hyperaware of figures
of speech in their environment. They would come to school with figures of speech from movies, from books they
were reading and from their parents language.
In general, the use of cloudbank encouraged the attitude that it was acceptable not to know something. Instead of
ignoring a word or phrase you didnt know, it was possible to find out an answer, then add this to the class
repository, whereby doing so would not only help yourself as a learner but possibly other class members as well.
Due to the low threshold of appropriation of technology, the teachers were able to incorporate a new reference
material utilising traditional research skills. The technology had general high interest with everyday familiarity.
Compared to the dictionaries, the students found it much easier to locate words in Cloudbank and to manipulate
the mobile phone. The technology came in as an aid to an already existing program within the classroom. As the
teachers observed the use, discussion and collaboration, the benefits of Cloudbank and its possible use as a
learning tool, they incorporated it further into the class program.
Ownership
The Cloudbank application was introduced to the class by one of the students. She demonstrated the basic
capabilities to browse through the contents in the repository and to add content to the repository. At the beginning,
the student who first introduced the application felt that she was the class Cloudbank champion. She felt a degree
of ownership of the technology and that she was the most knowledgeable among the students in using the
technology. However, after one or two weeks, the other students caught up with her and felt comfortable with the
technology. The students felt that the Cloudbank was their own as they could add content and thus they felt
ownership of the knowledge in the repository as the repository was created by them.
The students took responsibility for the resource. The teachers never had any problems returning, charging or with
misuse of the technology. The technology became a respected part of the shared classroom.
EVALUATION
An evaluation was conducted at the end of the study to capture the students impressions about Cloudbank and to
understand how it may have contributed to their learning. The evaluation was conducted in three parts:
(i) A plenary discussion, led by one of the class teachers, where the students provided keywords on what
they thought about Cloudbank. The aim of this was to get all the students focussed on the Cloudbank
experiences and get them ready for the evaluation. This discussion was captured as a set of words and
expressions on the whiteboard, as shown in Figure .
(ii) Group discussions, where the students were split into three groups, each one focusing on a different topic.
The three topics were Collaboration, Function and usability and How did it help the teachers?
Each group had a chance to contribute their ideas on each topic, for 15 minutes. Each group discussion
was facilitated by a person that was not involved in the classroom teaching, i.e. two researchers from the
university and one school teacher. This was to ensure that the students were not influenced by their class
teachers. Here, the students were allowed to contribute their ideas and share their experiences with
Cloudbank.
(iii) Individual questionnaires, where each student had to fill in an individual, semi-structured questionnaire.
While the group discussions provided a lot of information, it was decided that the individual
questionnaires would provide more qualitative and quantitative data as well as ensure that each
individual student had the opportunity to contribute to the evaluation. While most of the questions had
choices to cross off or smiley faces to indicate a scale, the students were also able to add comments for
additional information. The questionnaire was designed to gather data on the attitudes, behaviour, the
knowledge and skills and the impact of the Cloudbank application on the students learning.

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Figure 3. Keywords describing the students' impressions of Cloudbank
We are currently analysing the data from the evaluation. Thus it is not possible to include any data in this paper.
However, it can be concluded that the study was a positive experience for both the teachers and the students. As
can be seen from Figure 3, the students had used it for a number of different activities some of which have been
described in the previous sections
SUMMARY
The exploratory study using the Cloudbank application in a classroom showed that the technology supported
learning in areas other what was initially anticipated. Initially, the teachers let the students use it for one hour
everyday, for learning Figures of speech and new words to improve their spelling and knowledge of the English
language. However, over a very short time, the students had appropriated the technology to support them in their
maths terminology, to learn and understand figures of speech in their own languages as well as Norwegian, which
was the second language in the school. Through the figures of speech, it also stimulated discussions among the
students on the cultural use of languages and the comparison of metaphors in the different languages.
The students collaborated in their work by supporting each other in using the Cloudbank application. More
importantly, they collaborated through the technology by editing and extending each others work and by learning
from each others contributions to the Cloudbank repository. Cloudbank quickly became an important source of
reference in the classroom that the students felt proud of and responsible for.
The teachers believed that the Cloudbank application supported the learning process of the students in several
ways. The fact that the students had to create the repository by adding the content, it helped the content become
imprinted in their minds. Since the students created the repository, they felt ownership of the knowledge and this
was reinforcing the knowledge and helped them retain what they had learned. It contributed a lot to the learning as
they owned the knowledge, they understood it and they were motivated to reference it and improve it. The
Cloudbank application helped increase their vocabulary and improve their spelling as well as increased their
understanding of the math terminology.
During this study, one of the strengths of the Cloudbank application was seen as its simplicity and ease of use,
making it extremely easily to adopt in the teaching practice in the class and it proved very easy to be integrated
into the learning activities in the classroom. The teachers felt comfortable to adopt it in the classroom without a
long trial period and the students had a very low threshold in starting to use it. From the teachers perspective, a
routine activity of using Cloudbank became an engaging activity generating smiles and a positive class
atmosphere.
This study also provided a positive impression of using mobile technologies and applications within a classroom.
It highlighted a different aspect of mobility and accessibility and it showed the fine balance between the
application and the technology or the gadget. There was a very clear purpose for which the students could see the
value of Cloudbank; other students were using their work, so they could see the immediate purpose and the need
for accuracy.
This paper presented a very brief overview of the observations made during an explorative study of using a mobile
language learning application, Cloudbank, in a classroom. We are currently analysing the results from the

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evaluation of the study conducted using questionnaires and focus groups with the students. Based on the positive
experience from this study, we also plan to continue using the Cloudbank application in the school and to conduct
a similar study with younger children.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work has been conducted within the European Union's Lifelong Learning Programme, Project number LLP
511776-LLP-1-2010-1-UK-KA3-KA3. In addition, the authors would like to thank the Interactive Technologies
Research Group at the University of Brighton for letting us use the Cloudbank application, which was developed
with support from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), UK.
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