Clever Use of Twitter for Mobile Learning

One of the most clever integrations of social learning into mobile learning I have seen comes from Transparent Language's Byki Global for iPhone.

As with many other flashcard type language learning tools, there are screens with the word(s) plus audio, quizzes and stats, but they added a Twitter link. When pressing the Twitter icon at the bottom of the screen, the most recent tweets using that word or phrase are shown in that language. How cool is that?














If you have an iPod Touch or iPhone you can download this app free from the Apple App Store. Included are essential words and phrases in 15 languages including Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Tagalog.

For the serious language learner, there are also single language apps available for $7.99.

Yet Another Global K-12 Success Story

Elliot Soloway and Cathie Norris recently blogged Hong Kong School Leads the World in Cellphone Computer Use after visiting Pui Ching Middle School in Hong Kong. Students are currently using cellphones to help learn English and current events, but are also moving to use them for math and Chinese.

Pictures are available here. It is easy to see how engaged and happy the students appear to be.

The good news is that now when I talk with organizations about mobile learning, the questions have moved from "why?" to "how?" It seems to be a given that we are all moving in this direction, but the questions are what can we learn from others who are already "there?" This may well be a great example for K-12 to follow.

Mobile ESL

Athabasca University in Canada has released their English as a Second Language course for mobile under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

There are eighty-six sections, each with exercises. Their hope -- according to their video -- is that non-English speakers from around the world are able to access it on their mobile devices and use it to learn English.

Access is via a browser at http://eslau.ca. They hae also made the source code available for download.

Nokia Life Tools

It looks like Nokia is getting ready to roll out their Life Tools, which include mobile learning. They are working with EnableM in India to provide language lessons, quizzes on English words and phrases, and the general knowledge information. The project was announced last November, but just rolling out now. (Thanks Twitter @shegeek.)



I talked with EnableM's COO last week who updated me on a number of exciting projects and plans to deliver these capabilities in other countries. I certainly plan to follow their progress with this exciting project.