Learning Mobile & Digital Media Literacy Skills Using SMS and Google Apps

Tara L. Conley

Mobile Phone Learning

Spring 2013

The Pitch

Locating Community Resources

One mental health facility

One family planning facility

One job training or tutoring service

One after school program

Report on FOUR Components

1. Location

2. Major services provided

1. Opinions/Insights

1. Picture of the site

• Users will report address, cross street, and landmark information via text message and IFTTT. Textual information will be sent directly to users’ Google Drive (which will be shared with me and the rest of the group).

• Users will report to Google Doc using SMS and IFTTT

• Users will report to Google Docs about whether or not services will be useful for CI youth in their neighborhood using SMS and IFTTT

• Users will text images to my cell phone directly, which I will then store and organize in a shared Google Doc with participants.

Subject Area: Mobile and digital media literacy

Goals

• To improve mobile and digital media literacy skills of court-involved (CI) youth.

• To introduce YAB members to Google Apps in a collaborative, informal, situated, and task-based oriented learning environment using SMS technology.

Objectives

• To provide a fun, accessible way for YAB members to explore neighborhood resources.

• To learn and sharpen digital media literacy skills by setting up a Gmail account, Google Drive, and registering/linking Google Drive with IFTTT.com

• To learn and sharpen mobile media literacy skills by exploring neighborhood resources using SMS, camera phones, and Google Maps.

Audience

• Youth Advisory Board (YAB) members

• Current and former court-involved youth (that is, young people tethered to foster care, juvenile justice, and/or criminal justice systems).

• 3 males– 16 years-old– 19 years-old– 20 years-old

• 1 female– 17 years-old

Assumptions about YAB Members YAB members have never used or rarely use Google Apps (including Gmail, Google Maps, and

Google Docs)

– Informed by my experience working with CI youth, and as evident in Hendry, et. all (2011) research with homeless youth.

YAB members have never used IFTTT.com to crowdsource data

YAB members use camera phones frequently

– Informed by Pew Internet research that states 83% of teens use their phones to take pictures (Lenhart; 2010)

YAB members use mobile email

YAB members have a working knowledge of resources and services in their neighborhoods

YAB members have never participated in a mobile learning activity using SMS, Google Apps, and IFTTT

Majority of YAB members do not own a smartphone

– Informed by my experience working with CI youth, and as evident in Lenhart’s (2012) research stating that 23% of teens in the US have a smartphone. This stat is likely to be lower for CI youth in NYC.

Though they have not used these technologies in tandem, YAB members will adopt mobile technologies successfully

Google Exploration Activity

Prompt YAB members to create an account at Google and to then explore one of Google's applications.

ii. Discuss the “data cloud.” Discuss how Google's applications can be used to keep track of personal information and to help with the process of organizing resources.

ii. Prompt students to envision how Google Docs could be used to store and organize information for the text line.

iii. Describe various facets of Google Docs for working with documents, including word processing, calendars, personal pages, and photo storage.

Literature: Activity adopted from Hendry, et. all; 2011 Activity informed by Resnick’s idea of thinking curriculum (2010), which is characterized by instruction

that “is embedded in specific *and+ challenging subject matter” (pg. 186). Activity also informed by collaborative learning theories, particularly since Google Apps technology

provides a “shared conversational learning space, which can be used not only for single learners but for groups of learners” (Naismith, et. al, pg. 16).

SMS, IFTTT, and Google Docs

Send text messages tagged with the hashtag #gdoc to Google Drive• sign-up for IFTTT• register cell phone numbers• text resource information to (415) 817-9589 using #gdoc• resource information will then be stored in user’s Google Drive folder, labeled “IFTTTNotes”

Google Maps and Camera Phones• YAB members will explore the

following using Google Maps and/or SMS:

– 1 job training facility

– 1 mental health facility

– 1 family planning facility

– 1 after school program

• YAB members will report back the following using SMS:– Location

– Primary services provided

– Whether or not they believe the services are useful for CI youth in NYC

– Picture of the site (or screen grab of the map location)

How will YAB members received feedback?

• Facilitator’s feedback

• F2F focus group discussions and feedback

• Polleverywhere.com

The idea is to facilitate an environment where peer feedback and anonymity is privileged (Naismith, et. al; 2006).

What will YAB members learn from the process?

• Learn about local community-based resources in New York City.

• Become early adopters, co-designers, future expert users.

• Interrogate resources and tech tools through collaborative and conversion learning.

Participatory learning outside of traditional classroom spaces (Sharples, et. al; 2005).

Not only acquire but participate in context-aware learning environment (Naismith, et. al; 2006).

Collaborative and conversion learning enabled by mobile and digital tech tools (Naismtih, pg. 16).

Task-based learning seeks to engage learners pragmatically (Kiernan and Aizawa; 2004).

Threats & Pitfalls

• No cell phones

• No reliable access to wifi

• No reliable data plans

• Unstable home lives preventing participation

• Curate inaccurate resource information

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