Learner research and systems trials | Project team login | Deliverables

The mentors

The Collaborating Organisations were asked to select staff or volunteers with the following characteristics to take part in the research:

Essential:

Experience of youth work
Good basic and inter-personnel skills
An interest in improving the life skills and life chances of young people
Will work within the ethical guidelines to be published by the m-learning project.

Desirable, but not essential:

Experience of managing or co-ordinating basic or key skills provision
Qualifications and/or experience in teaching, and especially teaching of literacy to adults
Previous experience of research work.

The role of the mentors

The project team wishes to invite the mentors to work with us as co-researchers to investigate young people’s reactions to the prototypes we have developed and how these, and the mobile devices, can be used to encourage and support learning. We suggest that a similar invitation is extended to the learners i.e. they should be asked to participate in the project as research assistants helping us to find out if the mobile devices, learning materials and systems could be useful to, or attractive to, other young people.

The mentors are asked to:

Attend an induction workshop
Complete a brief form for each young person assessing their attitudes and abilities at the start of the research
Interview each young person to: gain their consent to take part in the research; record their feelings about taking part in the research; advise them concerning appropriate use of the mobile devices.
Using knowledge gained during induction, and printed guidance, introduce their group/s of young people to the project, the mobile devices and learning materials
Involve the young people in one or more learning experiences using the mobile devices, learning materials and services (e.g. visiting an area with camera phones and collecting information and answering questions via multi media messaging. Mentor guidelines will be provided)
Collect feedback from the young people through the use of research tools such as questionnaires and interviews (all the forms, tools, recording equipment and training will be provided as necessary)
Observe and record impressions of young peoples’ reactions to the devices, materials and experiences
Provide feedback on their own experiences of the mobile devices, research tools and the learning materials
Support the young learners and liase with the researchers
Assist with the analysis of information collected
Write a brief overview of their organisation, and the young people they work with, as an introduction to a casestudy
Contribute to a conference to disseminate the experience and findings of the research.