m-learning
Moblogging for ESOL
(National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy)
M-learning is a powerful tool for ESOL (English for speakers of other languages). In a recent example, ten adult ESOL learners became ‘photo journalists’ for the college open day. They created a photo diary of events using camera phones and sent their pictures, along with captions, to an e-mail address that automatically published them to a publicly-available web site.
To prepare for the event, learners looked at published photo stories on the Internet and analysed the language and content to learn about styles and structures that would be useful in writing their own photo diary.
The project proved so successful in engaging learners that even the most hesitant members of the class (e.g. a lady in her 60s, who had never used a mobile phone before, and a visually impaired learner) not only took part, but also found the experience very rewarding.
