166 Int. J. Mobile Learning and Organisation, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2008
Copyright © 2008 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.



Bridging outdoors and indoors educational activities
in schools with the support of mobile and positioning
technologies
Arianit Kurti*, Daniel Spikol
and Marcelo Milrad
Centre for Learning and Knowledge Technologies (CeLeKT),
School of Mathematics and Systems Engineering,
Växjö University, SE 35195, Växjö, Sweden
E-mail: arianit.kurti@msi.vxu.se
E-mail: daniel.spikol@msi.vxu.se
E-mail: marcelo.milrad@msi.vxu.se
*Corresponding author
Abstract: In this paper, we present our design approach for bridging outdoors
and indoors learning activities with the support of mobile and positioning
technologies. In order to illustrate these research efforts we describe the
outcomes of two trials we have conducted with more than 50 elementary school
children. The activities presented in this paper aspire at supporting the notion of
situated learning with mobile and positioning technologies to promote new
ways of collaboration based on the users’ learning context. The results of our
experiments indicate that children enjoyed learning where mobile devices are
used in situ, supporting the learning activities in the context of which they are
taking place.
Keywords: situated learning; collaboration; ubiquitous and mobile learning;
design-based research.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kurti, A., Spikol, D. and
Milrad, M. (2008) ‘Bridging outdoors and indoors educational activities in
schools with the support of mobile and positioning technologies’, Int. J. Mobile
Learning and Organisation, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp.166–186.
Biographical notes: Arianit Kurti is a PhD student in Computer Science with
an orientation in Informatics at Växjö University, Sweden. His field of research
is within the areas of mobile systems and pervasive and ubiquitous computing,
especially in exploring the use of contextual information for designing
innovative services and applications in specific domains. His current research
focus is on collaborative learning and collaborative knowledge building
activities where he explores the role of mobile and positioning technologies to
support these processes. He also holds a lecturer position at South East
European University in Macedonia and at the University of Prishtina in
Kosova.
Daniel Spikol is a PhD student in Computer Science with an orientation in
Informatics at the school of Mathematics and Systems Engineering, at Växjö
University (VXU), Sweden. His current research interests include the design of
mobile learning environments that explore novel modes of collaboration.
He is presently involved in a number of European and National projects
exploring how mobile and wireless technologies can be used to support new

Bridging outdoors and indoors educational activities in schools 167




ways of learning and how these technologies can support groups of learners
when they, collectively, share their understanding in these learning
environments. Previously he has worked for the Interactive Institute, in Sweden
and the LEGO group in Denmark.
Marcelo Milrad is an Associate Professor in Computer Science at the school of
Mathematics and Systems Engineering, at Växjö University (VXU), Sweden.
His current research interest focuses on the design and development of mobile
and wireless applications to support collaborative learning. He has published
numerous articles in international journals, refereed conferences, books and
technical reports. He has also been presenting and giving lectures about his
work in more than 25 countries worldwide. During the last years he has been
serving as a program committee member in a number of international scientific
conferences such as CSCL, ICALT, WMTE, ICCE and CELDA. He is one of
the initiators of the IEEE international conference on Wireless and Mobile
Technologies in Education (WMTE).
1 Introduction
Recent advancements in mobile, wireless and positioning technologies combined with
contextual computing are contributing to the development of new mobile applications
and services. The rapid adoption of sophisticated mobile devices and applications has
created new social tools for people to connect and interact; changing the ways we
communicate and collaborate. In the context of this paper we will refer to these
technologies as Ubiquitous Computing Technologies. Educational environments are
being subject to these changes providing an opportunity for curriculum development that
can use these socially based devices for supporting different aspects of learning and
teaching. Mobile and wireless technologies enable the opportunity to interact in new
ways with the physical world as they allow allocating computational power and
interaction away from the limitations of desktop computers. From this perspective,
learners are given the opportunity to collaborate in new and interactive ways within the
physical world, as well as the physical world can be augmented through digital
technologies. These facts provided innovative ways of interacting with the environment,
but also present design opportunities for multiple kinds of collaboration to support
different aspects of the learning process (Price et al., 2003). There is now a challenge of
how best to design learning activities enhanced by ubiquitous computing to support new
forms of collaboration.
In this paper, we describe our on-going efforts regarding the design, implementation
and evaluation of innovative educational activities supported by ubiquitous computing
technologies that have been carried out in the context of our project Advanced Mobile
and Ubiquitous Learning Environment for Teachers and Students (AMULETS).
Our research efforts are an attempt to provide a generic framework for designing learning
activities supported by mobile and ubiquitous technologies. We aim at exploring new
collaboration and interaction patterns that may arise as a consequence of integrating
physical and computational media through the design of ubiquitous learning
environments. These novel learning environments aim at supporting different outdoors
educational activities that can be combined with the actual school curriculum.