News

24 April 2007 - MKM join forces with Yorkshire universities and T-Mobile in ground-breaking mobile learning development

MyKnowledgeMap, working with T-Mobile and mobile software specialists Ecommnet, are providing the online infrastructure to support the UK's most ambitious mobile learning and assessment project to date.

The Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings project (ALPS) is a partnership between the universities of Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Leeds Metropolitan and York St John University College. It will ensure that graduates from a wide range of health and social care courses have the skills they need to be effective in the workplace.

For students training for a career in health and social care, developing competence and confidence in a practice setting is vital—there are a wide range of general and specific skills that can only be developed in the clinic, hospital or workplace. But how do you access the university's learning systems between dealing with patients, when it matters most? This is where mobile technologies come in.

The ALPS project will provide students with a wide range of materials focussed on helping them to assess their competencies—all accessible any time, anywhere, via their phones or PDAs. The students will be able to complete assessment questionnaires via their devices, covering core competencies such as teamwork and communication. It's not just about testing though: learners will be encouraged to reflect on their skills as they practise them. Using the multimedia capabilities of their mobile phones, they will be able to record sound and video, and upload it to e portfolios online, as evidence of their achievements.

MyKnowledgeMap are the major systems provider for the project, creating a backbone system to handle the management, mapping, co-ordination, and analysis of the assessment data. A networked version of their Compendle system will allow course leaders to compile and manage assessments using a range of existing repositories. A competency mapping system based on Capability Matrix will make it easy for tutors to match competencies with assessments. MyKnowledgeMap's e portfolio, integrated with a multi-function cohort management system, allows learners to compile a record of their learning. All of these systems will integrate with the online learning environments learners and tutors are accustomed to using.

Almost 9000 students throughout Yorkshire, studying sixteen different subjects—from occupational therapy to social work—will benefit from the project, making it the UK's biggest exercise yet in mobile education.