Mobile Tools-Like a child in a candy shop- I want them all

I enrolled in a course called mobiMOOC and as part of week one activities we were asked to “Pick one of the following mLearning tools: qr-codes, pictures taken via mobile device, movies via mobile device, ... and show us how you would use it for learning ... with a mobile device”

Like a child in a candy shop- I want them all. I can’t see the point of just picking one of the tools. 

I was thinking how these could be used in health promotion.

My thinking as health promotion professional is concerned with increasing social capital, social connectiveness and to draw inactive people into a more active life.

My target would be people in a socially disadvantaged areas. I'm thinking of trying to lure the physically inactive by easy increments into be physically active.  To reach this group, I will not be using any words that suggest the dreaded E words- exercise or exertion. I will using the F word - FUN.

I suspected I would make a simple Youtube type video to invite people to form small teams to participate in a localised scavenger hunt. Family teams from work places and teams where people went to get to know people would also be encouraged.

I would start out use these movies with social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to invite people to a scavenger hunt. I would also advertise the event and the Facebook events page with handbills, posters in local shops and poststops. The event would be locality based.

In terms of the scavenger hunt, I think you could use QR codes (Quick Recognition Codes) for clues, SMS or SNS posts and mobile pictures as evidence of being at a place at a time, I would also use QR codes for motivation messages about being involved in community organisations and suggesting ways of being more active. Such an event would fit well with the Swap It Don’t Stop It health promotion campaign my government and employer is supporting at the moment.

Other QR codes could include information on other locality subjects such as  geography, or history or natural features or about sun safety.

Mobiles phones could also perhaps be used to crowdsource hunt sites or clues. This would be part of the community engagement around the event.

Some may struggle to see this as learning project. It about learning that getting out and about in the neigborhood is FUN. It about getting to know good places to walk or connect with people in a locality.

The FUN  key element would be the gamification and prizes from local businesses.

This intervention  also draws upon the behaviour modification ideas of BJ Fogg  drawing on his purple pathway.

The course has also asked us think about  this question: What is the main concern for my mLearning project is devising is provoking and sustaining active participation for a core group of sufficient size and variety to support learning in the learning lurkers After all this is the main group, population wise.

My planning for mobile learning is not so much concerned about the ‘have’s” and the “have nots”. I fee confident from the data I’ve seen and the way our mobile market works, that in Australia that the take up of smart phones will become very widespread in a  few years time. I have been influenced by Craig Lefebvre thinking. Craig Lefebvre thinking that talks a division between the have now and the have not yet. Now is time to reinvent our work models, not the obsess about social exclusion.