The rapid development of mobile technologies combined with access to content almost everywhere and every time allows people to experience new situations regarding learning in a wide variety of situations. Mobile learning brings the promise of learning "on the move" by allowing learners to take control over time and space, thus making learning "more natural". The field of mobile learning has rapidly evolved in the last ten years and many initiatives have been conducted worldwide. However, research results indicate that few of these efforts have produced any lasting outcomes. It is evident that these initiatives are faced with inherently complex settings and that the outcomes might not live up to their prom- ises; will not be adopted and, hence, will not become sustainable. Many of the complex issues faced by mobile learning initiatives are similar to those faced by the development of information systems. This latest statement suggests that an improved development practice might hold one piece of the key to sustainable mobile learning. The aim of the research presented in this thesis is to investigate the relation between information systems development practice and mobile learning development; and if methods and models originated within information systems development can be used to strengthen mobile learning initiatives. In order to investigate this relation, this thesis studies several mobile learning initiatives with a particular focus on how and why development and research was initiated and conducted. Concepts found in mobile learning practices are strengthened by providing a theoretical perspective with roots in information systems development. The outcomes of the studies presented in this thesis indicate that the development practice of mobile learning initiatives can be redefined in order to achieve more sustainable results. The core of this thesis consists of eight peer-reviewed scientific publications that have been presented at different international conferences. Five of the papers explore the field of mobile learning and its practice while the other three publications present the central ideas that serve as the basis for the proposed framework, how it has been developed, and the motivations behind its creation. The main contribution of this thesis is a novel development framework aimed at researchers and practitioners in the field of mobile learning. The framework defines the life-cycle of a mobile learning initiative and identifies the importance of emphasizing the concepts of scalability and sustainability during the development process. This may be a way to reduce the complexity inherent to mobile learning and its settings, and a means to improve the outcomes of coming mobile learning initiatives in terms of long lasting usable results.

Engineering contemporary distributed software applications is a challenging task due to the dynamic operating conditions in which these systems have to function. Examples are dynamic availability of resources, errors that are difficult to predict, and changing user requirements. These dynamics can affect a number of quality concerns of a system, such as robustness, openness, and performance. The challenges of engineering software systems with such dynamics have motivated the need for self-adaptation. Self-adaptation is based on the principle of separation of concerns, distinguishing two well defined systems: a managed system that deals with domain specific concerns and a managing system that deals with particular quality concerns of the managed system through adaptation with a feedback loop. State of the art in self- adaptation advocates the use of formal methods to specify and verify the system's behavior in order to provide evidence that the system's goals are satisfied. However, little work has been done on the consolidation of design knowledge to model and verify self-adaptation behaviors. To support designers, this thesis contributes with a set of formally specified templates for the specification and verification of self-adaptive behaviors of a family of distributed self-adaptive systems. The templates are based on the MAPE-K reference model (Monitor-Analyze-Plan-Execute plus Knowledge). The templates comprise: (1) behavior specification patterns for modeling the different MAPE components of a feedback loop, and (2) property specification patterns that support verification of the correctness of the adaptation behaviors. The target domain are distributed applications in which self-adaptation is used for managing resources for robustness and openness requirements. The templates are derived from expertise with developing several self-adaptive systems, including a collaborative mobile learning application in which we have applied self-adaptation to make the system robust to degrading GPS accuracy, and a robotic system in which we apply self-adaptation to support different types of openness requirements. We demonstrate the reusability of the templates in a number of case studies. / AMULETS

As mobile technologies have increasingly become a part of personal and work environments, mobile learning is emerging as a viable alternative for training and education needs. Faced with the need for innovative and cost-efficient ways for training government employees, agencies and departments are considering the use of mobile learning. The availability of a wide range of mobile technology provides many options. Other than the Department of Defense, little is known about implementing mobile learning in United States government cabinet level agencies and departments. A concurrent, mixed methods case study was used to examine how organizations decide to use, implement and evaluate mobile learning efforts. The framework and context were established through a thorough review of recent, related research literature. A purposive sampling strategy was used with the goal of targeting participants that have the greatest potential of using or considering the use of mobile learning. Three research questions guided the study and concentrated on the influences on the decision to implement mobile learning, the approaches organizations take and the methods used to evaluate implementations. A self-administered online questionnaire, using both structured and semi-structured questions and a review of publicly available documents were used to build a picture of the evidence that described the current state of mobile learning in cabinet-level agencies and departments. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected, integrated, interpreted and compared. Connections and relationships were made between mobile technology use, mobile learning environments, mobile learning content, educators and trainers, mobile learners and mobile learning evaluations. The results revealed that cabinet-level agencies and departments have begun to make use of mobile technology to support the delivery of business service. To a lesser extent, perceptions are forming, and the role of mobile learning continues being defined, as organizations are cautiously adopting its use. Policies and guidelines are in the early stages of development. The results contribute to the growing body of work on the use of mobile learning.

A field of research that is quickly becoming more prominent is the one related to embodied cognition, which states there is an important association between physical activity and cognition. However, research on the application of embodied cognition to education is still at its infancy. More research needs to be done to understand how motion can contribute to student learning, and even further, research is needed on how learning technologies might support physical activity while learning. This research sits at the intersection of embodied cognition, learning technologies, mobile devices, and mathematics education. It implements a novel learning technology platform created at WPI, called the Wearable Learning Cloud Platform (WLCP). Thanks to a child friendly app thats connect to the central web based system, the experience of elementary school children playing physically active games might be improved. This research also analyzes the importance of motor action in students’ math learning: By using three different conditions of a game called the Tangrams Race requiring different levels of physical activity (i.e. embodiment), we compared differences between fine and gross motor actions in regards to learning. Results indicated that physically active mobile games can and do improve math learning. Results also show marginal significant effect in favor of the physically active mobile games (p<0.1, Partial Eta Sq.=0.1) over traditional tutoring systems on a computer.

eLearning applications have penetrated the world of education as most higher education organizations all over the world choose to deploy eLearning applications. A review of literature and surveys performed confirmed that currently there is very little engagement of students in web-based eLearning applications, especially related to web-based constructive activities. In fact, eLearning platforms are mostly used as on-line repositories for a variety of course related documents without actively contributing to the learning process utilizing available modern learning methods. eLearning aims to actively engage students by making available learning content, but also through using interactive practices in the process of learning. Therefore, students in addition to access learning content may actively participate in the discovery of knowledge rather than being passive receptors to that content. Consequently, engagement of students to eLearning activities and content is important. Two surveys were undertaken in order to identify the reasons why web-based eLearning platforms fail to achieve both constructivist learning and the required engagement by both students and instructors. In addition to that, these surveys investigated and measured the level of interactivity of both students and instructors with on-line Information Technology (IT) services offered by both web-based and mobile applications and services. The rational was to investigate opportunities in creating a technology that can disseminate eLearning content that is mainly offered by institutional eLearning platforms and popular on-line services like social networks and communications services, in order to increase awareness, availability, and simplicity of eLearning activities and thus engagement to eLearning. The findings illustrated that most instructors fail to create and promptly support constructive eLearning activities largely because of the complexity and time required for such undertakings. Consequently, the critical student participant mass is not achieved. Additionally, it seems that most learning platforms rely on email messages and native applications’ notifications to update both students and instructors on new interactions. However, these channels of communication are not within the preferred communication channels and thus updates become outdated and fail to serve their purpose. Finally, web-based learning platforms seem to be oriented around laptop/desktop computer use (i.e. a full sized computer screen) rather than adopting and adapting to current mobile use of technology. The research presents a novel conceptual model of a mobile application that integrates and combines various already existing popular, on-line, web-based and mobile application services (communication, social media, voice command systems, etc.) including relative technologies (smart devices, mobile sensors, application servers), with institutional eLearning platforms. The aim is to increase the engagement of both students and instructors to eLearning, through constructive eLearning activities using a variety of existing popular technologies. This research shows that a Mobile Technology Enhanced Learning (mTEL) technology that integrates eLearning activities to both students and instructors will assist in increasing the awareness of learners to eLearning activities. At the same time, it offers the means to access, respond and participate in learning activities virtually from everywhere, thus making interaction ubiquitous, simpler and prompt, thus addressing key eLearning weaknesses leading to low engagement. These benefits are offered to both students and instructors, for a variety of eLearning activities and tools (positivistic and constructive). The research goes one step further by evaluating mTEL’s effectiveness. A conceptual novel model of a mobile application was designed and positively evaluated to contribute in the resolution of the major problem of low engagement of both students and instructors to eLearning. This is achieved by technologically enhancing mobile learning and introducing learning activities and materials at the current, highly populated on-line ecosystems where learners are already engaged instead of expecting them to directly interact with the institutional web-based platforms.

The iPad and other mobile devices have become so popular over the past few years that many school districts are purchasing these devices and implementing them in the classroom with little to no research. Because there has been no previous research at one rural school district in Michigan, the primary purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to investigate the effects that a 1-to-1 iPad initiative program has had on only 11th grade student achievement and determine if 11th grade students' test scores on the Michigan Merit Exam in the areas of mathematics, science, and social studies for each school year from 2007 to 2016 have improved, declined, or stayed the same. The framework for this study was rooted in Kearsley and Shneiderman's engagement theory, which specifically applies to technology-based learning environments. A repeated measures analysis of variance was used to compare the standardized test scores from 2007 to 2016, with the scores as the dependent variables and the introduction of the iPad technology as the independent variable. Student characteristics of gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status were covariates. The findings from this study indicated that the iPad has improved standardized test scores at this local high school and therefore this school district should continue the promotion and investment in mobile learning devices and other technologies. The resulting policy recommendation from this study prompts the local school district to pursue the expansion of a 1-to-1 iPad program or other mobile learning device in the current curriculum to help increase student achievement on standardized tests. The incorporation of Apple's iPad in the classroom has potentially created a solution to help students increase academic performance and achieve higher levels on standardized and state tests.

The substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition (SAMR) model is designed to help teachers integrate technology in the classroom. In a district with 1:1 mobile technology, teachers expressed frustration and inconsistency about the use the SAMR model for effective teaching and learning. In this project study, the SAMR model conceptually framed the exploration of teachers' integration of mobile learning and their perceptions about using technology in the classroom. Guiding research questions addressed teacher's integration of the SAMR model and elements that contributed to their instruction with mobile technology. A qualitative case study of a school district included purposeful sampling of 12 new or novice special education, mathematics, physical education and science teachers who had integrated technology in their instruction. Data sources included semistructured interviews, review of artifacts such as lesson plans or curriculum guides, and subsequent observations of their classroom instruction. Interviews were transcribed and coded to identify themes. Observations were documented by using a checklist and data were analyzed using the SAMR model to determine levels of technology integration. The content of artifacts was analyzed to explore congruence in the data. Teachers demonstrated low enhancement levels of the SAMR model for technology integration and described elements of productivity use or student engagement as contributions to their curricular modification. The findings were used to formulate a professional development plan for teachers to design effective technology-integrated curricula. This study may impact positive social change by providing a model to assist other districts with similar inconsistencies in the modification of instruction for mobile learning environments to enhance teaching and learning.

The requirements of modern e-learning techniques change. Aspects such as community interaction, flexibility, pervasive learning and increasing mobility in communication habits become more important. To meet thesechallenges e-learning platforms must provide support on mobile learning. Most approaches try to adopt centralized and static elearning mechanisms to mobile devices. However, often technically it is not possible for all kinds of devices to be connected to a central server. Therefore we introduce an application of a mobile e-learning network which operates totally decentralized with the help of an underlying ad hoc network architecture. Furthermore the concept of ad hoc messaging network (AMNET) is used as basis system architecture for our approach to implement a platform for pervasive mobile elearning.

In order to leverage the use of various modalities such as audio-visual-touch in instilling learning behaviour, we present an intuitive approach of annotation based hapto-audio-visual interaction with the traditional digital learning materials such as eBooks. By integrating the traditional home entertainment system and respective media in the user's reading experience combined with haptic interfaces, we examine whether such augmentation of modalities influence the user's reading experience in terms of attention, entertainment and retention. The proposed Haptic E-Book (HE-Book) system leverages the haptic jacket, haptic arm band as well as haptic sofa interfaces to receive haptic emotive signals wirelessly in the form of patterned vibrations of the actuators and expresses the learning material by incorporating audio-video based augmentation in order to pave ways for intimate reading experience in the popular eBook platform. We have designed and developed desktop, mobile/tablet based HE-Book system as well as a semi-automated annotation authoring tool. Our system also supports multimedia based diverse quiz augmentations, which can help in learning tracking. We have conducted quantitative and qualitative tests using the developed prototype systems. We have adopted the indirect objective based performance analysis methodology, which is commonly used for multimedia based learning investigation. The user study shows that, there is a positive tendency of accepting multimodal interactions including haptics with traditional eBook reading experience. Though our limited number of laboratory tests reveal, that haptics can be an influencing media in eBook reading experience, but it requires large scale real life tests to provide a concluding remarks.

Books and printed materials have been used as a major learning content for thousands of years. Nowadays, Smartphone is considered as an important tool for mobile learning. This study designed a learning environment with paper and Smartphone which seamlessly integrates printed materials and digital materials. The idea is to augment the traditional paper-based materials with plenty of digital materials available on the Internet. Furthermore, because both book and Smartphone are with very good mobility, the designed system is also very suitable for mobile learning. Two special mechanisms were designed for supporting learning activities, and their effects on learning performance were evaluated. The first one is learning recommendation which is generated based on the learning portfolio. The second one is automated content connection which can reduce the loading of context switching between printed materials and digital materials so as learners can be more concentrated on learning tasks. A system was designed and implemented for conducting an experiment and data collection. The statistic analysis shows that learning recommendation has a significant positive effect on learning performance; however, the effect of automated content connection on learning performance is not significant. Besides, the questionnaire survey also shows that learners have positive attitude toward the acceptance of the learning system designed in this study. Based on the results, some implications and suggestions are provided for researchers and instructors.