Using MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)

If you have a camera phone or a PDA/phone with an in-built camera it will have MMS or picture messaging functionality. The images can be sent to another camera phone user or to a web area to store and share them.

Creating and sharing photos can be inspiring, interesting and can develop personal as well as technical skills. This can be used for learning in a number of ways including:
creating a visual personal diary or blog
capture the process and development of the creation of an artefact as a visual portfolio
gathering visual prompts to inspire creative writing or artistic design.
Bulletin Boards can be used for field trips so learners can explore and take photos, type text messages and send the images and text to a Bulletin Board for later analysis in class.

SMS and MMS is a way for learners to keep in touch with the rest of the group during a field trip, which might have dispersed learners over a wide area. All learners can therefore gain from the collaborative experience regardless of whether the terrain is accessible.

Sending an image as a MMS message is just as easy as SMS messaging. Simply compose your message, choose the recipient and press send. Your MMS message instantly travels either to another mobile phone or to an e-mail address. If the recipient doesn't have an MMS capable phone a text message will prompt to go to a specific web address to see the image.

logos of moblogs Flickr, Moblog and Ploggle are just three of the popular places to store and search for images.

MMS are sent by GPRS rather than using the control channel in the way that SMS text messages are transported.

Read through Microsoft's tips showing how to Create your own Mobile Blog. Then visit Flickr, Moblog or Ploggle and view the sample moblogs.

Bulletin Board systems have similar functionality as mobile blogging facilities. In 1978 the term Bulletin Board System emerged describing a virtual board to ‘thumb-tack’ messages for others to read and respond. The participants of the BBS would have private access and a systems operator would have monitored and controlled this access. Nowadays virtual learning environments offer many collaborative and communication tools for learners to post messages or engage in discussions in forums. Other products like First Class, for example, is an email and online conferencing facility as well as an interactive bulletin board.

Cambridge Training and Development (part of Tribal Group) have developed a Media Board which can be set up to look like an Internet bulletin board using a visual image as a central focus. The content – audio, text, images and video- can be sent from a computer or a mobile device and is added to and around locations within the image.

In Practice

A mediaBoard activity involved small groups of learners going into town with camera phones and a worksheet containing questions about migration in and out of Southampton. They explored museums, libraries and monuments around town to find the answers and sent back photographic evidence to a given email address. I printed their photos before the next session and created a timeline on the table, using a line of black tape down the middle with a 0 at one end and 2004 at the other. The learners sorted out the pile of printed photos, explained to each other what they were and tried to place them in the right places along the timeline. This ensured they all understood the timeline concept and which periods of history the information their photos represented belonged to before they went to the computers to view a similar timeline on the mediaBoard. They were quickly able to work out where their photos should be on the timeline and wrote short texts to explain the photos.

Learners found learning to use state-of-the-art gadgets engaging and motivating and the activities gave them opportunities for meaningful goal-oriented interaction in English, through which they encountered and learnt new topic-related vocabulary, gained confidence in approaching people to ask questions in English and worked together to reinforce their new knowledge by writing for an audience on the mediaBoard website.

Variations on these activities could be developed to incorporate a wide range of literacy, communication and numeracy skills such as map reading, giving and understanding instructions and directions, measurements of distance or compass directions to meet the learning needs of a wide range of learners. Jo Dixon-Trifonov, Lecturer in ESOL and English through ICT at Southampton City College and Learning Resource Developer at CTAD.

To see what a Media Board looks like go to www.mboard.co.uk and click on any Media Boards that do not show a ‘lock’ symbol.

The BBC report ' Photo messaging is on the rise' shows how mobile phone networks have seen a boost in multimedia messaging in the US and Europe in 2006. Also reported is how 'Handsets look to eclipse cameras'.

Mobile Technology - the handheld choice

Using MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)

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