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This study investigates how and where distance learners use handheld devices and the impact this has on learning habits, access to learning content and quality of work. It analyses the spatial dimension of anytime-anywhere learning and, with a focus on anywhere learning, it explores students' ongoing negotiation of the flow between and across study locations. The study concludes by proposing two new concepts: the "flow of places" and "place of space." These should help direct the framing of future studies into the places, spaces, and mobility of formal and informal seamless learning. A dataset comprising 446 responses from undergraduate students enrolled at the UK's largest distance learning university was analysed in respect to three research questions. All age groups, study levels, and disciplines were represented. Five key findings are: most students now use handheld devices for study-related learning; the distribution of study-related learning tasks was similar in all seven study places; there is a strong, statistically-significant correlation between the number of study places in which handheld devices are used and the number of study task types performed; two fifths of students using a handheld device for learning have noticed a change in study habit and benefit to learning; and multiple regression analysis shows three variables (number of study places, number of study tasks, and change in study habits) are predictors of finding it easier to access learning materials and improved quality of learners' work.

Many modern web-based systems provide a "responsive" design that allows material and services to be accessed on mobile and desktop devices, with the aim of providing "ubiquitous access." Besides offering access to learning materials such as podcasts and videos across multiple locations, mobile, wearable and ubiquitous technologies have some additional affordances that may enable new forms of learning on MOOCs. We can divide these into two categories: firstly, "context-sensitive features" including delivery of content for a specific location, enabling a seamless continuity of learning across settings, and linking people in a location with others in a virtual representation of that place; secondly social learning opportunities to connect people as they move within and across locations, to enable "crowd-sourced learning." In this paper we explore these aspects of mobile and accessible learning for MOOCs, drawing on examples from MOOC courses, mobile toolkits, and crowd-sourced learning sites.

The purpose of most citizen science projects is engaging citizens in providing data to scientists, not supporting citizen learning about science. Any citizen learning that does occur in most projects is normally a by-product of the project rather than a stated aim.This study examines learning outcomes of citizens participating in online citizen science communities purposely designed for inquiry learning. The 'Citizen inquiry' approach adopted in this study prioritises and scaffolds learning and engages people in all stages of the scientific process by involving them in inquiry-based learning while participating in citizen science activities. The exploratory research involved an intervention with two design studies of adult volunteer participants engaging in citizen-led inquiries, employing a mixed-methods approach. The findings indicated that, in both design studies, participants engaged in an inquiry process, and practised inquiry skills alongside other kinds of knowledge and skills not directly related to science. Differences between the outcomes of each study highlighted the importance of the design on learning impact. In particular, participant understanding of research processes and methods, and developing more experimental studies were more evident with the support of a dynamic representation of the inquiry process. Furthermore, in the second study, which was hosted in a more engaging and interactive learning environment, participants perceived science as fun, were involved in inquiry discussions, and showed progress in scientific vocabulary. The paper concludes with some considerations for science educators and citizen science facilitators to enhance the learning outcomes of citizen inquiry and similar online communities for science inquiries.

This paper provides a two-phase study to compare alternative techniques for augmenting landscape scenes on geography fieldtrips. The techniques were: a pre-prepared acetate overlay; a custom-designed mobile field guide; a locative media app on a smartphone; a virtual globe on a tablet PC; a head-mounted virtual reality display, and a geo-wand style mobile app. In one field exercise the first five techniques were compared through analysis of interviews and student video diaries, combined with direct observation. This identified a particular challenge of how to direct user attention correctly to relevant information in the field of view. To explore this issue in more detail, a second field exercise deployed "Zapp", a bespoke geo-wand-style app capable of retrieving information about distant landscape features. This was evaluated using first-person video and spatial logging of in-field interactions. This paper reflects upon the relative merits of these approaches and highlights particular challenges of using technology to mimic a human field guide in pointing out specific aspects of the landscape scene. We also explore the role of students acting as design informants and research co-participants, which can be mutually beneficial in promoting a critical appreciation of the role of technology to support learning about the landscape.

The authors describe the design and formative evaluation of a sensor toolkit for Android smartphones and tablets that supports inquiry-based science learning. The Sense-it app enables a user to access all the motion, environmental and position sensors available on a device, linking these to a website for shared crowd-sourced investigations. The authors describe the four investigations with the toolkit: environmental noise, sunlight levels, air pressure and rainfall, and the speed of lifts (elevators). These show a variety of methods to initiate, orchestrate and conclude inquiry-based science learning. Two of the missions are in the context of a study to develop a community of inquiry around weather and meteorology. The others are intended to engage members of the public in practical science activities. Analysis of the missions and the associated online discussions reveals that the Sense-it toolkit can be adopted for engaging science investigations, though the practical issue of calibrating sensors on personal devices needs to be addressed.