1. Learning Mobile & Digital Media Literacy
Skills Using SMS and Google Apps
Tara L. Conley
Mobile Phone Learning
Spring 2013

2. The Pitch

3. Locating Community
Resources
One mental health facility
One family planning facility
One job training or tutoring service
One after school program

4. Report on FOUR Components
1. Location • Users will report address, cross street, and
landmark information via text message and
IFTTT. Textual information will be sent
directly to users’ Google Drive (which will be
shared with me and the rest of the group).
• Users will report to Google Doc using SMS
2. Major services provided and IFTTT
• Users will report to Google Docs about
1. Opinions/Insights whether or not services will be useful for CI
youth in their neighborhood using SMS and
IFTTT
1. Picture of the site • Users will text images to my cell phone
directly, which I will then store and organize
in a shared Google Doc with participants.

5. Subject Area:
Mobile and digital media literacy

6. Goals
• To improve mobile and digital media literacy
skills of court-involved (CI) youth.
• To introduce YAB members to Google Apps in
a collaborative, informal, situated, and task-
based oriented learning environment using
SMS technology.

7. Objectives
• To provide a fun, accessible way for YAB members to
explore neighborhood resources.
• To learn and sharpen digital media literacy skills by
setting up a Gmail account, Google Drive, and
registering/linking Google Drive with IFTTT.com
• To learn and sharpen mobile media literacy skills by
exploring neighborhood resources using SMS,
camera phones, and Google Maps.

8. Audience
• Youth Advisory Board (YAB)
members
• Current and former court-
involved youth (that is,
young people tethered to
foster care, juvenile justice,
and/or criminal justice
systems).
• 3 males
– 16 years-old
– 19 years-old
– 20 years-old
• 1 female
– 17 years-old

9. Assumptions about YAB Members
 YAB members have never used or rarely use Google Apps (including Gmail, Google Maps, and
Google Docs)
– Informed by my experience working with CI youth, and as evident in Hendry, et. all (2011)
research with homeless youth.
 YAB members have never used IFTTT.com to crowdsource data
 YAB members use camera phones frequently
– Informed by Pew Internet research that states 83% of teens use their phones to take pictures
(Lenhart; 2010)
 YAB members use mobile email
 YAB members have a working knowledge of resources and services in their neighborhoods
 YAB members have never participated in a mobile learning activity using SMS, Google Apps,
and IFTTT
 Majority of YAB members do not own a smartphone
– Informed by my experience working with CI youth, and as evident in Lenhart’s (2012) research
stating that 23% of teens in the US have a smartphone. This stat is likely to be lower for CI
youth in NYC.
 Though they have not used these technologies in tandem, YAB members will adopt mobile
technologies successfully

10. Google Exploration Activity
Prompt YAB members to create an account at Google and to then explore one
of Google's applications.
ii. Discuss the “data cloud.” Discuss how Google's applications can be used to
keep track of personal information and to help with the process of
organizing resources.
ii. Prompt students to envision how Google Docs could be used to store and
organize information for the text line.
iii. Describe various facets of Google Docs for working with documents,
including word processing, calendars, personal pages, and photo storage.
Literature:
 Activity adopted from Hendry, et. all; 2011
 Activity informed by Resnick’s idea of thinking curriculum (2010), which is characterized by instruction
that “is embedded in specific *and+ challenging subject matter” (pg. 186).
 Activity also informed by collaborative learning theories, particularly since Google Apps technology
provides a “shared conversational learning space, which can be used not only for single learners but for
groups of learners” (Naismith, et. al, pg. 16).

11. SMS, IFTTT, and Google Docs
Send text messages tagged with the hashtag #gdoc to Google Drive
• sign-up for IFTTT
• register cell phone numbers
• text resource information to (415) 817-9589 using #gdoc
• resource information will then be stored in user’s Google Drive
folder, labeled “IFTTTNotes”

12. Google Maps and Camera Phones
• YAB members will explore the
following using Google Maps and/or
SMS:
– 1 job training facility
– 1 mental health facility
– 1 family planning facility
– 1 after school program
• YAB members will report back
the following using SMS:
– Location
– Primary services provided
– Whether or not they believe the
services are useful for CI youth
in NYC
– Picture of the site (or screen
grab of the map location)

13. How will YAB members received
feedback?
• Facilitator’s feedback
• F2F focus group
discussions and
feedback
• Polleverywhere.com
 The idea is to facilitate
an environment where
peer feedback and
anonymity is privileged
(Naismith, et. al; 2006).

14. What will YAB members learn from the
process?
• Learn about local community-  Participatory learning outside
based resources in New York of traditional classroom spaces
City. (Sharples, et. al; 2005).
• Become early adopters, co-  Not only acquire but
designers, future expert users. participate in context-aware
• Interrogate resources and tech learning environment
tools through collaborative (Naismith, et. al; 2006).
and conversion learning.  Collaborative and conversion
learning enabled by mobile
and digital tech tools
(Naismtih, pg. 16).
 Task-based learning seeks to
engage learners pragmatically
(Kiernan and Aizawa; 2004).

15. Threats & Pitfalls
• No cell phones
• No reliable access to
wifi
• No reliable data plans
• Unstable home lives
preventing participation
• Curate inaccurate
resource information

16. References
1. Albors, J., Ramos, J.C., and Hervas, J.L. (2008). New learning network paradigms: Communities of objectives,
crowdsourcing, wikis and open source. International Journal of Information Management, (28)3 194-202.
2. Hendry, D., Woefler, J.P., Rowena, H., Bauer, T., Fitzer, and Champagne, M. (2011). How to integrate digital media
into a drop-in for homeless young people for deepening relationships between youth and adults. Children and
Youth Services Review, (33) 774-782.
3. Howe, J. (2006). The rise of crowdsourcing. Wired Magazine, (14)6. Accessed on March 8, 2013.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html
4. JENKINS, H. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century
[White paper]. Retrieved from digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/.../JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF
5. Kiernan, P., and Aizawa, K. (2004). Cell phones in tasked based learning: Are cell phones useful language learning
tools? Cambridge Journals, (16)1 71-84
6. Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice. In L. Resnick& S. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on
socially shared cognition (pp. 63-82). Washington, DC: APA.
7. Lave, J. & Wenger, E.C. (1993). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press,
New York.
8. Lenhart, A. (2012). Digital divides and bridges: Technology among youth. Pew Internet Research. Retrieved from
http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2012/Apr/Digital-Divides-and-Bridges-Technology-Use-Among-
Youth.aspx Accessed on 3/9/13.
9. Lenhart, A. (2010). Teens and mobile phones. Pew Internet Research. Retrieved from
http://www.pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones.aspx Accessed on 3/9/13
10. Naismith, L., Lonsdale, P., Vavoula, G., Sharples, M. (2006). Literature review in mobile technologies and learning.
Future Lab Series, Report 11 1-48.
11. Resnick, L. (2010). Nested learning systems for the thinking curriculum. Educational Researcher, (39) 183-197.
12. Sharples, M., Taylor, J., Vavoula, G. (2005). Towards a theory of mobile learning. University of Birmingham, UK. 1-
9.