Authoring M-Learning Content: a case study of using power point mobile enabled tools to create content for learning anywhere anytime Nana Kofi Annan Centre for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI) Aalborg University, A. C Meyers Vaenge 15, DK-2450 Copenhagen SV, Denmark & Wisconsin International University, P. O. Box LG 751, Legon, Accra, Ghana Tel: +45 2175 8394, Email: annan@cmi.aau.dk George Ofori-Dwumfuo Methodist University College Ghana Head, Department of Information Technology P.O Box DC 940 Dansoman, Accra, Ghana Tel: +233 244 885 024, Email: g_ofori@yahoo.com Morten Falch Centre for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI) Aalborg University, A. C Meyers Vaenge 15, DK-2450 Copenhagen SV, Denmark. Tel: +45 9940 2517, Email: falch@cmi.aau.dk Abstract— This paper present a case study report on the findings of an empirical study conducted at the Central University College (CUC) in Ghana on the use of “OUTSTART” AD-CONNECT mobile learning (m-learning) application for authoring m- learning content. The system use the familiar Microsoft power point with an added features which comes with authoring tools which is simple to use by teachers for creating m-learning content. The main objective of the study is to make m-learning content authoring very easy and simple for the teacher with easy to use tools so as to boost their stake in the use of mobile learning platform (MLP) for teaching and learning anywhere anytime. The result shows that the success of m-learning implementation and acceptance is partly dependent on the user friendliness, simplicity and easy to use applications by teachers. In all 90 lecturers participated in the project. The significance of the study was the development of the “STUMP” model which is meant to be a framework to guide m-learning system developers and implementers. Keywords-M-Learning; authoring; content; user-interface; teachers I. INTRODUCTION The focus of this paper is on teachers as m-learning content authors and users with core objective of make m-learning content authoring very easy and simple for the teacher with easy to use tools so as to boost their stake in the use of mobile learning platform (MLP) for teaching and learning anywhere anytime. The user friendliness, simplicity and easy to use m- learning authoring tools are partly contributing factors which can determine the acceptance and use of m-learning platform for teaching and learning by especially teachers. Mobile learning is no doubt becoming a relevant method of learning which can be blended with the existing known traditional classroom face-to-face teaching and learning method. It is also suitable as a comprehensive learning platform for distance education without any physical classroom. M-Learning is actually showing strong indication of extending teaching and learning from a fixed location to a ubiquitous environment where by teachers can teach and learners learn at any-time anywhere with any portable mobile computing devices. In the beginning, m-learning were no more than SMS of simple text which contained necessary information on specific subject areas or series of short notes. Although most m-learning still use SMS, currently we can find many such m-learning platform using XHTML, XML, WML, WAP, JAVA etc. which have mobile learning engines (MLEs), mobile delivery engines (MDEs) and mobile authoring tools (MATs) for developing appealing and sophisticated content with video, voice, pictures, animations and more for learners. One issue with these m- learning applications that this paper is concern with is human computer interaction (HCI) and teachers [4]. Some of these m- learning applications do not have good HCIs and this often than not scare most teachers from using it to develop content to be used by students. Sometime developing simple content can involve a lot of difficult time consuming steps so much that one will not like to use the same system a second time. Literature review done by this paper on m-learning shows that there are several m-learning pilot projects being conducted all over but very few among them have been able to go beyond pilot stage to full implementation [2]. This paper asserts that the teachers who are in most case as it were the main content developers do not find these m-learning applications to be as user friendly as it should since research shows that most of these teachers are not very skillful in the use of ICTs for teaching and learning. This paper observed that most research on m-learning concentrate on the system developers, learners, pedagogy and devices but not on the teacher. Thus little or no attention has been given to the role and relevance of the teacher who in actual fact is the content developer for the learner in 978-1-4673-2225-6/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 2012 International Conference on Education and e-Learning Innovations