Mobile Computing, Visual Diaries, Learning and Communication: Changes to the Communicative Ecology of Design Students Through Mobile Computing Marsha Berry School of Creative Media and Design Margaret Hamilton School of Computer Science and Information Technology RMIT University, Melbourne GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne VIC 3001, Australia {marsha.berry, margaret.hamilton}@rmit.edu.au Abstract How students learn and what encourages them to communicate and reflect on their learning provide continual challenges for teachers. If we can find ways to enlighten this process, we can encourage and foster a better learning environment for all concerned. In this paper, we discuss the influence that Tablet PCs have had on the way multimedia students learn concepts and approach their design development work through their communicative ecology. As part of their course, these students are required to write visual diaries as reflective practice on their design process. Among other things, access to the Tablet PCs greatly enhances their contributions to their visual diaries by allowing them to develop their draft diagrams quickly and easily and integrate them into their blogs to achieve a comprehensive work portfolio. . . Keywords: Tablet PCs, blogs, communicative ecology. 1 Introduction Learning is a very difficult process to define, except to say that it is unique to each individual student and varies depending on their time, place and reasons for wanting to learn. Learning occurs within a communicative ecology, which has been defined by (Tacchi 2004) in the following way: “The concept we use in ethnographic action research is ‘communicative ecology’. If you are studying the ecology of a forest or desert, you do not look at one or two animals or plants in isolation. You study how animals, plants, soil, climate and on are interrelated, and may have impacts on many things simultaneously. The same applies to Copyright © 2006, Australian Computer Society, Inc. This paper appeared at the Eighth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2006), Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, January 2006. Conferences in Research in Practice in Information Technology, Vol. 52. Denise Tolhurst and Samuel Mann Eds. Reproduction for academic, not-for profit purposes permitted provided this text is included. communications and information: there are many different people, media, activities, and relationships involved.”(pg 15) The introduction of mobile computing into the learning process is interesting as it provides more flexibility for the student to access the information sources necessary for learning. One of the earliest educators, Socrates, observed that the teacher should not make assumptions about what students can learn and that their capacity to learn depends on the environment in which they learn and what is regarded as valid learning (Nillsen 2004). The students involved in this study have been individually given Tablet PCs to allow even more mobility and flexibility than previously possible. This allows them to access the wireless network and internet whenever they choose and from wherever they can, whether it be on the train, at home, in the cafeteria, in the lecture theatres, in the computer laboratories, anywhere within the University where the wireless network operates. In this paper, we present our observations and their reflections and discussions of how this has affected their learning, communication and group participation, as evidenced in their visual diaries and blogs, discussed in our focus group meetings, gleaned from our questionnaires and other informal feedback. We are encouraged by the level of interaction the Tablet PCs have afforded the students in their group work and the early steady progress these students have made in their visual diaries. 2 Background The research reported in this paper is the first phase of a larger study that is exploring the possible effects of mobile computing on the design process and student experience. The broader study is longitudinal and will track student experience in the use of mobile computing over a 12 month period and will look at individual and team use of Tablet PCs.