Multimedia mobile phones

City College Southampton serves an ethnically diverse population. The college is one of the largest providers of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) in the region and has pioneered the use of mobile learning with funding and support from the ICT Effective Practice Study led by the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC).

The wide ethnic mix in ESOL classes in Southampton means an equally wide variation in educational experience and achievement. Activities must help learners integrate quickly into the college and wider community.

Key advantages

Tutors found that the use of camera phones provided an effective way of extending learners' knowledge of the locality, at the same time as creating opportunities to develop linguistic skills in real and meaningful ways. Combined with mediaBoard, developed by Cambridge Training and Development Ltd (CTAD), camera and audio recording facilities in mobile phones have enabled learners to publish the results of their project work on the web.