Practising problem solving using mobile technologies

The use of mobile technologies including mobile phones, iPods and PDAs to deliver learning objects to support students who are involved in distance learning programmes is causing much interest with the UK Open University (OU). This paper introduces and reports on the development of an application to assist students on the Cisco Networking course to practice subnetting, a particular feature of the addressing used to identify all devices on the internet and the majority of todaypsilas computer networks. The ability of students to manipulate such addresses is beneficial both to their studies and their practice. A discussion of why such an application was developed specifically for mobile phones will be given. This will be followed by a description of its development, including the rationale for including the various stages of practice. The paper concludes with a report on progress to date and initial feedback from current students who have had the opportunity to work with the application. The project has been sponsored by the Centre for Open Learning in Mathematics, Science, Computing and Technology (COLMSCT) which is one of four government funded Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs) within the OU.