Design guidelines for developing scaffolded, handheld software to support learners during science inquiry

The Mobile Learning Tools for Science (MaLTS) project developed design guidelines for building scaffolded, handheld software to support learners during science inquiry projects. The MaLTS project consisted of three phases of work. In Phase 1 (Analysis), related research from Learner-Centered Design and User-Centered Design was analyzed to identify the underlying challenge of designing handheld software to support learners during science inquiry. The design challenge resulting from Phase 1 was "How can we balance learners' need for scaffolds with the need to make handheld software easy to use?"; Phase 2 (Design and Implementation) addressed the design challenge from Phase 1 by developing three design guidelines for building handheld software that provided scaffolds and was easy to use. Using these design guidelines, three handheld tools were also developed during Phase 2: Pocket PiCoMap, to support concept mapping; ArtemisExpress, to support online research; and Pocket Model-It, to support scientific modeling.; Phase 3 (Evaluation and Reformulation) focused on determining whether the design guidelines developed during Phase 2 effectively addressed the design challenge articulated during Phase 1. In order for the design guidelines to be successful, handheld software built according to the design guidelines needed to be easy to use and needed to provide helpful scaffolding. To evaluate whether using the design guidelines resulted in handheld software that was easy to use and helpful to students, Pocket PiCoMap, ArtemisExpress and Pocket Model-It were used during a classroom study. The results of the classroom study highlighted several areas where the design guidelines could be reformulated to better address the design challenge. The reformulated design guidelines for building scaffolded, handheld software were the final results of the MaLTS project.; The MaLTS project demonstrated the viability of including scaffolds in handheld software for learners, and the design guidelines resulting from this project could be used to guide the development of a variety of handheld software for learners. Future work might explore the design of learner-centered handheld tools that take advantage of new features and peripherals, such as expanded wireless Internet access, mobile phones, powerful processors, removable storage, and scientific probeware.