Mobile phones ubiquity and communicational power makes them central in people’s lives, youth in particular. Young people’s digital practices in informal contexts, such as the management of multiple sources of information, handling of various types of media and working in collaborative network, enhance the development of essential skills in today's society (Drotner, 2008).

 

The use as an educational tool of a device owned by young people, highly personalized and used intensively in informal contexts, reinforces the link between informal and formal learning contexts (Hartnell-Young & Heym, 2008). However, school remains as one of the unique contexts of young people’s lives where mobile phones are prohibited. Nevertheless, mobile phones are finding their way into classrooms, not in a consensual way, rather in a transgressor one (Kukulska-Hulme, Sharples, Milrad, Arnedillo-Sánchez & Vavoula, 2009).

 

Technology in education is based on a top-down perspective, hardware and software are closely watched to match curriculum objectives. Little effort is done to attend to young people digital practices and build on them (Green & Hannon, 2007).

Schools tend to consider the use of mobile phones and young people collaborative digital practices potentially disruptive to classrooms management, but on the contrary, they can be mostly productive and contribute to engage students in formal learning (Sharples, Milrad, Arnedillo Sánchez & Vavoula, 2008).

 

References

Drotner, K. (2008). Leisure Is Hard Work: Digital Practices and Future Competencies. In David Buckingham (Ed.), Youth, Identity, and Digital Media (pp. 167–184). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Green, H. & Hannon, C. (2007). Their Space: Education for a digital generation. London: Demos.

Hartnell-Young, E. & Heym, N. (2008). How mobile phones help learning in secondary schools. Nottingham: Learning Sciences Research Institute.

Kukulska-Hulme, A., Sharples, M., Milrad, M., Arnedillo-Sánchez, I. & Vavoula, G. (2009) Innovation in Mobile Learning: a European Perspective. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 1 (1), pp. 13–35.

Sharples, M., Taylor, J., & Vavoula, G. (2007). A Theory of Learning for the Mobile Age. In R. Andrews and C. Haythornthwaite (eds.)The Sage Handbook of Elearning Research. London: Sage, pp. 221-47.

Sharples M., Milrad M., Arnedillo Sánchez I., Vavoula G. (2008). Mobile Learning: Small devices, Big Issues. To be published in Balacheff, N., Ludvigsen, S., de Jong, T., Lazonder, A., Barnes, S. & Montandon, L. Technology Enhanced Learning: Principles and Products.