Mobile Learning

Mobile learning is learning in the classroom with the aid of tablets, smartphones, and mobile technology. It is learning that is collaborative and accessible anywhere.

As defined by Kukulska-Hulme

Mobile learning is concerned with learner mobility where the learners are able to engage in educational activities without the constraints of having to do so in a tightly delimited physical location. This comes from the possibilities opened up by portable, lightweight devices that are sometimes small enough to fit in a pocket or in the palm of one’s hand.

Characteristics

• spontaneous
• personal
• informal
• contextual
• portable
• ubiquitous
• pervasive

Adapted from Kukulska-Hulme, 2005

As defined by Sharples, Taylor & Vavoula

Mobile learning is learning across space as we take ideas and learning resources gained in one location and apply or develop them in one another. We learn across time, by revisiting knowledge that was gained earlier in a different context, and more broadly, through ideas and strategies gained in early years providing a framework for a lifetime of learning.

Characteristics

• It is the learner that is mobile, rather than the technology.
• Learning is interwoven with other activities as part of everyday life.
• Learning can generate as well as satisfy goals.
• The control and management of learning can be distributed.
• Context is constructed by learners through interaction.
• Mobile learning can both complement and conflict with formal education.
• Mobile learning raises deep ethical issues of privacy and ownership.

Adapted from Sharples, Taylor & Vavoula, 2005

As defined by El-Hussein & Cronje

Mobile learning is any type of learning that takes place in learning environments and spaces that take account of the mobility of technology, mobility of learners and mobility of learning.

Characteristics

Mobility of Technology

• Mobile devices that have the capacity to link to the internet and deliver content and instruction that can enable learners to learn at anytime and anywhere.

Mobility of Learner

• Mobile learning entails that learning can occur at any place and at any time. Learning with mobile is a learner-centric activity because it is both mobile and nomadic, and not pedagogically teacher-centric as in the case of traditional lectures and hardware installed in one particular location.

Mobility of Learning

• Learners have access to a dynamically changing repertoire of devices and services that will differ in speed, processing power, and monitoring characteristics.

Adapted from El-Hussein & Cronje, 2010

As defined by Kearney, Schuck, Burden, & Aubusson

Mobile learning is any type of learning that takes place in learning environments and spaces that take account of the mobility of technology, mobility of learners and mobility of learning.

Characteristics

Authenticity

• Task authenticity: The extent to which tasks are realistic and offer problems encountered by real world practitioners.
• Factual authenticity: How particular details of a task (such as characters, instruments etc.) are similar to the real world.
• Process authenticity: Refers to how learner practices are similar to those practices carried out in the community or “real-world” practices.

Collaboration

• Social interaction, conversation and dialogue are fundamental to learning from a socio-cultural perspective as people engage in negotiating meaning.
• Learners consume, produce and exchange an array of “content”, sharing information and artefacts across time and place.

Personalisation

• Learners have control over the place, pace and time they learn, autonomy over learning content.

Adapted from Kearney, Schuck, Burden, & Aubusson, 2012

As defined by Oller

Mobile learning is defined as “learning by means of wireless technological devices that can be pocketed and utilised wherever the learner’s device is able to receive unbroken transmission signals. The learning is supported by mobile devices such as cellular (mobile phones, portable computers, and personal audio players, and any sort of learning) that happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies.

Characteristics

• Mobility
• set of devices necessarily changes over time.
• allows participants to break free of the classroom, untethering learners from their desks, from their dwellings, or from buildings altogether.

Adapted from Oller, 2012

From a socio-cultural perspective, learning is affected and modified by the tools used for learning, and that reciprocally the learning tools are modified by the ways that they are used for learning. Central to this position is the notion that learning is a situated, social endeavour, facilitated and developed through social interactions and conversations between people (Vygotsky) and mediated through tool use (Wertsch, 1991).

Pre-Implementation Process

1. Define the learning issue:

• Consider the gaps and how a mobile learning would fill the gaps effectively.
• Detail the objectives, mobile learning targets and success measures.
• What are the learning needs?

2. Identify content sources and subjects:

• Which topics would be best covered on a mobile device?
• What is the right format for your content?
• What is the best way of building your content?
• What is the best way to distribute the learning?

3. Identify technologies and skills needed:

• What mobile devices can your school provide?
• What mobile devices have your students got?
• Are students able to use the devices for mobile learning?

Actual Implementation

There is no ONE implementation model for Mobile Learning.