Exploring Mobile Learning

The "Nomadic Learner"

     Delving into the “Current State of Mobile Learning” offered disconcertion at the same time as comfort as I considered my own lack of understanding of what mobile technology means and read that there is not yet an official definition.  The idea that we are moving away from possession of knowledge and into a world of getting knowledge as needed is put rather nicely by John Traxler in the text, “Finding information rather than possessing it or knowing it becomes the defining characteristic of learning generally and of mobile learning especially, and this may take learning back into the community.”^[1]I take solace in not having to “know” things, as memory has always been my intellectual weakness, but imagining trying to keep up with the vastness of information and means of obtaining information is quite daunting.  As an educator, how might I harness the power of immediate and global learning while helping students manage tools and critically think about the information available everywhere, all the time?

     Mobile learning turns my ideas of what we know and discourse upside down where a reframing is necessary.  Learning and knowledge don’t exist as entities to acquire, but rather as active pursuits towards context, functionality, empathy and connections.  I am excited by the idea of learning as a fundamental human right and believe that mobile learning holds particular interest for equity in learning.  The societal hurdles for support of mobile learning aside, linking information and calling upon our own thinking about thinking fits with recent theories about how we learn and especially inquiry based learning.  “Authentic learning” is used often in the beginning discussions of mobile learning, and is thrown around in education circles these days without clarity of what it means.  To me, authentic learning exists when an individual takes ownership of their learning journey and is most likely to happen when learning is personalized in such a manner as to be comfortable, interesting and applicable for a student.  As Mohamed Ally writes in the first section of The Theory and Practice of Online Learning, “online learning should have high authenticity, high interactivity, and high collaboration.”^[2]  Philosophically, this fits with my personal ambitions as an educator, particularly in the correlation to critical thinking skills, but the challenge of how to achieve this learning structure remains.

     Mr. Ally’s discussion of the “Schools of Learning” in relation to psychological theories piqued my interest and provided meaningful context to mobile learning, as I’m currently looking at behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism theories with my psychology students.  Taking the best of each and integrating into one theory, behaviorism provides the “what” of learning in sequential, conditioned feedback loops.  Cognitivism offers the “how” of learning and depends on thinking and reflection for synthesis of knowledge.  The interpretation provided from constructivism offers the context, or “why”, of learning so that we have means to apply knowledge.  What I liked about “Connectivism” learning, besides the mention of chaos (personal favorite methodology), is the integration of the other three schools of thought with the added defining factor of ownership.^[3]  Mr. Ally points to “learning how to learn” as the underlying foundation for mobile learning.  Given an ideal classroom, I dream of students who sift through the vast amount of information in order to formulate their own ideas, or “learner interface” as the book states.^[4]

     As I proceed into my journey of going global from the comfort of my own home or classroom, it seems the essential question of how we make the leap to mobile learning in current models of education is entwined or perhaps ensnarled with the cultural mindset shifts that must take place for success.  My instinct tells me to go to the source- students.  Students are already living mobily in many regards.  Students also possess the key to unlocking the difficulties, that is, they already know what is getting in the way of their own learning in most cases.  Step one, then is finding out what students see as the right way to pursue mobile learning. 

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^[1] Ally, Mohamed. Mobile learning: Transforming the delivery of education and training. Athabasca University Press, 2009.

^[2] Anderson, Terry. The theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca University Press, 2008.

^[3] Anderson, Terry. The theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca University Press, 2008.

^[4] Anderson, Terry. The theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca University Press, 2008.