i thought this might be worth picking up on in a bit more depth, as i'll admit that i'm quite confused. as louise pointed out in a comment on the lecture recording post, what makes that a suitable topic for a mobile learning conference?
there have been a variety of sessions here so far - some of them ace (like the MiLK session we haven't written up yet; and the V&A session), but most of them are a bit, well, disappointing, and leave you wondering where the true connection to mobility lies.
so, if you had to sum up what mobile learning means to you in less than 140 characters (txt spk allwd - as long as you provide a translation for people like me who won't understand a word of it), how would you do so? i'm aware that there are many many definitions out there, but i'm interested in your own personal one.
on a slightly related note, there's a really excellent special report in the economist from april this year that looks at wireless communication and how it's ushering in new forms of nomadism (i may have previously bored some of you with this before, but in case you've escaped so far i'll add a link to the list on the right in a bit). which makes it all the more entertaining that they chose a hotel without free wi-fi access for a mobile learning conference, and that they haven't sorted out the mobile broadband modems we were promised.
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A confused monkey on his mobile talking about installing wireless broadband (if you can be bothered to read the converstation below and believe that monkeys can talk)...
Confused Monkey
well, that sums it up nicely! i particularly like the note comparing the chimp to dubbya :)
4 points for that one - 1 each for wireless, mobile, and confused, and 1 for making me laugh.
OK so once upon a time there was a donkey and he became very confused when he suddenly found himself a member of the learning alphabet.
"Well", said L "E has fallen off its pedestal lately and some kid has chewed a chunk out of M, probably got hungry on a field trip, so we need a new way of describing learning on the move. That's where you come in, my good man, from this day hence it will be known as donkey-learning"
"Yes" interjected A, who had just got back from a rather boozy lunch with a kangaroo, "otherwise it will all just be a load of blocks"
the parable of E, M and the donkey
donkey learning - love it! and applicable across sooooo many situations.
points...let's see, for sheer creativity, that's 5 points to louise for the parable; 1 point each also for the pictorial reference to e, m and learning; and 3 randomly allocated bonus points for the reference to a boozy kangaroo and the 'load of blocks' comment. i make that...11 points from just one picture!
OK - so in the seriousness category I would say that mobile learning (or donkey learning as we bleeding edge people are inclined to call it)should have some element of learning whilst mobile about it, I realise there is a camp that says it can be displaced learning ie the learning has moved from its original venue but that's not for me. There needs to be something that sets it apart from other technology enhanced learning. I think it needs to set you free from a physical constraint. OK so 140 char or less:
"where the learner can move through different/better learning environments and that movement adds to the effectiveness of the learning itself"
hurrah! thanks louise - that message is similar to the message we talked about in our presentation here - the element of mobility that enables learners to choose the environment that best suits their own needs.
just to, you know, break with tradition, let's go for a bit of space-geekery here: environment isn't just about the physical surroundings, though that's a part of it. but it also takes in the psychological and social (that's psychosocial for you portmanteaux addicts) aspects. so you can move physical location, and you can also move to more socially 'comfortable' locations.
any more for any more?
thanks Liz - you're right about the psychosocial contribution of space. The bit I find difficult (actually one of the bits - more later) about m-learning is when it focuses on moving the learning from one place (which is probably historic) to a different place (which was probably more appropriate but only recently become possible due to advances in technology, space design, attitudes to books and catering eg when I was a kid we had to rush to the TV room at school at 10.30 to watch Look and Learn or whatever - uncomfortable, time contrained, detached etc - there are now much better ways of doing that). I think this is good, very valid stuff but for me that is the domain of the learning space design discipline - better spaces all the time. It's not what I think of when I think of mobile learning. I tend to think about people learning whilst moving or that the moving itself, not just the start and end places, are part of the learning, hence the V&A, and even the umbrella throwing (?), involve an element of learning through movement.
I really don't like the idea of mobile learning including using mobile devices in a static space (richard and I discussed this the other day, so he may wish to add more) - just seems to me to be a missed opportunity.
The other thing I find confusing is that I don't tend to think about watching/listening to lectures on mobile devices whilst moving as mobile learning, even though that is often the first example people give. To me that seems to be learning in a different environment that just so happens not to be a static one.
In my confusion about m-learning I seem to be falling back on the narrowest definition I can find and I think this post indicates just how little I understand about the area but I feel better for sharing the pain. Also I'd gladly welcome help in getting me up to speed - especially where the m-learning experts are re the "narrow defn v broad defn" debate.
i wish i could offer a bit more from the m-learn official definition, but was unable to get any clear idea of what this was - or even whether they have one.
the last keynote is a good (or, possibly, bad) example of the confusion. the title was 'wildfire activities: new patterns of mobility and learning', and i was really looking forward to it. now admittedly i found it very difficult to follow, but as someone else pointed out based on the examples given, the patterns themselves aren't new, it's just that they become visible through different means; and the visibility of patterns and events means that the information can be shared more broadly. for me, that's not mobile learning - that's using mobile devices and technology to record experiences and share them with people who may or may not be using a mobile device when they receive it?
on reflection, i think the conference was trying to cover too much - if you have a look at the themes page on the conference website, you can probably get a feel for that. before the conference, i thought it was fairly admirable to cover such a range of topics; now, i'm wondering if it's just too confusing, and a reflection of lack of clarity?
A good discussion this, and one that I think we should take beyond the blog.
To me (and at the moment), mobile learning is not about investing lots of time and money in a number of specific devices and creating content for them, but about students being spontaneous and autonomous with their learning, using whatever tools and technologies they have available to them. Of course, location and environment play a huge role in this. Pre-loading iPods with video clips and handing them out to students just doesn't seem to be the answer for me. As I said to Louise last week, mobile learning is about what you do and where, not how. I know this is a little simplistic, particularly the 'how' bit, which needs much better description, but the focus should be on the mobile learner, not the mobile device.
Hi - I thought I might enter the discussion at this late-ish stage and add some thoughts on a definition of mobile learning (I was at the conference - gave part of the V&A presentation).
What I find hard to separate out is what is truly distinctive about mobile learning, what makes it different from, say, reading on the tube (Diane Laurillard discusses this in her chapter in 'Mobile Learning: Towards a Research Agenda' available from www.wlecentre.ac.uk). After all - we always have learnt mobilely (??) - the brain is a mobile learning device. Despite reading around, I'm still not sure there is something distinctive about mobile learning - i.e. something that takes you beyond 'this is people learning on the move, and it's enhanced by technology'.
For a definition I'd lean more towards emphasising a type of learning which is connected to the context - what you need in a museum, for example. (Laurillard mentions 'digitally-facilitated site-specific' in the piece mentioned above).
From what I've read, theorists tend to want to define mobile learning as more than just a mode of delivery which enhances existing learning processes. But I'm not convinced it is more than this. Mobile learning is also sometimes opposed to classroom learning e.g. 'carefully bounded discourse of formal education contrasts with the rich interactions that children engage with outside school through mobile calls...' (Sharples in Sage handbook of e-learning - interesting article) but you can have rich interactions and so on in the classroom too.
So - two things which get ignored a bit I think 1. teaching expertise and effective learning in the context of mobile learning 2. role of physical movement (does physical movement help learning? like when you have to walk and think and so on). I'm more interested in (1) than (2) (as an educator in formal education).
Also - what is immobile learning? If I had to characterise classroom learning, the fact that it may be relatively immobile, physically, would not be a strong characteristic of it.
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