Mobile learning has come a long way in a very short time. It's only been in the last 10 or so years that mobile devices with the internet have truly come in to their own, and only in the last 3 that mobile tablets have appeared. The changes that they have brought in to our world not only changes the way in which we live our everyday lives, but also the way we learn and retain information. New pedagogies, the ways in which we learn have been challenged and are now evolving with this new technology, to bring our lives together with technology and enhance our previous capabilities.
After investigating apps and functionality of an iPad/iPhone, I have selected three considerations that I feel are extremely important and relevant to learners, but in particular with my context of adult learners. It is harder for adult learners, as they have not been brought up with this technology, and as such, often need to teach themselves and train themselves to work with technology and new ways to think, work and live. The three considerations are:
- Personal, private and familiar (reduce barriers to learning)
- Enable new learning environments
- Pervasive and ubiquitous
Personal, private and familiar (reduce barriers to learning)
One of the most important factors of adult learning is that to use technology, learners need to overcome barriers to learning. Having not grown up with technology, like the digital natives have done, all technology has been new to them. Many have used computers in their everyday lives, at work and at home. Smartphones and tablets contain new ways of doing things and as such, this takes some getting used to. Not having been the iPod generation, and only using desktop computers, smartphones with apps and all their features are different and require getting familiar with and used to.
The iPad apps I reviewed and now reflect upon, assist in reducing barriers to learning, and try to make the learners more comfortable with what they're doing. Several of the apps I looked at built upon a base that learners would be familiar with (almost everyone now has some form of email, a calendar, file storage, word/excel documents). Much of it is designed to be familiar, simple, but to build upon their existing knowledge, and start to incorporate new features.
Many of the apps I looked at, including apps such as Email, Calendar, Evernote and DropBox, are fairly private, so the learner has access to work upon their skills without feeling intimidated, or having their lack of technical knowledge to be commented on by others. As an adult learner myself, I have often felt that I would be more inclined to explore different programs or apps if I could do it in a way that I wouldn't feel silly that I had gotten it wrong, or messed it up completely and was subsequently judged by others. If I could just ease my way in to it, then once I was familiar and confident, I would be able to do more and more. Sometimes it just all feels too hard. But by keeping it private, I feel comfortable making mistakes, having a play and working through it at my pace. No one knows anyways, so what does it matter?
Ease of use is the strong key to mobile learning uptake in adult learners. Being able to see it, click on it with an easy to use interface, without complicated or too many steps and being able to search for more information/find more information assists too. The easier it is to use, the easier it is for adult learners to overcome their own barriers to learning. they can create, use and learn and start to truly embrace mobile technology in not just their professional life, but also in their personal one.
Enable new learning environments
Another consideration I feel is very important to adult learners is to enable new learning environments. While this might not seem important, especially when you factor in getting learners comfortable with new technology, and trying to introduce them to it by apps that are similar to what they have done before, it is of great importance to see why we are changing. To truly understand the push towards mobile learning, to see why it's suddenly become so important everywhere, learners need to see what is new and what elearning is capable of. We've never been so connected to everyone in the world. It's these connections that are making new learning environments possible, but not only that, it's changing the way we learn and the way we look, think and structure learning. For adult learners to understand why we're shifting in this direction, they need to be able to see the power and abilities of mobile learning.
Apps that have the power to do that include Skype, that connects people working in groups, individually or globally together, and with others that include specialists, mentors and people working in real life and relevant situations.
VoiceThread, Facebook and Tellagami also present interesting and new learning environments. Creating digital work, being able to truly create new videos on varied topics introduces adults learners to something they haven't potentially done before. It's easy to create, use and share topics and videos. I believe the benefits of being able to see videos, create easily will introduce the concept of new learning environments, and give them the opportunity to move forward with it. Facebook is a similar one, but it builds upon existing knowledge and extends it to incorporate learning. This gives them a new environment, but also helps them to see that a basis of knowledge can be formed and then built upon, to create something new and interesting.
Tellagami is a taste of something new but fun. It has the capacity for interesting and new topics to be brought up, to be used in a multitude of situations and is something different. It also introduces the concepts of creating something to be used for a particular purpose or idea, or simply for fun and to be using technology at the same time.
Pervasive and Ubiquitous
One of the problems with adult learning and learning in general, is that it has to be at set times, which often make it difficult to fit in to every day lives. One of the great benefits of mobile learning is how it fits in to our daily lives, and then begins to pervade our everyday and work its way in to what we naturally do. Facebook learning? Perfect. We're already checking our account for information about our friends, we can check our group or learning messages at the same time. Trying to remember to do something? Punch it in to Evernote when you remember, then share that with the kids at home to remind them to do it. Once we start using mobile technology, it slowly builds up our abilities, then enables us to use the tools to manage our lives more effectively.
Seamlessness also plays a part in the ubiquity of mobile devices and learning. Many of the components we can learn with interact and interplay with one another. Quickoffice interacts with GoogleDocs, so both can be accessed, edited and uploaded. Dropbox is able to upload photos it finds on the device, and do it automatically. This is changing the way we interact digitally, which is needed to change our existing ways of thinking, to understand, adapt and move forward with mobile technology.
The way data is permanently set (Dropbox, Quickoffice, Email, Evernote) gives us a permanence to our work. With the advent of the internet, it is all available to be used and accessed all of the time. No matter the time of the day or the geographical location (although internet dependent), we are able to use these devices to access the information we want, when we want it, and learn when and how we choose.
Conclusion
The future of learning is mobile learning. The ability to learn anytime, anywhere, with so many different programs at your fingertips enables new, interesting and varied learning environments to take place. As we delve deeper in to the world of mobile learning, it is clear that it is changing the way we learn, and enabling us to go further, and incorporate learning in to our daily lives. As adults, this will always be a challenge, but with the right tools, moving past the barriers and embracing these new ways, will be possible, and with help, to truly embrace it as we learn everyday.
References
Fasso W, (2013) EDEL20003 Week 5 - Exploration of Mobile Devices
Wong, L (2012) A learner-centric view of mobile seamless learning. British Journal of Educational Technology
Bomsdorf, B (2005) Adaptation of Learning Spaces:Supporting Ubuquitous Learning in Higher Distance Education, Dagstuhl Seminar Proceedings 05181 Mobile Computing and Ambient Intelligence: The Challenge of Multimedia.
Belshaw, D (2011) Mobile learning infokit
https://mobilelearninginfokit.pbworks.com/w/page/41751178/Why%20mobile%20learning
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