Overview
It a well known fact that the key to mobile learning lies in taking advantage of opportunities offered by mobile technologies which enable learners to move seamlessly across different settings, to make use of context-specific resources and to connect up learning in different locations . Mobile technologies can enhance learning experience in many ways - they provide instant feedback and better diagnosis of learning problems as they occur; help design new assessment models; enhance learner autonomy because they offer better opportunities to acquire skills at one’s own pace that may be missing when using shared computer facilities, etc.
According to J. Traxler mobile technologies alter both the nature of learning and alters the ways that learning can be delivered. Learning that used to be delivered “just-in-case,” can now be delivered “just-in-time, just enough, and just-for-me.” Mobile technologies alter the balance between training and performance support, especially for many knowledge workers. This means that “mobile” is not merely a new adjective qualifying the timeless concept of “learning”; rather, “mobile learning” is emerging as an entirely new and distinct concept alongside the mobile workforce and the connected society. Mobile devices create not only new forms of knowledge and new ways of accessing it, but also create new forms of art and performance, and new ways of accessing them (Traxler, 2009).
Mobile technologies are enhanced with additional functionality, for example location awareness or video-capture, and deployed to deliver educational experiences that would otherwise be difficult or impossible (Kukulska-Hulme, 2010).
While teaching methodologies were initially borrowed from pedagogies used in e-learning, mobile learning has expanded into the converged space of Internet and telecommunications, creating a wider net of in-class and out-of-class learning opportunities. New forms of content dispersion like course casts, Moblogs, and Twitter feeds have become popular with the ubiquitous availability of technology across campuses (S. Kumar, 2010).
A majority of the mobile learning projects that were involved in the MoLeNet project indicated that mobile learning led to a greater ownership of the learning process by students. In this case mobile learning is not just about self-directed learning by the individual; these tools also can be brought back into a traditional, structured learning setting like a lesson-based activity. For example, teachers from Hastings College (UK) involved in one of MoLeNet projects were pleased with the new tools and skills acquired, and were convinced that the mobile devices and supporting web environment had contributed to improving engagement, attendance and retention, long before the data confirmed this. Teachers from Chichester College (UK) who also took part in another MoLeNet project have reported improved quality of work; work completed quicker than before; improvements in collaboration and behaviour; increased motivation and learners finding aspects of the curriculum easier to access (Attewell J., Savill-Smith S., R. Dough, 2010).
Regarding the integration of mobile learning into the curriculum: SMS quizzes, which were for extended learning activities, homework, question-and-answer sessions and quick formative assessments, have been found to be particularly useful as an awareness raising, promotional or discussion tool (Attewell J., Savill-Smith S., R. Dough, 2010).
The use of mobile devices in NKI Distance Education - the largest distance teaching institution in Norway - demonstrated changes in students’ perception of reality related to the problem areas under study. Learning resulted in students’ increased competence in problem-solving, ability to differentiate between focal and more peripheral questions, and increased analytical skills and competence in using various tools within a field, in appropriate ways. (T. Rekkedal, A. Dye, 2007).
