Mobile learning
Mobile learning, or m-learning, is a dynamic subset of e-learning that utilizes mobile technologies—such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops—to enhance educational accessibility and engagement. Unlike traditional e-learning, which may occur in fixed online environments, mobile learning allows students to interact with their curriculum anytime and anywhere, fostering a more flexible learning experience. This approach emphasizes collaboration and communication, leveraging various electronic media, including text, streaming video, and social media platforms, to facilitate real-time feedback and interaction between students and instructors.
Mobile learning has the potential to revolutionize educational practices, particularly in higher education and corporate training, by enabling a student-centered approach that promotes self-directed learning. However, success in mobile learning environments often requires students to be proficient with technology and proactive in their learning efforts. As this educational model continues to gain traction globally, particularly in regions facing educational resource challenges, it highlights the importance of adapting learning strategies to fit diverse cultural and technological contexts. Ultimately, mobile learning represents a significant shift in how education is delivered and accessed, emphasizing the role of technology in shaping modern learning experiences.
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Subject Terms
Mobile learning
Mobile learning refers to a subset of e-learning that leverages society’s technological advancements in order to broaden the learning environment for students. Where e-learning is online, computer-based, and can take place either in a completely online environment or partially in a traditional classroom, mobile learning takes place in a completely online environment using mobile technologies such as tablets, computer notebooks, or mobile phones. Like e-learning, the technologies and methods involved in mobile learning rely heavily on Internet access and have had a significant impact on helping to change the way in which students learn and teachers teach. Mobile learning covers a broad range of teaching techniques and practices, including online instructional presentations, interactive lessons, mobile presentations, and application of social media.
Overview
Mobile learning, or m-learning, goes beyond simply teaching in an online environment. Instead, it allows students to engage in the curriculum from virtually any place, which increases students’ accessibility to higher education. Like e-learning, mobile learning is built on sound pedagogical techniques and uses a variety of electronic media, including but not limited to, text, streaming video, instant messaging, document sharing software, Blackboard learning environments, webcams, and blogging. However, unlike e-learning, mobile learning requires a mobile device. Mobile learning also allows for almost real-time feedback from instructors and peers and fosters a collaborative and diversified learning environment for students.
The premise of mobile learning itself is complex and challenges traditional, conventional classroom methods of teaching. Mobile learning relies on the desire for the students and the instructors to engage with one another in this environment. The mobile learner is not apathetic to interaction; instead the mobile learner must actively engage in the learning process by seeking to communicate and interact with his or her peers and instructors. This virtual learning environment is almost exclusively collaborative and communicative, relying heavily on social media formats to serve and foster the learning dialogue.
Researchers suggest that mobile learning is becoming its own unique concept, changing the way people learn while balancing new technologies with sound teaching practices. Mobile learning is also at the forefront of college and university education structures, as well as business training programs, with a significant number of university curriculums offering courses that can be taken solely in an online, mobile environment. Many online universities and colleges that have created educational programs based on the e-learning environment are broadening their curriculum to include courses and areas of study that travel with students in their mobile environments. This frees up teaching resources by placing the burden of learning on the student and emphasizing the inherent benefits of collaborative learning. However, mobile learners typically need to be well-versed in mobile technologies and social media formats as well as be proactive learners and solid multitaskers in order to succeed.
Several school districts throughout the country and the world have begun slowly integrating mobile learning into their curriculum. In 2015, school officials for an Illinois district reported that a one-year trial of the learning format had proven successful. Teachers cited the fact that the devices allowed every student to participate in activities while giving them the opportunity to engage in self-directed research. Other proponents of mobile learning had also suggested the potential benefits of using this approach in places such as Africa, where teacher and finance shortages tend to cripple classroom capabilities. The number of people who own cell phones in the country has grown significantly since the early 2000s, but the low-cost and geographic benefits of mobile learning, particularly shared communication and content, may have to be tailored to suit the type of phone as not everyone has been able to afford the more advanced smartphone.
Bibliography
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