Technology-driven mobile learning –

Technology-driven mobile learning – Some specific technological innovation is deployed in an academic setting to demonstrate technical feasibility and pedagogic possibility

Miniature but portable e-Learning – Mobile, wireless, and handheld technologies are used to re-enact approaches and solutions already used in 'conventional' e-Learning, perhaps porting some e-Learning technology such as a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to these technologies or perhaps merely using mobile technologies as flexible replacements for static desktop technologies

Connected classroom learning – The same technologies are used in classroom settings to support collaborative learning, perhaps connected to other classroom technologies such as interactive whiteboards

Informal, personalised, situated mobile learning – The same 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

Mobile training/ performance support – The technologies are used to improve the productivity and efficiency of mobile workers by delivering information and support just-in-time and in context for their immediate priorities (for an early account, see Gayeski, 2002)

Remote/ rural/ development mobile learning – The technologies are used to address environmental and infrastructural challenges to delivering and supporting education where 'conventional' e-Learning technologies would fail, often troubling accepted developmental or evolutionary paradigms
Mobile distance learning could fall into any of these categories (with the exception of the 'connected classroom learning'); how it develops will depend in part on the affordances of any given situation. These affordances might include:

Infrastructure, meaning power supply, postal services, Internet connectivity, etc.

Sparsity, giving rise to infrequent face-to-face contact, lack of technical support, etc.

The wider policy agenda including lifelong learning, inclusion (of rural areas for example), assistivity, participation, and access

Mobile distance learning within a framework of blended distance learning and the affordances of other delivery and support mechanisms