What is mobile learning?
Mobile learning is the ability to obtain or provide educational content on
personal pocket devices such as PDAs, smartphones and mobile phones.
Educational content refers to digital learning assets which includes any form of
content or media made available on a personal device.
Mobile learning using handheld computers is in its infancy in terms of both
technologies and pedagogies. As a result there is still some dispute amongst
industry advocates in how mobile learning should be defined: in terms of devices
and technologies; in terms of the mobility of learners and the mobility of
learning, and in terms of the learners’ experience of learning with mobile devices.
Most researchers and educators probably view mobile learning as the immediate
descendant of e-learning. Pinkwart, et al. (2003) for example, defines e-learning
as ‘learning supported by digital “electronic” tools and media’, and by analogy,
mobile learning as ‘elearning that uses mobile devices and wireless transmission’.
Quinn (2000) defined it earlier, as simply learning that takes place with the help
of mobile devices, or the intersection of mobile computing (the application of
small, portable, and wireless computing and communication devices) and elearning
(learning facilitated and supported through the use of information and
communications technology).
In line with this definition, several authors (e.g., Turunen, et al. 2003) view mobile
devices as a pervasive medium that may assist us in combining work, study and
leisure time in meaningful ways.
Traxler (2005) defined it as “any educational provision where the sole or
dominant technologies are handheld or palmtop devices.”
How is that different from e-learning?
E-learning has come to define any dissemination of educational knowledge over
the Internet. This makes e-learning a subset of technology-based training. It also
incorporates a number of learning activities conducted on the Internet, of which
mobile learning is one part.