As mobile technologies have become pervasive, many
researchers [e.g. 1,2] have questioned whether they can enhance learning experiences. It could be argued that mobile learning (M-learning) is an approach to electronic learning (E-learning) that simply utilises mobile devices, yet it can also be viewed as a quite different learning experience [3]. Indeed, M-learning can only be delivered with an awareness of the special limitations and benefits of mobile devices, so one cannot simply apply known design requirements from E-learning into the M-learning context.
This paper explores what factors and design requirements are crucial to the M-learning environment, and suggests how M-learning applications can be designed with an understanding of these factors and requirements. In our approach, we develop an M-learning framework for integrating relevant design requirements, grounded in best practices from the literature. This framework is both used as an analysis tool to help understand the critical success factors in previous mobile learning applications, and as a design tool for developing new systems. The following section reviews the literature, identifying several structural factors and contexts for M-learning design. From this we introduce a framework for developing M-learning applications, which is described in section three. Sections four to seven analyse four different M-learning environments with the framework, showing how their different techniques and technologies can all be encompassed within the general structure of the framework. The final section provides some conclusions and proposals for further research.