Mobile Learning: A Skill that Creates Lifelong Learners

Envisioning the Future of Education: Learning While Mobile by Mark Van ‘T Hooft

The article I read this week focused on bridging the gap between formal and informal learning. As many more technologies become available, knowledge is becoming more and more mobile. As a result, learning while mobile has started to combine both formal and informal learning. Learning while mobile “considers learning as personalized, learner-centered, situated in time and space, collaborative, ubiquitous and lifelong. Learning while mobile sees learning as happening across contexts, people, and digital tools that are both mobile and static” ( ‘T Hooft, 13). Learning while mobile recognizes that learning is a social process, and consequently, many websites are helping to keep learning social while connecting students, teachers, and the world. For instance, MyArtSpace has been created to permit children to connect learning at school and in museums. MyArtSpace allows students to discuss an open-ended question in class, explore the answers at the museum, and reflect online at MyArtSpace (‘T Hooft, 14). As children survey the museum, children may take pictures using their mobile phones, and these pictures may be uploaded to MyArtSpace and shared with the world. Frequency 1550 is another website that has begun to incorporate mobile learning both inside and outside of the classroom. Students are given GPS devices, where they can download a challenge and then “complete location-based media assignments on the city’s history, and create their own knowledge” (‘T Hooft, 14). I believe that learning while mobile is important for all students, as it educates students to be lifelong learners.

Learning while mobile can be adapted into the classroom setting in many ways- from online homework assignments to uploading photos to share about a culture or history. In my classroom, I believe it would be fun to complete a project that incorporates MyArtSpace. I would discuss a certain era in history with my students. Afterwards, I would have a field trip to a history museum, where students could use digital cameras and video recorders to help retain the answers and note what they thought was interesting. In addition, I would have students collaborate in groups as they work on creating a video project about their answers and what caught their attention. Also, I would have one of the requirements of the project to include outside resources, such as websites and books. Once their project is complete, we would share our videos on MyArtSpace as well as on our class website. Overall, I feel this assignment would teach students about history in a memorable way, while demonstrating that learning is fun.