De opkomst van m-learning

Dankzij Bloglines lees ik net een interessante bijdrage over de opkomst van mobile learning in de weblog van het Australian Flexible Learning Framework.

Often when something is labelled the "next big thing", it gets over-hyped, which leaves it open to scepticism and criticism for failing to deliver quickly on its initial promise. Five years ago mobile learning, or m-learning, was seen by many vocational education and training practitioners as being little more than fantastic conceptual ideas on how mobile devices could be used in a learning environment. Now converging factors are rapidly turning those ideas into reality. E-learning experts are predicting that the use of mobile technology as a part of training will be so high that within the next five years it will be one of the most recognisable components of e-learning. (…) The factors fuelling m-learning’s rise to prominence include all time high rates of mobile phone access, especially among younger generations, advances in mobile technology, falling costs of mobile use and greater expenditure on mobile infrastructure.

Dit citaat spreekt mij aan omdat het illustreert dat technologische ontwikkelingen razendsnel verlopen, maar dat het tegelijkertijd vele jaren duurt vóórdat deze ontwikkelingen in het onderwijs en bedrijfsopleidingen zijn ingebed. Wat dat betreft gaan de gewone wetten van onderwijsverandering op. (Dat werd me trouwens gistermiddag ook weer duidelijk toen we een focusgroep hadden over het gebruik ICT ter ondersteuning van leren en ontwikkelen in het midden- en kleinbedrijf).

Het maffe is dat dit bericht nergens op de website van het Australian Flexible Learning Framework te vinden is (Bloglines verwijst alleen naar de homepage). Ik heb op verschillende manieren gezocht, maar tevergeefs.

Het leuke is dat ik via deze zoektocht terecht ben gekomen bij het artikel "Mobile learning in the 21st century: benefit for learners" van Simon Geddes uit 2004:

This article proposes four fundamental learning advantages that are gained more easily, or to a greater degree, through the use of mLearning than through traditional face to face instruction, paper based distance education or traditional eLearning. Based on secondary academic research, and field research into current examples of mLearning, this article provides an alternative definition for mobile learning (mLearning) and predicts some characteristics of the future learning environment, including the increased importance of metacognitive and literacy skills. It is proposed that mLearning can provide access, context, collaboration and appeal advantages and additional facilitation measures for facilitators. Finally, a glimpse of the future will be provided including hypothetical examples.