M-Learning via the iPhone 1 – some approaches and technologies

In my last blog post, I discussed how I had resigned myself to the fact that the Adobe Flash Player will never be deployed on the iPhone†.

However, that is not much use if you, as an e-learning professional, have an audience for knowledge- and content delivery via mobile devices including the iPhone. In this series of articles, I will discuss approaches to delivering training via PDAs like the iPhone based on applications and functionality already available on that device. Let’s see what happens after that.

Let’s set the context. There are a growing number of extensions to the well-established core term ‘E-Learning’ including this list of candidates (compiled in 2008 by CramerSweeney):

• C-Learning - learning via collaboration with co-workers and associates
• M-Learning - learning via a portable digital media device
• V-Learning - learning inside a virtual world (such as Second Life)
• G-Learning - learning via computer games

The latest term I have discovered is Ubiquitous Learning, or U-Learning, first discussed by Gary Woodill in his excellent Workplace Learning Today column, who encountered the term in the title of a Masters dissertation called The dawn of uLearning: near-future directions for 21st century educators). Can we now take this trend to its logical conclusion and define

• T-Learning - learning via reading educational books, academic and other Textual material
  
• S-Learning - learning via lecturers & teachers Speaking
• W-Learning - learning via the medium of pen, paper, and taking Written notes

[Image courtesy Flickr user tryingtimes]

‘X’ is one of the cooler letters – let’s have X-Learning. I’ll send a Mars Bar to the person who contributes the best definition of X-Learning.

Or should we stop. Now. Please.

In my view, each of these descriptors implies that the alphabetti-spaghetti of C- G- M- V-Learning activities are discrete verticals or silos, standing alone and untouched by their siblings.

Of course this is not the case: if anything, we can say that each of these terms describes a learning channel that relies on or emphasizes one modality of learning, but doesn’t - I would assert can’t – occlude other learning modalities.

So whither M-Learning among this cacophony of uppercase modifiers? Does what we commonly call ‘M-Learning’ deserve to be treated as a domain in it’s own right? Can we discover if there are any unique characteristics that differentiate learning via mobile technologies?

I think we need to take a step back. First of all, what is learning? I would assert that learning is

The acquisition of new knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The progress of this acquisition over time tends to follow learning curves. Learning is a Constructivist activity.

Harold Stolovitch puts it succinctly in his 2002 text Telling Ain’t Training when he says that “learning is change, adaptation” (p.18). According to the author, we use training, instruction and education as strategies to enable people to learn.

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†Probably.

Apple has a habit of denying that they are developing a range of devices and technologies. Right up to the moment that Apple announce their newest gizmo / solution / partnership. Until 2009 this typically occurred at an Apple Expo event with Steve Jobs uttering the famous phrase “One more thing…” as the latest object of geeky desire walks up the aisle of the technological Chapel O’ Love.

Next time: What is E-Learning (Slight Return)

Coming up: What is M-Learning?

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References:

Publish Post

Nalder, J. (2008). The dawn of uLearning: near-future directions for 21st century educators. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. [Internet] Available from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/12398804/The-dawn-of-uLearning-Jonathan-Nalder-Masters-thesis Accessed 18th February 2009

Stolovitch, H. (2002) Telling Ain't Training. ASTD Press.

Sweeney, J. (2008) Let's Talk Terminology CramerSweeney Training Blog [Internet] Available from: http://www.cramersweeney.com/cs_id/trainingblog/ Accessed 17th February 2009

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