Day 1 – Sedentary Learning
What, when, where and how am I doing m-learning now?
I’m not.
If we are talking – as outlined in the intro – about cellphones, at least. I still have and use the only mobile device I’ve ever had – a circa-2001 Nokia. I have never felt that I needed or wanted a newer phone so much that I was willing to pay for it plus data plans and all that other stuff. I have never sent a text message on it or done anything online. Basically, we use it to call home before one of us leaves town, to call my parents (no l.d. charge), or as a backup alarm on stormy nights.
I don’t own a tablet, e-reader, or any other device, either. Just a desktop and a laptop (that pretty much never leaves the house).
So… the only mobility I have in my learning is doing computing upstairs or downstairs in my own house, or being able to access course work from my work computer as well.
It’s my work that’s mobile… not me. I’m what you might call a sedentary learner.
Posted in: Week 11: Mobiles
David William Price 7:49 pm on November 14, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
When you say “It’s my work that’s mobile”… what kind of work is that? Do you commute at all? Or have unproductive time?
If someone else was paying for your mobile, would you use it as a performance support for your work? Have you ever found yourself away from your computer and needing a quick answer? What do you usually do?
How do you feel about being “a sedentary learner”?
Like you, I have a simple feature phone and I’ve never sent a text in my life. I spend far too much time in my home office despite having a MacBook Air. In a recent conversation with a multinational professional firm, though, I’ve been told they don’t even have offices and they’re expected to spend all their time with clients. Similarly, another major professional firm I spoke with last year said the same thing even about their legal team… if they want to use an office, they have to schedule it.
What do you think about a mobile future?
mcquaid 12:51 pm on November 16, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi, David. To answer your queries:
– I teach in a K-8 school. I drive myself about 20km each way every day. That’s my only forced unproductive time.
– If someone else paid for me to have a mobile at work, I would try to use it – at work only, perhaps. I like not being tied to a phone in some ways.
– If I find myself away from a computer and need a quick answer, I wait until I get to one, and hope that I remember what I needed to do / look for. If I don’t, it probably wasn’t very important anyway.
– I don’t mind being a “sedentary learner”. It’s how I was brought up / taught. I wouldn’t mind being dragged into the current decade… I’d like to have a smallish tablet, but mostly for reading online and email. I don’t think I’d ever want to learn much more than bite-sized things on a phone.
– As for a mobile future… I think there will always be a mix of smaller and larger devices… perhaps they will just get more specific in terms of what people use them for – more specialized (I think they already are in many ways). I believe we will continue to get more and more mobile, though (at least up to a point), as devices get smaller, less obvious, and more built in to what we already may have / use / wear.
hall 12:44 pm on November 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi mcquaid ,
I understand reason that someone would use of a circa-2001 Nokia instead of a more expensive and updated model. I got myself a Blackberry because of a promotion that one of telecommunication companies in Jamaica had last year October for tertiary institutions. If this was not the case I would not have gotten a phone of this quality.