10 responses to “A3 – The future landscape of mLearning”

  1. julia underwood

    Hi Jamie, You’ve done an excellent job outlining mobile learning and how it has changed over the past few years and where it can go. It is a great intro for anyone looking to learn more about it and something that I would recommend to my colleagues. I love the statement that mobile learning is “…more than moving current education efforts onto digital platforms”. This reminded me of the current apps out that there are still skill and drill but in mobile format. These types of apps can be seen as being helpful for practicing but that does not equate to meaningful learning.


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    1. Jamie Ashton

      Hey Julia,

      Totally! It’s a battle I fight a lot with clients, who say that their digital educational strategies are all in place, but from my perspective are hardly ‘optimised’ considering the potential out there 🙂 thanks for saying it’s a great intro podcast, that was totally the intention with it.

      Appreciate the feedback!


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  2. luke pereira

    Hi Jamie, this is a wonderful take on the A3 project and an engaging voice at that. I started to listen to many more of your podcasts also to get better insights into the future of the ed. tech. I like the highlights of key points such as how mobile learning cannot be stationary, and you can take it wherever you want to different learning spaces. The importance of size, price and connectivity is crucial to make it work for sure.

    The environmental footprint that you mentioned is important if mlearning or any technology based learning is to take off. We already have billions of devices in the world. Leveraging existing hardware with proper learning design is as important today than the new hardware that keeps getting pumped out. Companies and organizations should be proactive in providing consulting to schools and the larger educational environment to help mlearning take off.

    I find that many teachers and instructors who have been teaching for decades (30+ years) might not have the research or skills to develop complex mobile learning but some do with the readily available tools. Also, open mindedness in higher leadership needs to accept new ideas that challenges the status quo in education. Politics need to take a back seat and open the door to a transformative experience for the learners in the coming decades.

    Loved this podcast.

    Luke


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    1. Jamie Ashton

      Hey Luke,

      Thanks for this response. Indeed, the environmental impact is a big consideration. We already send tons and tons of electronic waste to landfills each year, and reuse and recycling of these materials have big health and safety barriers to overcome too. I agree that proactivity, collaboration, good leadership, and a shift from the status quo is needed. Whilst politics may need to step back, we will still need policy that supports and encourages new methods of learning to be seen as legitimate, and for lifestyles to be possible in which people can learn on the go.

      “A transformative experience for the learners in the coming decades” is what we’re all hoping for and working towards!

      Glad you enjoyed the faux-cast 😀


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  3. Ceci Z.

    Hi Jamie,

    You’re a great hostess! Really enjoyed your episode, loved your voice and the faux-casts in the first and last section. It was so smartly designed.

    You’re presenting the topic of mobile learning to us in such a pleasant way. I like how you start with the definition of mobile learning and then dive into the different aspects of it. From the sociocultural contexts to the challenges, you’ve discussed how 21st century learning/education is impacted by the rise of mobile learning very well. I also appreciate that you brought up those important ideas and concepts in mobile learning, such as personalized learning, situated learning, contextual learning, life-long learning, and informal learning ect. Great job! Followed you on soundcloud 🙂


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    1. Jamie Ashton

      Hey Ceci,

      Glad you enjoyed it. I felt it was really important to circle back to the definition of what we’re actually talking about, because the phrase “mobile learning” means lots of different things to different people.

      Thanks for the encouraging feedback!


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  4. Kat

    Hi Jaime,

    Thank you for an amazing podcast on mLearning . I really like how you created a catchy name for it and described its many important highlights. You have researched this topic in length and I appreciate you sharing your insights of the major aspects. I enjoyed your explanation of the major trends and opportunities of how mLearning will shape our society. I agree with you that size, price and connection are aspects in technology that are constantly changing and what motivate our decisions often in tech. With the challenges to overcome in wide scale integration, it had me thinking about mlearning for the elderly. I know you have touched on this from an educator’s perspective, but it was something that came to mind. Will mlearning support the elderly in a way that allows for their daily tasks to be more easily met? Just a thought.
    I also enjoyed that you said a different type of education will be required. I completely agree. I have already found that change during our time in remote learning past March. The impacts of mlearning on students as well as teachers and how we have to change our pedagogical approach in teaching. Since mlearning is becoming more present in schools and students daily learning, it is our job as educators to adapt and sustain connections with our students.
    You mentioned a great description of distributed learning. I think it will be very personalized with mlearning as you will have so many opportunities for students to take their tools with them. Because mlearning will transform the way people interact, I wonder what other forms of mlearning will be needed to ensure that our student and teacher relationships can stil remain face to face.
    Thank you for a very thorough project!


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    1. Jamie Ashton

      Hi Kat,

      You raise such an important point, and one I must admit I hadn’t considered. We spent a lot of time focusing on digital literacy for new generations of learners and educators needing to make shifts, that looking at how to include elderly populations in new conceptions of education and lifelong learning seems to be entirely overlooked.

      I think, in an ideal world, as learning becomes more integrated into daily lives and personalised environments it will reintegrate with communities and social dynamics. So this may not necessarily mean that the elderly are using the tech to learn themselves. Instead, they may have their questions answered by family members who can use tech to do research, may have devices that can be used more intuitively than current systems that need to be used (imagine voice interaction devices), or just be involved in teaching/learning projects happening around them. At the end of the day, mLearning would be optimised if it becomes situated in a different approach to education altogether, and this different approach goes with big shifts in societal structures away from what we have today, and thus has the potential to include groups that are often sidelined such as the elderly.

      Thanks for bringing up this prompt, it’s a really important one. Glad you thought the project was thorough and that there were things you enjoyed!


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  5. lindsay morton

    Hi Jaime,

    WOW. What an incredibly passionate and professional podcast you have created. It was inspiring to listen to your knowledge on the subject and your clear passion for where M learning is going in the future. Some points I took with me and found interesting was
    1) Defining mobile learning before moving forward – the term is used incredibly broadly and I like the way you specifically defined what the words mean to you and society.
    2) The discussion on how predicting the future is uncertain business. As we saw this year, your ability to predict the next ten years is an impossible task and that should be noted.
    3) We have had huge growth in the size, price and connectivity of mobility.
    4) I love how you mentioned our work places are far removed from our educational settings. I completely agree – I wonder how and when this will shift with regards to face to face interactions, especially after the remote learning phase of the pandemic.
    5) You mention personalised learning which I have taken too over my last few courses! Personalization refers to, “instruction that is paced to learning needs, tailored to learning preferences, and tailored to the specific interests of different learners. In an environment that is fully personalized, the learning objectives and content as well as the method and pace may all vary” (Bray, 2012). This connects incredible well to providing education for all over the entire planet – we are so connected and able to share and teach all over the place. The learning content can be so varied based upon students interests, motivations or maybe even local needs.

    Thank you somuch for your great work.
    Lindsay

    Bray, B., and McClaskey, K. (2012). Personalization v differentiation v individualization.
    Retrieved from
    https://education.alberta.ca/media/3069745/personalizationvsdifferentiationvsin
    dividualization.pdf


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    1. Jamie Ashton

      Hey Lindsay,
      I love nothing more than a clearly organised response, and I’m glad there were so many things you enjoyed!

      The quote you shared about personalized learning is really nice, and important in my eyes too. So often we think of personalized learning as an AI driven method for apps to cater to individual students, which makes learning sound like an isolated activity you undertake with a machine. This idea of personalized learning has never quite sat well with me, so I love how that quote frames personalized learning as something that still happens within an environment and beyond the scopes of a screen.

      Thanks for the feedback and for sharing such a great resource 🙂


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