At my workplace the focus is on adult education, so there is little, if any, regulation of student mobile devices.
I have sat through lectures where adult learners were distracted by mobile devices. However, I don’t believe the instructor or institute should create policies to control their use at a university level. It is my personal belief that by the time students are adult learners they should have gained the skills to self-regulate. This would be a component of digital literacy at a grade school level, or high school level. But I digress.
At the Justice Institute, where most of the training involves public safety, many of the training programs use mobile devices. For example, in the Primary Care Paramedic program, the text uses QR codes to link to training videos. When the students are practicing on their own, they refer to these videos to see if they are doing the procedures correctly. Most students use their own devices, but i-pads are available for signing out in the library. Mobile devices are used by Instructors as well. When the Fire Fighter students are being evaluated on their practical knowledge, the Instructors grade them on i-pads. This way the students, get immediate feedback online, and via generated e-mail and know what to focus on for the retest.
Mobile devices are used during Praxis Simulations communications. These simulations involve different public safety groups in a “real world scenarios” and the communications during the sim occurs in real-time and are as realistic as possible. For example, the Instructor reveals specific information and “dispatches” it to the Fire Fighters. As the Fire Fighters gather the information from the scene, they report back to the other Instructor and other parties involved, such as Police or Paramedics.
The JIBC has embraced mobile for education, and instructors and staff are willing to test and try new ways to interact and engage students. It may be the nature of the training, which lends itself to mobile learning.