Mobile Learning in Higher Education

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Mobile Learning in Higher Education

Multiple connections in customized learning spaces

4/23/2008

By Ruth Reynard

Multi-input connections
Open-ended output
Customized spaces of interaction

While these may seem contrary to the rigor of good education in any conventional framework of reference, they can, if integrated effectively heighten the engagement of the students and provide a richer learning experience for everyone. The diagram below delineates how this might work as linear thinking faculty might see it.

Diagram A

Here there is a logical flow, although we may not have a good grasp on what each stage truly means we can grasp that it moves in a logical way. The reality however is that if we explore the meaning of each "stage" we realize it cannot possibly flow in a linear form and that challenges the every essence of how we often have been trained to think.

We would be better helped to think of the flow as not a flow at all but an ongoing cycle of connections and interaction that can support, interact with, and ultimately reproduce any environment or context multiple times over. Therefore, the process could look something like this:

Diagram B

Here there are no breaks in the connections and interactions with no start or end to the flow of information, communication, and distribution. So the webbed-out flow now becomes totally integrated and what is often forgotten, customized to the user. This totally challenges conventional instructional frameworks and design.

While Vygotsky's (1962) notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is somewhat similar to the idea here of "areas of interaction", mobile technology creates an environment where each of the aspects of connections illustrated here are interdependent and as much dependent on the user's style of their space as on any influence an instructor might have in the process. What is very similar to the notion of social constructivist learning theory is that social spaces are integrated into a successful learning process. While that may have meant something different in the past, now it means actual and direct integration at any time and in any place. The potential for learning then is maximized if accommodated in the planning and delivery of a course.

Points of Input
Understanding that information is now readily available at anytime and anyplace and in any format is crucial to moving towards the notion of multi points of input Borrowed from the language learning theory of Krashen (1985) when students receive language "input" in meaningful ways they are more likely to understand it.

Similarly, when students receive course content in meaningful ways, they are also more likely to understand it. When students are finding information "bites" and hyperlinked information everywhere, it is hard to understand why some faculty still try to "control" the information flow to students in pre-set blocks of lock-stepped content.