Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

I had some "creative" thinking about mobile devices and learning.....

With the authorities on both sides standing back like timid aggressive deer, powerless against the disparate desperate mass, powerless to stop the change, powerless as they watch in delightful horror as they see their beautiful horrific construction being torn down by the rampant hordes of the enthusiastic, energetic, eager, democratic, oppressed, revolutionary, creative life long learners. This edifice, this barrier, this plague: Raised over the years, risen from the torn shreds of standards, curriculum, targets, memos, tests, strategies, policies and pedagogy, sealed with tears of the disrupted classroom into a congealed regurgitated soporific paper thin brick wall façade of impenetrably thin weakness. This rock of gas crumbling before the childish dream, shattered by the interrupted ether of the dit dit dit: dash dash: dit dit dit, and their entire holy demonic web based opportunistic learning fantasies. The wall torn down, a chilly spring, a budding flower, the old paradigm stumbles away like a drunken fool to its past to talk to his old friend Kuhn.

This fantasy may be suggesting that the mobile device could disrupt the current way in which learners are passive in their reception of the way they learn. It suggests that the current pedagogue does not meet current needs and that the learning construction that we have is redundant, requiring overall. How far away are we from this paradigm change and how is the integration of mobile devices and web 2.0 disrupting the pedagogue?

I find that teachers and learners have a desire to use the technology in hand but teachers, Government and Institions are constant referring back to the YouTube effect. Is the mobile device in the hand of the learner providing an outlet for the learner to express their frustrations about the current education system through the ridicule of its profession? Should we as educators accept that our learning clients have the power to dictate the format of education? We should I think embrace the empowerments that the mobile device is giving our learners and start to train our teachers to deal with it.

Hi Mark,

I have carried out some very basic research with teachers and learners in Milan and Bratislava, the main aspect with teachers was examining how mobiles and video content could act as catalysts for professional development and how learners react to mobile technology in the classroom. The teachers invloved in the workshops all had good mobile technology in hand and were very keen to see how they could use it. Their main interest was understanding more about the technology such that they could "keep up with the kids." In both countries teachers were very concerned about mobiles in the classroom and their fear of appearing on You-tube, this had actually happened to one of their colleagues in Milan and hence all mobiles were banned.

My opinion is that the mobile phone has the potential to give students a voice in the education system as to how they are educated and a possibilites of a real insight into what students are confronted with as learners. As for the Youtube effect, this is clearly an temporary reaction to an event which is soon forgotten as the world moves onto the next thing.

When the learners in Italy were given access to mobile technology they almost immediately changed the pedagogy in the classroom to peer/child centred learning. This was dependant upon the type of content that was available on the mobile device.

There is a barrier between the teacher as professional and the learner, mainly constructed by an education system geared up to manufacture test results. By using the mobile device in the schools the whole education construct can be demonstrated through recorded evidence from the people on the receiving end of policy. This is real learner voice.