Pedagogical Perspectives on M-Learning

Abstract

The advent of multimedia on desktop computers in the late 1980s and early 1990s heralded an era of educational technology that held the promise of revolutionising the business of teaching and learning by facilitating a shift from traditional teacher-centred methods to more effective student-centred approaches. During the mid-late 1990s the popularisation of the Internet, added to educational technology a new dimension of “connectedness” between people and between people and information resources. Online learning and e-learning became icons of the era. In late 1990s and early 2000s major players in the mobile phone industry worked on developing a wireless infrastructure to allow for wireless communication between devices, WAP (wireless application protocol) being one of the principle outcomes. This set the stage for the wireless Internet and for another new dimension to educational technology, mobility. Thus, the maturation of multimedia, the Internet and communication technologies together with development and availability of ubiquitous computing devices and wireless networking birthed the notion of mobile learning (m-learning) or “learning on the move.” Like many other media technologies before, m-learning is considered to have the potential to reshape teaching and learning, in this instance, holding promise of unprecedented connectivity and learning interactions between learners, learners and educators, information and computing resources, anywhere, anytime. This article seeks to facilitate the realisation of the pedagogical potential of m-learning by proposing a model for the construction of m-learning spaces. The proposed model is founded upon a pedagogical framework directing attention to guiding philosophies, technology integration, and the capabilities of mobile devices.