Supporting the mobility of the learner

From Stellar Deliverable 1.1

There are a number of different aspects to learning using digital mobile devices, often termed ‘learner mobility’. The first relates to a provider focus, on supplying ubiquitous personalised access to resources and communication tools through mobile devices and associated networks (as for example in the discussion of PLEs in the previous section).

A second aspect focuses on the learner context, recognising that learning extends across time, space, and social interactions; with opportunities to support people to learn at work, at home and in the field, and also to connect learning in formal and informal settings and across life transitions such as moving from college into the workplace. Projects such as the Learning2Go, Hand-e-learning, and Myartspace (now commercialised as OOKL ) initiatives in the UK have shown that giving learners mobile devices enables a significant increase in the amount and type of information transferred between informal and formal learning contexts. These projects offer new opportunities for connecting learning in formal and informal settings, but there are barriers to be overcome, such as supporting teachers in developing new mobile learning practices and enabling museums and other cultural venues to provide or accommodate mobile technologies.

A third aspect concerns learning in a world of increasing mobility, with the need to understand new practices and ecologies of learning on the move and the design of technology-enabled learning spaces such as campuses and cities.

A fourth aspect focuses on mobility between real and virtual contexts. Pervasive and ambient technology in the learner's environment enable the virtual and real to be presented simultaneously to the learner. Context-relevant virtual information such as mediascapes and augmented realities are becoming increasingly available.

Mobile learning foregrounds the mobility of learners and learning (Sharples et al., 2005) and this raises the issue of the relationships between individuals, their learning contexts, their group, and society. The increasing number of students using Internet-enabled mobile devices means that tensions are forming as young people bring not only their personal technologies but also their technology-enabled social learning practices into classrooms and lecture halls. Mobility is also leading to mixed and multiple identities in different contexts. Helping learners to create, change and manage different identities is important and relates to what was discussed in the earlier section on connecting learning.

Research questions include:

• What is the role of learner identity within ‘mobile learning contexts’, and how are transitions made and how can learning between and across contexts be supported?

• What are the issues from the point of view of students in moving between informal and formal and/or virtual and real learning contexts?

• How can the continuity of learning be supported across locations and life transitions?

• What is the potential of different mobile devices to contribute to learning? What are the limitations?

• How can mobile devices support or enhance assessment of learning in different contexts?

• What is the role of assessing and accrediting learning within non-formal mobile learning situations?

• What are the ethical issues of supporting and monitoring learning outside the classroom?