The Value of mobile technology in teaching and learning:

When I was at school the concept of mobile technology and learning consisted of a very heavy computer on a trolley. Much has changed since then, "Mobile learning has left the status of a new born child" (Frohburg, 2006) and though we haven't yet all been composted buy our biomechanical overlords we have achieved a level of communications technology that would have impressed Captain Kirk. My own experience, that of having a laptop, has been largely transformative in allowing me to capitalize on my inspirations, as and when they take hold, and greatly increase my productivity.  With regard to current developing practices I have little to no experience having only today engaged with a QR codes. It seems to me that the hardware has now got to a point where, however briefly, the limiting factor is currently the human, be it the software designer, end user or more likely the facilitator. We're less limited by storage capacity, processing power, accessibility etc. All of which, on the whole, continue to increase at a pace that is greater than the users demands of them. That’s not to say that everyone has access to the best of what is available but on the whole with regard to technology within education and more importantly the software, which is in its infancy, we're almost at a point where educational tools can start to be rolled out and incorporated in to education on a wide scale. The mobile phone is now the single piece of pervasive technology that people from all socio economical backgrounds have and with that access to an increasing plethora of applications. I understand that one barrier currently is that most schools and collages, where you would image there is maybe the greatest potential for mobile technology being successfully incorporated in to teaching and learning have no phone policies in classes or at best inconsistent policies. All which make harnessing the potential of the technology more challenging. It would seem to me that this is largely due to the fact that the proximity of the student, the educator, the technology and the learning environment, though potentially a recipe for accelerated learning didn’t come together as part of any kind of plan and therefore the potential for time wasting and inefficient experiments is reasonable as the different parts of the equation find themselves in this situation. I have a feeling that the best practice is going to occur with the youngest students and educators and it will be them that set the president for best practice. I think its possible that when the 5 year olds of today are 16 the way they will interact with technology in the educational environment will be as different as a 16 year old today compared to when I was 16. The technology will possibly have moved on by the time the current educators have worked out how to work with today’s set of circumstances. Maybe you wont have a desktop computer or a phone or a laptop. Screens might just be incorporated in to most of the things around us and as you move around your “desktop” or “homepage”, as it were, would just follow you around.

This is a pretty interesting paper on Mobile learning

http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/umuas/reading-group/MLearn_Framework.pdf

 Frohburg, D. (2006). Mobile Learning is coming of Age-What we have and what we still miss. 1st ed. [ebook] Zurich: Zurich University, p.1. Available at: http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/umuas/reading-group/MLearn_Framework.pdf [Accessed 19 Dec. 2014].