Mobile Learning in Revolt?

It’s weird I ask the question, is “Mobile Learning worth it?” and a few hours later in my in-box I get notification of Chris Nash’s The End of the MLearning Revolution over at Handheld Learning, a forum I have been a member of for quite a while now.

I’ve always championed large scale access to Mobile Learning. The Mobile Web platform I developed whilst working for the University of Manchester, which received an international innovation award from Handheld Learning, was always designed and intended to be used with a wide-variety of mobile web enabled devices. From cheap consumer phones, to iPhones, from ipod Touches through to netbooks and Playstation  Portables. If it had Mobile Web access I wanted the learning platform to work on it. By and large it did and it does.

In the article Chris raises the issue of learner choice, letting them choose the device that works best for them. This is reflected in the newly announced Molenet 3, which is to be focused on sustainability. In my work with Stockport and Trafford colleges on their Molenet projects, we frequently talked about the need to move on from project to mainstream and to make Mobile Learning sustainable and by this we meant using the device the student had with them. Not supplying them with additional ‘institution approved’ kit.

The beauty of Mobile Learning is it is very personal and close-up. The learner is in control and takes the lead. It is a difficult place for formal education but if we are to engage learners in new ways then we need to give them control. The mobile device is a natural convergence point for access to learning materials and giving control to the learner.

Tomorrow I will be at Mobile Learning: Telling Tales, speaking about the development of the award winning mobile platform I created. I am very proud of that work, because through the Mobile Web I have helped to start open learning channels that for too many still remain closed. I spent today delivering Mobile Website Creation training to The University of Manchester to help colleagues develop their own Mobile Web learning services and sites. If I sound evangelistic, it is because I am. The Mobile Web gives education the chance to access the digital devices in learners pockets, to let them take control and to learn outside the classroom and lecture theatre.

Is the revolution over? No its just begining to turn.