As I’ve already mentioned here several times, the wake of the ongoing internet outage I’m experiencing at home has lead to a number of interesting discoveries and trains of thought. While many of these have revolved around the rediscovery of non-digital ways of doing things, and embracing more offline activities in general, there have been technological ideas as well.
Perhaps the most significant of this is use of mobile technology. A few months ago I upgraded our seriously outdated mobile phones to something more contemporary. I’d already been aware of how much opportunity there is in mobile technology to engage online, but this notion has been really driven home in the last week. It is truly astounding how much you can actually do with hand-held devices these days. More than just iPhones I’d really like to emphasise here that I do not have an iPhone. Yes there is a lot that you can do with the iPhone; yes they’re sleek and sophisticated and provide access to thousands of different applications – each of which offer unique affordances in their own right – but they are not the end-all and be-all.No, the hand-held device I own is fairly inexpensive, not touch-screen enabled, and nowhere near as cool looking – and yet it is nonetheless an incredibly effective tool. The point being that iPhones and iPods are not the definitive equivalent of mobile technology, they are just an example. While many consider them to be the most coveted toy on the market today, you can get by just fine with something else – so don’t feel disadvantaged if you don’t have one. I certainly don’t. More than just Podcasting I recently participated in a round table discussion at a symposium I attended at the CoCo Institute at Sydney University regarding the use of mobile technology. I was particularly pleased with the way the session was run, because the facilitator spent a lot of energy trying to get us to think broadly about what the terms “mobile technology” truly mean. This inspired me to comment that we need to expand and evolve our concept of what constitutes mobile learning in practice from simply another form of information delivery, to one of participation. All too commonly, when educators talk about mobile learning, they mean podcasting; and as convenient as it may be, podcasting is largely just a replication of the traditional lecture in which the instructor speaks and the student listens. So really, that form of mobile learning is perhaps not as innovative as we make it out to be. Certainly podcasting is a recognised and valuable element in mobile learning, however the opportunities today are far, far greater than that alone, as my experiences this week have shown. They extend to mobile blogging, image and video capture and sharing, discussion via mobile Twitter or Facebook clients, even live streaming, and yes more passive activities as well, such as viewing of podcasts and vodcasts, and reading RSS feeds. Why is this important? So having said all this, why is this distinction important? Why the need to point we can do more and better than just podcasting? Well for starters, far more than simply being a matter of convenience, use of participatory mobile technologies enable us to engage in the learning process while we are experiencing it – in all its dynamic, complex grandeur. It lets us document and discuss what we are doing, while we are doing it. Importantly, it also capitalises on the synchronous, hyper-connective nature of the web today, so we can share our findings, thoughts, and ideas with others while the experiences are unfolding. Mobile technologies play both supporting, facilitating and connecting roles. Some aspects of the backchannel exemplify this. We are increasingly seeing discussions emerge during conferences, not just using laptops, but mobile phones as well, with people engaging in discussion and debate on Twitter about what speakers are saying – or other times both agreeing or disagreeing with them. We also see photographs appear in Flickr or Picasaweb before speeches have even concluded. Mobile technology lets us connect and share what we see, think in feel in real time. Some Changes Required The implications of mobile technology are significant, and as such require ample consideration. Innovation in emerging technology in general has shown us that the walls of the classroom are not impermeable, but fluid and indeed in some ways arbitrary. Mobile technology drives this point home even further – the walls of the classroom become movable. So the discussion needs to expand to renegotiate the notion of what a classroom is, because the life spaces and learning spaces are increasingly one and the same. More on this later….
