Mobile phone technologies and ownership are advancing rapidly. Around 75% of people globally have access to a mobile and ownership in developing regions is matching this trend. The rapid growth in mobile use has the potential to open up access to learning, supporting teachers and students alike.
The theme, explored in this year’s mobile learning week (http://en.unesco.org/events/mobile-learning-week-2014 )at UNESCO is teachers with an emphasis on using mobile to leverage effective use in education, deliver professional development to working teachers and support the training of new teachers.
The week began with a series of workshops including one from USTAD mobile, learning how mobile learning id benefiting police women in Afghanistan and enabling simple app development from basic feature phone to smart phones https://www.ustadmobile.com/
- Mobile Learning Week 2014 - Opening Plenary
The following 2 days saw presentations from a varied range of participants including large NGOs, commercial providers, Universities and individual teachers on how mobile learning is benefiting their work in education and development. You can view the complete range of presentations here http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/unesco-mobile-learning-week-2014/symposium/breakout-sessions/
Technology is often assumed to incur significant costs to the learner, but this needn't be the case. In TESS-India the learning resources can be preloaded onto a micro SD card – teachers don’t need connectivity, simply slot the card into the side of their phone. VSO’s work in Papua New Guinea on English language teaching http://www.vsointernational.org/Images/sms-story-impact-assessment-report_tcm76-41038.pdf uses SMS to deliver lesson plans and Cambridge University are looking at SMS to support professional development of school leaders http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/cce/initiatives/projects/leadership/index.html . Penn State University talked about using MOOCs for teacher development reducing distributed learning costs, if you are able to attend they are running a conference on MOOCs for development in April http://www.moocs4d.org/ . There were also many apps presented to the delegates including the Keywords English language and literacy app, demonstrating how mobile pedagogy can address diverse learning needshttp://www.keywordsenglish.com/ .
Mobile learning presents a unique set of benefits and challenges. Complex learning needs to be adapted for the small screen. Mobile offers 24/7 access, yet it is also more likely to be associated with interruptions, necessitating bite sized learning. Users can engage with fellow learners at a distance, access rich educational content such as video and personalise their learning.
Low bandwidth services were a key topic at Mobile Learning Week with the continued presence of SMS as well as missed call technologies that have the potential to deliver micro-learning chunks, without costing even the price of connecting a call.
The range of discussions at mobile learning week sort to strengthen the rhetoric that rapidly changing technologies are hugely eye-catching, but equal emphasis must be placed on the academic value of mobile if we are to improve teaching and learning.
(written for TESS-India blog 24th Feb 2014 - www.TESS-India.ed.in)
