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  • Why Hasn't Mobile Learning Gained Traction?

    By Joshua Kim October 25, 2009 9:35 pm EDT

    This weekend I spent some times reading the NYTimes, reading a novel, exchanging e-mail, watching a TED Talk, and surfing the Web. The only thing notable about any of this is that I did all these things on my ipod touch. I also did some work on a couple of courses, reading some articles, looking at some curricular videos, and checking out course blogs and wikis -- none of which I did on my ipod touch.

    Google mobile learning and you get 103 million hits. At EDUCAUSE.edu, the same search results in 4,060 hits, including articles in EDUCAUSE Quarterly and EDUCAUSE Review. Browse through the EDUCAUSE 2009 conference site and you will discover mobile learning will be one of the dominant themes at this years conference.

    There seems to be a disconnect between our excitement and the reality of mobile learning. In my sample of 1 (myself) I find that my ipod touch has changed the way I consume news, video, books, and e-mail, but it has done almost nothing to change what I do in learning and learning technology. The NYTimes iPhone application has completely shifted my NYTimes reading behavior. The ability to put video on my touch through iTunes has meant that much of my video watching now takes place during short breaks when I'm on the go. But, again, my ipod touch does not touch my learning technology or college teaching jobs.

    Yes, I know all about the great work being done at ACU on mobile learning. Blackboard's purchase of MobilEdu is very exciting. The 2009 Horizon Report makes a compelling case for the potential of mobile learning, and cites numerous examples of innovative work on mobilizing higher education. The list of pilot projects, interesting education apps, and persuasive research on the benefits of mobile learning could take up whole books (over 2,000 listed at Amazon) and exciting conferences (book now for mobile learning 2010). But I'm just not seeing it in my own work.

    Do I think mobile learning will eventually live up to its hype? More specifically, do I think that students and faculty will interact with course materials and utilize mobile platforms for communication, collaboration, assessment, and creation to anywhere near the extent that laptops are today? I hope so, but I think the obstacles for us to get from here to there are bigger then we first imagined.

    These obstacles basically come down to the fact that today's mobile devices are vastly inferior to computers for consuming and producing course content.

    1. Consuming Content: The lack of campus content policies and a supporting set of technologies to allow the transfer of all LMS curricular content to mobile devices. Until the day where all course video and course reading reserves can be transferred in one step to a mobile device, while preserving any metadata and content organization, the mobile device will continue to be a poor substitute for a laptop (or netbook). Our curricular content is simply too locked down, too copy protected (or streamed) to allow the transfer to mobile devices. The LMS often serves as a portal to curricular content rather then a container, and for mobile devices to work the curricular content much be in a format that it can be fully transferred. The NYTimes iPhone is a perfect model for what we need to mobilize a course.

    2. Producing Content : Even if the curricular content problem is solved, mobile devices remain optimized for consuming rather then producing content. Until the day where mobile devices come with robust speech-to-text inputs the lack of a physical keyboard will limit the utility of the devices. We need to be able to participate in course discussions, write course blogs and upload materials to course wikis - all sub-optimal experiences on a mobile platform.

    Until these two large obstacles are overcome I'm afraid that mobile learning will remain perpetually just over the horizon.

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Comments on Why Hasn't Mobile Learning Gained Traction?

  • Posted by Mike Burke on October 26, 2009 at 9:30am EDT

  • Isn't it really screen size that's the issue? Students can't really read a small screen, even an iPhone-sized one, especially if there are charts and graphics present that require some kind of detail for analysis (imagine trying to analyze Guernica on an phone screen). Of course, i did catch a young man watching porn on his iPod the other day--how unsatisfying!

    And your other point, about the limited ways to input, also argue against this system as the proverbial wave of the future. Maybe the Kindle? Or something smaller an better? I bet that if you were to be tested on your NYTimes reading that you'd find consuming it via iPhone is really insufficient. It's good for skimming or quick fact finding, but not for long-term retention.

  • Posted by bevo , Department of Skepticism on October 26, 2009 at 10:15am EDT

  • Wasn't television suppose to be this great learning tool? What happened? Go back to the 1950s and read about television.

    If you follow the history of technological advancements in communication, then you will always see an educational reason at the forefront of the adoption argument. The hype NEVER lives up to the reality.

    Put another way, TLC started out as the The Learning Channel, and showed documentaries. Now, they have shortened the channel's title and its content.

  • Thanks
  • Posted by Paul Baker , Communications at Wisconsin Center for Education Research on October 26, 2009 at 10:15am EDT

  • Nice piece, Joshua, and thanks for including links to these helpful sites. As a professional communicator I'm quite interested in the topic of using mobile devices for learning and for networking professionally.

  • Posted by Thomas on October 26, 2009 at 3:15pm EDT

  • Where is this mobile learning going to take place? In the car while on the freeway? Under your desk while sitting in another professor's class? While you're at work instead of helping customers? The entire notion of college via cell phone seems ludicrous to me. Study requires concentration. I doubt much learning can occur when it's relegated to one small facet of a teenager's multimedia multitask.

  • Posted by Mills at George Mason University on October 27, 2009 at 1:30pm EDT

  • It seems to me that the real issue is why use mobile devices in teaching and learning? What is the learning outcome that would be better achieved by using such a device? If we proceed from that premise, rather than the premise that mobile devices might make things more convenient for learners or teachers, then I think we might get somewhere. So, for instance, using place-based computing applications in fields like history, sociology, anthropology, or geography holds a lot of potential for getting students to think about course content in different ways if they are interacting with that content on site rather than in a classroom. For any course focused on community engagement such applications could also be very powerful. But just delivering lecture notes or graphs to someone wherever? That seems to me to be a waste of time and resources.

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