Use of phones for mlearning

link to website
by Ellen D. Wagner
"The heightened interest in mobile possibilities for teaching, learning, and research can be attributed to a number of factors: the continuing expansion of broadband wireless networks; the explosion of power and capacity of the next generation of cellular telephones; and the fact that mobile telephones, a familiar tool for communications, are already fully ingrained in contemporary life as part of our social practice. In other words, unlike most other mobile devices used in education, devices such as PDAs or tablet computers, there is very little extra effort required to get people to adopt and use mobile phones. Rather, people can be offered more things to do with the mobile phones to which they are already attached and with which they are already reasonably competent. "

This article notes the shift from mlearning being mainly about laptop or handheld use to the possibilities opened up by the 3G netwprks and their potential rich media transmission. She notes that people will already have knowledge of their smart phone devices rather than learning another device such as a PDA, the question for me is about people learning another way of percieving that smartphone device, and the cost issues in 3G. The idea of using txt for communication with students is great, but many detractors will raise the question of who pays if the txt communication is required to participate in the learning experience. Maybe this issue will slide away as cost of accessing the internet will? Coming from a public education inistitution many teachers will be concerned about passing increased costs to students - afterall we can always point students in the direction of Online Access Centres or libraries as an alternative whereas access to txt messaging is far more a personal gadget embedded in people's social lives. Maybe for this very reason cost will not be an issue as long as other means of communicating with other students and teachers is available and we should just do it! as many are already, quietly.