Defining mobile learning

An interesting discussion cropped up on the mobiMOOC forum today: Questioning the terms.

This is something that has been at the back of my mind for a while now, so finally I decided to find my own definition of mobile learning or m-learning.

The mobiMOOC wiki defines m-learning as:

Any sort of [technology enhanced] learning that happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies. (Adapted from O'Malley et al., 2003)

However from my perspective (as a newcomer to this field), the integration of technology within this definition is not necessary (even if this seems a bit controversial!). For example, if a task is given to a mobile learner via sms, and they then go off to complete that task, they are not learning through their mobile phone but by their own experience. The phone is just a channel for communication between the learner and the teacher/facilitator.

I think the value of mobile learning is not in the devices themselves but the ability for people to access learning "on the go" as part of ever-more busy and geographically distributed lives. If I take a book to study on the bus while going to work, is this not also "mobile learning"?

Therefore I want to take a step back, to firstly break this term down into "mobile" and "learning" and look at the dictionary definitions of these two terms. The Oxford English Dictionary describes them as follows:

mobile

learning

Trying to merge these two concepts, I came up with:

The acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience or being taught while being free to move between different locations

Perhaps in the next weeks my interpretation of mobile learning will change, but for now this is the way I think of it.

At the end of the mobiMOOC course I'll look back at the post and decide whether or not to review my definition!

MobiMOOC // free online mLearning course from 2 April - 14 May

I have signed up to take part in mobiMOOC, a free online course on mLearning running from 2nd April - 14th May 2011, facilitated by 7 mobile experts. Interested? Join the online google group, the course wiki and enter the mLearning conversation with other peers.

The mobiMOOC course will start with an introduction to mLearning, getting everyone comfortable with some of its key features, and gradually moving into the more complex technical, project planning and philosophical topics. The course will feature mLearning examples from the academic, corporate and non-profit world, and look at both simple and on the edge projects from both the North and South, as the South has been an inspiration for mLearning.

mobiMOOC is a fully online course, which follows the MOOC (Massive, Open, Online Course) format: