Designing authentic mobile learning

Abstract

Mobile devices, particularly smartphones, have become an integral part of our daily lives, and we take them with us almost everywhere we go. We use our mobile devices to keep contact with family, friends and colleagues, listen to our favourite music, watch videos, check news updates and bank balances on the go, track our fitness routines, find directions, update our social network status, share our daily experiences with photos and videos, check in to virtual supermarket queues, and keep traces of possible COVID-19 contact! In most cases these are examples of informal learning and how we now choose to find and utilise online information and create and share rich media. How then can we use these devices to learn in formal learning environments and link informal or situated learning with the classroom? – this is the essence of authentic mobile learning. Instead of focusing upon strategies to stop our students being distracted by their mobile devices in formal learning situations we can explore how to use these devices to engage, enhance, augment, and even redefine how they learn (Hockly, 2012; Puentedura, 2011). In short, authentic mobile learning facilitates collaboration, user-generated content, and user-generated learning contexts.