Mobile

Mobile learning is concerned with a society on the move. In particular, with the study of “…how the mobility of learners augmented by personal and public technology can contribute to the process of gaining new knowledge, skills and experience” (Sharples et al. 2007).

A growing understanding of the learning and instructional affordances of mobile technologies (alongside technological developments), have enabled the design and investigation of mobile learning experiences across contexts and dimensions of mobile learning. For instance, the literature in the field is rich in studies which investigate how learners move physical locations, utilising several devices/technologies, interacting with various social networks (perhaps across formal and informal learning settings), as they pursuit a learning path or event.

There is much appreciation of learning principles, such as contextual, situated, augmented and collaborative among others, particularly suited to mobile learning. There is a well of studies reporting on how these principles can be best applied in the field. There are also always new technologies being implemented in the context of mobile learning for example, ‘smarter’ phones, e-readers, tablet and augmented reality applications. However, the evaluation of mobile learning is an area that has lagged behind.

The mobile nature of mobile learners and the application of traditional evaluation strategies and tools, have often limited the scope of investigation to what can be observed by researchers or captured by external recording devices (such as video or sound). Thus, a challenge remains to understand what happens while learners are on the move.

The advent of cloud computing and learning analytics offer potential for exploring innovative mobile learning experiences and alternative evaluation strategies which may in turn, shade light into what learning happens in the move.

Since 2004 LWF has consistently presented some of the most challenging, forward-thinking conferences that lead, facilitate and record the dialogue about the transformation of society and how our education systems can respond. As a leader and progressive thinker in this field we very much welcome your participation.

This year, the eLearning-2012 conference will pay special attention to all aspects of quality assurance in e-learning and accreditation issues in higher education sector as well as other sectors. The conference covers technical and non-technical issues for this type of education. Selected papers from conference will be published in International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning - iJET The Conference Chair: Professor  Dragan Domazet, rector of BMU