mLearning II

When I was in Winnipeg the other day Claudius Soodeen introduced me to Dr. John Anchan at the U of W and we had a fascinating discussion of many topics of mutual interest, mostly related to technology in learning. Dr. Anchan is a Professor of Education at Uof W and has recently taken of new responsibilities there related to his expertise in technology in Education.

One topic of discussion was mobile learning and Dr Anchan has recently published an article on this topic.
One area where we discover a common interest was with respect to the use of PDAs in Distance Education. As I mentioned in a previous entry, PDA's and smart phones are increasingly becoming a feature of the modern technology landscape and are popular for many in many parts of Europe Asia and Africa and are showing great promise there for education and development. One application that might be of special interest in terms of Distance Learning is the application of mobile learning in rural and remote communities.
In Manitoba, the digital divide is manifest by a lack of access to high speed Internet. Dial up Internet is much more available and accessing learning resources through a mobile cellular network could open a world of education possibilities to individuals in communities where access to Distance ed has been problematic. There are models of education developing based on dial up Internet accessed through a smart phone and supported in part by the text messaging function of the phones.
Smartphones such as the Palm Treo have become very reasonably priced which addresses another access and affordability related issue for Manitobans in rural and remote communities. The computers and laptops connected to a high speed network used in many DE programs are costly and quirky. Comparatively, the phone network is well established, cheap and available and is already in use in the daily life of people. This is also a way to make education and training more relevant by empowering lifelong education using the tools that people use in thier everyday life. As we know the new world is a networked world and knowlege workers will be prized for their networking capabilities as much as their content area knowledge.
A main attraction of mobile technology for Distance Education is that it is already a feature of life in most Manitobans and with the development of new phones and new network capabilities there is a convergence of forces that promises to make access to education much more affordable and possible. Mobile learning is showing promise for education regardless of a learners physical location. Learners using this system could be in downtown Winnipeg or Brandon or on the most remote community and still have access to the same resources.