There is something happening in K-12 education. A movement. A revolution. A paradigm shift. Call it what you may, but something is changing for sure. For lack of a great phrase, it is has been termed "Mobile Learning". You have probably heard this term bandied about at varied K-12 technology conferences already. What does it truly mean?
I have been thinking about this convert and what it means to students, educators and parents. I realized that this was a movement only when I attended the movable 2011 conference. There were K-12 educators, administrators, technology staff and even app developers at the conference. As the founder of Mobicip, you could say I was one of the early converts that believed that students were going to use a movable expedient in lieu of textbooks, notebooks and basically to replace the backpack. As much as I believed in the certainty of this convert happening, I did not fully comprehend the implications of this convert until I listened to Graham Brown-Martin, founder of learning Without Frontiers and organizer-in-chief of the Handheld learning argument in London.
During his keynote speech at movable 2011, Graham had an intelligent take on the implications of movable learning.
Think about what the automobile did to horse-drawn carts. That is exactly what movable learning means to K-12 education. In fact, the phrase "Mobile Learning" by itself is slightly misleading. It is not about the mobility, although it is an prominent component. This convert is about ubiquitous, equitable connectivity and passage to facts at the students' fingertips. What does such passage do? It gives them passage to high-quality interactions that allow them to learn by doing, learn by practice, learn by repetition, learn by enjoyment of a game, learn by the instant-on nature of the connectivity. If you have any iota of doubt, talk to Travis Allen, the founder of iSchoolInitiative.
According to Graham, movable learning will eventually lead to the "Napster"-ification of how K-12 students learn. Let's think about this for a minute. The diligent trainee would seek the information, app, and article she wants at the time she wants it. Given that there will be an incredible whole of options available, she would try to seek the best quality learning feel available. There is no interrogate that high-quality article is available online. Lets look at a few examples.
1. Mit Open Courseware
According to their website, Ocw is "a web-based publication of virtually all Mit procedure content. Ocw is open and available to the world and is a permanent Mit activity." This is incredible, isn't it? And it's not just Mit. Any higher study institutions have followed the example and created online courses accessible to anyone with a web browser.
2. ItunesU
According to Apple, iTunesU has "more than 350,000 free lectures, videos, films, and other resources - from all over the world." All free.
3. Connexions
According to the Connexions website, it "is one of the most beloved open study sites in the world. It's more than 17,000 learning objects or modules in its repository and over 1000 collections (textbooks, journal articles, etc.) are used by over 2 million population per month."
4. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is intelligent simply due to the incredible fact that one person has created 2100 videos which have been viewed 44.3 million times and counting. To learn more, watch the video of Sal Khan at Ted 2011.
5. App Store
But of course. The App Store has brought about a whole new level of instant interactivity to learning that was not inherent before. The most coarse recurring theme at movable 2011 has been about the incredible apps that population are using. Every school, every educator, every trainee has a personalized list of beloved apps that they are more than happy to share with the rest of the world.
Clearly, Graham is on to something when he says that movable learning is about instant passage and connectivity. However, I have a feeling that everything discussed at movable 2011, every back channel conversation, every article on this blog, put together, is still the tip of the iceberg. If Graham's prediction is true, ubiquitous connectivity and instant passage will convert the basic definition of learning as we know it. The flow of education, from institutional entities to students, will be irrevocably reversed. The trainee now becomes the learner, the seeker, the extreme arbiter of what a quality learning feel means to her at a personalized and individualized level. The teacher, especially the good ones, will be incredibly primary and sought-after and will command an revenue proportionate to their value to society. A new class of "mentor/coach" might arise who will be the friend, philosopher and guide to the learner, but with maybe wee authority to dictate terms over the why and the what, but simply guide the how. The institution's role will experience a transformation into a commoditized aggregator of high-quality learning resources, its survival at the mercy of the option of the discerning learner. Institutions that do not transform themselves will be left by the wayside as relics of an older time.
Will Graham's prediction come true? Will there be a disruptive convert in study as we know it? Is it simply obvious as a consequence of truly "mobile" learning?
Only time will tell. movable 2011 will then be seen as a harbinger of times to come.
Thanks to the organizers for a overwhelming and intelligent conference.
Suren
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