Just started the Mobimooc and intend to see it through! Unlike my abortive attempts with connectivism. So now I will make progress in mobile learning!
It’s a pic’n’mix course (dear old Woolworths how we miss you) where the determined track out their own learning path while the rest cherry pick. And my the cherry harvest is good here! Already I am overwhelmed with links to loads of websites discussing how to implement mobile learning, showcasing projects and offering nifty apps.
One early thread was a definition of mlearning which I have to admit made me groan as that is such a stand-by of the first lesson in a course (or even the first semester as I recall in my geography degree where we spent the first semester defining Wales and Europe!) – however I began to see that there is a difference between learning on the move and learning through mobile devices; the latter definition leading to the dreaded fixation on technology.
I have been hovering on the edges of m-learning for about 5 years without actually jumping in. And maybe, just maybe, it was the tech fixation which led me down a blind alley. For example I went as far as buying a .mobi domain at one point and now realise that that is just a distraction and that the technology, and also especially the agreed standards, are moving in the direction of showing ordinary websites in a mobile friendly way by default. The next tech distraction was the exploration of tailormade mobile interfaces including one terribly complex offering whose name I forget (luckily for them) but which I trialled a couple of years ago. Something like mofuse is fairly easy to use but creates the disadvantage of giving you two uncoupled versions of the website which means that when you update one version you need to remember to update the other.
So far the Mobimooc discussion is awash with QR-codes even though we have already been warned that these may soon be outdated. However I think that this is probably one direction worth exploring for me as it seems to offer a way of enriching so many experiences away from the computer, especially outdoors. The example I like best so far is the Oxfam Tales of Things initiative. I am of course looking at these mainly with my language teacher’s eyes and see so many possibilities for stimulating language in unexpected places with these tools.
I am also enjoying hearing about all the initiatives which are happening in Africa, often involving low end tech such as this branching dialogue which you can listen to on your phone and then choose the next part of the story simply by pressing one of two keys.
I have an idea for my Mobimooc project so hopefully the reflections above will set me on the right road to its development and implementation in the near future.
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