We have always had mobile learning tools-why all the fuss NOW?

I have been going through some of the Mobimooc Week one wiki materials and am contemplating this Sunday morning, why all the fuss about mobile learning NOW. 

Pen on Paper, a photo by nate archer on Flickr.

I've used pen and paper & books all my life as highly effective mobile learning tool all my life. What tools, expectations and capacities are converging now that surround mobile learning with such a buzz.


We here is a confused list of what comes to my mind in:

• Smart phones fulfil a vision of every one carrying pads that I recall from the early days of personal computers. They are bit ‘Star Trek’ and are media favourite.
• We also have better internet, WiFi and mobile phone systems. They are faster and cheaper and have better coverage.
• The massive growth and familiarity and fun nature of social media like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and many many more Web 2.0 tools.
• The innovators of mobile learning are getting somewhere. It takes long time for an idea to come from the margins and it has been a long time. They are overcoming resistance. Kind off-if your still on about that after all these years-then maybe there is something in that.
• We have many people who are completely comfortable with the internet and Web 2.0. This means mobile learning innovators can shift from talking about “What is going to be  possible with mobile learning” to talking about “What we are going to do.”

Also for my own part, I encountered Connectivism ideas last year. And that really excited my thinking. I encountered the ideas as a loose golden thread that being curious I just pulled on and pulled on.

I think are Connectivism ideas really exciting and seem to fit with the ways knowledge moves these days. I could see immediately how they might fit with the capacity building for health promotion work I was seeking to do.

So last on my list, I would theory development and other mindshifts as making NOW a time when mobile learning takes off. These ideas are as important aspects of technological development as important as the hardware/software.

I’m aware that this list represents my view from my region in a first world country and from my position as a health promotion officer who is positioned outside of the eduction and school system.