Mobile Learning - Informal Learning

photo credit: Martin Bekkelund via photopin cc

"Incidentally..." - What's So Different This Time?

@joe_edtech

For decades, experts and prognosticators have predicted that some new piece of technology would completely revolutionize the classroom and would change education forever. However, those predictions have fallen a little short. For instance, Thomas Edison famously predicted in 1922 that the motion picture would eliminate the text book and change forever the way we think about education. Close!

Even the advent of the personal computer has failed to dramatically change the way we do things on a day to day basis in the classroom. Gary Stager accurately wrote in his "Stager-to-go" blog, "Schools have largely failed to inspire teachers to use computers in even pedestrian ways after three decades of attempts." (For even more on this frustrating topic, see Reiser and Dempsey, full citation below.)

So with all of the let down from the attempts to integrate technology and transform the classroom in the 20th Century, why is there so much optimism surrounding the most recent 1:1 trends focusing on mobile learning? I think my 12 year old daughter stumbled onto that answer the other day when we were watching an old episode "The Big Bang Theory" on TV. James Earl Jones was the guest star and he made several references to Star Wars and Darth Vader.

She loves the TV show, and she loves Star Wars (she inherited that), and she was filled with questions. "Did he wear the helmet in the movie? How did they use SCUBA equipment to make the breathing sounds? Wasn't he also in The Lion King? Wait, is he the voice of CNN?" Of course these weren't really questions to me. She was asking these questions as she was searching for the information on her iPad. It gave me a couple of questions of my own, "What was it like - just 3 years ago - before I had the Internet at my fingertips 24/7 through my iPhone? How many questions did I ask that just simply went unanswered?"

Of course this time she was just searching for Star Wars trivia. But I've seen the same kind of informal inquiry on her part when she decided to study Civil War Era Medicine. And I've seen that same behavior not only in the classrooms of Deerfield High School, but also in the hallways, in the library, and in the courtyard.

It may be a mini-revolution to this point, but if mobile learning leads to wide spread informal learning and student inquiry beyond the classroom walls, isn't this one of the most important revolutions in modern history?

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Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the ability of mobile learning to transform education? Do you think instant access to information on the Internet is a positive good?

For a Great History of Classroom Technology, see:

Reiser, R.A., & Dempsey, J.V. (Eds.) (2012). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (3^rded.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.