Eye on Learning

I think the day that most people will use their personal mobile devices is not too far away. Already, many are in their FB and Twitter accounts using their mobile phones. Many download music, movies and eventually, will do the same with academic podcasts (streamed videos and audio files) and slides for learning. mLearning will then become uLearning or ubiquitous learning. I found a few interesting slides on how mobile devices or mobile Internet will become part of our lives soon. This will of course, lead to mLearning. View the slides below: Designing Mobile Experiences View more presentations from Brian Fling . Mobile Trends 2020 View more presentations from Rudy De Waele . 2010 Mobile Influencers: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters, By TrendsSpotting View more presentations from Taly Weiss .

It's all a matter of time. When we first got on the Internet (early 90s), it was a thrill just to be able to communicate with someone who lives on the opposite side of the globe within seconds. That was primarily e-mailing and at times chat using the IRC. Next, Mosaic came along, followed by Netscape (mid-90s). No more gophering or ftping to get the files or information you need. It was exciting and the world slowly opened up...lots of information and lots of sharing. It changed the way we communicated, learned, taught, shopped, banked, etc. etc. Today (15 years later), we're blogg ing , Skype ing , Yahoo ing , Google ing , Wiki ing , RSS ing , Flick ering and more. Who knows what else. But one thing for sure, with iPods, iPhones, and iPads, the Internet that used to be at the tip of a mouse now sits in the palm of our hands and we can be anywhere, standing, walking, lying down, eating, exercising in the gym, shopping, working, on the bus, in the car, in the train, t...

Mobile learning or mLearning will soon be part and parcel of students' lives. With more than 100,000 Android apps now and more than 200,000 apps for the iPhone/iPad/iPod, it will be only a matter of time that we consider what students are already using and provide suitable learning resources and activities for their benefit. A good start for resources on mLearning is at: http://www.upsidelearning.com/blog/index.php/2009/11/02/top-50-mobile-learning-resources/ Also, Free Technology for Teachers is a good start to find ideas and resources that can be used to design resources and activities that could be downloaded via mobile devices. I also see potential in using MyBrainShark mentioned in one of the blog entries for slidecasts. I'd like to try it.

Here's a blog that highlights several interesting conferences for your research findings on eLearning. The list is not exhaustive. http://otelonlineresearch.blogspot.com/

Revised set of slides for my session with Open University Sri Lanka on 15 October 2010: New elearning trends oct2010 2010 View more presentations from zoraini .