EDTECH News

First there was correspondence learning. Then came distance learning. Now we talk about eLearning. Is mobile or mLearning next? Are these terms meaningful? Or are they just buzzwords? One could ask the question whether we will ever get back to plain old learning.

Mobile learning - learning using devices such as cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) or combinations of these technologies - has the capability to revolutionise the way we think and learn about education and development. If distance learning is about providing access to education then no technology has greater potential to bring education to the people (as opposed to bringing people to education) than mobile learning. Using these technologies people can learn when and where it is convenient for them. We have reached learning on demand.

The text messaging capabilities of mobile devices seems to be particularly powerful with respect to mLearning. Using text messaging to transmit information from teacher to learner concerning assignments and content can vastly speed up communications. Perhaps more importantly, text messaging allows learners to communicate with each other thus creating a learning community that extends far beyond the life and confines of traditional or even computer-based learning environments.

More practically, mLearning devices allow users to literally lighten the load. PDAs and cell phones are small enough to carry around anywhere and are easier to maintain than desktop or even laptop computers. It is no longer necessary to cart kilograms of equipment in order to pursue learning and the equipment itself is far less expensive than traditional computers.

But what about the infamous digital divide? In this case the digital divide may not be as gaping as we think. According to a recent survey reported on in The Economist, mobile phone subscriptions in Sub-Saharan Africa rose by more than 150% last year. This growth is outpacing that in many developed nations and is, in fact, "leapfrogging" more standard technologies like fixed wire telecoms and the Internet. Perhaps in this case, for the developing world at least, mLearning will be more than just a buzz word used by the north, but will be a meaningful concept and technology with the capacity to provide learning for all.

The eLearning XHTML editor (eXe) project is a desktop authoring environment that helps teachers and academics publish web content without the need to become proficient in HTML mark up language. You can publish eXe content as a web-ready package needing only a desktop web browser to run it or as an IMS/SCORM package export for delivery on a wide range of learning management systems.

The barriers associated with reusable learning objects are pedagogical, not technological. Each learning context is unique because learning outcomes, students and teachers differ, thus limiting reuse of content in different situations. While interoperability specifications (like IMS and SCORM) facilitate reuse of digital learning objects among different learning management systems at a technical level, we must find ways to empower teachers to customise and adapt learning content for different contexts.

In response to these challenges, the eXe project is breaking down barriers by providing a range of structural elements that describe learning content such as objectives and reflective questions. This open source software (OSS) project is funded by the Tertiary Education Commission of New Zealand. eXe is the first in a range of tools that are planned under the umbrella of the exeLearning initiative aimed at developing OSS tools for eLearning.

eXe has huge potential for supporting eLearning in developing society contexts because you do not need Internet connectivity to author or deliver content. Download eXe, try it out and let the development team know what you think (exe@auckland.ac.nz).