In 2009, the cell phone is a pretty common device in our student’s lives. Take a minute to search “What’s In My Bag” on Flickr and you’ll quickly realize just how many kids are packing cell phones, smart phones, iPods and a number of other handheld devices.

I couldn’t help but get a little excited as I read Adobe Advances Mobile Efforts from the most recent Smart Classroom newsletter. The article describes Adobe’s latest efforts to try and push the boundaries of mobile computing with their Flash 10 platform. Adobe has just released a beta version of the Flash Lite 3.1 Distributable Player so developers can take advantage of creating rich, interactive web content using the popular swf format on both Windows Mobile and Nokia S60 phones. This move by Adobe could mean that the mobile industry is a step closer to adopting a common runtime. A runtime that would in fact be common across desktop, Web, and mobile environments.

According to the 2007 eLearning Guild 360 Report on Mobile Learning, 50% of their members felt that lack of a common mobile standard was a large barrier to mLearning adoption. If the Flash platform can emerge as the dominant runtime across the large spectrum of mobile devices, we could reap the benefits in education. Developers would be able to build Flash-based applications that could be deployed on all of the devices our students already have in their possession. Once those devices that students are using NOW to have synchronous conversations, browse the web, email, text message, IM, watch movies and listen to audio open up for teachers to push content to, mLearning could become a force in the P-20 education arena.

A standard mobile runtime would open up the vast array of cell phone and smart phones to the learning environment. It would essentially take an item which today’s students already possess and turn it into a personal learning tool. From a teaching perspective, we are then presented with a brand new instructional tool that has transformative potential...not to mention one that doesn’t cost the teacher, school or district a dime! Sell that one to your taxpayers!

What is mLearning?
The eLearning Guild defines Mobile Learning (m-Learning) as:
Any activity that allows individuals to be more productive when consuming, interacting with, or creating information, mediated through a compact digital portable device that the individual carries on a regular basis, has reliable connectivity, and fits in a pocket or purse.
Wikepedia M-learning entry:
One definition of mobile learning is: Learning that happens across locations, or that takes advantage of learning opportunities offered by portable technologies. In other words, mobile learning decreases limitation of learning location with the mobility of general portable devices.What does this mean for education?
Educators need to come to come to terms with the fact that disruptive technologies can have a positive impact on teaching and learning and then work towards an understanding of how that should affect our pedagogy and practice. Teachers need to be aware of how many students have their own devices, the applications students are using, think about how they could harness this enthusiasm for mobile devices and focus it in an educational direction.

Districts have got to stop banning cell phones in school. I implore schools and districts need to take a close look at their current policy on student cell phones. When was the current policy adopted? How was cell phone usage different then than it is now? What are stakeholders concerns about student cell phone usage? What are the potential benefits to allowing kids to use phones in school? Is it possible that students could take advantage of cell phones as data collection devices, ubiquitous connections to the Internet and tools for socially constructing knowledge? If they answer to any of these questions is yes, then it might be time to adjust your policy for 2009 and beyond.

We need more discussions about mLearning to occur between educators and programmers. Teachers and developers need an opportunity to discuss how mobile applications are being used in schools currently and how they could be used in the future. Although we think that these two unique groups of individuals are very different, in fact they are very much the same. Both teachers and developers are looking to help people. Whether it’s through teaching a 3rd grader multiplication or a building a new app that does things bigger, better and faster, the bottom line is that both teachers and developers are catering to the needs of end users. Discussions between the two groups need to begin sooner rather than later. If we let business and industry drive mobile application development, then all we are going to get are apps like this.

It’s time to get serious about mLearning in the P-20 educational arena.

Photo Credit: Blackberry Storm by T-Fiz on Flickr