Breaking Down mLearning

The world of mLearning is not as vast as the array of devices that support it, but there is still a lot going on. Mobile Learning as a concept is not hard to define:

mLearning in simple terms is eLearning taken mobile: the merger of education and mobile technology.

mLearning, however, when actually applied to tangible things like devices, resources, products, consumers, etc. can become muddled and frankly quite confusing. Let us take the mobile learning world and try to break it down into the higher-level pieces that make up the whole. The goal is to hopefully give one a better understanding of where the different pieces fit so they can better go off and perform their own research.

At the highest level we can separate mLearning into learning applied to mobile devices inside the classroom and those outside the classroom. Please note I realize the simple fact that something that is mobile means it could easily move in or out of the "classroom", however there is an important distinction between the two. My explanation below should hopefully clear this up.

In the classroom mobile learning encompasses an emerging host of devices such as smart boards, wireless mini workstations and all flavors of RFID devices. I recently attended the Tech Ed conference in California, and let me assure you, there was no shortage of vendors pushing their new in-the-classroom wireless devices. There were a LOT of them. Most of these work off of some form of short-wave RFID technology and are meant for the k-12 demographic. I do not work nor have much experience with this realm, and thus will not dive any further into it.

The other main chunk of the mLearing world is the myriad of handheld electronic devices such as iPods, cell phones and PDA's. This is the core market for mobile education as it is more consumer-driven, where the user demographic has greater disposable income and freedom in making purchasing decisions. As these devices become cheaper, they become more prevalent in the market. Also, as they mature and become more advanced, the scope of content and media they can support greatly increases. All this contributes to a bigger market for products, support and sales.

The out of the classroom chunk can be further broken down into three segments. Forgive me as what follows has some tech-ese mixed in with it, but it becomes difficult at times to separate the device from the underlying technology.

The Big Boys

Basically PDA's and other very powerful (expensive) handheld devices. Most now have full email and web capabilities, decent memory, moderate storage capacities and the underlying architecture to run advanced applications. Product development in this group can be web based, WAP / WML based or even utilize Java's Mirco-Edition. Devices such as the iPhone now have an open API to work with.
If you are in the business of slick proprietary applications, custom software, highly interactive programs, modern-style games, dynamic or network fed apps, etc., this is the area to spend some time researching. These devices offer the most freedom and potential for creating mobile learning applications. The downside is of course cost, with many of these devices being cost-prohibitive to your average post-high school student.

Cell Phones and the Legacy Crowd

Just about everyone owns a cell phone, and a good chunk of that everyone now has a cell phone that has limited web support through what is called a micro-browser. As your computer has a web browser that reads HTTP, HTML and other languages, these micro-browsers have their own languages, WAP, WML, etc. You cannot go out and build some graphic intensive dynamic learning application, but you can build professional level content custom tailored to this mobile environment. The one headache in this area is the myriad of micro-browsers on the market and the loose adherence to standards. This might change with time, but that is to be seen. Still, if you have relatively simple content, this is definitely an area to check out.

The Little Guys (Basically the iPod)

This crowd is very limited in what can be accomplished and is more or less dominated by the iPod, so why should you care? You should care because Apple has sold a bazillion iPods, more than half of these are in the hands of college-age kids (read: money to burn). Apple is also becoming very supportive of mobile learning technologies. Go give iTunes U a look to see where Apple's thinking is currently at.

So what can you build for the iPod? Audio glossaries, simple quizzes, flashcards, video presentations, narrated presentations, training manuals, various forms of animated content in video form, etc. And do not forget the ever-popular Podcasting. You can read up on those yourself here.

Although there are an array of different little portable media players on the market, the iPod at this time is the one to focus on. If you have video / audio presentations or simple textual / graphical based content to deploy out to your consumer base, a good look at what the iPod can offer is highly recommended. Professional learning content can be created quickly and affordably, opening up a whole new market you might not currently be exploring.