Topic 4 – Flexible and mobile learning

21 – 27 October

This fourth topic explores some of the drivers behind flexible and mobile learning as well as what flexibility entails for both students and educators. The 21st century has seen a change in student demographics. The student body is increasingly diverse, for example – since many students are learners who may have work and family schedules in addition to study commitments, attending traditional face-to-face classes in a college or university may not always be possible. Ubiquitous networked computer technology, the growth of the Internet and the widely used personalized technologies as well as social media provide multiple platforms for cooperation and co-learning. This has given rise to added opportunities for both students and educators, in a time of increasing uncertainty in the educational landscape. You will be encouraged to reflect on possible challenges and opportunities that flexibility has for learning and education in general, from an individual as well as collaborative and organizational perspectives. Mobile learning, on the other hand, is more than just using a mobile device to communicate with others or to access course content – it is about the mobility of the learner, the fact that learners nowadays are mobile. Reaching a concensus about what mobile learning really is has been very hard, because of the rapid evolution in this field, but also because mobile learning seems to work best when it is part of something else.

Activities/tasks for all learners

Individual study:
Check out the suggested video resource (at the end of this page) by Alastair Creelman as well as the readings on Flexible and Mobile Learning (you may also conduct your own search and share resources you find useful).
ONL Google plus community:
Discuss aspects of Flexible and Mobile Learning in your professional context with peers and comment on each other’s contributions.
Flipped Webinar:
On Thursday 22 Oct CEST 19:00–20:00 (7-8 pm) there will be a flipped webinar based on Jonas Månsson lecture on the topic for this week. Jonas is associate professor of mathematics at LTH (Lund University School of Engineering) in Lund. He got an award for best teaching practices last year. Here’s his blog and his YouTube Channel.
Reflection:
Reflect on how and why you would enable elements of flexible and mobile learning. What is your target group of students like? How do you use your learning spaces, virtual as well as on campus? Are there opportunities for further development in this area you have now identified as a result of your engagement in this topic? Comment and invite others to comment on your learning blog post.

Additional activities/tasks for learners within PBL groups

Study one of the scenarios below: start to reflect individually and then share with your group.
Investigate the scenario together: consider using the FISh framework and adapt as suits the group.
Share your findings: at the end of this topic share your main findings in a creative way in the ONL community. Consider presenting your findings in another format than you used before, trying a “new” tool for presentation.
Reflection: reflect individually and in your PBL group on your learning.

Scenario 1: Posted in a discussion forum in a teachers’ community:
“I´m quite new to all this with flexible and mobile learning and it seems to be quite complex and challenging but also very interesting. Many of my friends and also my students seem to be much more mobile in their learning than me, I am quite stuck at my computer. I found this framework (see image below) for thinking about mobile learning but frankly I don’t understand what it means? Perhaps there are other better frameworks? I would appreciate getting some of your perspectives on this and some concrete examples how you would apply this to a course or a learning activity you know about.”

Scenario 2: “Together with a colleague I have developed a blended learning course design in a higher level education course. In the course design we want to offer students a high level of flexibility in their learning. We realized however that this is not so easy. We have divided course content into several modules and when we move from one module to the next we aim for all course participants to be ready to move on. If they have not grasped first level module content of the second will be more difficult to digest. Thus, we considered there is a need for deadlines for submissions so that we can check progress of participants. For learning activities that depend on collaboration, deadlines also seemed to be needed. Even if the group work tasks were designed so that they could be performed asynchronously; course participants that contributed to a discussion online were expecting activity from their group mates, and if they did not see any activity they became annoyed. In my opinion, the more deadlines and the stricter the rules for how to perform the learning activities, the less flexibility in the learning. I reflect over whether flexible learning has to be individual learning activity and not so much collaboration.”

Activities/tasks for all learners

Additional activities/tasks for learners within PBL groups

Suggested readings and resources