Introduction: Concepts of Modelling Technology in mLearning
- Mobile learning is the development of mobile phones by the use of internet tools and technical features that support flash animation, simulation, video, and audio functions to enhance the learning process.
- M-Learning offers diversified learning and teaching environment.
- This form of learning has pedagogically connected the design of learning and device usability.
- Effective use of social technology has resulted in emergence of innovative ways of learning.
- For instance, Wireless Mobile Devices are wireless digital devices that are used to deliver pedagogical instructions in an attempt to bring about productive learning activities.
Role of Pedagogical Considerations to Effective mLearning
- Mobile Learning is a subset of e-Learning that uses interaction technology of mobile computing devices to enable users to access information.
- These devices include smartphones, Portable Digital Assistants (PDAs), Podcasts, and Wireless Mobile Devices among other devices that use the current technologies.
- Ordinary learning that is conducted in classroom environments assumes a teacher-centred approach to learning.
- However, mLearning offers a learner-centred environment where the learner has adequate access to adequate sources of knowledge (Jones and Marsden 145).
- Various concepts are involved in mLearning. The Mobile Mole concept is the widely used modelling technology.
- It involves the replication of previous research that consists of designed and validated multimedia instruction packages on the wide platform of mobile application development.
- The instructional process involves the use links that contain simulation, animation, text, and audio data to enhance understanding of the Mole Concept (Quinn 202).
- Pedagogical choices and certain frameworks are developed to ensure that learning takes place effectively.
- The choice of whether an activity or course has a high or low transactional distance has been a challenge because the distance theory ensures that a course consists of several lessons.
- Quinn reveals that each lesson has different degrees of activity. This situation hardens the determination of high or low transaction levels (102).
- The choice of a wrong transaction distance for a particular course automatically affects information reliability.
- This situation affects mLearning development processes and can lead to failure of the system at its preliminary stage.
- Highly structured lessons demand more interactive levels than less structured lessons. However, less structured lessons create time for individuals to learn and comprehend information.
- The choice of a mediation framework that is made by mobile learning application developers is considered an important structure in pedagogical instructions (Quinn 147).
- It enables the assessment of whether the learners are able to interact and share knowledge and ideas with one another or they are isolated from communicating with one another.
- These situations are categorised into high and low transaction distances.
- In high transaction distances, m-Learning content is highly structured. This situation lowers the level of interaction amongst students.
- On the other hand, low transaction distances comprise less structured frameworks that create an open dialogic negotiation.
- This pedagogical consideration is pertinent to both individual and group learning processes amongst students (Jones and Marsden 133).
- The illustration above shows that mLearning exclusively uses technology to convey information.
- Technology enables the development of a mobile environment that is learner friendly.
- Learners are able to access the information via the interfaces of various mobile technology devices such as smartphones and PDAs (Jones and Marsden 135).
- Students are able to demonstrate a clear understanding of content since the mLearning environment offers a variety of research tools.
- Internet availability enhances the accessibility of information regardless of time, place, and space.
- The availability of unlimited internet or transmission signal is a crucial pedagogical consideration that significantly contributes to the success of mLearning.
- Distance learning occurs in two forms that include individual and group learning.
- Dualism framework is a crucial pedagogic way of enhancing the learning process. Dualism is categorised into individual and collective frameworks (Jones and Marsden 131)
- Individual dualism is a concept that is based on mLearning activities that allows students to obtain information for personal benefit.
- On the other hand, collective dualism allows learners to gather information as a group.
- It enables learners to share information and views; hence, it enhances clarity of any ambiguous information. In some cases, the relatedness of two activities may assume a state of balance.
- The activity theory connects the dualism models to pairs such as individual-society, subjectivity-objectivity, agency-structure, and psychological-social concepts.
Effective Pedagogical Factors
- The meditation framework is an effective pedagogical framework that is used in mLearning applications (Quinn 111).
- It guarantees a procedural relay of information from the mLearning tools to the learners.
- In addition, the meditation framework determines accessibility of information by both individuals and groups since the lessons are categorised into different levels of structures to create different distant transaction levels.
- Therefore, it caters for both group and individual tasks (Jones and Marsden 133).
- This arrangement improves productivity amongst learners since it ensures immediate interaction with mLearning processes.
- Many learning institutions have adopted the meditation framework to maintain a separation between individual work and group work. Therefore, it promotes independent learning.
- Mobile learning facilitates the learning process since it focuses on the interests of the learner.
- According to Quinn, usability and rationality are crucial factors that guide the development of innovative learning opportunities (128).
- The merging of enhanced educational structures and the use of mobile technology has brought about the creation of appropriate applications for mobile devices that support mLearning.
- The future of mobile learning will entail integration of robust mobile sensor technology and details learning strategies that are associated with mobile learning.
- The mobile sensor equipment will increase the precision of tracking of mobile learners to monitor learning activities (Quinn 132).
- This situation enables instructors to guide pedagogical processes with ease whilst handling a large population of students.
Works Cited
Jones, Matt, and Gary Marsden. Mobile Interaction Design. John Wiley & Sons Ltd: Southern Gate, United Kingdom, 2006. Print.
Quinn, Clark. Designing mLearning: Tapping into the Mobile Revolution for Organizational Performance. Pfeiffer: San Francisco, 2011. Print.