Introduction to special issue: Mobile technologies and learning

Abstract

The ways that mobile technologies are used for learning needs to be examined. Mobile technologies are a relatively recent addition to the way we communicate and engage with the world. They allow flexible ways to interact with people and in a diversity of environments and contexts. They have the potential to bring the world into our hands. Does this flexibility and potential in communication transfer to education? When digital technologies first entered onto the education landscape much was made of their promise to transform the learning process. In his seminal work Mindstorms: Children, computers and powerful ideas, Papert (1980) identified potential for digital environments to reshape the way that learning was engaged with, and hence for understanding to emerge in alternative ways (Calder, 2011). But has this potential been realised? Are educators using the same pedagogies but through digital media or are there fundamental changes in the way learning is occurring? Are mobile technologies opening up new ways of learning that might appeal to a more diverse range of learners? In this special issue, the focus is on mobile technologies and learning. The articles explore the use of mobile technologies in a variety of contexts, across a range of curriculum areas.