This document discusses mobile learning, including definitions, objectives, features, advantages, challenges, and examples of mobile learning. It provides definitions of mobile learning as acquiring knowledge through mobile technologies anywhere and anytime. The objectives of mobile learning in distance education include adapting to individual needs, improved communication, easier access, and being available anywhere. Examples discussed include a Carnegie Mellon University project using mobile games to teach English in India and the use of mobile learning in Korean higher education.

1. Sultanate of Oman
Sultan Qaboos University
College of Education
Report about:
Done by:
Shamsa (82927) ,Dalal(8) , Abeer (82933).

2. Define the Mobile Learning
It is the acquisition of any knowledge and
skill through using mobile technology,
anywhere, anytime, that results in an
alteration in behavior. Or Any sort of
learning that happens when the learner is
not at a fixed, predetermined location, or
learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning
opportunities offered by mobile technologies
Objectives of using the Mobile Learning in DE:
• Content is adaptable to meet individual needs
• Improved communication and organization
• Easier access, Increases motivation
• Available wherever and whenever
• Be two way and multi-media
• Enhances knowledge
• No time constraints
• More independent
Features of the Mobile Learning
• M-learning is collaborative.
• M-learning is engaging and fun.

3. • Enables knowledge building by learners in different contexts.
• Enables learners to construct understandings.
• M-learning is convenient, in the sense that it is accessible virtually from
anywhere (class, taxi,…)
• Mobile technology often changes the pattern of learning/work activity.
Advantages of the Mobile Learning
• It is important to bring new technology into the classroom.
• It will be more light weight device compare to books, PCs.
• could be utilized as part of a learning approach which uses different types
of activities (or a blended learning approach).
• can be a useful add-on tool for students with special needs. However, for
SMS and MMS this might be dependent on the students’ specific
disabilities or difficulties involved.
• Good IT support is needed.
• can be used as a ‘hook’ to re-engage disaffected youth.
Challenges of the Mobile Learning
Technical challenges
• Small Screen size
• Small keys size
• Limited Performance, in terms of processor capability, available memory,
storage space and battery life.
• Slow Connectivity of the internet

4. • Left- to-right scrolling, web sites too big to see effectively on small screen
• Risk of theft, rain, breakability.
Social and educational challenges
• How to assess learning on mobile phone
• Developing an appropriate theory of learning for the mobile age
• Tracking of results and proper use of this information
• Mobile communication is still expensive.
How the Mobile Learning are used to deliver and support
learning.
WAP: An international protocol that allows users to access the internet
via their WAP enabled mobile phones.
GPRS: An always on internet connection for mobile devices that provides
greater speed of connection (171kb/s).
3G and 4G phones: By the end of the decade 4G (4th Generation mobile
phones) will provide up to 100 megabits per second transmissions
adequate for multimedia.
Bluetooth: A short range wireless connection. This enables PDAs
(Personal Digital Assistants) to pass messages to and from other mobile
devices.
PDAs: Personal Digital Assistants have evolved to mini PCs able to carry
out many of the basic functions of a larger PC using the Palm OS or MS
Pocket PC operating system.
MP3s: Audio file format that efficiently compresses files and enables
them to be shared.
CAMs: Video cameras now embedded into mobile phone and PDAs.

5. Concerns raised by researchers and distance
students/tutors about the Mobile Learning:
Design.
Designing for mobile learning becomes a critical
Challenge. ‘How to enhance the experience without
Interfering with it’.
And so designing for mobile learning becomes a
critical
challenge. ‘How to enhance the experience
without
interfering with it’ was the title of Russell Beale's
(University of Birmingham, UK) workshop session.
"For lots of people, children particularly, education is not
optional," he said. "It's something that they have to do,
and they don't necessarily want to do it. Whereas one of
the good things about technology is that it offers an
opportunity for choice."
Thus, said Peter Lonsdale (University of Birmingham, UK)
we shouldn’t cram existing activities onto mobile devices,
but instead make use of different ways of organizing

6. learning communities. "Children want to learn," claimed
Ann Jones (Open University, UK), "but what they want is
choice over what to learn. You can stop a child from
learning by just presenting a load of information."
Evaluation
How can we effectively measure learning in mobile
Environments?
How can we effectively measure learning in mobile
environments? Josie Taylor (Open University, UK) ran a
session exploring this, and the group discovered that
evaluation overlaps with design. Mobile learning is often
blended with other types of learning.
A mobile device could act as a tool for thinking: for
example, when learners know that everything is being
recorded or is easy to record, this changes their behavior.
Thus, argued Barbara Wasson (University of Bergen,
Norway), we should focus on activities, and the dialectic
relation between the learner and the technology, not on
people or technology in isolation.

7. Case studies/examples
Carnegie Mellon University Project
Carnegie Mellon University today announced the expansion of its Mobile
& Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies (MILLEE)
project, which will gauge the effectiveness of mobile phone-based games
for teaching English lessons to students in rural India.
Mobile Technology Applications in the Korean Higher Education
“Mobile campus” has made students and faculty staff access authentic,
updated information sources and communicate with each other anytime,
and anywhere within the campus. In South Korea, All of Life Is Mobile
more colleges and universities have moved to mobile learning
environments A student used her cell phone to enter the main library at
Sookmyung Women's University On campus, students touch their mobiles
to the electronic box to mark their attendance. University of North
Carolina at Wilmington takes benefits of the mobile learning.