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The Mobile Learning Edge
Book

The Mobile Learning Edge

Tools and Technologies for Developing Your Teams

Gary Woodill
McGraw-Hill, 2010
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Gary Woodill, a mobile learning expert, presents a strong case explaining why organizations should embrace the new technology of mobile learning. His guide is filled with information, strategies, hard and soft resources, innovative ideas and case studies. It outlines a new learning landscape featuring participant freedom, virtual worlds, gaming, collective communication and self-generated curricula. Woodill stresses that mobile learning is in its infancy and its effectiveness remains limited. You may see his concepts as the latest sci-fi, pie in the sky – or as the tip of a wedge that sunders corporate education and ushers in methods of learning that today’s trainers can scarcely imagine. With billions of mobile phones in use worldwide, getAbstract thinks this book merits a careful read by managers, trainers, HR and IT professionals, futurists and educators of all stripes.

Summary

Poised for Growth

In 2007, participants in the new mobile learning industry launched The International Association for Mobile Learning. This is a marker of education’s broadening scope, moving from a classroom approach to one designed for mobile employees already afloat on a sea of available information. Managers recognize that their workforce is already in motion and “wired.”

The concepts and methods of mobile learning will disrupt academic and business training as what was once closed becomes open and what was once stationary moves around. Mobile learning is tapping into social networks and other existing online conduits and spreading the network effect. However, this development is not being greeted with universal acceptance. “Some of the resistance to the use of mobile learning” stems from the fact that “it challenges familiar practices of schooling and training along with the learning theories that support these practices.”

Technology may be outpacing some of this opposition. Mobile devices already allow anyone – nearly anywhere – to obtain, store and learn information. As evolving technologies coalesce and capabilities emerge, they enable a variety of “...

About the Author

Gary Woodill is an analyst of emerging technology. He is the co-author of Training and Collaboration with Virtual Worlds.

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