2011 Mobile Learning

Tokyo,Japan 

19-21 October 2011

The convergence of global adoption of smart phones integrating hi-quality media capture devices and trends in social networking, participatory media and cyber infrastructure provide remarkable opportunities for making mobile social media integral to distributed learning environments. Social networking and user-generated media like YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and Flickr are moving beyond the stationary PC onto mobile devices like iPhone and low-price netbook computers. Social applications are also becoming a new communication and networking method in sectors such as business, entertainment and education. We expect to see mobile social media, incorporating video, photos, social networking and communication capabilities to be one of the major new applications for the mobile web, and we welcome contributions that help advance visions, technologies, research and theories to better support learning and educational purposes.

Arguably the impact of mobile social media will be universal, augmenting with distributed social media tools the face-to-face social interactions that now enable learning and teaching interactions. Learners may tap social networks and recommendations for learning in pursuit of their interests over informal and formal settings. Students could learn from a broader universe of user-generated content, beyond "prescribed" content provided by teachers or textbooks. The mobile social network can potentially foster richer parent-child interactions for learning, and enable different parent roles supporting education, and more vibrant and productive interactions between learning at school, home and neighborhood. In classroom settings, mobile devices can enrich interactivity and inter-operability of digital expression and potentially provide supervision and decision support for teachers. The well-documented powers of informal learning in workplaces can be served well with social mobile media.