Mobile Learning Initiatives Research Articles

Smartphone-Based Mobile Learning with Physician Trainees in Botswana

In recent years, mobile learning in medicine has been utilized to increase healthcare providers’ access to health information. This has improved healthcare providers’ ability to make appropriate clinical decisions at point-of-care, particularly in resource-limited settings. Mobile phones facilitate information and communication technology support for patient care and collaboration amongst providers. In this paper, the authors describe a smartphone-based mobile learning initiative with physician trainees at the University of Botswana School of Medicine, focusing on the authors’ experiences with recent scale-up efforts to remote areas of Botswana. The authors also explore the potential impact of mobile learning in developing health capacity.

Student perspectives about mobile learning initiatives at Open University of Brazil: the mobile phone issue

The objectives of this study were to verify if students of Open University of Brazil approve of mobile learning (m-learning) initiatives, to identify the students' perspectives about m-learning, to develop a model of instructional design for m-learning environments, and to quantify student satisfaction with the presented model. 1,328 students agreed to participate in this study, all studen ts of Open University of Brazil. They were questioned about their perspectives on m-learning at this university and if they agree with this educational model. The students agreed with the possible implementation of m- learning at this university, especially through mobiles phones. Collectively, the main ideas that the students offered to improve the efficiency of knowledge construction were classified into three groups: theory, practice, and interactivity. They also agreed with an instructional design model that was developed and shown to the three groups.

Extracting and expressing experience with mobile learning: lessons learned

Many published results in the field of mobile learning focus on isolated technology solutions or a specific trial rather than to reflect on the overall work practice and development process of whole initiative/s. Exchanging knowledge from past experiences is often done informally between researchers in mobile learning. Making the knowledge gained explicit is of great value, as it can provide a pre-understanding for others. This paper analyses and reflects on three mobile learning initiatives with respect to how these address technology, context and stakeholders. From this, six lessons are extracted: reuse as much as possible, consider how to work around bad/broken network connections, do not underestimate the need for data management, take advantage of situated learning, evaluate to validate the result and identify and include all stakeholders. These lessons can serve as considerations for researchers when undertaking new initiatives in mobile learning.