Developing Active Personal Learning Environments on Smart Mobile Devices

‘Tablets’ and other ‘smart’ devices (such as iPads and iPhones) have established themselves as a significant part of mobile technologies used in mobile (m-)learning. Smart devices such as iPads and the Apple Watch not only provide many apps that can be used for a variety of educational purposes; they also allow communication between students and tutors and with the world at large via social media. We argue that ‘smart’ mobile devices enable personalized learning by adjusting to the educational needs of individuals. We refer to Salmon’s quadrat diagram to suggest where using mobile technologies should be of benefit to revising our views of pedagogy, making it much more responsive to students’ needs in education as well as the world in general. Smart mobile devices now contain computing power to allow voice and face recognition, augmented reality and machine learning to make them intelligent enough to act as tutors for individual students and adjust and respond accordingly. To take advantage of these facilities on mobile devices, pedagogy must change from an institution-centered to a student-tutor-device focus. This is best done via ‘active learning’ and incorporating cognitive awareness into an educational operating system that can develop with the owner.

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