This document discusses mobile learning (m-learning) in career programs. It defines m-learning as e-learning using mobile devices and wireless transmission. M-learning allows learning to occur anywhere and anytime, as learners are no longer tethered to a fixed place and time. The document provides examples of using smartphones and specialized mobile devices like heart rate monitors to document activity logs and reflections. It acknowledges technologies must improve learning and be easy to use. Resources for additional information on m-learning are also provided.

1. Mobile Learning in
Career Programs
Brett McLean
Apprenticeship Coordinator, SD43
Bmclean@sd43.bc.ca
or simply
Google “bmclean43”

2. Mobile Learning
http://bmclean43.wikispaces.com/Resources
http://bmclean43.posterous.com
http://www.slideshare.net/Bmclean43
http://twitter.com/Bmclean43

3. What is SSA?
 Purpose of the Program
 Eligibility

4. The Hidden Apprentice
Already working? In a trade?
Communicating the Possibilities

5. Benefits
 For the Students
 Scholarships
 Accelerated Certification and
Career Exploration
 For the District
 Course-by-Course Funding
 Collaboration and Community-Driven Education

6. Why Online?
» Distributed Learning and
the Road Ahead
• Increasing Accessibility 
• Increasing Awareness 

7. Why Online?
» Today’s child is bewildered when he
enters the 19th century environment
that still characterizes the educational
establishment where information is
scarce but ordered and structured by
fragmented, classified patterns
subjects, and schedules”
• (Marshall McLuhan, 1967).

12. M-Learning
• Milrad (2003) states that e-learning is
“learning supported by digital
‘electronic’ tools and media, whereas
mobile learning is e-learning using
mobile devices and wireless
transmission (in Hutchinson et al, 2008).

13. M-Learning
• This definition does not require the
learners to have any actual mobility,
however.

14. M-Learning
• learners could be using a mobile device
at fixed times, in fixed locations.

15. M-Learning Definitions
• “In terms of devices and technologies”
whereas others
• “define and conceptualise it in terms of
the mobility of learners and the mobility
of learning” (Traxler 2007)

16. M-Learning
• Knowledge construction, ‘sage on the
stage’ vs. ‘guide on the side’

17. M-Learning
• Effective, efficient
• No longer tethered to a time and place

18. Smartphone and Specialized Mobile Devices

23. • Polar Heart Rate Monitors

24. • Polar Heart Rate Monitors
• Understanding what your
heart is telling you and how
much work you are capable
of doing.
• Seeing improvement by
increasing work rate at the
same heart rate level.

25. Dropbox
• Documenting each
activity log with a
meaningful reflection of
what was applied from the
theory part of the course.

26. •Using heart rate monitors you can upload
your activity logs into an online journal.

28. REALLY?
Technology for technology’s sake
Disconnection from here and now
Is it better than what we did
before?

29. It can improve learning
If focus on why and how learning will
improve
If it’s easy to use
If we aren’t trying to teach two
courses in one

30. Simple solutions
Bmclean43.posterous.com/can-i-
really-podcast-on-the-go
 Photos of work projects for a later
Powerpoint

31. M-Learning Resources
Tony Vincent - “Learning in Hand”

32. M-Learning Resources
Tony Vincent - “Learning in Hand”

33. M-Learning Resources
James McConville - past-president of the PSA
“Computer Using Educators of BC”
http://jamesmcconville.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/jmcconville1000

34. M-Learning Resources
iTunes Podcasts

35. Thank You!
http://bmclean43.wikispaces.com/Resources
http://bmclean43.posterous.com
http://www.slideshare.net/Bmclean43
http://twitter.com/Bmclean43
bmclean@sd43.bc.ca