As the field of mobile learning has matured, educational researchers like Looi et al. (2010) and Kearney, Shuck, Burden, & Aubusson (2012) have moved from an initial focus on software and device design to instead place at the nucleus of inquiry the kinds of learning supported by those designs.

By maintaining a focus on pedagogy, we recontextualize technology, strip it of the savior complex we all too-readily bestow on it, and recognize it as being only one part of a larger system. Organizational culture, activity design, performance constraints, learner characteristics and so on join technology integration as equally important elements of a learning environment. From this perspective, mobile technology is only as interesting as the learning experiences it supports.

To analyze mobile learning design through the lens of pedagogy, though, we need to choose and adhere to a given theory of learning. The socio-cultural perspective selected by Kearney et al. positions learning as a situated practice developed through social interaction and mediated by tool use (Kearney et al., 2012, p. 1). From this perspective, the authors have refined a pedagogical framework that identifies three distinctive features of mobile learning: personalization, authenticity, and collaboration, which function along a continuum of time-space (Kearney et al., 2012, p. 8). We can apply this framework to an example of mobile technology integration discussed in “Talking up learning at work: cautionary tales in co-opting everyday learning” (Boud, Rooney, & Solomon, 2009).

Boud et al. examine the communications, interactions, and information sharing practices that make up everyday workplace learning. Their study of informal learning in work environments shows that seemingly casual chat is a common and powerful vehicle for situated, social learning. Workers taking a lunch together, for example, get help with their personal, real-world performance challenges (personalization and authenticity) by chatting with their coworkers (collaboration). On the other end of the spectrum, formal programs for training and development have often proved costly, too generalized (no personalization), and removed from the site of practice (inauthentic) (Boud et al., 2009, p. 324).

Training and development managers, seeking to better integrate learning with work, have looked for ways to systematize and enhance existing informal learning practices. In the case of one public sector organization, management’s efforts to merge informal chat-based learning with formal learning resulted in an effective breakdown of communication. Employees chafed under the surveillance and regulation of what were once free spaces for informal peer learning: the lunchroom, the “morning tea”, the car. The study found a similar breakdown of communication resulting from the organization’s efforts to support workers’ mobility by installing laptops into rangers’ vehicles for remote reporting. While the laptops helped the rangers to perform their work remotely, the reorganization of their workspace meant that they no longer needed to call in to talk with their coworkers – a practice they identified as an important aspect of their work (Boud et al., 2009, p. 328). Formalizing everyday talk for learning – and indeed even naming it as learning – changes the meanings and relationships that are constructed through that practice. The conclusions of Bould et al.’s text add a cautionary note to the synergistic vision for “seamless learning” explored by Looi et al. in their 2010 article.

Looi et al.’s 2010 prediction of personal, portable networked devices reaching cultural ubiquity has largely come to fruition. So, as our devices span our daily contexts, mobile learning too can be used to link often-divided formal and informal learning contexts. When we consider a seamless model of workplace learning, we can easily align ourselves with two camps of thought. The first camp frames workplace training and development as valuable for the employee as an independent agent, supporting them in developing the professional skills they need to access new levels of responsibility and salary. With this mindset, a seamless cross-contextual approach to training and development that supports learners in accessing educational materials or experiences at home, in transit, or even on vacation can only been seen as a positive expansion of resources.

For the other camp, though, training and development efforts most directly benefit the employer by making the workforce more productive, efficient, effective. Efforts to insert training into employees’ informal contexts and into the social spaces in which they interact, then, can be seen as a top-down requirement that work (in the guise of learning) encroaches into what were once personal blocks of an employee’s time-space. One professional’s Dear John letter to Slack, a popular workplace chat app, offers a cautionary tale of blurring lines between formal and informal, work and play: “Slack, I’m Breaking Up with You”.

Learning designers looking to blend informal learning and formal workplace training and development into a seamless model supported by mobile technologies, especially one centered on free and ‘organic’ social interactions, should consider how imposing institutionally-sanctioned communities of practice can have an unintended consequence of stifling those very interactions.
 

Sources:

 
Boud, D., Rooney, D., & Solomon, N. (2009). Talking up learning at work: Cautionary tales in co‐opting everyday learning. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 28(3), 323-334. doi:10.1080/02601370902799077

Kearney, M., Schuck, S., Burden, K., & Aubusson, P. (2012). Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective.Research In Learning Technology, 20:1, 1-17. doi:10.3402/rlt.v20i0/14406.

Looi, C.-K., Seow, P., Zhang, B., So, H.-J., Chen, W., & Wong, L.-H. (2010). Leveraging mobile technology for sustainable seamless learning: A research agenda. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(2), 154-169. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00912.x