As a sign that things don’t stand still for long these days comes this article from EQ about what the author Heather Watson terms mLearning or learning via mobile devices. Though a relatively brief article it is stimulus for thought and prefaces the time when teaching is no longer tied to standard timetables and signals to start and stop instruction. Watson points out that the tehnology tha many of us carry around in our pockets now have around 90 per cent of the capability and flexibility of the laptops we carry over out shoulder. She use an interesting term describing the learners of today as ‘neomillennials’.
Another question not raised in the article is one that I have already begun to note and that is the probability of workload increase. In the interim, as we transition from the traditional bringing books/material home to mark against the monitoring of RSS feeds, responding to blog posts and providing feedback on wiki and blog posts there must be increased demands. This will be exacerbated if the teacher involved is, (as is likely), also coming to terms with how best to use the mobile technology. As more stakeholders, students, parents and teaching colleagues become connected then the demands on those teachers who are leading the way will also neccessarily increase.
