Is it about "mobile" or "learning"?

The tablets have rapidly changed from mere text-based eBook readers to versatile multimedia-capable prosumer devices. We are using chat, discussion, notification and conferencing capabilities more and more on tablets instead of pc's and laptops. With an iPad, one can produce an interactive book without sweat or share a project as a Google Document or a NearPod collaborative network. 

This is called mobile authoring, as Harvey Singh named it in his session on the hottest trends of mLearning. Actually he focused on mobile learning technology, and there was nothing about the learning itself - but Singh kept his logic and didn't even try to tinker with pedagogy.

Singh discussed the differences between mobile/native apps and web/browser-based services. New trend is to make a hybrid app. That means that some features are downloaded to the tablet/app memory, and some features, like rapidly changing content,  are to be fetched online. The app of the conference itself, mLearnCon is a good example on this. The schedule, my own agenda, my notes, and session notes are downloaded to the tablet. Twitter feed and app/content updates are updated whenever online. I found this approach handy.

Almost ten mLearn startups to watch

Thurday keynote was by Jason Calacanis, a renowned venture capitalist in the Silicon Valley. His subject was Ten Mobile Learning Startups to Watch. 

Calacanis' shortlist of (almost) ten startups:
- flipping the classroom
- dashboards
- adaptive systems
- gameification
- rockstar teachers
- social
- largely free
Many of these may seem cryptic and they'd all deserve a separate blog entry for themselves, but this is not the time and the place.

Calacanis is a digital business expert and no doubt has a vision of the mobile business industry trends. Alas, he is not a teacher, nor has he any particular expertise on that sector. It would have been a good decision to focus on the business and tech. Anyhow, he chose to discuss what the learning is like nowadays, and how it should change.

Calacanis presented old conceptions and examples of current education and made generalisations that do not have anything in common with the personalized facilitation a talented teacher can give. 1-to-1 facilitation, peer learning and collaborative knowledge construction have been around for decades. If some teachers do not take advantage of these methods, there is no "deus ex machina" technology to make them to do so. It's more about attitude, thinking and methodical skills than about the tools used.

It's also not about whether a certain technology or pedagogic method is applied - is't about how it fits the learner, the context, the subject. "Teaching" and "learning" are about interaction.

The issue and even problem of much the fuzz over mLearning is that the interest tends to focus on "mobile", although the key, the stem word of the concept is "learning".