The New Media Consortium's 2009 Horizon Report puts mobiles' time-to-adoption horizon at one year or less. There is no doubt that mobile devices are changing the way students learn. Drivers that are opening up enormous possibilities for education include new interfaces, types of connection and a wealth of applications – and Mimas is taking a lead in making the most of this potential.

Developing for mobile devices is different from developing for Desktop PCs, so innovation in this area is not without its challenges – cost, interoperability, and device ownership being three of the top ones.

As new features and capabilities enter the market at pace, we need to respond to them in ways that enhance learning for all our users, as well as lead change in service delivery where we see our users can get maximum benefit.

Mimas and mobile learning

Mimas has led the way in the delivery of learning content – our award-winning Hairdressing Training was the first JISC-funded service to be designed specifically for mobile devices. For hairdressing students at Stockport College, this meant being able to use handheld devices to access learning and collect evidence in work placements as well as in the classroom – and at home.

Building on that success, we're currently developing a user-friendly mobile version of Intute's well-respected Internet Detective online tutorial – called Mobile Internet Detective.

We're also initiating and encouraging discussion on mobile learning. We want to share our experiences with other experts, give them the opportunity to share their knowledge with us, and provide expertise on how to overcome the problems associated with mobile learning.

To help us learn what services we can deliver for students now and in the future, we organised a major networking event, Mobile Learning: Telling Tales in July 2009, with three broad aims:

1. to find out how mobiles are currently being used in learning and teaching
2. to discuss practical approaches to overcoming obstacles to the exploitation of mobile learning
3. to build on community expertise and investigate exciting prospects for future developments

Increasing understanding, forming networks

Our mobile learning event attracted people from every corner of the learning and teaching world – and we invited them to listen to speakers from similarly diverse backgrounds. Through planned sessions, delegates and speakers alike gained a comprehensive update both on current and potential opportunities in mobile learning.

In addition, they shared their work and exchanged ideas, and some even laid plans for collaborative networks – all with the aim of enhancing learning through mobile technologies.

What the experts said

Graham Brown-Martin

Graham Brown-Martin, founder of Learning Without Frontiers gave a provocative keynote speech covering areas including how children learn – formally and informally – via mobiles and games, and how technology is classless.

Graham stimulated plenty of feedback and debate, and challenged us to think about the technologies that learners are already using at home – such as game consoles.

Watch a video of Graham's talk Learning Without Frontiers:

John Traxler

John Traxler, Director of Learning Lab and Founding Director of the International Association for Mobile Learning (IAML), and winner of the best paper at ALT-C (September 2009), focused on the Mlearning Project, which aims to take learning to homeless people.

John gave a thought-provoking presentation, pointing out the tangible achievements made so far in making education available to communities that were previously difficult to reach.

He talked about the different types of proximity – not just geographic, but temporal, social and economic – and how mobile technology can help overcome these barriers to learning.

James Clay

For James Clay, ILT and Learning Resources Manager at Gloucestershire College and Learning Technologist of the Year (ALT-C 2009), postulated on: The Future of Learning.

James presented an entertaining yet challenging talk, observing how classroom design hasn't really changed much in a hundred years, and how educators must now embrace the mobile devices that today's learners take for granted.

He stressed how technology is a tool to enable problems to be solved, concluding that the future is all about the learners.

Watch a video of James' talk The Future of Learning:

What did we learn?

We feel that the knowledge shared at this mobile learning event equipped delegates both with ideas for the exploitation of mobile devices for learners, as well as with practical advice and discussion on the common problems associated with developing for mobile devices.

For instance, there was realisation that ubiquitous ownership by students meant worrying about whether a college could afford to fund the provision of mobile devices was irrelevant. Instead, the focus should be on developing applications that run on these devices.

Many delegates said the day inspired new ideas, and gave them the impetus and inspiration to think beyond the classroom.

Overall, the feedback from delegates has been enthusiastic. Colin Hawksworth wrote on his Mind Mug blog:

"What a great bunch of innovative, radical thinkers! The day was excellent."

For Mimas, we're taking key lessons learned from the day forward in planning delivery of our services – current and new.

And with this event, we feel we encouraged and motivated attendees to rise to the new challenges of mobile learning.