An Architecture for a Personalized Mobile Environment to Facilitate Contextual Lifelong Learning

Abstract

In response to the ever-increasing need of private and public organizations for lifelong learning, research in technology-enhanced learning has been geared towards the provision of systems that will better support those who pursue education at a number of different stages in their life, move between institutions while pursuing a course of study, or make use of resources and facilities from more than one institution/ organization. The new generation of mobile phones can support applications that would facilitate contextual learning through life. This chapter presents our approach to designing a mobile application for contextual lifelong learning and the prototype created. The application assists learners to access, compose and manage their learning in a range of institutional, informal and work-based settings by keeping them connected with content that is relevant to their studies, and its use is demonstrated in three lifelong learning scenarios.