A Socio-Cultural Approach to Evaluating and Designing Reading Comprehension Apps for Language Learning

M-Learning

M-learning is often described as more agile and spontaneous than other learning approaches (Ozdamli & Cavus, 2011;Traxler & Kukulska-Hulme, 2005) since the technologies that underpin it are ubiquitous and pervasive. M-learning frees students from the confines of traditional classrooms (Sha, Looi, Chen & Zhang, 2012) and with features such as GPS and location awareness, it is possible to tailor specific locations to particular types of learning experiences based on the needs of the individual learner, often referred to as location based learning.

These features or affordances of mobile technologies indicate a shift in how we conceptualize and think about teaching and learning and they have therefore been accompanied by the development and promotion of different theoretical frameworks and models to help understand and analyze the growing phenomenon of m-learning. Some of these are briefly reviewed in the section that follows, leading to a justification for the use of the iPAC framework in this particular study.