Smart Mobile Learning Environment

Background

University teachers take often for granted that the students are active on an individual and voluntary basis and already are able to increase and discover the value of collaboration, dialogue exchanges, as well as reflections of own learning and self-assessments afterwards for knowledge development (Amhag & Jakobsson, 2009; Amhag, 2013b). Dialogic exchanges between students do not developed only on their own. It requires more and other support from teachers to progress their competence of presenting topics, exchanging ideas and give/receive feedback from other students and teachers, as well as create critical reflections and self-assessments afterwards.

This chapter increases the knowledge about the design of a smart mobile learning hub, MLH for student-centered learning both in- and out-off the university and during practical training in the profession by using smart devices such as mobile laptop, tablet or smart mobile phone. The MLH is a kind of mobile portfolio that goes beyond simple application of technology by integrating smart technology with smart pedagogy (Spector, 2014; Zhu, Yu & Riezebos, 2016). The word ‘smart’ is an acronym for self-directed, motivated, adaptive, resource-enriched, and technology-embedded, and refers to wisdom as bounding together the ability of using and motivating self-directed learning, knowledge building, problem solving, critically reflections, collaborating and evaluating different circumstances in a resource-enriched learning environment with technology-embedded tools (Hwang, 2014; Zhu, Yu & Riezebos, 2016).

The goal of MLH is to provide the advantages of collaborative and reflective activities into student-centered learning in higher education by a smart self-directed and motivated learning environment which is resource-enriched with technology-embedded tools. The following questions are addressed:

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  In what way can teachers a) design and b) use different smart mobile learning environment with mobile learning activities and wearable tools that are appropriate for student-centered learning and active participation?

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  How do the students experience the smart mobile activities and the wearable tools for their learning?

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  In what way can the smart mobile activities and tools be analyzed comparing to the students’ performance?

The user interface of a smart learning environment should be based on that all students are using different social media and digital resources. In particular, the design with different place, based on individual and collective learning circumstances (Amhag & Jakobsson, 2009; Amhag, 2013b; Gros, 2016). The design of a smart learning environment, revised from Couros (2006, p. 172) and Hwang (2014, p. 7), is given in Figure 1 for more and less networking students.

Figure 1.

Framework of smart learning environment revised from Couros (2006, p. 172) and Hwang (2014, p. 7)

The framework of a smart learning environment illustrates that it is important to create a context-aware and blended learning context, mixed with in-class lectures reviewing course documents at the university, and followed up with out-of-class online mobile-assisted learning activities, e.g. webinars F2F conferencing; teacher recorded flipped lesson videos; peer feedback processes; textual discussion fora; chat for collaborative knowledge exchanges; as well as within individual learning portfolio for reflections and self-evaluations; in addition to teachers tutoring or guidance. However, it is a challenging issue for teachers in higher education to adapt the user interface with different modules to meet student-centered learning needs in a smart learning environment with smart pedagogy.