Currently, technology is used for various purposes in every aspect of life. One of these areas is the field of education, which has an important role in advancing the technologies. Educators often desire to concentrate on their own courses or fields. However, the changing perception of the students and the technologies they are interested in are necessitating educators to follow technological innovations and developments in instructional technologies. The objective of this chapter is to attract attention to some of the global virtual, augmented, and mobile applications that are currently utilized within the medical learning arena. The authors also address technologies that aim to train human resources in health and other fields. The chapter illuminates the use of virtual, augmented, and mobile learning environments via their use in health education.
TopIntroduction
Today, technology is used for multiple purposes in various fields, while smartphones in particular, enhanced opportunities for formal and informal learning. Rapid technological advances created a paradigm shift towards the idea of autonomous learning in virtual environments by removing the physical boundaries in education. During recent years, this shift also saw an increase in the number of tasks assigned to virtual environments in required training of the private and public-sector workforce. Although the classification descriptions of the related learning environments seem heterogeneous, they change over time (Alessi, Giangreco, Mainetti, Mighali, Patrono, Pinnella & Storelli, 2017; Boulos, Lu, Guerrero, Jennett, & Steed, 2017; Müller, 2012; Noll, von Jan, Raap, & Albrecht, 2017) influenced by new and old theories, old and new technology, and the repurposing of technologies.
It is a common practice in social sciences to focus on, and analyze the reflections of learning theories, methods, styles or multi-generational people and their environments when defining these concepts. Thus, the definitions of virtual and mobile learning environments should be discussed with respect to the traits and requirements of all generations and the ever-growing populace of people becoming digitally proficient to quickly adapt and utilize current technologies in different areas of life.