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Editorial

Research Articles

Research Notes

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Full Issue

IRRODL Volume 8, Number 3

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Mobile learning represents exciting new frontiers in education and pedagogy. With its "wearable" computing feature and multimedia content delivery, mobile learning offers new benefits to instructors and learners. How do mobile technologies impact our teaching and learning in traditional education? What are the possibilities for m-learning in the various disciplines such as history or English studies? To illustrate these possibilities, this paper presents an application that combines the innovative learning model for mobile learning with an established literature class. More...

The establishment of the National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) in Nigeria in 1989 created a wider opportunity for the estimated population of 9.3 million nomads in Nigeria to acquire literacy skills. The coming of the Commission arose due to the massive illiteracy figure of the pastoral nomads and migrant fishermen put at 0.02% and 2.0% (Federal Ministry of Education, 2003; UNESCO, 1998) respectively. More...

Mobile learning is variously viewed as a fad, a threat, and an answer to the learning needs of time-poor mobile workers, so does it have a place in delivering ‘mainstream’ learning? Based on a 2005 comparative research project, commissioned by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, the paper reports on research into web-based information about the use of mobile technologies for commerce and learning, which was then tested through 29 interviews with manufacturers of mobile devices, businesses and education providers. More...

'Instant Messaging' (IM) and 'Presence,' which is essentially the ability of being able to detect if other users are logged in on the network and send them messages in real time, has become one of the most popular applications of the Internet, causing people to want to stay connected to the Internet for inordinate amounts of time, a phenomena that also fosters a sense of "online community," that perhaps no other application has done previously (Alvestrand, 2002). More...

mLearning is made possible by the existence and application of mobile hardware and networking technology. By exploring the capabilities of these technologies, it is possible to construct a picture of how different components of mLearning can be implemented. More...

The article discusses basic teaching-learning philosophies and experiences from the development and testing of mobile learning integrated with the online distance education system at NKI (Norwegian Knowledge Institute) Distance Education. More...

Since the start of the current millennium, experience and expertise in the development and delivery of mobile learning have blossomed and a community of practice has evolved that is distinct from the established communities of 'tethered' e-Learning. This community is currently visible mainly through dedicated international conference series, of which MLEARN is the most prestigious, rather than through any dedicated journals. So far, these forms of development and delivery have focussed on short-term small-scale pilots and trials in the developed countries of Europe, North America, and the Pacific Rim, and there is a taxonomy emerging from these pilots and trials that suggests tacit and pragmatic conceptualisations of mobile learning. More...

The successful development of mobile learning is dependent on human factors in the use of new mobile and wireless technologies. The majority of mobile learning activity continues to take place on devices that were not designed with educational applications in mind, and usability issues are often reported. The paper reflects on progress in approaches to usability and on recent developments, with particular reference to usability findings reported in studies of mobile learning. More...

Additional data for the follow-up study were collected in China. Using a ‘traceroute’ routine, the study indicates that webpage loading time is linked to the complexity of the Internet routes between Web users and the host server. It is indicated that distance educators can apply such information in the design of improved online delivery and mirror sites, notably in areas of the developing world which currently lack an effective infrastructure for online education. More...