My Personal experience with mobile technology and learning

When I first looked at the title of this blog I struggled to think of anything to write. In my past educational experience (which wasn't that long ago), I couldn't think of any direct link between learning and mobile technology. In secondary school phones weren't advanced enough as today's smart phones, so there wasn't any access to the Internet. When I went to college I studied on a Interactive Media course (the course I am now doing my teaching placement on) and we didn't really use mobile technology to learn. We had access to Macs all the time so there was no real need for using a phone. Then in university still I had nothing taught to me through a phone. 

But when I thought about it for a while I realised how much my phone was apart of my education. I had access to all my assignments and course material through Moodle which was available on my phone as well as access to my emails. Yes I suppose I could have used my laptop instead of my phone to do this, but with my phone I was able to access all this stuff from wherever I was. I also used my phone to take photographs of hand outs or of example work which I wasn't able to take home. 

Now there are loads of apps available to help teach. Even ones that you might not think are aimed for educational purposes can be used. In my last Micro Teach session the work was based around Pinterest. Which they would access through the app on IPads. I taught a lesson on camera angles; after teaching them the basics I had them go and take photographs on the IPads, then upload them onto the classes Pinterest board, so we could all look at them together for the plenary of the lesson. It worked really well, I was so happy that the idea had worked as I had never been taught or taught anyone like this. The class also seemed to enjoy it, and they learnt the objectives that I had set them.