The focus on mLearning has created a welcome opportunity to engage with the needs of learners to have access to multiple sources of information from multiple locations and to juxtapose different experiences and views so that they are not subordinated to teacher-defined knowledge. However, at the same time, views of mLearning largely neglect a theorised positioning of teachers even though they are major agents in the creation of the contexts for this kind of learning. By singling out learner control and informality of approach, such approaches to mLearning fail to provide a theorised basis for the integration of learning with mobile devices in formal education. As a consequence, such approaches fail to show teachers what they can do to shape positive mLearning programs. However, we can develop a model of mTeaching that is consistent with and complements central tenets of mLearning. Based on work done in a variety of primary and secondary schools in Australia, this paper presents a model of the central principles of mTeaching. The model addresses the relationships, procedures and content required in a view of mTeaching. Within each broad category various sub-types (e.g. relationships with self and relationships with others) are outlined and connected with different phases, purposes and contexts of teaching/learning relationships. I show how this view of mTeaching enables the tensions between the demands of pedagogy and the demands of technology to be reconciled and address the different contributions to the realisation of the mTeaching/mLearning connection that can be made by teachers and learners.
展开▼