== Annotated Bibliography ==
=== General E-Learning ===
This chapter deals with aiming to define Electronic Learning and sets a general understanding of key concepts, and what the term represents. It lays down some basic principles for determining which technologies are effective in accommodating e-learning.
There is particular focus given to how people communicate and learn in an electronic environment, which leads to an evaluation of ideas to develop and create ‘learning objects’ (or technologies) that put e-learning into practice.
Bowles aims to define E-learning beyond the common definition of it as learning taking place by means of a technological device, and common associations with linking it to distance education and flexible learning. This chapter successfully defines Electronic Learning as a learning experience which involves the transfer of knowledge, delivered through electronic means (all forms of ICT’s).
=== M-Learning ===
This article by Marc Prensky aims to convey, that mobile phones are not just communication devices for the purpose of interaction as they were first designed to be, but rather as a useful computing device that can be used to learn. Prensky suggests that rather than fighting the increasing number of scholars that carry mobile phones in educational institutions, this trend should be embraced towards an educational advantage, and start designing mobile phones as learning tools.
The article outlines and focuses on the possibilities of the mobile phone as a learning tool through means of design tools such as: voice capabilities, Short Text messages, Graphic displays, downloadable programs, Internet browsers, cameras and video clips, and Global positioning systems.
Prensky proposes incorporating such design options for the purpose of the mobile phone as a learning tool, would require new approaches and ethics towards the mobile phone within educational institutions.
This article explores ideas of mobile phones being used in the classroom as an educational device. Cole explains that teachers have for years confiscated and prevented mobile use within the classroom, but suggests that they could fast become another learning tool used in classrooms, just like the computer, television and blackboard. The mobile phone offers two-way interaction (which is what learning should be about).
Cole outlines three different independent studies carried out in the classrooms of UK schools. These projects incorporated voice, text and graphic (photo/video) capabilities of mobile phones, and proved to be beneficial to the students. The results discuss the possibilities made available from m-learning, and the scope of learning in the classroom that has been widened to the limits of the imagination.
This paper briefly explains what mobile-based learning (MBL) is, and also the differences between web-based training (MBT) from a system designer’s point of view. As mobile phones become more integrated, the technical gap between them and computers has made it possible to transfer computer-based and web-based training adaptable to mobile learning environment. This paper looks the design process of an ALC Press English Language Education system, “Pocket Eijiro�? that was adapted for mobile phone users in Japan, and analyzes how and what system designers consider to build a successful MBL environment for mobile phone users.
Mobile phones are the most wearable technology in today’s society, and provide a solid basis for the analysis of MBL systems. Since Mobile phones are taken everywhere with the user, they are able to acquire information or knowledge during their spare time, whereas WBT is more static, inflexible and time consuming. Such qualities are important to consider when designing a learning system, as well as the learning environment.
This article takes a look at a mobile revolution which is penetrating all ages and demographics. Mobile phones, PDA’s (personal digital assistants), MP3 players, portable game devices, handhelds, tablets and laptops; these are all devices that contribute to the way which mobile technology is infiltrating among users.
Many of these technologies have brought about mobile networks and services that have changed the current mobile landscape in our daily lives. Wagner reveals some of the ways in which networks and services like GPS (Global Positioning System), RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), Bluetooth and PANs (personal area networks), IM (Instant messaging) etc have become fused into everyday occurrences. WiMAX (wireless broadband) is another such network that raises questions about the liabilities of being “always on, always connected.�?
Wagner (Senior Director of Global Education Solutions at Macromedia) also suggests in this article that mobile learning is the next step in technology-mediated learning, whether it is in higher education, government, nonprofit education or corporate education.
The article draws on three important converging factors that are accelerating mobile-adoption currently, and steering the future toward mobile learning: There are more wireless networks, services and devices than before, consumers want a better mobile experience than before, and want “anytime, anywhere�? connections more than before. Mobile technologies are likely to pioneer significant change in teaching, learning and research practices.
This article explores the how wireless and mobile technologies are affecting the learning environment, and examines how this mobile learning experience has led to emergent trends.
Alexander looks at some of the aspects that shape m-learning and what this world of mobile and wireless technology consists of: The hardware, emerging social practices, and the affect it is having on higher education. The prospects of wireless to students learning, campus life and research, bring about higher scales of understanding to m-learning.
Alexander investigates how new trends can emerge and information literacy may change as students learn to expand their m-learning ethos. One such trend he explores is the emergence of learning swarms. This entails the fading of wireless technology in everyday campus life, and allows students to converge on a ‘target’ subject by either ‘prearranged signal’ or by an opportunity shared by ‘information peering’. Such swarms or experiences enable the possibility to be meaningful or positive in memory, and can be important to higher education learning.
=== E-Learning and Toys ===
This article explores the affect of the increased number of electronic toys on infants’ and toddlers’ development, behaviour and play. Levin and Rosenquest explain that electronic toys can be harmful to these aspects of young children’s growth, both in the short and long term, and they introduce approaches which may negate the potential problems.
What and how children play, influences how they will develop and what they will learn, and toys play an important role in how children play. Levin suggests that older more conventional forms of play (throwing a ball) engage the toddler in play that is creative and can evolve as they find new challenges. However, with electronic toys (e.g. Rock-n-Roll Ernie) a child’s play is limited and repetitive. This of concern to early childhood educators, as hi-tech toys limits the infant/toddler of individualized and open-ended opportunities in play.
Play and exploration enable children to learn how the world works, how to control their bodies, how to interact with people, how to produce a desired effect and learn the impact of their actions on objects and people in their environment. Levin and Rosenquest discuss their concern about the highly structured and programmed format of electronic toys, and how this can inhibit a child in thinking or acting in a certain way, eliminating creative, individualized and open-ended play.
The article provides some fundamental guidelines for early childhood educators and parents to implement, so that children are provided with proper development with the influx of electronic toys in the market.
This article is written in response to the previous article by Levin & Rosenquest (2001), and their concerns about the affect electronic toys are having on the development of children. Marsh response to this article, proposes that Levin & Rosenquest’s view is a generalised ‘moral panic’ which is often adopted with technological innovations. The article also aims to explore a contrasting view to Levin and Rosenquest (2001), in which electronic toys play a more productive and positive role in children’s lives.
Marsh suggests that Levin & Rosenquest are reminiscing in a past childhood which is framed in a specific sociocultural and economic context, where play takes shape in different ways in different families.
It is difficult to find evidence that electronic toys are harmful to children in the short and long term. While Levin & Rosenquest suggest that electronic toys (like Rock-n-Roll Ernie) limit exploration, Marsh suggests that further analysis of the toy reveals opportunity to explore switching the toy on/off and starting or stopping a process. This learning opportunity enables children to develop control of electronic items in an ever increasing technological world where control of electronic sources is important.
The article examines other old discourses like this that arise with new technology. Technological developments since the twentieth century require familiarity with electronic and digital equipment to successfully engage in employment and leisure activities. This shift has led to some panic among those who are unfamiliar with these developments.
Marsh also draws on evidence that toys are social markers that induct children into a given society. Therefore suggests that electronic toys which will enable children to engage in communicative systems and gain knowledge about our technology based society, should not be excluded. Electronic toys are embedded with educative possibilities. Technology and play are not oppositional as Levin & Rosenquest’s (2001) article suggests.
Nadine chambers 12:12, 12 Aug 2005 (EST)
