In my talk tomorrow at the Design for Mobile conference, I will make these seven suggestions for how attendees can grab the mobile learning long tail in their projects:
1. Make the browser awesome for its main job in education: browsing the internet.
2. Don’t make long haul commitments inside of walled gardens. An app is a potted plant. Realize the app will either one day move into the internet or it will eventually be euthanized like Encarta.
3. Keep knowledge for study subjects (sciences, math, arts, humanities, etc.) separate from the pedagogy that presents it to students. The former is growing organically online, and you just need to deliver it through a mobile browser. The latter is usually proprietary and can be profitable. When you mix them the knowledge gets bundled in the pedagogy and its connectivity gets restricted.
4. Mobile will be the joy stick and screen for games that boost learning.
5. Add school bells and whistles to devices: safety, gps, flashcard app, writing tools, more.
6. Offer some bigger displays: being able to project the screen from a mobile on a wall will be huge for education.
7. Do not underestimate the money to be made from mobile learning. (SOON!)
Bottom lines for mobile learning:
ONE WEB: mobile browsing of same Web as desktops do.
FINDABILITY: Replacing search through optimization of educational resources.
