The motley crew of mobile learning affectionados (myself included) have just completed their yearly pilgrimage to Handheld Learning 2009 (HHL). For 3 days at The Brewery conference centre in London mobile projects are celebrated and visions of future of learning are shared, debated reformed and then shared and debated some more.

The highest profile part of the conference are the awards ceremony, which celebrate mobile learning innovation. I was glad to attend the awards this year presented by Jason Bradbury (Gadget Show). My own work was recognised with an award last year and I know what a thrill it is to realise that what you are doing is valued. My congratulations go out to this years winners.

Conferences are part of the learning landscape; every teacher, lecturer or learning technologist will probably go to at least one in the course of a year but few will go to something like HHL. Part rock show (founder Graham Brown-Martin does have a music background after-all), part trade-show, part workshop, part seminar and part networking event. The meaning of HHL twists and turns (like a twisty turning thing!) as the days and evening progress.

Malcolm Mclaren HHL 09 courtesy of cglosli at Flickr

Few learning events would have the granddaddy (and he did dress all paternal like) of punk Malcolm McLaren sharing a platform with Chairman of Ofsted, Zenna Atkins (whose speech was far more rebellious than anything from Mr Mclaren’s rant). But HHL has no such reservations and one of the most enjoyable aspects of the conference is that this is not a place of agreement, not a place where boundaries are set. Where the question ‘why?’ is still welcomed.

There was a distance this year though between the conference and the keynote speakers. The keynotes looked back and called for revolution in learning. Trouble is this has been said before and the revolution as Chris Nash has reflected never really got going. These speakers are in positions of influence, the conference attendees (and pardon this pun) are revolting! They are carrying out their projects on shoe string (or no string) budgets, arguing the case for mobile learning with parent governor boards and vice chancellors. Learning is being improved and the imagination of learner and teacher alike sparked by technology but still we listen to those in influence call for revolution. It is time they moved on from call to action using their influence to bring about the radical change at the top that is needed.

Perhaps I hung out to much with the Hheckl fringe conference crowd, or maybe not enough. But working (and having great fun) with James Clay, Dave Sugden and Lilian Soon at the Cool gadget wall debate on Monday emphasised strongly how much these devices are ingrained into our lives and also how quickly they change. Education cannot hope to keep up with the pace of change. Especially given that whichever political captain pilots the good ship Britannia through economic choppy waters after the next election the candidates have all promised cuts in public sector budgets of one kind or another. So what can be done?

Learn to be more adaptive to the spirit of the times. If education cannot supply the technology it can supply the wisdom to make the best of use of it.

Mobile learning often gets a bad press, it is still seen as a disruptive technology. The reality is that mobile technologies are increasingly essential. When did you last leave the house without your mobile phone? But does it really surprise us that the Tabloids from time to time rail against mobiles and other technology in the classroom when the same technology and its fuelling of the rise of the citizen journalist threatens the very status quo of their modus operandi.

The emerging landscape is one in which, as Jason Daponte (BBC mobile) describes it, the mobile is the primary computing device. A world in which our interface to information and interactions are negotiated via devices which are considerable lower power than their desktop counterparts but one in which they are always with us, giving access to information, entertainment and interaction anywhere and anytime.

Raymond Kurzweil closed HHL, with perhaps too many statistics for day 3 of an intense conference, but his point that the pace of technological change will quicken according to his statistical models was picked up and it matters for learning and any application of and planning for technology.

So the message I take away from HHL 09 is that the pace of change will quicken and strategies must be developed that acknowledge it and work with it. Waiting to see what happens is not an option. The risk of that is a generation of learners with technological skills but no wisdom to apply them. Education needs to deliver and the system should not stand in the way.

About This Post

• Written by Stuart Smith
• October 12th, 2009 at 9:00 am